Our next event will be at the Galway Hooker for a movie studio in New York holding a premiere. There will be a lot of artists there which are excellent clients to dj for since the musical tastes run the gamut. London and Jamaica ska, rocksteady, bhangra, maybe some gothic/ industrial, newer and older brit pop, punk, funk, and elecronica. Well, it's four hours we'll see how it goes!
Last week I posted photos from the event at AER Bar in the West Village. Been meaning to post more, here are a few
you can check out some of the fun Kostumes!
Every once in a while we'll be hired be someone who is very passionate about music which is so excellent. Especially to be able to share with others music you think they'll love and vice versa, really the essence of being a dj. This weekend we are excited to be playing a range of music where some of it is our favorite stuff. I attached a list of some of the songs selected as well as the albums we'll be spinning. It's a one way street to Tito Puente blvd.
Have to diverge for a minute, I just found out about this, a show not to be missed. One of my all time favorite singer songwriters, Patty Griffin, and amazing R & B artist Allen Toussaint, will be sharing the stage next Thursday at Joe's Pub for the Country Music Songwriter showcase. I saw Patty Griffin earlier in the year on the heels of her new album Children Running Through and it was by far one of the best concerts I've ever been to.
We preparing for an event at the Tobacco Warehouse this weekend and it turns out to be a tricky place to set up equipment. We were told there is only one outlet which is all the way on one side of the space and where we would be set up would be about 250 feet away, so we thought we'd have to be prepared to wire 500 feet of electrical cords. Thankfully they've hired a lighting designer who will provide the power. It should be an interesting day. 
The Warehouse was constructed in the early 1870's and originally designed to be a place to inspect tobacco. I was thinking if there was some really early bluegrass or Tin Pan Alley we could play which might fit the history of the space, or some hit singles from the post civil war period like "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" or "The March King", but I'm not sure anyone besides Sean who is a history buff would get it, not too mention that Tin Pan Alley doesn't exactly get the dance floor pumpin'.
We'll be at the New York hilton at the beginning of November again for the Ad Tech 2007 conference. Last year was excellent, were able to play music from Jamaica, Senegal, Detroit, France, Brazil and Venezuela. This year we'll probably play a similar set with some additional eletrco jazz, trip hop and roots funk thrown in.
Here are some additional photos from Friday night. We always try to get photos of us (the last one in this post) during the events unfortunately since neither of us are photographers they usually end up looking like surveillance photos!
Last night was an excellent time. Bruce and Ko created som slide presentations which were by far the best we've ever seen, and chronology from each of their lives from when they were little. When done well they can be so effective and really add another dimension. We played some Korean pop songs, merengue, salsa, funk, soul and of course disco! The security at the Rainbow Room was very tough and I ended up having to wait outside the building for a 1/2 hour to get back in and retrieve all the equipment.
We'll be at the Rainbow Room tonight for an event, heavy security at Rockefeller Plaza understandably so we'll have to get there a little early. It'll be a late night as well, will post some photos and songs we played tomorrow.
We have some great photos from this night, Bella and Peter's wedding. This will be probably part one of two or three. 24 5th Ave is interesting, it feels like it takes you back a little in time with it's history in New York City. It was originally constructed in 1926 to replace the Brevoort mansion. There is a wine bar and restaurant adjoining it which have the original facade on the inside still due to landmark construction laws. If you're sitting at the bar you can see the original concrete which they were not permitted to change when they wanted to extend the bar area further out.
Here are some photos from a talent agency party we dj-ed over the summer at Zanzibar. It was an excellent night, despite New York's fine cabaret laws, where we got to play all kinds of music from electro jazz to soul to funk to roots reggae. You can see a photo of me up in their "booth" and a view of the crowd from the booth as well. The booth was a little precarious especially because there were a lot of people in front of it and next to it walking around, but all in all a decent space for an event.
Ok this time is really the last of the photos, there were a few more I wanted to post. The system we used was the Torq Advanced Exponent and Virtual DJ. I have mixed feelings about both, it'll be a while before we fully move over to using only computers, I like CDs still and I think the computer will be great for more background music type situations. But the flexibility to have all your mp3s at your disposal is incredible, you can save and reuse playlists and always add notes to songs which can be saved in the ID3/ medadata of the MP3 tracks. A lot of times what I'm looking for is more of a mood and less of a genre, which is often hard to find. So being able to build a database over time clearly is the way to make your life easier, especially for events that require a huge mix of different types of music.
So the guest musician ended up being Mike Garzon, who is David Bowie's pianist. He was great, he played very uptempo classical pieces. The piano you see pictured was Liberace's. There was also about 40 press members there and some stars although I only got a brief break to check out the action. You can see the setup below, we had part of the sound, video and auction setup downstairs and I was up on the second floor in the corner. I got to see a lot of friends from L.A. who dropped in as well. The art auction was a mixed bag, the curators felt that some of the collection was overpriced and therefore did not bring in as much money as hoped to the foundation. But it's a learning process I'm sure next year it will be organized a little differently. It was awesome to have Dave's help spinning as well, so that I could take a break and talk to everybody. You can see our setup in the last photo and the sound/ video in the atrium as well.
Tonight is the big night in Beverly Hills @ Lladro. It's a benefit for the Real Medicine Foundation which is in 10 countries including Nigeria, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Germany. I'll be spinning a mix of music from different parts of the world including Afro Voodoo Funk, French rap, roots reggae, Hatian calypso, 18th Street lounge electronica like Federico Aubele and Thievery Corporation, etc.
We'll see how it goes, there's an auction as well with artwork by Basqiat, etc. so it will be a mix throughout the evening. There will also be alive music but the guest has not been announced yet, looking forward to the night. Will post some photos tomorrow.
last night, will write more tonight and post more photos/ videos, for now here are a few!
We're headed up to the beautiful Hudson Valley tonight for an event at the Belvedere Mansion. It's a beautiful spot, very romantic, reminds me a little of Amherst, where you instantly put yourself in the headspace of a victorian cottage sipping red wine and reading Hemingway. It's been a while since we've travelled North of Manhattan for an event so I'm looking forward to it. 
