Busy Weekend of DJing

Being a DJ is a fun job. It's an up-and-down kind of job too. I do a lot of weddings. People book me for weddings months in advance. This is a good thing. I collect a deposit and then plan out my year based on my bookings. All that changes in the "slow season" which starts in November and continues through April. Of course in December and January you get a lot of last-minute bookings... holiday parties, fill-in jobs at bars and clubs... happens every year around this time. Good thing too because Christmas is only about two weeks away and I still have lots of gifts to buy and no money to buy them with.

So this weekend is the fill-in/last-minute job weekend. I started out last week with one job - a Saturday evening wedding reception. Now I have FOUR DJ gigs between Thursday and Saturday night.

Last night (Thursday) I DJ'd at Stan & Joe's Saloon on West Street Annapolis. It was my third time there in the past 12 months -each time as a fill-in when a band backed out or there was a schedule snafu. It's a cool place. It reminds me of how Acme Bar & Grill was "back in the day" when I ruled the roost there. Acme is totally different now but that's another story. Anyway, it's been a while since I had a regular weekly DJ gig to go to. Ever since I quit Heroes back in July -yeah, yet another story we'll have to chat about some time. The weekly bar gig is tough -especially when it's a Thursday night and you have to get up on Friday and go to the day job. One nice thing though is the regular flow of spending money. I miss that. So does Asa. She hates to be alone at night and I know sometimes I'm hard to deal with the next day when I'm tired from the night before. But if I were to DJ a regular weekly gig again, it would probably be Stan & Joe's. It wasn't that crowded at all last night -maybe because of the dropping temperature and the torential downpour of rain- but I had a good time. Everyone had a good time. It's always nice to hear "Man, you should DJ here more often." from the staff as you're loading out. I even had a few patrons praise my mad DJ skills -that's always nice, but sometimes you gotta take that kind of input with a grain of salt. A drunk person will declare you the greatest DJ in the world and all you had to have done is play his favorite song right before last call. Wow. But when you have the bartenders and the manager giving you the approving nod, well that means a little more.

I don't profress to be the greatest DJ that ever played in Annapolis, but I truly believe I'm uniquely different because I really love and appreciate the music and I approach my job as being to play what the people want to hear while, at the same time, mixing in music that'll move them to a different place or emotion. I'm good at that -mixing music together. I have an uncanny ability to mix or group songs together to create a vibe that affects people. I don't think there's many other DJs around town that can do that as well as I can. And I know there's nobody who cares about music like I do. Maybe it's because I'm a songwriter and musician too. Maybe it's my compulsive tendancy to always try to please everyone. And I say this with the greatest humility... I'm a really nice guy. I don't stand behind my mixer and act all cool and aloof just because I'm the DJ. I welcome requests and conversations with patrons. I try to make a connection with them. And I think folks really appreciate that -even if it's more on a subconscious level. That's part of the problem with drunk people. They're you're best friend in that moment but they don't really "get" how talented you really are. Sometimes neither does the management. DJing IS AN ART. Most people -most DJs- don't get that.

So tonight I'll be DJing at a new bar/restaurant in Annapolis. I actually played live there years ago with my band (when the place had a different name and different owners) but I've never DJ'd there. It's an upscale Italian restaurant called Pesce (PESH-ay) - it means "Fish". There's another local DJ who is "in" with the management and DJs there a lot. At the last minute, the owner decided to start a new promotion "College Night - 18 & Over" - and he decided to start it a week early. So this DJ who normally works there already had another party booked and he sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to fill-in. And so here I go. It will probably be dead there since it's not in a busy part of town and it's a brand new promotion. Still I'm curious to see what it's like in there now that it's gone upscale. If the management/staff are nice and the atmosphere is accomodating, perhaps I can turn that into a regular gig.

And that brings us to one of the strangest DJ gigs I've ever booked... Saturday afternoon I will be DJing at Nordstrom's in the Annapolis Westfield Mall. Don't ask me any specifics because I don't know squat. Don't know what type of music, where exactly I'm setting up, why I'm playing, etc. All I know is it pays $400 and I'm hoping it's an easy opportunity for some extra money before my wedding that evening at Paul's on the South River. So maybe I'll have some good stories from these gigs to blog about.