Confessions of a Mad DJ

dj bakasan - baka Means Idiot

Dido - White Flag (Rock-It! Fuel Mix) Jurassic 5 ft Dave Matthews Band - Work It Out Headnodic ft Procussions - The Drive All Natural - Writer’s Block Del Tha FUnkee Homosapien - Thank Youse DJ Format - Now You Jurassic 5 - Jurass Finish First Ugly Duckling - Turn It Up Young Black Teenagers - Tap The Bottle 112 - Peaches and Cream Wreckx N Effect - Rump Shaker JD ft Snoop - We Just Wanna Party Wit You Musiq - Musiqforthenight Lumidee ft Tony Sunshine - She’s Like The Wind Cassie - Long Way 2 Go Mase - Feels So Good Down - Leak Like A Cholo Will Smith - Gettin Jiggy With It Danity Kane - Touching My Body Gwen Stefani - Holla Back Girl Ne-Yo - Because of You (Kanye Remix) Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder Nelly Futardo - Say It Right Beatles vs Missy Elliott - Obla Di Obla Da Nirvana - Come As You Are Bon Jovi - You Give Love A Bad Name Kelly Clarkson vs Blur - Since Song #2 Been Gone (DJ Steve1der)

–

I should make it a policy to stop mixing when I’m dead tired. This mix was nearly 4 hours of sheer comedy gold. Feeling bad for cutting my mix short last time, I decided to throw down an hour long mix for ya’ll. Too bad I didn’t find out until the very end that I’d plugged my recording gear into the headphone jack of my laptop and not the microphone input. Strike 1. Correct the wire and determined, I decided to try again. An hour later, guess what, I’d managed to hit the wrong button on my recording software and I have a nice hour long file of dead silence. Strike 2. At this point it’s 1:30 AM and I debate whether to give it another try. Figured what the hell… and the result is this mix… not quite an hour… was exhausted. Sue me.

So this mix is all about style and defining a signature sound as a DJ.  I’m all over the map musically as a bit of an experiment.  The mix runs from breakbeats to old school hip hop to mainstream R&B to rock to adult contemporary to funky jazz.

–

I’d gotten into a conversation with someone recently about what defined a DJ’s “style”. We went back and forth a bit on what constitutes style and what distinguishes one DJ from another (beside just sheer technical ability which is difficult for the laymen to measure anyhow). It basically boiled down to what they played, the way they mix from song to song, and the overall energy they have behind the decks.

At the very end of the conversation, my friend (lives and DJs in Washington DC) said I had a very “West Coast” sound. Probing what that meant, by his count the crux of the West Coast DJ sound was a set that pulls deep from the crates–nothing is really off limits. The mix goes from track to track very quickly, any given song is only playing for a bit more than a minute, probably not more than two. The technical skills are demonstrated throughout in each individual mix. And there’s a healthy, healthy love for the use of old school hip hop side by side with newer material.

After hearing this, I guess it fits my overall “sound”. As somewhat of a joke though, this mix is me trying to be as West Coast as possible. Whatever that means. It’s got its rough patches since I was purposely trying to go all over the place genre wise , but ah well. (Jeremy, tell me if I slipped and got a little too East Coast).

–

By request I’m going to start making my posts in a slightly better bitrate than I’d been posting as.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [44:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (679)

bakasan jiggy, old school, indy, R&B, mashup, bakasan 2 Comments » | (0 ratings)  | Email it

dj bakasan - March 26, 2007

Indy with a jiggy twist at the end.

Brother Ali - Truth Is DJ Jazzy Jeff ft Rhymefest - Jeff n Fess LORD ft Recworm - Freshmen Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Thank Youse Funkdoobiest - Hip Hop Music The Roots - Don’t Say Nuthin DJ Format - Separated At Birth (Fingathing Remix) EPMD - Crossover Fu-Schnickens - La Shmoove Ghostface Killah ft Amy Winehouse - You Know I’m Not Good Nas ft Various - Where Are They Now (90s Remix) Pussycat Dolls - Button Young Capone - Lights Camera Action Bel Biv DeVoe - Word To The Mutha

–

Thoughts haha, the mix into DJ Jazzy Jeff is rough. As I was mixing it in, I sneezed. HARD. Managed to salvage the mix and get it back beat matched, but listening to it again I can’t help but both grimace and laugh. Ish happens when you’re on the deck, just gotta handle it.

Mix to Funkdoobiest got away from me a little bit while I dug in my records. Easily fixed but listening back to it, it annoys me.

Need to focus on learning some of the lesser played songs in my crates better. Missed mix points twice in this set–once in brining in The Roots I have to fade Don’t Say Nuthin’ out and bring it back in again later. On EPMD to Fu-Schnickens you can hear the start of a new EPMD verse just as I cut over to La Shmoove. Knowing your wax is the biggest thing that one can use to distinguish him or herself from another DJ.

DJ Format tracks just BEG to get juggled.

Lingo break: juggling is the act of the DJ playing two copies of the same record simultaneously, each at a different point in the song. By cutting back and forth between the two turntables, a DJ can effectively alter the flow of the song and ad-lib a remix of the song live. The simplest and most common application of the technique (and what I use on Separated at Birth) is to offset the two records slightly so that you can produce an echo kind of effect. You basically hear the drum sounds and verses from the emcee double up. LA radio DJs are known the world around for their juggling tricks while mixing live on the air.

Love the Ghostface track and originally the intent was to drop it and take the mix over into more of a funk and soul vibe, maybe use all instrumentals and start dropping down breakbeats. As I was in the mix though, I changed gears and decided I wanted to keep it in the realm of hip hop and decided to drop in the Nas instead. While fading out the GF though, I shouldn’t have been so damn antsy and playing around w/ the Nas record. It sounds pretty meh. And I wasn’t really doing anything, just moving the record around due to boredom. Idle hands and boredom are the biggest dangers to a DJ.. they never take you anywhere good. ;P –

As an aside, do non-DJs find these little analysis of mixes interesting? I intended to use this blog a bit to help demystify the dark arts of DJing a little bit and breaking down these mixes were meant to both allow me a chance for some self-critique to look back on, but to also allow the non DJ an insight into the way a DJ thinks, how they build out their sets, how they make their decisions, etc.

If I’m just talking to myself, then perhaps I’ll move the notes to somewhere off the blog.. Still feeling my way around w/ the direction I want to take this podcast.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [32:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (145)

bakasan jiggy, indy, bakasan 1 Comment » | (0 ratings)  | Email it