There’s something about the discipline of only having a box of records though. Tell your mates it’s 100 files on the stick for next time and no bringing of laptops!
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Limitations are hugely important, in anything. Having any piece of music a click away, is anxiety producing for me.
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Late reply, but I’m done with Sydney - especially these bars who hire the same bunch of DJs playing the same tired funk and rare groove, neo soul and broken beat safety selections. Fuck right off. Making a rotary mixer and some monstera plants their personality. where’s the danger, the excitement, the strange, the unexpected? I guarantee you if you went in and played an honest selection of ear opening music for people to be surprised by, you’d never be asked back.
‘Listening Bars’- as long as what you like listening to is what you can hear at every fucking niche bar aimed at the over 30 crowd in Sydney. Yawnsville.
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Definitely this and maybe it’s the weight but I only pack what I will play rather than trying to cover all the bases.
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Completely, limitations force creativity
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I got told off for playing a This Mortal Coil record in a listening bar.
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I’m sure the technology is there that could have a listening device in any PRS venue linked to a Shazam style database that would or could send any artist a fixed sum on any play of their track.
(obvs might be a push for edits etc).
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Maximum underground Dj points if it can’t recognise any of your tunes.
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I was in Majorca with my family around the same time (Cala D’Or) and you’re right about the heat and the music… must have heard Robin S at least three times a day, once when a singer (who was actually pretty good) was belting it out in front of a restaurant.
I’ve never really come across the towel thing before this holiday either, we hung around a kids pool which was quieter and always managed to get a sun bed ok, but I was up at 7 one morning and every bed around the main pool already had a towel on it, I thought they must have been putting them out late at night but I had a look at midnight one evening, no towels… do people really get up in the middle of the night to put them out?
My other half is usually out putting down the towels by 7am 
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haha… 7 o’clock’s not too bad as I can imagine being awake then anyway, but there must have been sixty or seventy beds and everyone of them had a towel on by 7. They must have been getting up at 5 o’clock or something, sticking their towels on and going back to bed.
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Someone needs to run down and throw all 70 towels in the pool.
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I went to Majorca years ago and witnessed the ridiculous rush for the towels from the hotel balcony. What a bunch of numpties.
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‘Listening bars’ are becoming very pastiche in my experience. Found myself playing at a few over the last couple of years, and while I’m sure the original Japanse model for this sort of set up is fucking great, over here it seems to just be an excuse for a poncy bar to supply expensive drinks over a super hi tech audio equipment (but not always) and, worst of all a bored / ignorant clientele that has absolutely no idea of what the concept is supposed to be. More effort needs to be made as to what is trying to be achieved. Sticking some decks and a DJ in the corner of your woodpanelled space (its always woodpanelled) just doesnt cut it
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I miss just turning up at some dirty disco boozer with a DJ mate armed with a Tesco carrier bag of records, headphones covered in masking tape and a flask of magic potions and, thereafter, watching the chaos unfold. I resent being forced into these customised lounges, where you’re obliged to sip cocktails with people you can’t hear - in environments where you can’t dance. Always hoping there will be a rebellion and people will jump on tables, before remembering that those around me would give themselves a hernia
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I think having a DJ is where it’s all been lost. All the Kissas usually have the proprietor or a member of staff put a record on in its entirety and you sit back and listen while sipping on some wine or a whiskey.
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Seattle has one of these and it’s rather precious. It was fun to go once and hear an amazing pressing of a classic album on a nice system, but wouldn’t make a habit of it. No drinks allowed in the hifi room. Really. 
Absolutely. I thought the whole point was that it was just the owners record collection and a hifi.
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I just got back from a trip to Thailand/mainly Koh Phangan. I went to a couple of bars that had what all these listening bars are missing, PERSONALITY. Venues that were created by the owner, according to their taste and peculiarities. They drew a very eclectic demographic of local expats, travellers and just locals. The music was excellent, the drinks cheap, smoking allowed, and everyone just being open and non cliquey. I absolutely soaked up the experience, and even played a set on one of the Sunday’s to a super enthusiastic crowd. It kind of felt like going back in time a little before everyone but the cashed up were priced out of venues, and absolutely everything became closed down or middle class.
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False advertising there.
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