Ha! Didn't think this would balloon like this right before I left the country for two days... I'll try and hit on some of this.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas D. Cox, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > i definitely disagree. when i play records, i bring a variety of > sounds. if one thing in particular is making people react, then i > run with it. i remember one gig i started out by playing some carl > craig, dan bell, and recloose records. people really werent > feeling it too much so i moved into more broken beat territory, > then when i started dropping the ragga influenced broken beat and > 2-step, heads went wild. so i kept playing that kind of stuff. had > i rocked strictly the 313 style techno, the reaction and > satisfaction with my set would have dropped a ton. By all means I think this is *one* great way to do it. However I don't think it's the only way, and if I hope a set like Brendan's @ Cannonball changes perceptions, I hope it's that it will reveal to people that there are other ways, not that it is a better one. The reason why I think it's more about the assembled crowd than the DJ's reactivity is for the same reasons you like to react. I know what you explained above isn't the only way you'd do it, but it sounds like a sort of trial and error thing until the crowd responds well, and then you run with that. Conversely, I (sometimes) like to stay one or two steps ahead of the crowd. If they react well to house, I'll move into techno. If they reject the broken beat, I'll play some house and come back to it in a new context. If I feel like playing house all damn night, then I'll find a way to make it work - or it'll fail and I will have f*cked up everyone's night because they don't like good house music. ;) Point being I feel like I can take more musical risks if I limit my choices, and in my experience performing like this (some of the time), the crowd reaction has been as good if not better, assuming there was an open-minded crowd in attendance. Anyway... I never claimed there wasn't value in reacting to a crowd, but I think there's other ways to win a crowd over, and I think my favorite performances are the ones where the DJ will push me where (s)he wants to take me, rather than a DJ who allows the crowd to make decisions for him/her (yep, I know that's a twisting of your words). :) So it's a gamble. Sometimes the crowd just won't come along. I think that's precisely the challenge. I think this is less an issue of planned vs. unplanned sets, and more an issue of the DJ stepping up to be the director rather than the reactor. A big part of this is being a good performer, and I think that planned and unplanned sets can be equally good performances because... From: "Lester Kenyatta Spence" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "J. T." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <313@hyperreal.org> Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 10:32 PM Subject: Re: (313) Waveless DJing > But check this out. Back in the day there was a DJ in detroit named Ray > Berry. Jeff Mills and Berry were the first tricksters I saw. Berry had > this thing where he would scratch with his mouth...then with his shoe. > And Mills was (in his hiphop days) quicksilver personified...which is a > trick in and of itself. > > The first few times I saw them, I was blown away. Now? I'm nonplussed. > Just give me the MUSIC. DJs to me should blend into the woodwork. > Granted, I got extra excited when I saw THeo getting into the groove...but > that wasn't because of his tricks, but because of his enthusiasm. > > I'm pretty sure enthusiasm is portable, regardless of the medium. This is precisely it. A DJ can do more to move a crowd by being a part of it. I'm not trying to say you need to get spastic and flail all over (although it can be fun), but this sort of stuff really helps bridge the gap between performer and audience. I think this is the best way to involve the crowd, rather than waiting for the crowd to say what they like. Yeah - I know I'm sticking words in your guys' mouths, but allow me some latitude to abuse rhetoric while making a controversial point. If I can persuade the crowd that I know what I'm doing, and they are open minded, then the best dancefloor experience will be their tacit approval of everything I try. I don't mean they'll like everything, but if I have their faith from the beginning and they let me move them, it will be the best for all involved. When I go to see a DJ, I want them to show me what they got. All of it, not just what made a good first impression. It's riskier but the reward is greater. I was going to say that this enthusiasm needn't be spontaneous. I can get off playing a mostly planned set for a crowd that likes it. Again, I need to clarify that this is absolutely not how I always do things, but I do like to have a good idea of what's getting played, and often the best set will involve some planned direction, even if only for maybe the first 1/2-hour, or the first ten songs - whatever. My main point is not that planning is better, it's that planning isn't necessarilly bad, and different gigs, with different sets of new music, or different crowds or different time slots can call for different levels of preparation - and that doesn't necessarilly have anything to do with a DJ's enthusiasm for the performance. Perhaps one or the other just suits his/her mood better for that performance (and any level of planning can always be scrapped on the spot). From: "Thomas D. Cox, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <313@hyperreal.org> Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 11:03 PM Subject: Re: (313) Waveless DJing > ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- > From: "J. T." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > it's just simply boring to watch, regardless how it > sounds. most > >dj's are pretty boring to watch too yes but not quite as boring. > whatever, > >it's just my opinion. i dont like the direction electronic music > performance > >is moving. production and performance are seperate arenas so dont > get me > >wrong. I absolutely agree. Most PAing has a long way to go to live up to the performance standard that DJing has created. J.T., I think you and I are seeing things a lot more similarly than you think. By and large, I don't like a bland laptop performance, like when Thomas Fehlmann sounded like he was just Traktoring mp3s of his songs, but this set from Brendan was trully of a different sort. It had no performance flair, but it had a life of its own. It only needed to be loud, with an accepting, party-ready crowd, and it worked like magic. This defintely is the excepetion to the rule, but these rules are young, and definitely in the breaking. Tristan ======= Text/Mixes: http://www.phonopsia.co.uk Music: http://www.mp313.com Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
