Ever feel like you’ve heard the same thousand songs over and over again at every city you dance in? I have these deja-vu moments, no matter which city I’m dancing in, that I *just* listened to this set the previous dance. Maybe I’m getting a little bit jaded because I listen to too much jass, blooz, and non-vocal NY mambo songs with the neat little piano solo hooks. Maybe I need to listen to more Kimbra?

What really stands out for me in regards to DJs who play lindy hop, blues, and salsa events are those who consistently drop hot new tracks for the dancers. It’s easy to “borrow” a couple of songs from other established DJs and mix and match songs to make your own set but it’s a lot harder to constantly be on the look out for songs and artists nobody in the scene has ever heard before. That’s why I have such great appreciation for DJs like Tall Jim from Vancouver because even though Vancouver is a very finicky dance scene in terms of musical tastes, he always seem to play a couple of songs that I secretly “borrow” for dances in Toronto (and hopefully in Montreal). He gets it and I like that.

I think the next time I DJ, I’m going to try out only playing songs I haven’t played ever before at a dance. I apologize in advance if you are attending ;)

Peace,

Randy

Quick video – Toronto latin DJ, DJ Duck and I geek out about how he got into DJ’ing, what he is known for, and what he spins. :)

Interested in geeking out about one of my favorite topics? Give me a shout!

After conducting an informal survey around our dance scene, it seems to me that our awesome DJs in Toronto are not actually being paid to provide music for “for-profit” events (the only exception is the Toronto Swing Dance Society). That’s crazy.

As a dance DJ myself, I have probably poured more time and money into this passion than I will ever make back actually dj’ing so I know how much any type of remuneration helps us continue truckin’ on. Then I thought about the DJs that I actually invite out to play for our Yonge & Bloor Blues dance and realized that we don’t actually pay them either. This will change starting July 2nd for our next blues dance. While we do not make a boat-load of profit from the actual dance itself, it’s only fair to pay DJs for their time and expertise.

My friend Kevin Sue keeps saying that the best ideas are the ones that pass the common-sense test. I truly believe that this is one of them. For things to change in the scene that I am a part of, I have to actually start doing it myself first. This will keep me grounded and honest. Hopefully it will also keep me motivated to push for ideas that I believe in and at the end of the day, also keep me excited about dancing. :-)

So let’s get on and start paying our hard working DJs. Everybody wins when the music for dancing gets better.

Check out Jasper’s UT-Swing blog post about DJ’ing and training up newbies. This is something that is recently on my mind a lot so I’m glad to be throwing this re-blog up.

This weekend UT-Swing hosted a DJ seminar to give some aspiring DJs a little head start and share some tips of the trade. I was very happy with the outcome. The newbies left with a better sense of what swing DJing is all about… or at least, that’s what I hope.

Link: http://swing.sa.utoronto.ca/2010/04/06/dj-seminar-2010/

For a previous blog post about DJing, check out DJing with an Agenda

Last night, at the end of Yonge and Bloor Blues, after our last blues song we turned back on all the lights and I played a couple soul/motown songs  to wrap up the night. The people who were still around and still wanted to dance got a chance to bust out the moves one more time and we got an upbeat end to the night.

I did it without thinking much about it, but when discussing it with Randy later, I realized that I did it because I don’t like anti-climactic ends to the evening. Maybe it is just a personal preference (I walk out disappointed when the end of a movie is anti-climactic, I prefer things to be wrapped up in a neat little package), but I feel that I have more fun at a dance when I get a chance to release any residual energy and dance hard one last time at the end of the night. There can be the instinct as the dance progresses to lower the energy level and then call it quits, but I think that the best DJs/Bands will respond to the dancers’ energy level and but then push them to dance harder when the energy gets low.  

It is like the fade-out/defined ending distinction in songs, but at the macro level. I (and many dancers) prefer it when songs end with a defined bang instead of fading out into silence. Plenty of great songs with fadeouts, but ideally most of them would have a distinct ending. Ideally the night should be ended on a high note and the dancers should be able to get some closure.

In the dance world, it can be difficult to accomplish this defined ending, because dances will sometimes run for an undefined amount of time (i.e. until people get tired/bored and leave). At Yonge and Bloor, we don’t have the problem because a large majority of our dancers leave in time to catch the subway, so our dances come to a natural end about 1ish. (And then Randy tries to convince people to get Pork Bone Soup)

At some lindy hop events organizers give a satisfactory ending to everyone’s night by having concurrent lindy hop and blues rooms until the end of near the end of the dance. People can choose their own adventure, and if they want to dance hard just before they leave to wrap up their night, then they can. Alternatively people will finish things up with swing and soul or gospel sets before the end of the night so you get an extra chance to get your groove on.

I have a bit of a pet peeve about organizers/DJs/whoever is responsible (no time for the blame game) who come to a foregone conclusion about how the night is going to go down and where the energy will be at any one time. At lindy hop dances, the pre-determined (insert arbitrary time here) is not “blues-o’-clock” in which you play progressively lower energy music until people get bored and leave, nor is it necessarily “west-coast-o’-clock”, or “disco-o-clock”. It all depends on the dancers, and only partially, they should be pushed in an energetic direction. Don’t decide that people are out of energy, because when you do so, you are killing the night instead of keeping it on life support for as long as possible. If it is indeed disco-o-clock, better make sure that it is a welcome change of pace that will ultimately inject new energy into the tired/bored/uninspired dancers. None of this wimpy lullaby disco stuff. (While disco was an arbitrary illustrative choice, I do firmly believe that a disco afterparty is a great idea.)

These are all just my personal thoughts, I am sure that I am not the only one who likes to wait for that last good dance before leaving, and I hope that I am not the only one who likes to see dances end on an energetic note. (Energetic organizers yelling at people to leave doesn’t count).

Possible times to close out the night:

• Energetic-Lindy-Hop-o’-Clock
• Those-Blues-Songs-That-Really-Get-You-Moving-o’-Clock
• Soul-o’-Clock
• Disco-o’-Clock
• Hip-Hop-o’-clock
• Charleston-o’-clock
• Surf-Music-o’-clock
• Rock-around-the-clock

-Your (Somewhat) Friendly Neighbourhood Kevin Temple

Few selected songs that I played while DJ’ing at Hamilton’s Hammer Hopper first dance this year.

As I get more and more DJ’ing gigs slash opportunities, one of the things that I am working on this year is trying not to DJ with an agenda. I have embarrassingly caught myself sometimes in the mindset that I am some sort of music missionary trying to lead the heathens on a path to Harlem heaven. From the top of my head, some prior agendas that I have come to gigs with included playing faster than expected songs, songs from the savoy ballroom era, jazz blooz, new orleans, and my personal favourite, playing really bad songs and seeing if anyone notices (JK… or am I?). Bad news brown I know.

Having an agenda for my DJ set has usually ended up being disastrous. It was through those very awkward sets, that I have decided to abandon the idea that I should “educate” the dancers by forcing my music sets regardless of whether people are actually dancing or not.

“Well if they don’t dance to it then they don’t like real lindy/blues/mambo/jazz music”, I would say to myself and any poor soul unfortunate enough to be within a ten metre radius.

Reflecting back on those sets, I can see how my tunnel vision for a particular sound made me overlook the fundamentals of a good DJ such as gauging the mood of the room, the sound ambiance/level, ebb/flow, and picking good songs that would make the people in the back would want to walk across the floor and ask someone to dance. I was focusing too intently on the songs “I’m about to play”, instead of focusing on the song that was actually playing and making decisions accordingly.

One of the things that I have realized about DJ’ing dances is at the end of the day, its just getting people up and dancing to have a great time. You can get into endless debates of what constitutes a swing/blues song, but what I have found is that as long as you continually play fresh tunes that are appropriate for the event (blues music for a blues dance/swing music for a swing dance), your audience is going to be happy. Or they just plain wouldn’t be dancing. Of course what you don’t let on is the fact that you have poured hundreds of hours meticulously hunting for new tunes, weeding out old ones, and familiarizing yourself with what you are calling as your “music collection”. Every now and then as a DJ, you know you just nailed the right song at the right time and for that three to five minutes, the room is dancing to music that you like dancing to as well. This in itself is almost the reason to not DJ with a pre-made list. :)

Where I’m DJ’ing Next

I’m still earning my chops DJ’ing dances and it’s good to be a scene where the local DJs are actively pursuing new music (Arthur Lulu and Krister comes to mind) and there are opportunities to spin at the regular dances. The only way to get better is to continually practice (trial by fire) so you can catch my sets at the following events

- Sunday Swing and Blues (Imperial Pub; already happened!)
- Toronto University Exchange (this late night friday)
- Hammer Hoppers Monthly Dance @ The London Tap House (Jan. 26)
- Yonge & Bloor Blues (Jan. 29)
- Ottawa Blues Blast (April 23-25)