Results and Resolutions

So, it’s officially 2009, the headache’s just about worn off and I’ve recovered from another 2 months of the festive silly season!. Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been out of the festive limelight this year, and there’s been other people in my place at the various bars in Halifax.

This is mainly due to a very early booking which was made way back in the summer of 2008 when I was booked to play all of December at new venue on Georges Square - Namely ‘The Brasserie at The Bull’ so as December went, I spent most of my time there working through a mountain of bookings, which included the New Year..

Anyway - moving on, it appears that I’m in for a busy year in 2009 as not only will I be kicking off my events again, I’m venturing into the hectic world of musical production, soundtracks and remixing. This means that my current setup need a little modifying in order to keep the quality of any work I do to the best standards as possible, so here’s my resolutions for 2009 - mainly aimed at me getting my act together and adding some kind of organisation to my life for a change!..

• Redesign/rewire and upgrade the production studio
• Organise my online profiles
• Get this website sorted out!
• Keep my blog up to date
• Get Cheeky! up and running again…

oh, and pay off a few bills while I’m at it..

Let’s see how far into this list I can get before 2010 eh?

2008 is nearly over, But will all be fine in 2009?...

So another year, another hangover - but how long wil it take us to shake off our post 2008 blues and get back on the circuit?

Our ‘recovery period’ seems to be getting longer and longer - either because we’re spending more during the festive period, or there’s simply nothing worth coming into town to see.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? - Well, here’s something that’ll hopefully shed a little light…

We all know that during Christmas and the New Year, once we’ve counted down the last seconds of the previous year, the fireworks have finished and we’ve all shook each others hands and given out the complimentary drunken cuddles to our friends and drunken randoms, there’s usually a slight delay before people venture back into town. We’re also somewhat lighter in the financial side of things and naturally, the British weather does’nt help either as one often finds that as soon as the calendar hits January, that once highly sought after ‘White Christmas’ decides to show up, usually as we’re trying to get back from our first days at work - thus grinding the whole country to a standstill in the process.

Anyway, back to my original point - over the years, it takes roughly on average, about 3-4 weeks before people start showing up in our town centres, with their hard earned cash back in their wallets, and an eagerness to get completely wasted on drinks fortified with E-Numbers and cheap spirits.

Back in 2008 though, I did notice that, some of the bars and clubs were’nt picking up until at least February - some still looking a little vacant even beyond February, which when you think about it, that’s over 2 months. Is it because the bars are too expensive, or there’s simply not enough entertainment value in the bars anymore, or could it just be that everyone pulled last year, and there was really no need to go out until Valentines day?

A lack of bars making it past the Festive period did’nt help either - by the time we’d hit February, The Theatre Nightclub had gone under, Silvers was closed, Apollos/Nemesis was shut down and Xess didnt even exist - all before this credit crunch we’re currently experiencing…

All I can add now, is either thing’s will get better this year, or I can’t really be optimistic about seeing our regulars in Halifax until they’ve finished paying for their Easter Eggs first…

Sign of the times?

I was working in a rock bar not so long ago, covering for one of the guys for the night when this woman came to the DJ stand and started giving me grief for not playing ‘proper rock music’

To be honest, I can fully understand her opinion of the music I was playing, after all, I was working in an environment which is relatively new to me (I know very little about Rock) and that my music wasnt exactly suitable for the venue or to her taste, hence her coming forward to voice her somewhat detailed opinion to what I should be playing, and why I should be playing it.

However, it wasnt her complaint that made me come to writing this piece, it was more of the fact that I noticed her age.. She wasnt exactly in the prime of her life, if anything, she’d probably passed that at 100mph three decades ago.

So if this is a sign of things of things to come, I can only imagine that in a world where we begin to live longer, and party harder - Here’s a couple of things I forsee in the near future:

Nursing homes be populated by senior citizens covered in tribal bands and tattoos, At 50th Birthday Parties, the requests of the evening will consist mainly of RnB, Electro and Bassline. Will we be subjected to hearing people saying “I remember these when they first came out on ITunes” and Wallace Arnold will be doing coach trips to Creamfields.

You may think it’s funny, and yes, laugh all you will, but I bet it’s only a matter of time before it happens - just remember this..The next time you see a lady in a smoke filled nightclub dressed in neon, furry boots and blowing kisses at the DJ - don’t ask her out until you’ve made sure that the twenty-something clubbers dancing round her arent her kids.Don’t say I did’nt warn you…

A DJ's selection of annoying top tips

Everyone likes to give advice or voice an opinion, especially to us DJs - and we usually get these golden pearls of wisdom while we’re working, and sometimes it often comes from another DJ that is’nt.

If you would like to feel like ‘one of us’ and really fit in with the DJ community, here’s a really useful guide to getting it right first time..

A TIP TOP TIP LIST FOR ALL YOU CUSTOMERS AND WANNABES ALIKE:

1: Ask for a mix, we’re always looking for somebody to show us how to do it properly.

2: You’re an MC? - Excellent, we’d love to stop what we’re doing right now and get you to show off your skills to the entire building.

3: You can scratch too? - Brilliant, you’re just what we’ve been looking for, someone to use our records and rip the living daylights out of them.

4: We don’t have the record/s you’re requesting - of course we’ll wait till you nip home quickly to bring it/them so we can play it for you, or even better, bring some CDs with you next time and we’ll play the lot just for you.

5: You sing this song all the time on the mic? - Excellent, here, take my mic now and we’ll let you sing the song, make it your own and we’ll all stand in awe as you turn an already well made, chart topping track into something really special - we wont even bat an eyelid when you forget the words due to the tenth sambuca you’ve had starting to melt your brains into pulp.

6: Make sure we are always taking the music in the right direction by telling us what to play next - especially if there’s ‘no one dancing to this’ We often forget what to do and we’re always needing someone to remind us what to do.

7: You’re going in 4 minutes?? - Well why didnt you say so, we’ll happily put your song on immediately regardless if we’ve either played it already/its a drum & bass track and we’re in the middle of a party set/it’s absolutely shite…

8: You’re a better DJ than I am, well you’d have to be to be able to break away from your own set to give me hassle while I try and do mine…

Plastic Dreams...

Well, as most of you will probably know, I made the step forward from odl analogue technology into the realm of digital gadgets and CDJ madness, and in order to meet certain requirements of the digital world, I purchased one of them vinyl to mp3 gadgets, ie a deck with a USB cable that literally rips the track into the shadowy depths of your pc hard disc.

“Very handy, saves me messing about with plugging a deck into a mixes, getting the levels right and running the gauntlet with loose crackles and of course the dreaded ‘jumping needle’ that you get with old analogue technology” I think to myself with a sneer similar to someone who’s just purchased the latest in High Definition televisual entertainment who laughs at people who cant even receive channel 5..

Thing is, in order to rip these tracks, I have to sit by this record deck and listen to every track as it records, praying desperately that the needle never jumps (one of the key reasons why I upgraded to digital technology in the first place…) or that the stylus doesnt accumulate that much fur and dust, the final track sounds like its been sung through a sock.

I won’t be the first to admit it, but it’s a bit of a nuisance having to sit through EVERY single track as it records, and in extreme circumstances having to re-set the deck to re-record any track that should have any audio fault with it - but it’s while I’m sat here, doing this in a room surrounded by numerous timeless tracks, crackling away on the deck that made me realise something, something that, over time as the digital age takes over, will be something that will eventually be lost in the past forever…

Do you remember when you bought your first record, CD or even an album on cassette? - I know I do, when you dig through your record collections at home (before you sacrifice your soul to the digital era as I have..) there’s a certain feeling of ‘belonging’ as you come across certain tracks.

For example, as I was ‘ripping’ my vinyl copy of Awesome 3′ ‘Dont Go’ my mind was flooded with memories of walking through Halifax Town Centre just to pick up this track that I’d pre-ordered, in the rain to my local record shop - hell I even remember some random guy getting shouted at because he walked out in front of a cyclist while trying to cross the road..

Do you remember the first track you downloaded or received through soulseek, was there the same feeling of elation when you finally received that vital track in your ‘My Music’ folder - I can’t imagine the memories are quite as personal can you?

After all, there’s no such thing as a limited-edition test pressing download on coloured vinyl is there?