Weekend 8th 10th Dec

[paula 0]

I done a xmas party Thursday for IMP at Lords Cricket Ground, and got quite a surprise when I arrived at the gate and asked for directions!.....left left...and it's that big bubble in the sky! done a left left and it was a big bubble, 15ft off the ground! :fright:

Was a good night once I'd learnt not to look down

 

 

 

[shakermaker 0]

I've had a great weekend so far (apart from West Ham losing yet again!)..

 

Friday was my Request Fest night, I did that whilst someone did a Christmas Party for me. The pub was packed and there were some really good requests, a lot of them being mid 80s rock stuff but it was really enjoyable.

 

Last night - WOW! I had 2 christmas parties on at my hotel residency. There was also a small gathering for a 50th birthday party in the 3rd function suite which joined in on my one. Someone was doing my other christmas party for me in function room 2 for 92 guests and I did the main function room for 180 guest from different companies. The meal finished at 10pm and I was playing until 01.00am. By the time I started I had tons of request slips to get through which was great and easy to deal with.

 

Started off with Christina Aguilera's 'Aint no other man' and followed it with Beyonce's 'Crazy right now' - From the word go they were all up and going for it. Had to keep moving drinks off the top of my speakers and one girl bumped into my decks....that was a bit of a worry. Loads of very pretty young ladies all dressed up and looking gorgeous (not quite the same by the end of the night when they are all drunk and falling allover the place). Scissor Sisters filled the dancefloor and was the best song of the night (and most requested)....Everyone was still dancing at 12.30am and they all loved the motown set I did. Also did a mix of 'Cha Cha Slide' and 'Put your hands up for Detroit' which worked really well. Last two songs of the night were Mariah Carey 'All I want for christmas is you' and Stevie Wonder 'Happy Birthday' (as there were 3 birthdays in there too). Finished at 01.10am to a round of applause and the usual chants of "More, More!".

 

I played one more and then that was it - The Pogues 'Fairytale of New York'. Thoroughly enjoyable night and I hope the rest are as good. Gave out loads of cards too!

[EdBray 0]

I had a great night last night, Xmas party at a Hotel in Torquay, (apart from suffering the last vestiges of Flu). Set up in a largish function room, started about 10.15pm with Mariah's All I want for Christmas, has about 120 people in total from 3 parties, dance floor was busy most of the night, best group were a bunch of primary school teachers who really let their hair down (bet the kids would have been amazed),

 

Was a bit worried early on, when a couple of wrinklies asked for some ballroom music, but I played "Raindrops keep falling on my head" (slow foxtrot) and "The Blue Danube" (Waltz) and was pleasantly surprised when a lot of the youngsters still continued to dance.

 

Most requested track was Scissor Sisters (I played it twice) and ended with "Fairy Tale of New York" at 1am.

 

Packed up and in the car at 2am rang Ads and he and Pete (Music Box) were on their way back from gigging in Plymouth, so we met up for half an hour or so at South Brent, before all heading off in different directions. Really nice to have met you Pete!

 

Home at 3.20. Still got the Flu and aching all over.

[YourBigEvent 0]

Standing around outside on a roundabout at 3am doesn't help your condition Ed !!

[Jimbo55 0]

Strange night on Friday

 

I had already been warned by my daughter who had done an 80th birthday for for the same group a few weeks back that it was a very 'picky' group and that the son in his 50's was behaving like a 5 year old when he did not get his own way!!.

 

Wedding reception for a very lovely couple in the twilight of their years. I had spoken with the bride and she had asked for Karaoke and to play music for 'all generations'.

 

Played some background and kept the kids happy with glow sticks and tracks from 'high school musical' and Disney stuff with xmas stuff etc. The Evening guests started arriving at about 7.30pm. Welcomed everyone for the evening. So far so good. Got a few karaoke request and did a six song set with the Bride asking if her grand daughter could kick it off. Great stuff, everyone up and dancing and singing with the karaoke. Back into the music. Got asked for some 'dancey' stuff by a women so she could dance as this stuff was Sh8T, I was playing a requested set of lets jump the broomstick/reet petite/mambo no5 at the time). Tried to ask what she meant by Dancey but she turned and walked off. Took a gamble and went into cheese mode. Fast food rockers, Cha Cha Slide, Saturday night. Set the tone for the rest of the evening.

 

Next karaoke set.

 

The 50 yr old with the 5yr old attitude came up and demand to speak to the person in charge. "Yes that's me" him "I want you to turn this crap off now as it's boring and a do not want to listen to it". Now I do a lot of karaoke and will admit there are times I will agree the same but this evening was really working well. The floor was jammed with people dancing and singing to the karaoke. Including his Mum the bride. He had been sitting at the back of the function room on his own. So I speak to the daughter (His sister) asking for advice as I did not want to bring it to the attention of his mum.

 

Long story, short. Brother had already upset mum earlier, a relative wanted to punch his lights out, rest of family agreed to suspend karaoke as to cause further issue :shrug: .

 

So finished set. Carried on with the cheese. Happy families. Bride and groom came up and thanked me as they left at 10.30. Crowd shouted for more when I finished at 11.00pm Venue manager wanted me to finish on time. Son came up and insisted that I carry on and got a bit prickly when I told him no.

 

I made a point, when packed up, of seeing the guy and shaking his hand thanking him for the wonderful evening and I hope enjoyed himself after he stopped the karaoke, the room went quiet. He stuttered a bit and said ''yes". I left

 

Not heard anything back...........yet :joe:

 

Jimbo

 

 

 

[desperatedan 0]

Must be the time of year for people acting strange following on from Jimbo's comments I had a similar situation on friday myself.

 

Corporate Christmas party for one company in the Midland Hotel Central Manchester, Hotel was packed they had 6 / 7 functions on that night, was in the trafford suite which for anyones referance has easy access staright in to the toom via a side entrance even tho recpetion staff said I should drag gear through main entrance and bar area to get to function room.

 

Usual Dinner Dance type event played background music whilst they where eating, with a few xmas songs spread into set.

 

1) strange request was somone asking for something a bit more dancey than this boring dross whilst food was still be served ?? - Explained that we would be changing the music, turning it up and putting dico lights on once service had finished.

 

2) This one really got me - Once service was over had more or less a full dance floor all night, loads of requests which I had announced we where taking so come see us with your fav tune etc.. Oldish guy coms over and starts going in to one about the music being awful and can I play something decent, (even tho dance floor was full) - So i asked him for a example to get a idea of what music he was in to, he's reply was your the dj you should know what to play and he stormed off. About 20 mins he was back chewing my ear about the crap music and this time started swearing at me - again saying why was I playing this kind of music when I explained it was a actual request I was playing from one of the younger members of there group he basically called me a liar!. He then announced I was a crap DJ and knew nothing (funny when directly behind him the dance floor was packed.) I was quite pleased with myself as I stayed cool and just kindly asked him again if he had and specific requests which I would happily play for him - he started the whole your a dj blurb again so I just said if you provide on particular song you like I can then work out your musical preferance and provide you with some music to suit. So as it turned to storm off again he mumbled 60's - (which was handy as the next tracks was leading into a 60's / rock n roll set) So i wished him merry christmas and got on with my job.

 

Some people are just so awkward - Knowing the mix ages at corporate xmas do's I always make a point of announcing at the start of the night - that we hopefully will be playing music to suit everyone going as far back as the 50's and and as modern as this weeks chart)

 

Couple of pics of event attached :-

 

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4076/sta60012gk6.th.jpg

 

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7506/sta60019dn1.th.jpg

 

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/8927/sta60021jv6.th.jpg

 

At least Saturday made up for it fantatsic night where everything worked every song went down a storm and everyone was in a festive party mood

 

Restoring some of my faith in Christmas Party's tongue out icon

Edited December 10, 2006 by desperatedan

[EdBray 0]

Slightly off topic, but following on from Dans post above.

 

Why do some people seem to think as a DJ you are their personal jukebox?

 

Had one youngish(early 20s) chavvy girl, slightly the worse for drink come up just about every other song with a request or suggestion, quite rude when the ballroom stuff was being played (not to me but to the older element who were dancing to it). Now I could maybe understand this attitude a little (okay, not really) if this was an 18th or 21st birthday party, but this was a Hotel Xmas party for all or any of their guests, whether they were inmates or had eaten in the restaurant either as individuals or members of a corporate Xmas party. As such they encompassed all ages and had different musical preferences.

 

Surely one or two tracks outside your own preferences at a disco/dance is not such a big deal, is it?

[shakermaker 0]

What you have to remember is that there will ALWAYS be some people at these things that will NEVER EVER be happy. Discos and "Loud Music" (as they put it) isn't everyone's cup of tea. So far this year I have been really lucky with my christmas parties and had crowds that have been well up for a party.

What's good is that when I put the request slips out, even though the guests have been aged between 18 and 60 (ish), it's the younger ones that come up requesting classic party tunes / cheese etc..and that shows that they have the attitude of "hey, it's a christmas party..let's go for it!".

 

Not everyone is like that though - A couple of years ago at a christmas party I was doing, I had a very drunk and abusive guy in his 20's who stood there shouting at me saying that "The music was c:cense:p, put something banging on!"...It got to the point where I ended up getting severly wound up by him and it nearly became physical when I asked for a word outside the function room. I said to him that it wasn't the Ministry of Sound, it was a christmas party and if he didn't like it to leave. The floor was packed and this is often the case....plenty of people dancing and getting in the mood yet some people just want to hear what THEY like and forget about everyone else. That's the only downer in this job that we do and having done thousands of gigs over the years, that was the only time when I felt like knocking someone out.

 

I'm still grinning from last nights party and just heard from the manager of the hotel who wanted to say that he has had some brilliant feedback. One thing I remembered though...You can't please everyone....I noticed last night that right at the back of the function room, there was a table with 5 women on it. All evening they were sat down and drinking and talking. When I announced on the mic at 12.45am that we were running out of time and started to thank everyone, they all got up and made their way to the dancefloor. They danced right in front of me and when the last song came on, they started moaning "more c'mon...play some more!" I said politely that I had been playing stuff since 7.30pm and I would play one extra song for them. They shook their heads as if it was my fault that they hadn't got off their backsides all night...which it wasn't. Saying that though, they did thank me at the end and joined in on the round of applause.

 

Best moment of the night? - Stunning petite blonde in white ballgown dancing in front of me all night.....BUT...UV light + White Ball Gown + Dark coloured miniscule G-String on underneath = Very happy DJ!!!!!

[Andy Westcott 0]

"Surely one or two tracks outside your own preferences at a disco/dance is not such a big deal, is it?"

 

It shouldn't be, but some people are so bloody ignorant and just plain rude.

 

I also find attitudes are far worse now than, say, 20 years ago.

[Kane 0]

New video from friday added to the site HERE top window is the newer one

[DJ Marky Marc 0]

After a great thursday night xmas party, a fun friday night in a chinese covering for leonna, I was all fired up and ready to do a 21st birthday on saturday night..

 

arrived and setup ready to go and was then told I couldn't use the plugs on the wall I had to plug into the two by the stage area because of the sound limiter.

 

wasn't happy but venue manager insisted or there would be no disco...

 

turned the sound on and tested the mic and lit all the lights on the limmitor box right away..

 

found a cd put it on and eq'd some of the bass down a little but still lit all the lights on the box without even getting leds on my mixer output lit..

 

found the manager and asked what we could do about my headphones being louder than my disco and his reacton was that he don't care and that's as loud as we are aloud...

 

guests arrive and I could hear them chatting at the other end of the room...

 

was asked to turn it up but had to draw there attention to the sound limmitor.

 

guy who hired the hall for his daughter was not happy, he was told the venue was sutable for a large 21st birthday party...

 

guests requested the normal tracks but didn't want to dance much ... one older lady asking for some decent music but unable to name any songs she liked..

 

all the youngsters headed off into town to go clubing at a venue where the music was louder than the talking from the people...

 

just for fun at the end we poped loads of ballons and triped the limmitor which upset the manager :)

 

oh and if your asked to dj at the old basing village hall politly refuse the gig or recommend a portable stereo.

[C.S 0]

Being an old miserable club dj i have lost patience with drunk punters and here are some of the things i have said to customers in the past month or two !

 

1.Customer "why are you playing this old music " me " well sir your suit is from 1970 so i thought i would build the music around you"

 

2. Customer " you really are a rubbish dj " " me " I agree sir but at least i have slept with a real woman"

 

3.Customer " Play something i can dance to " me " i cant turn the music off madam as everyone else will stop dancing".

 

4.Customer " Can i come home with you tonight as my husband doesnt understand me " me " no thanks i dont have any cleaning that needs doing"

 

5.Customer " I have slept with your wife " me "thanks a lot how much do i owe you?"

 

6."Excuse me madam but i think the record you are dancing to finished 5 minutes ago "

 

 

Thank god for bouncers ! Remember that the customer is not always right !

Edited December 10, 2006 by C.S

[Andy Westcott 0]

Classy replies - I've written them down. :Thumbup:

 

I've also had, "You are a 'kin idiot"

I replied, "I'm paid to look that way; What's your excuse?"

 

Got to size up the situation first, though.....

 

The General Public. I hate them. :angry:

[brianmole 0]

Being an old miserable club dj i have lost patience with drunk punters and here are some of the things i have said to customers in the past month or two !

 

1.Customer "why are you playing this old music " me " well sir your suit is from 1970 so i thought i would build the music around you"

 

2. Customer " you really are a rubbish dj " " me " I agree sir but at least i have slept with a real woman"

 

3.Customer " Play something i can dance to " me " i cant turn the music off madam as everyone else will stop dancing".

 

4.Customer " Can i come home with you tonight as my husband doesnt understand me " me " no thanks i dont have any cleaning that needs doing"

 

5.Customer " I have slept with your wife " me "thanks a lot how much do i owe you?"

 

6."Excuse me madam but i think the record you are dancing to finished 5 minutes ago "

 

 

Thank god for bouncers ! Remember that the customer is not always right !

:Thumbup:

CS - How do you respond to "Have you got the theme to the pink panther?"

 

 

 

Weekends activities for me: Friday night had an absolutely awesome night in a nice hotel ballroom in the docklands, played a load of everything, all except one woman happy! Thanks Pete for the help.

 

Saturday: Set up this lot in a marquee in hampshire, ready for what looked like a really well attended good xmas party:

 

http://www.dancemix.co.uk/images/6847.jpg

 

Unfortunately for the venue, they had seriously :cense: up, and only had one heater for a 200 capacity marquee, it was -2 degrees, and before long all the guests were complaining as it was freezing. I was asked to move the disco into a room 200 yards away, so moved the bare minimum:

http://www.dancemix.co.uk/images/6849.jpg

 

This was really unrecoverable, although some danced, a lot had gone home. I am now fuming, a lot of extra work was involved, and will probably refuse any more work there.

 

Lucky I'm still buzzing from Friday...

[Jimbo55 0]

Looks like it was a tough weekend for most of us

 

Brian I hope it was not that cold. It looks like frost on the dance floor :snow:

 

Jimbo

[FrankieJ 0]

I believe we all go through this kind of abuse this time of year as most people think they can control you when they are at the staff party.

 

I had a great night on friday I did a xmas quiz and disco for about 140 people and really enjoyed it and got a huge round of applause at the end, so was happy.

 

Saturday was a military gig until 4am, I too had some old bloke who gave me abuse towards the end when there was only about 10 people left and thought he knew what music to play. :lil devil:

I have now learnt not to dwell on it let it go over your head as you can see we all go through it at some point.

 

I think we should take pictures of the moaners so we can name and shame them on here.......ok so its a joke but would makes us all feel better. tongue out icon

[High Fidelity 0]

This weekend was my last until I get my health sorted, and thank goodness Friday wasn’t the last one.

 

Friday was a brewery’s Christmas party at the posh sounding Kirkfield Hotel. Luckily, I had Chris O’Grady with me – it would have been a very long night without him there.

 

Access was via a gravel alleyway, and the car park was across the street. As soon as we walked into the room we both knew it was going to be a hard night.

 

Not a posh place at all

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/12/34309283768.jpg

and it was one of those multi room places.

 

As everyone arrived, they all gathered in one of the other rooms, which was fine & expected till they had the buffet, but that’s where the majority stayed for the whole night. Chris & I played everything we could think of to try to tempt them in, but the room was like this

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/12/34309283734.jpg

for most of the night.

 

Busiest we managed was about 8 on the dance floor.

 

Thanks to Chris for keeping me sane.

 

 

Saturday was a black tie dinner dance at a golf club. A much better night in a much nicer venue to finish on, apart from the stairs access.

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/12/34309283867.jpg

 

Sat around in the lounge while they had their meal, then got into my tux :mikee: and started at 10:15.

 

Started off with unintentional comedy as doing my welcome the radio mic started dropping out, but no problem, just grabbed the wired mic. Only trouble was, the cable was trapped and I couldn’t lift it above deck height, so finished the welcome on my knees to plenty of laughter.

 

Busy dance floor for nearly every track and apart from the de-rig down the slippery wooden stairs, a very enjoyable gig for my last one for a while.

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/12/34309283988.jpg

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/12/34309283930.jpg

 

Hope you all have an exceedingly busy, profitable & enjoyable Christmas & NY.

 

 

 

[The Ogrady Roadshow 0]

yeah friday was a struggle paul.. and sow was mine on sat only 25 people who wernt up for a disco they were quite happy sat around chatting so most of my saturday was easy listening background type stuff!! not that good of a weekend nahh it wasent that bad easy but boring

Edited December 10, 2006 by The Ogrady Roadshow

[FDDJ 0]

Spent Friday night freezing my go away! in the room Brian Mole ended up in on the Saturday.

 

People finally started to drift through from Dinner at 10.30 but we had a Midnight finish. I announced this fact at least 10 times over the next hour and a half and still had a lady come and see me at 11:59 to request Ultravox - Vienna. :wall:

 

Music off at Midnight and then spent the next 25 minutes explaining to an Australian how it really was possible in the UK for the bar to serve him until 6 AM but have to turn "loud" music off at Midnight...

 

Saturday night was a job in Basingstoke, turned up to what was essentially a reasonable size Scout Hut type hall which had better toilets than most 4 star hotels. :shrug:

 

Total of 45 guests running 8 - 11.30 but they also had a Magician, Casino and Caricaturist which meant we kept the volume down until 10ish.

 

Half the crowd made the most of the free bar and the other half looked at them in disgust all night. Highlight of the evening was a young lady vomiting in her shoes.. :yuck:

[otronics 0]

Why do some people seem to think as a DJ you are their personal jukebox?

 

Excellent, excellent point!

[C.S 0]

CS - How do you respond to "Have you got the theme to the pink panther?"

 

No sorry sir ,i did have 4 versions of it but they accidently got broken over the head of the last person who asked for it .

 

Here in Norway we always say " no sorry sir , wrong dj , its Tony "eskie " Winyard who always plays a 40 minute version of the pink panther theme at the end of the night"

[brianmole 0]

CS - How do you respond to "Have you got the theme to the pink panther?"

 

No sorry sir ,i did have 4 versions of it but they accidently got broken over the head of the last person who asked for it .

 

Here in Norway we always say " no sorry sir , wrong dj , its Tony "eskie " Winyard who always plays a 40 minute version of the pink panther theme at the end of the night"

[Leonna 0]

Saturday night started off OK for me, good crowds in, again, some of the older (60+) crowd being the best ones on the dance floor.

 

Had a female stripper turn up at one point for some blokes birthday,luckily she didn't do it on the dancefloor and alot of the women were not interested in watching so stayed up dancing.

 

Made a slight slip up when I at the last minute changed song and thought I had set up Boom, boom, boom with a second to spare faded up new song to find it was I've got a little something for you, complete change of tempo to previous song, alot of people kept dancing so I just left it.

 

After that though things went from nearly killing dancefloor to major dancefloor clear out, but not by me. At around 12, It looked (to me) like a group of girls were leaving and doing this they had to go across the dancefloor. However one of the girls looked like she was trying to get one of her friends attention, but then I realised it wasn;t her attention she was trying to attracted. She wanted to punch the :cense: out of her!. Major cat fight then ensued with a couple more joining in. None of the staff seemed to notice, so I had no alternative but to call for the staff over the mic. Some blokes and the staff eventually managed to break it up but a couple of older ladies got caught up in the middle of it and ended up on the floor with injuries. In a year, this is the first time I have seen a fight there, but I think they need a way to communicate with the bouncers on the door so they can handle this sort of stuff.

 

The girls got cleared away pretty quickly but took ages for everyone else to recover, eventually though managed to get everyone going again and finished on a high

[Tonsk 0]

I didn't get a chance to play Native New Yorker this weekend.

 

I have also had problems with the annoying idiots at parties, infact last weekend I had a mixed company Xmas party and the "booker" of one of the tables (yes all she had done was booked the table) told me I should stop playing the requests that the rest of her table had made and only play RnB that she wanted.

 

This weekend tho started on Thursday when I got a last minute cover gig as the original DJ had got stuck in London on his day job. Corporate party playing with a band. Band were a swing/big band sound that I have worked with before and they were good (although this time did sound a little like a school band?!). People at the party were the V well off kind, but were actually very well behaved and nice to speak to...

 

People dancing all night, although as a school night alot left early......

 

Still, good night had by all, I hope.

 

Friday, party for the Rainbows, Brownies and Girl Guides, split in two with the you youngsters early and the 10+ later..

 

Again, a good party - the kids loved it and the parents/organisers were happy. Games, party dances and competitions... Can't fault it - plus home by 10...

 

Saturday was a wedding and started as a nightmare. Norwich were playing at home and I left early to avoid the traffic, but still got caught in it.. A 40 min journey took 1.5 hours.....

 

Needed diesel badly, but all the stations on the way were stacked 3 cars back and as I was late due to the traffic, I didnt want to take any more time....

 

Unfortunately, I had less diesel than I though and for the last 10 miles was flying on fumes... Was REALLY worried I wouldn't make it but luckily I did... Start was at 7, I arrived at 6.30. By the time I had spoken to someone in charge, got into the room at 6.40. Room was a long way away from the van so got all equipment in and started setting up at 6.55. Finally got finished and started at 7.30. Bride didnt notice though so lucky....

 

End result - Great night with a full dance floor all night, except for the buffet...

 

Then packed down, out and the fingers crossed journey to find a petrol station..... And luckily found one, 15 miles away.... Result.....

 

All good...

 

Sunday, kids party in Swaffham for the children of Black Vynil... Good fun gig with the kids having a great time.....

 

Nothing now till Thursday...

[music box 0]

What a great weekend for us it all started on Thursday

 

At the Golden Palace in Cranliegh, great night from the off dance floor full all night.

 

Used my own equipment. Made all the difference for me any way.

 

Friday out with Mr. Brain Mole in London again great night

 

Saturday Plympton in Plymonth for ads meet up with Andy waited for Mic Mac to turn up but he turned around and went back shame hopped to meet you mate.

 

Then went to the venue set up for a wedding not a bad night floor about half full all night fighting the buffee bar and as the bigger area was in the bar area in another room was a fight to get them in but we did at times.

Meet up with Ed Gray Andy (ads) and me on around about just off the A38 great to meet you Ed.

 

Sunday back home chillout out with family etc.

 

Back to main work Friday all starts again