Swinging at the Fringe - review of the first night
The executive summary: it was a success :-)
Of course, putting these things together will always have some problems associated with it. Mine, for the most part, was the music. I stopped working at 5pm yesterday in order to get my swing music off my ipod and onto my laptop, as my ipod has been rather F***ed recently and I didn't want to risk my music freezing and my computer freezing because of sync-ing issues like it has been recently. Getting my music off my ipod was a mission. I was using a program called Ephpod, which kept encountering corrupted songs on my ipod and then freezing and crashing. So I then kept grouping songs into smaller and smaller groups until I could find which particular song was making the program crash, skip it, and then keep going until I encountered the problem again. It was painful. So after sitting at work doing this from 5pm-6.20pm, and having said that I'd be at the club by 6.30pm, I caught a taxi from work to the Fringe Bar, and set myself up there. I had gotten a good portion, although not all, of my swing music onto my laptop.
So then my mission for the next 30mins was to get enough appropriate songs together that could tide me over for a 4 hour set. By the time 7pm hit, I only had about 3.6 hours worth, but I started my music going on time, and then continued to hunt through the collection. Then - lo and behold! - people came!!!! Just a couple people to begin with, and faces that I hadn't seen in a looong time - people who wouldn't normally go to the Swing Shack, and that I didn't really have any opportunity to meet up with anymore. It was quiet, and people were just getting a few drinks, chatting away and socialising. But not dancing.
During my first hour, I was playing slower, softer music. I felt like I was easing them in, and easing myself in. I was also conscious that I was in this dj booth for the long haul, so I didn't want to use up all the good stuff early on. Not that the soft, slow stuff isn't the good stuff. It's all good, but y'know, I was keeping the music easy. People kept trickling in, getting drinks (which is good for the venue = good for me) and socialising. I had a few people come up and congratulate me on starting the gig and told me that they were enjoying the music - yay!
Second hour I felt more in my groove. I think the time I hit my best grooves were between 7.45 - 8.45pm. I was warmed up, I was keen, I still had plenty of music to choose from, and I had compiled a list by this stage of about 4.6 hours of music so I was feeling more comfortable that I was going to make the distance without having to repeat any music. My old friend Mark Corden arrived in this period as well!! I hadn't seen him in far too long - perhaps 6 months? It was so great to see him. People from Gotta Swing/City Hall Swing arrived. Just a few of them, but it was good to see them too.
Got to my third hour. Some people were starting to leave, some were still trickling in. More dancing was happening. However I was realising in this hour that even though I had a music list that said 4.6 hours, it didn't look like it would last the distance. I was running out of songs to choose from. However, at about midpoint in this hour, people from the Swing Dance Brisbane demo troupe started to arrive because they had just finished practice. The whole vibe took a huge upward turn. I have to say, that up until that point, there hadn't been as much dancing as I was hoping for, despite my best dj efforts.
In my last hour - well - it was post 10pm. I was tired, but on a high, and decided to pull out the random stuff. Hey - it's my social, I'll play what I damn well want! So out comes some Bjork (who has released an album of all swingy feeling songs called Gling-glo), I decided to play Paul Anka (shock horror), and I played Rhythm by Casey Macgill (which had a huge effect on the demo troupe crowd because it turns out they're doing a routine to it in demo troupe).
Essentially it just turned out really well. I received a huge amount of compliments on the gig, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Success!
I have to say that it took a huge amount out of me. Hopefully I'll be able to get some other people to help me dj at some point. I'm keen to see how the continued response is to this gig goes...
Of course, putting these things together will always have some problems associated with it. Mine, for the most part, was the music. I stopped working at 5pm yesterday in order to get my swing music off my ipod and onto my laptop, as my ipod has been rather F***ed recently and I didn't want to risk my music freezing and my computer freezing because of sync-ing issues like it has been recently. Getting my music off my ipod was a mission. I was using a program called Ephpod, which kept encountering corrupted songs on my ipod and then freezing and crashing. So I then kept grouping songs into smaller and smaller groups until I could find which particular song was making the program crash, skip it, and then keep going until I encountered the problem again. It was painful. So after sitting at work doing this from 5pm-6.20pm, and having said that I'd be at the club by 6.30pm, I caught a taxi from work to the Fringe Bar, and set myself up there. I had gotten a good portion, although not all, of my swing music onto my laptop.
So then my mission for the next 30mins was to get enough appropriate songs together that could tide me over for a 4 hour set. By the time 7pm hit, I only had about 3.6 hours worth, but I started my music going on time, and then continued to hunt through the collection. Then - lo and behold! - people came!!!! Just a couple people to begin with, and faces that I hadn't seen in a looong time - people who wouldn't normally go to the Swing Shack, and that I didn't really have any opportunity to meet up with anymore. It was quiet, and people were just getting a few drinks, chatting away and socialising. But not dancing.
During my first hour, I was playing slower, softer music. I felt like I was easing them in, and easing myself in. I was also conscious that I was in this dj booth for the long haul, so I didn't want to use up all the good stuff early on. Not that the soft, slow stuff isn't the good stuff. It's all good, but y'know, I was keeping the music easy. People kept trickling in, getting drinks (which is good for the venue = good for me) and socialising. I had a few people come up and congratulate me on starting the gig and told me that they were enjoying the music - yay!
Second hour I felt more in my groove. I think the time I hit my best grooves were between 7.45 - 8.45pm. I was warmed up, I was keen, I still had plenty of music to choose from, and I had compiled a list by this stage of about 4.6 hours of music so I was feeling more comfortable that I was going to make the distance without having to repeat any music. My old friend Mark Corden arrived in this period as well!! I hadn't seen him in far too long - perhaps 6 months? It was so great to see him. People from Gotta Swing/City Hall Swing arrived. Just a few of them, but it was good to see them too.
Got to my third hour. Some people were starting to leave, some were still trickling in. More dancing was happening. However I was realising in this hour that even though I had a music list that said 4.6 hours, it didn't look like it would last the distance. I was running out of songs to choose from. However, at about midpoint in this hour, people from the Swing Dance Brisbane demo troupe started to arrive because they had just finished practice. The whole vibe took a huge upward turn. I have to say, that up until that point, there hadn't been as much dancing as I was hoping for, despite my best dj efforts.
In my last hour - well - it was post 10pm. I was tired, but on a high, and decided to pull out the random stuff. Hey - it's my social, I'll play what I damn well want! So out comes some Bjork (who has released an album of all swingy feeling songs called Gling-glo), I decided to play Paul Anka (shock horror), and I played Rhythm by Casey Macgill (which had a huge effect on the demo troupe crowd because it turns out they're doing a routine to it in demo troupe).
Essentially it just turned out really well. I received a huge amount of compliments on the gig, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Success!
I have to say that it took a huge amount out of me. Hopefully I'll be able to get some other people to help me dj at some point. I'm keen to see how the continued response is to this gig goes...
posted by dee | 6:44 pm
2 Comments:
I don't know if this will help, but...
I often find that if I play mellow, low-energy music, the dancers respond with mellow, low-energy (if any) dancing. Now, your opening gig could simply have been working as a (wonderful) night at a nice bar with nice people, so you weren't going to get lots of crazy dancing. But if you had wanted crazy dancing action, playing higher energy, 'party' lindy might have gotten them up there. Maybe not throwing all the wall-of-sound, late Basie stuff all at once at the very beginning, but working up to that...
I'm not sure what the social scene is like in Brisvegas these days - if you don't have a lot of dancers who're used to going hardcore dancing (ie where they go to a venue with the express intention of dancing hardcore, not drinking, and not taking breaks), you'll have less trouble getting a hardcore dancing night going. But if your crowd is more into social stuff (and a bar might be more conducive to that action anyway), you might have more trouble getting the hardcore dancing action vibe going.
I think a social dancing night in a bar can be a really nice break from anti-social social dancing, where people dance-dance-dance, are super-clicky and don't actually talk or drink or, you know - socialise.
I played a few sets at the late nights at SLX last year, which were very different to Melbourne late nights. First, there was free food and beer. Which meant that when the food was served, every stopped dancing. Everyone. People were genuinely more interested in talking and drinking and socialising than dancing hardcore.
There were also a lot of rock n roll/neo types there, and the majority of dancers weren't terribly experienced and weren't into the less played swinging jazz - Basie was kind of novel, but Brian Setzer and Indigo Swing were familiar.
So I had to completely revise the way I worked the crowd - I couldn't throw hardcore tones of music at them and expect them to go nuts. I had to be more chilled (but not too mellow). I played 'party lindy' - fun, energetic stuff, but not too fast, not too scratchy and low-fi. But they dug some stuff that caught me by surprise - Slim and Slam.
Lionel Hampton was a winner.
As was Lincoln Centre Jazz Orch, Basie, and a few other types.
It was a really hard series of sets, but it was a learning experience.
I hope the rest of your gigs go well - they're really long sets, and it's hard enough to start DJing with shorter sets (we reccommend new DJs start with half an hour or an hour rather than our regular hour and a half - but we do have very demanding and intolerant dancers, though). But it's neat that you pulled it off and had some good feelings about it! Blurgh to annoying technology! Hoorah for victorious DJing/event organising Sistahs!
Well done Di!
I personally love dancing in pub/social atmospheres.
Hope it continues well. If ever I'm up there- we'll have to have round 3!!
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