Not up to the previous standards, but the one where a wasted girl came up asking me if I had the one that went “DJ hype, hype, gimme the funk, gimme the funk”. When I politely explained that was DJ hype’s personalised dub plate and I was very much not DJ hype she got really pissed off and asked if I was going to play it or not.
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This brought back a memory that i thought I’d blanked out. Here goes…
I got a call from a contact who worked at Glyndebourne Opera House. I’d played at her Birthday Party a year or so before which had gone extremely well.
Apparently they had been let down by the guy who normally does their end of show parties and would I be interested? Certainly I said, thinking that these are music people, show people, discerning people, they’ll have good ears, they’ll want to party.
I hedged my bets and took a bunch of stuff that at least they’d know, some edits, Chic, Dimitri from Paris, ToddT Grace Jones etc etc…Well, within half an hour I had the same, woman come up again and again and again. She worked in wardrobe apparently. “Have you got something more up to date?” She asked,
“Some new stuff”, “Have you got Spotify?”, “Can i plug my phone in?”
Well to cut a long and painful story short, I did plug her phone in, I said “you won’t need headphones will you?”, as i unplugged the 1210’s and packed them away, leaving her on the stage with a phone and a mixer playing All Night Long followed by Tainted Love, yes right
new stuff. She did then play Blurred Lines which I absolutely bloody hate, always have always will.
I was quite cross, but had already been paid so felt leaving her to it was the best option. I imagine she still works in Wardrobe, I never got asked back funnily enough.
I likened it to me turning up to see the Opera at Glyndebourne and shouting out “he’s behind you’ at the crucial moment. Philistines!!
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Ditto. Also had “what sort of music is this?”, I was playing Rolling Stones.
Wife of a famous baseball player slips me a 100$ Bill to make sure I keep her and her girlfriends happy, comes back an hour later to demand her money back because of the « shit music » LOL
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Also, similar vibe: I got booked to play one of the very first night at a shit bottle service club called 1OAK. About 30mn into my set the owner hands me my fee and sends me home. LOL
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That’s for the best gig thread. Getting paid without doing shit is my favorite.
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Loved that story about how weatherall dealt with nuisances
“How much did you pay to get in?”
“£5”
“Here’s a tenner. Now fuck off”
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I’ve got so many of these I don’t even know where to begin. From when I was a D&B DJ in the 90’s - loads of “I can’t dance to this” complaints, which I would respond to by…dancing…- to getting harrassed so much for trying to sneak a toke at an all-dayer that I stopped the decks mid-song, packed and left with the promoter running after pleading us to stay…one of my faves is that I got booked by someone who saw me out at my Saturday night residency, which at the time was an atmospheric Good Looking-style D&B event, for a house party, but when I asked them about music it became clear that D&B is NOT what they had in mind (Ooooooo k), I get to the gig armed with a bunch of soul, funk, a little hip hop and such. Curtis, James Brown, real basic shit. Look around and notice - oh all white folks dressed nicely. Weird, not usually my crowd. Find out they’re all investment bankers. First, I was trying to play the Coldcut remix of Paid in Full but the only copy I could find in time for the gig was the soundtrack to the movie Colors (with Ice-T), went to play the track and instead of the tune I wanted, the room was treated to the Colors theme song (by Ice-T), with the lyrics “I AM A NIGHTMARE WALKING, PSYCHOPATH TALKING” etc. The mood swiftly turned to abject horror and many exited the room. At one point I decided to take a break, have a drink (since the night wasn’t exactly going swimmingly) and encountered a gentleman in a side room. He asks me about music - “Oh - I see you’re playing some tunes in there, huh?” “Yep, you know, just some classic funk & soul to get everyone in a good mood. Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, James Brown…” The white dude in a suit at a house party wrinkles his brow and says “You know, I really respect James Brown, but I just can’t dance to him.” Silence on my part and “welp, better get back to it!”…later that night I’m in a taxi on the way home. Cabbie is a 50-something African American guy, jazz on the stereo, Cosby sweater, the lot. We get to talking about my night and I regale him with the tale that I just told above. There’s a very pregnant pause after the punchline and the guy then says, “That’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life”. LOL. NAILED IT.
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My first gig was my worst gig. House of Blues. Took acid 30mins before my set. Put on the first record and immediately lift off. Put on the 2nd record and just keep flipping it over and over and cant find the right song. Panic. Train wreck. Can’t read any words on any records. Luckily the next DJ dropped off his stuff while i was frantically going through my records, so i told him what happened and asked him to take over, which he kindly did. I got paid and the promoter later told me he heard I did a good job. Last time I ever did that.
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I know a good therapist ! That’s proper traumatic !! Amazing story
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Cor blimey that is horrendous, better luck xxx
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Any gig in Shoreditchmostly Hoxton bar and kitchen and electricity showrooms and sometimes last days of decadence ( used to be near East village " post 2008, "when’s it going to get good " here’s a twenty now fuck off " you …are a cunt, I’m gonna chin ya - and he almost did had to swerve " "what the fuck is this wind chime music? " "let me do a line back there "
"Put these coats back there mush " and let me plug my phone in x 20 "
“Are you autistic?” was my fave
And endless smell of fart gak mingling with joop and sight of jeans n sheux
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Not even close to the horror stories here but I do remember how royally pissed I was when I had a full house getting down to the Dimitri from Paris remix of Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover” (my copy since scratched beyond play) and some idiot woman threw her coat on the booth, right over the plugs. Everything just popped and shut off at once and I was ready to bash her head in with the turntable. Fortunately the equipment was undamaged (needed to reset the mixer) but I had em, then I lost em. Instant sobering moment.
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Har Mar superstar after telling people this will be great…
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This one just popped into my head. During the Sydney 2000 olympics, a large venue popped up with an outdoor dance arena and smallish indoor bar. Myself and my partner in crime at the time played the bar area. Brasilian, nu-jazz, broken beat/mellow bar tunes. The main arena was some big trance DJ, it was packed.
The trance gig only went for a couple of hours, the very hyped punters flooded into the bar and swarmed us with requests/demands for harder sounds. After about half an hour of this someone bumped my mate Trev’s beloved Joyce album while it was playing. He packed up and left. I was left with another hour of fending off very disgruntled roided up supermodels that just wanted trance. Was quite tired after that.
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I’ve had people get aggressive about the selection. Leaning over the decks, angrily going “call yourself a DJ?”
But the most memorable worst gigs for me are the ones where it was self inflicted, through over indulgence. Too shameful to give details but when you can’t read the labels and the beats are all swirling around in your head it’s difficult.
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*Anything a bit more Techy
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“Can my mate have a go on the decks?”
“No.”
*threats of violence.
Happened to me twice.
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Or A guy beside the booth using imaginary faders
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One night back in the dark ages, my friends and I were booked on the lineup to play an illegal outdoor event in Newcastle, about a 2 hour drive North of Sydney. We made the drive up and arrived around 10pm. The party was being held in a natural amphitheater created by one of Newcastle’s many sand dunes, and unbeknownst to us, the distance from where we could park our cars to where the party was held was quite a trek, especially carrying full crates of vinyl through soft sand that went past your ankle upon each step, up hill and down.
Eventually we reached the destination and the sight that greeted us was incredible. Standing up on the lip of the amphitheater, you were treated to the aerial view of the crowd below, the dj playing on open decks, a huge bonfire and a massive oversized Indian tee pee.
By now the acid had kicked in and we were loving it all, dancing up on the wall of the sand dune. Not too long before we were due to go on, we noticed the wind had increased somewhat and in the distance, a low rumble could be heard. The storm was upon us before we had time to blink - a real fucker of a downpour with howling wind that sent the punters into a mad scurry, everybody helping pack up the decks and pull down the tee pee etc. The entire party of around 100 revelers then found themselves all huddles under a huge tarp as the storm raged on, thunder, lightning the whole nine yards. We’re all tripping and holding up the tarp by hand.
This goes on for an hour and by the time the storm clears, it’s evident that the party cannot continue, thus begins the long trek back to the cars at 2am in the dark through wet sand carrying 30kg boxes of records. We make it to the cars and that’s where we spend the rest of the night, wet and cold and tired. Eventually dawn arises and the drivers who were semi straight enough to make the long drive back to Sydney take us home.
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