The yin to the other thread’s yang. Tell us about those nights where the stars aligned, everything went right and the records seemed to play themselves.
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Naive Melody at Charlie’s (appropriate name iirc) in Manchester July 2007, co-DJing with Matthew Burgess. Infamously known as “the night Moonboots danced”.
A marvellously messy night from the first record we put on until the last. Every mix seemed to work and every choice was the right one. The records played themselves, as you say. Brilliant memories.
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lol does no one have good experiences ?
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They just aren’t as fun to recount as the terrible ones, it seems!
The best ones are ones that almost feel like they didn’t happen and fly by in a second. Just gone. Like I played golf when I was little (like on public courses not fancy golf) and sometimes you’d play a shot and it like you didn’t even hit the ball and it just flew. The best gigs always feel like that. Same with the radio. When it just flows and you’re in it its so nice… I also like DJing together with Piers cause I get to annoy him for two hours and he can’t run away…
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Okay, I’ll go.
Club in Berlin. I had assumed that they’d tuck me safely away in the smaller space, but I was in the main room, Like Paul says, the time just flew, 4 hours in the blink of an eye. Afterwards they paid me more than I had asked for.
The flip side to this was that on my third visit, they asked me about becoming a resident. However, after my set they never contacted me again. I might have played one too many tunes from the Massive Vocal Screamers thread…
Precious Hall was extremely special too.
Or anytime I play with Paul of course 
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My first recurrent gig which turned into a 2y residency is still by far the best time I ever had DJing. I was figuring shit out as I went along and people didn’t care. I started out playing trip hop, psychedelic and shoegaze rock, went to hip hop, and finally to disco and funkier stuff. The club had a very crappy soundsystem, turntables were always busted in some different unexpected way, loads of feedback, “booth” was a shitty particle board table on the same level as the drunk people dancing, mixers would crap out constantly, but I didn’t care and neither did anyone else. It was the time of my life, and I knew it then, just as I do now. I had a lot of fun, and got nothing but experience from that. I still miss it a lot.
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I wanted a name for the sound system and nights we put on, so named it after the New York ‘Disco Fever’ referenced in Dj history, where hustling disco turned to into hip hop….anyway, it was always a clunky name.
This was when smoking in pubs was a thing, myspace was the place, disco did still suck though.
Massive sound system in a tiny dance floor area, lights, strobes, smoke, mirror ball, lighting op, Optikinetics, all that Bozak nonsense, a massive dirty disco bass line through a DBX boombox, another pair of huge speakers in the backroom. So many people took inspiration from the NY sound at this time.
I’d been up at stupid O clock the previous day as an lighting tech in Brixton academy, major name DJ act, couldn’t have cared less about the big gig at the time. ThIs little night was far more original and exciting.
Mr L was providing a huge contingent of local party persons who had prepaid the entertainment. The third member is a broadcast DJ from the days of Kiss FM, local pirates and BBC work, we kind of know what we are doing. We also had guest DJ who is a heavy Disco collector and a working DJ from way back in Europe.
It was rammed beyond belief, those Philly soul bass lines were ridiculous, we were playing as accessible as possible although I was getting asked to play something they know when playing Ripple “The Beat Goes On" by the landlady. I still have some photos, the videos are lost on myspace.
If I could name a tune it would be Chic’s Dance Dance, on a US 12. Probably the first heavy bass disco 12, everybody knew it, sounded astonishing.
Placed right next to a Police station, the pub seemed to be an island for some local drug dealers to hang in, I guess in plain sight and all? The night finished with no beer, vodka, gin, absolutely nothing left in the pub. Big men were drinking sherry at the end.
We had a recon in the pub on an earlier Saturday night, where the local old men soul DJ’s were playing to exactly nobody with no effort made.
The Landlord had the audacity (we get used to this) to say “its been busier”.
The local dealers gave the landlord a beating in the car park afterwards. The Landlord and his partner separated after this night, the pub closed shortly afterwards.
Best. Gig. Ever.
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