Ok so it's been quite a while since my first blog on how to be a GREAT DJ in SL. Hopefully you found that first blog helpful (and if you haven't read it yet, SHAME ON YOU! Go back and read it immediately, and minus 5 Cherry Points for you! (don't ask on the Cherry Points thing, it's a very long story lolz)). If you've read the first blog and thought it was all a bunch of BS, then you may as well stop here because this one will just be more BS! If you thought it was at least semi-useful though (I honestly strive for better than semi-useful, but I'll take what I can get :) ), then keep reading as you may find something worthwhile in this one too.
This blog will be somewhat shorter than the first one (Yes I know, promises promises!) as the first blog is really the foundation of what I think you need to be a kick-ass SL DJ. This one will focus more on the finer points, and these are the things that will win over a crowd. So why don't we start there then - crowd building.
Part 1 - Building a Crowd
So who's responsibility is it to get a crowd into the club anyway? The manager? The host? The club owners? Ok, let me ask the question a different way - Who's set is it? See I think that's a major difference between mediocre DJs and great DJs. Mediocre DJs expect to be handed a crowd on a silver platter. It's everyone elses job to get a crowd into the club. Great DJs take responsibility for their own crowd. Now yes, during the set my philosophy is it's the job of the host to get people into the club, and it's the job of the DJ to keep them there. Building a base crowd is YOUR responsibility though. Let's face it, nobody is going to stay at a club if they walk in and the only ones there are the DJ, host, and manager. You need a base crowd to start off with, people you know will follow you and support you. If you have a solid base crowd of 5 or 6 people, then when people walk in and hear good tunes and see a crowd chatting and having fun, they're far more likely to stick around.
So how do you build a base crowd? One person at a time. SL is by its very nature a social environment, and you should always be networking. Now being a DJ is a great conversation starter, so you should be sure and dedicate 1 or more picks to DJing. Whenever you strike up a conversation with somebody it's not at all unusual that your DJ career will come up, so this is a great time to invite them to your set. If you have a DJ fan group (you ABSOLUTELY should have a DJ Fan group!), ask them if they'd mind if you invite them. If you friend the person, make a joke that now you can pester them to come to your set. Pay attention to their reaction and gage their interest. If they're clearly not interested then let it go, but if they do seem interested in catching your act, make a note of it, make sure you friend them, and then send them a personal invite when you are doing a set and see them on-line. Now this is a numbers game, and honestly most of the people you meet in this way will never come to your set. But a few will, and if you make this a regular part of your day, pretty soon you'll have your 5 or 6 crowd base and you can keep building from there.
Now keep your expectations reasonable here. Despite your best efforts you will have sets where none of your base crowd is available and the club is bone dry. Be a pro and do your thing to the best of your ability as if you had 25 people in the club. Make sure the two people that stuck it out with you have a good time, and they will quite possibly come back. Be consistent and never mail in a set, and network, network, network! It's a lot of work, but being great is NEVER easy, no matter what the endeavor.
Part 2 - Talking TO People
Notice the emphasis on the TO. One mistake I see a lot of DJs make is they talk AT their crowd, not TO them. I've seen DJs make openings like this with just 2 or 3 people in the club: "Welcome to Club Clueless! Get ready, because for the next 2 hours you'll be listening to the awesome tunes of DJ Windbag! If you need a tag please ask our host Hostomatic-2000. If you have a request just jump in my naughty box and let me know what you want to hear!"
Ok, so that doesn't really sound awful right? And truthfully its not, but it's robotic, it sounds canned, and it most probably is. Try not to sound like you're trying to sell something on the home shopping network. Be intimate with people (and no I don't mean try to hook up with them, this isn't a porno blog! lolz), talk to them like they're your friends. Here's an example of how I might start a set at a club I've never worked at before:
"Hi everybody! Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Ok, so let's see what we can do about having some fun for the next couple of hours :) Now I don't really know what you guys like, so I'm just gonna throw some stuff at the wall and see what sticks (apologies to whoever has club cleanup duty tonight lolz!). I'm counting on you guys to help me figure it out though, so hit me with those requests and let me know what YOU want to hear. What do you say we start off with some Aerosmith, and we'll figure it out from there :)"
And here's how I might start off a set at a club I DJ at every week:
"Hey kids, welcome back to the nuthouse! :) I'm in a good mood tonight, so let's crank it up to 11 and see if we can have some fun here (That means no requests for you Ranos! (KIDDING! lolz)). Ok I'm gonna start off with some Aerosmith, and then... Oh blah blah blah, you guys know what I play, so let's get to it :) Oh! And I've got a brand new Metal Zone song coming up later, and it's a really cool one. I'm not gonna tell you what it is though, on account of I'm mean and I enjoy torturing you lolz! Trust me though, you will like it <wink>. Oh, and my awesome hosty is here with tags if you need 'em, so her her up for that, and make sure you show her some love or I'll sic a sheep on you! :)
Ok do you see the difference? The first one sounds like an announcer for a used car add. The two I might say sound like you're talking to a bunch of friends. This is a subtle difference, but subtle differences add up. This applies whether you use voice or not. Be intimate, friendly, and fun, not stiff, robotic, and canned. It does make a difference. Now obviously you have to be a little more careful if it's a new place that doesn't know you as in my first segment, but you can still come off as friendly and personable. This won't make or break your DJ career, but it's one more small step up the ladder of being a DJ people come out to see as opposed to a filler DJ.
Part 3 - How to Specialize Effectively
In my previous blog on DJing I said I think you're better off being a specialist than a generalist, which means specializing in one genre of music as opposed to playing everything under the sun. Now as I said in the first blog this is my own personal opinion and lots of highly successful DJs are generalists, so if that's the route you want to go in your DJ career then it's a perfectly valid way to go, but I follow the other path so I don't have any advice for you. If you choose to specialize though, you are going to want to do it right, so here are some tips to help you get it right.
First off, while I absolutely think most of your songs and sets should be in your chosen genre, it can be very effective to throw a change-up now and then. Probably a good 90% of what I play is rock, but I do occasionally throw in some pop, reggae, blues, and hard country. Notice I didn't house, hip-hop and Jazz because those are just too far out of my zone for me to work them in effectively. Reggae, Country, and Blues are close cousins of rock, so you can throw those in now and again without having a fatal "Worst Transition Ever!" event. Don't over use these, changeups are most effective when used sparingly, but do use them. They can help keep things fun and interesting without alienating your base crowd that is there for the Rock (or whatever you specialize in).
Secondly, be an expert in your chosen genre. By expert I mean be able to talk about the artists and songs you are playing. For one thing the crowd expects the DJ to be knowledgeable about the music you're playing, and if you're not then you're just a glorified jukebox. Additionally, a strong base knowledge of your music can save your life in some sets. I absolutely guarantee if you DJ long enough you will play for a tough crowd that doesn't want to chat (you get these a lot at "Best in Silly Blue Hats" contests as people just come out to win the lindens). It's very difficult to have a conversation with yourself, and even if you have a good host filling up 2 hours of conversation with a dead crowd is extremely difficult. Having some knowledge will at least give you something to talk about, and you can even use this as a tool when you need it. One trick I use when I'm struggling with a crowd is to change my set up on the fly and throw in some songs I know I can start a conversation with. For example, I love the band Liliac, which is an up and coming family band that play hard rock covers and originals. If I'm stuck with a dead crowd I will often throw on a liliac song, and then offer up some info about the band, and even tell a little story about how I found them in the first place as they're not yet a well known band. The more you know about your chosen genre, the better.
Lastly on this, don't specialize too narrowly. It's fine to specialize in Rock, but specializing in just British Rock, or Hair Metal, or New Wave is too narrow. You CAN specialize within your specialty (for example, I'm currently specializing in metal covers of non-metal songs (which I refer to as "The Metal Zone"), but I can play anything from 60s to current, and I can do sets in Motown, Southern Rock, Mashups, New Wave, Classic Rock, etc. This give me the ability to keep it fresh without straying out of my chosen specialty. It also gives me the ability to adjust on the fly to what the crowd is responding to, but that's going to be a separate chapter (Remember when I said this blog was going to be shorter? I lied! lolz).
Part 4 - Read Your Crowd, and Avoid Self Indulgence!
This is a hard one, but it's crucial to being an effective DJ and it ties in with the previous chapter of specializing effectively. Every DJ is going to have a personal preference for what they want to play. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, we all got into this because we love music! BUT (note the caps for emphasis! Don't you love how I do that? lolz), you have to constantly take the pulse of the crowd. If they're not responding to your Hair Metal set, change it up and find out what they want to hear. Know where your crowd came from. If they're your people then you should know what they like, but if the host or the owner or the manger brought them in, then TALK to them! They want the set to be successful as much as you do, so pick their brains and ask them what the crowd is into. Now if it's totally outside your zone then just do the best you can, but I'm going to assume the owners and managers are smart enough to not hire a Rock DJ to play to a Romance crowd, so you should be able to find something in your arsenal they can relate to.
Now changing up on the fly in the middle of a set is extremely difficult, but if you're playing a regular set then you absolutely should be able to adjust from set to set. If you can't, don't, or won't then you're just being self indulgent and you're putting what you want to hear ahead of what your crowd wants, and this is not the mark of a good DJ. You can play for yourself and your base crowd anytime, but if the crowd you're currently playing for is responding to Blondie and Huey Lewis, then dump the WASP and Metallica and put in some songs they want to hear. The reward will be a more engaged crowd and maybe even a new regular or two. If you can do it in the middle of the set even better, but at the very least make some adjustments for your next set and be ready the next time with a set that's more on point.
Just to give you a short example of self-indulgence, I once worked for a club where the club owner was also a DJ (not at all uncommon), and she loved Afroman and would play something like 4-8 songs from Afroman in each and every set. Now even I will occasionally do a block, or a mega block of something I want to feature in a set, but doing multiple songs from the same artist in every set simply does not work. Yes you will probably have one or two others in the crowd who share your love for Afroman (or whatever artist you're over playing), but more often than not everyone else will just get sick of hearing it. Be smart and play for your crowd. You can can get together with the 2 other Afroman lovers in the crowd after the set and play him to your heart's content.
Part 5 - Dealing with Requests
There's no arguing that a big part of the DJs job is playing requests. As I said in my previous blog, you should not only play them, but you should get them on the very next song whenever possible, and the song after that when you can't quite make it.
That being said, you have to remember that your first responsibility is to the entire crowd, and sometimes you have to politely say no. Now as an owner I leave this up to my DJs when to turn down a request, but there are a few guidelines you can use for when it's ok to say no
1. The Request-a-holic If you DJ long enough you will inevitably run into this person, the one who requests song after song and seems determined to program your set for you. My rule of thumb is 2 requests for any one person is plenty, although I might allow more if it's a slow request night. Rather than turn them down flatly though, I've found the best way to deal with these people is "Jalan". If you've ever seen the movie "The Air Up There" then you'll know that "Jalan" means "I shall consider it for eternity". And that's the best way to deal with Request-a-holics. Play their two requests for them, and then after that just say "Well I've got some stuff ahead of you, but I'll try and get that back on in a bit. 90% of the time this is all you need to do and they will quietly fade into the background and leave you alone. Now if they behave and it's a slow request night, many times a little later in the set I WILL play their 3rd request, and then I'll tell them "I just had time for one more request and I wanted to make sure I got yours in, so here it is!". Remember they ARE guests of the club, so deal with them professionally and politely, and if you do it right you can shut them down and still make them happy.
2. The Genre Jumper Don't you love these guys? You're playing a Hair Metal set (which the crowd is into and responding to), and some joker jumps into your chat box and requests a rap song, or hip-hop, or something else far removed from what you're playing. (I had one last week request some song in Spanish in the middle of a Rock set). The best way to deal with these people is to politely decline and explain to the person what you play and what the theme of the set is, and then ask if they have anything they'd like to hear within the set guidelines. If so then play it, but if not then oh well. This is simply a case of "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one".
3. The Saboteur These guys are my favorite, the ones that think it's funny to intentionally request something that stinks just to sabotage your set. A flat out "No" is the best way to deal with these people, and "Hell No!" is more than acceptable.
4. The DJ Wannabe This is similar to the Request-a-holic, but in this case I'm referring to a frustrated host who thinks they are a DJ. Your host is staff, not a guest, and you are never obligated to play a request from your host. I will generally play one for the host if they ask, but one is all they get, and if they request more then I'll just say "Well let's play some for the crowd for a while", and have a discussion with the host after the set to clarify your respective roles. You can even offer to train the host as a DJ if they really want to give it a try, but make sure they understand that making multiple requests during a set you are DJing is not appreciated.
Lastly, I want to tell you about a little prop I use that is very helpful in dealing with bad requests - The Request Eating Lion! This is simply a cute little lion that I put out at my sets (particularly if I know one of the above people is in the crowd), and if somebody requests a song that makes it on the air that is simply awful, I have "Roar!" sound effect that I play and the lion eats the request, and I terminate the song early. This is one of many props I use in my set, but I already wrote about that in my first blog :).
Part 6 - Imitate and Inovate!
This is actually one of my favorite things about DJing, finding new things to try in sets. I've innovated my fair share of things over the course of my DJ career, but I've also copied a couple I've seen other DJs do. I have one rule of thumb for things I copy though, I'm going to do my damndest to do it better than the DJ that thought of it. So probably the best thing I can do here is to give you a couple of examples of things I've copied, and of things that I've innovated.
On thing that I copies is "The Word Game" This is one that one of my favorite DJs, Anita Dagger came up with in which the DJ throws out a word in local chat, and the crowd has to come up with a song that uses that word. First one that comes up with a song gets her song played. Being that I'm a DJ I kept coming up with a song first, so she made a rule on the fly that the same person couldn't do 2 in a row (did I mention that Anita is an absolutely brilliant DJ, and one of the best I've ever seen? :) ). I thought the game was a blast and I used it in a set not long after. Not to be out-done I reversed it halfway through and would pick a person in the crowd to give me a word which I would then find a song for. I had to put my own stamp on it after-all :)
The other notable one I copied was "The Battle of The Sexes" which I saw DJ Gwenni do at one of her sets. DJ Gwenni is a generalist DJ and did the set with kind of a British Pop flavor, so naturally when I did my version I did Rock. My innovation was I put my knowledge of the Rock Genre to good use and did it as a series of duals and let the crowd vote on who the winner was. I came up with some very competitive duals, and more than once had someone in the crowd say "I hate you!" when I put their favorite artist up against one of the few from the other side that would give him or her a run. It was a big hit, and my stamp on it was the voting and making it an ACTUAL contest (which the girls won by a narrow margin!)
And now a couple of my own innovations...
Dueling DJs - This was a set format that my sister MelQT (also one of the best DJs I've ever seen) and I came up with in which we share a set, and switch off on the stream every 30 minutes. Every time we switch off we change the music theme, so in a 3 hour set my segments might be Girl Power, Covers, and Metal Zone, and Mel might do 70s, Funk, and Live Mixing. This one takes 2 experienced DJs to pull off, but I've done it with a couple of different DJs since and it's always a big hit.
Raise/Lower platforms - This one has evolved for the years. I love to dance on stuff, and I noticed that other people do so along with the help of my friend Ranos who did the scripting i made a dance platform that you can raise and lower with chat commands. We now have 3 of them at Heroes that are permanently in place and can be activated on command. These are perfect for when you have a big, fun crowd and just want to give it that little extra "Wow!" factor to push the set over the top from "Cool" to "Awesome!" I try not to over use them, but they're great to have for that little something extra.
Sheep! - I mentioned the party sheep in my first blog, but they've become such an integral part of Heroes that I figured I'd revisit them. Since my last blog the party sheep have mutated. We now have SheepyBomb, SuperSheep, FlashSheep, InfinitySheep, JokerSheep, RiddlerSheep, RFLSheep, and probably a couple I forgot. They never fail to help generate conversation in the club, and they're so cute you can't not love them! :)
The bottom line here is don't just be DJ Jukebox. Think of things to do in your sets that are fun and keep the crowd engaged, an don't be afraid to try new things. You never know until you try, and you might find something you can use again and again. Remember what I said in my first blog: The music is the DJs TOOL. The DJs JOB is to entertain the crowd, and there's more to that than just playing the music.
Part 7 - A Few Tips for Non-Voice DJs
This one will be fairly short, but I did want to pass on a little advice for those of you who want to pursue a DJ career without using voice. As I said in my first blog, it can certainly be done but you will have many more opportunities if you learn how to voice. That being said, here are a few tips for the voiceless DJs
1. Have reasonable expectations - You will have to accept the fact that large, 24/7 clubs like Muddy's or Franks and even smaller but well established operations like Wet Willies or Blackhearts will not even talk to you if you don't voice. I personally don't agree with this policy, but as the saying goes change what you can change, accept what you can't change, and be smart enough to know the difference. This is one you can't change, so set your sights a little lower. A good target for you are new clubs and smaller operations. Now these clubs may specify that they require voice as well, but they're much more likely to at least talk to you and give you a shot, and if you show that you're a fun, reliable DJ that pulls a crowd and has a following, they won't give a crap about the voice thing. Join some DJ groups and watch the advertisements.
2. Be tenacious - If you come across a club you like, even if they say they require voice go ahead and reach out and tell them "I know you say you require voice, and I don't voice but I was wondering if you'd be willing to give me a shot to show you what I can do. I promise you won't be disappointed!" They may give you a shot and they may not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
3. Be professional - If you DO get a shot, what I always do with a new club is ask if I can come by off hours and just do a practice set with no crowd just to get familiar with the venue. It really does help to have played a few songs there even if you're by yourself, and your willingness to do it shows your professionalism and will impress the club management. Talk to the club management and hosts and ask for any suggestions they might have regarding what their crowd likes to hear. Usually you'll get something back that's not particularly helpful such as "Oh any flavor of Rock is fine", but you'll have registered another point for professionalism for asking. When it comes time to do the set, show up well in advance of your start time (at least 30 minutes, an hour or more is better), be prepared with a well thought out, fun set, take ALL requests (I know that contradicts my prior point, but that's for when you're already established. When you're trying to make an impression, play them all), and for the love of GOD don't TP out 3 minutes after you finish your set. Hang around for a while and support the next DJ and get to know the crowd a little. Club owners LOVE staff that support the club off hours, so if you give the impression that you'll do that you're much more likely to get hired.
4. Once you get hired, keep doing the stuff that got you hired. Show up early. Stick around after your set. Be fun and entertaining. Hang around the club. There's nothing I hate more than staff that you never see in the club unless they're logged in to a tip jar. Be a part of the team, not a hired gun.
5. Work harder than everyone else, and do your damndest to be the best DJ at the club. Maybe you will be and maybe you won't, but this is all about striving for greatness. Watch the other DJs at the club. Look at it like a competition, and do you bad-ass best to do it better than everyone else at the club. But don't be a Diva about it! Praise the other DJs and hosts, and be the person everyone WANTS to work with.
Ok gang, I'm going to end this one here. This one got to be a LOT longer than I originally intended, but as with the first one, if you find anything useful in here then it was worth it. Look me up in SL (Cherry Breiz), I'd LOVE to hear from you, and by all means please stop by my club and check us out! Until then, this is DJ CherryBomb, Over and Out! <wink>
XX-Cherry-XX
