dj nyc

Came across this article this morning about how more and more people in New York are learning how to dj in light of the recession and losing their jobs. This is awesome, love to hear when people decide to pursue their passion and take a leap of faith into the creative world.  I was personally driven by a similar desire to not sit in a cubicle under flourescent lights forever, and to find some outlet for my passion for sharing music with others.  One of the great things about djing and meeting other djs is the majority of the time you meet people who have a burning desire to express themselves with music by producing, sharing, mixing and performing it.  In fact I think if you were considering hiring a dj I would make it a priority to figure out whether or not the person was actually passionate about music and djing, or whether they were doing it more just to “make some extra cash”.  This can usually be accomplished by asking them what some of their favorite types of music to spin are or to recount some memorable moments spinning.  Sean has much more in depth dj advice here. 

It’s great people have places like dubspot to be able to learn, it does seem a bit pricey at $1695.  Compare with online schools like fxphd where you get 3 classes for $330, the courses are much more sophisticated, and you actually have work you can take with you.  I’m sure it’s a great place to learn and the community aspect of it is helpful, but there are literally thousands of free tutorials online, type in “learn to dj” on youtube, or just start out a friend’s party or bar messing around like most of us did.  After all a school may be able to show you how to mix, scratch and beat match, but it can’t show you what kind of music you like, and this is the most vital part of djing. 

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Funky Reincarnation by Marvin Gaye is one of those nice soul gems you don’t hear much.  This album has a couple different versions but the alternative version has the funkiest bass and drums.  You get the feeling Marvin was listening to Parliament/ Funkadelic at this time and wanted to try out a little of the space funk for himself.

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As we’ve been building our music library the past few years Apple has taken the lion’s share of our budget for new music. In 2006 we spent almost $600 on Itunes and feel it’s important to purchase the music we use  and participate in the system. With that said one of the great things about Itunes is how easy it is to search, browse and purchase music. A lot of people would agree that they have been so successful for this reason, it’s actually easy to buy a song from Itunes then to go try to find it elsewhere on the web.

The flipside is that imposing a 7 CD burn limit on tracks you purchased and copy protecting MP3s so that they do not work in any other program or on an unauthorized computer. What’s with the 5 computer authorization anyway? Don’t they know most tech geeks have at least 3 computers? It also mysteriously crashes when you approach the 7 CD burn limit often.  So you have all these extra steps, reimporting burned CDs, or using a program like tunebite to re-record the copy protected tracks, just to use music that you purchased.  I’m surprised Apple doesn’t see how much money they will make if they take out all these restrictions, I honestly think they would move from 3rd to 1st as the largest music retailer in the U.S.

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