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"Poor"/"Mediocre" DJing at Basie100 Week

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:40 am
by Swifty
Excerpts from Yehoodi:
Falty411 wrote:The DJed music - Overall I thought the DJed music was poor. It was a wide variety of dancers at this event, and there should of been a wide variety of music. I did not hear a true variety, I did hear DJs through their few novelty fast tunes in the mix, but thats not waht i am talking about, I am talking about a true variety of tempos and styles. Overall the events DJed music was sluggish.
Niquah wrote:Music? Well it can always be better. I personally feel like the best music of the whole weekend was played during the competition (*ahem* Reuben) I would have liked to hear a lot more of that kind of stuff both live and djed. That was the only dj that I felt catered to my taste so I would have to agree that variety of music was not quite as wide as the dancers. that's life though
Yoda wrote:I agree with Mike. The music did lack variety. I am not saying the music that was played was bad, I thought it was good. It is just not my personal preference and I felt the only time I got what I like was during the contest (Reuben rocks!)

For the DJs, The ones I heard played good stuff, but in a narrow range. Thursday night was dissapointing to me, and the rest of the weekend DJing did[n't] leave me disappointed [n]or excited about it. I thought it was mediocre.
The criticisms start on page 9 of this thread, I think.

I know many of you were there, anyone care to share an opinion? I'll post my response below.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:43 am
by Swifty
on Yehoodi, Swifty wrote:I'm not taking these DJ criticisms too personally, as my name hasn't been mentioned and since I only spun during one of HRO's breaks & after they finished, but I'd really like to know what people wanted to hear that they didn't. It does seem to me like a case of people never being happy, but I'm never opposed to some constructive criticism.

I don't remember my entire set, but I do know that it was (by design) all Count Basie and although I don't have the specific recording dates or tempos in front of me, I know played a range spanning from "Moten Swing" by Benny Moten (Basie on Piano, very early 30's) & "Easy Does It" (a request/shout-out to Frankyboy; late 30's-early 40's, I think) up to "Corrine, Corrina" (Joe Turner w/ Basie Orch., 1972) & a recording of "Splanky" from Holland in 1971.

I did try to give a decent representation of Basie's career, especially considering there are some dancers that swear by the old stuff and others swear by the new stuff. In doing so, there were some New Testament Basie tunes in the short set but I did feel that I primarily played Old Testament Basie, "years that his main audience were dancers not listeners." (Ahem - Mike :P) I also know that I lately I've had a tendency to ignore vocal numbers, which many people like, so I made it a point to mix it up & included songs featuring at least Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing & Ella Fitzgerald. My band break tempos ranged from around 120bpm to about 200bpm.

I also want to mention again that I think RaleighRob met my "All Basie" challenge with aplomb and played a nice variety of tunes as well.

I didn't play any real flagwavers during the band break because I considered the size of the room and the sheer number of people in it and decided that if I had some people might have been killed. I did, however, play "Shout and Feel It" (1937, ~230-235bpm) and "Jumpin' at the Woodside" (I think it was a 50's version in Europe, I'll check if people are interested) after the band ended - partly because I was told to play something that would encourage people to head to late night and partly because I wanted to hear some Basie flagwavers.

Granted, my (and Rob's) sets were hardly the bulk of the weekend's canned music, but I'm really at a loss as to what people wanted that they did not get. I did get some nice complements, by the way, and they still by far outweigh the negatives I've heard.

Again, I'm not completely broken up about the complaints & won't be losing any sleep over them - I'm just wondering where they are coming from.

...

"Moten Swing" is ~182bpm
"Easy Does It" is ~157bpm (corrected link)
"Corrine, Corrina" is ~165bpm
"Splanky" is ~144bpm

I know I played some faster tunes, but can't remember which. "9:20 Special" or "Taps Miller" may have been thrown in there.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:01 pm
by Nando
I didn't DJ any of the official events that weekend, but I think this is an important note by Swifty.
I didn't play any real flagwavers during the band break because I considered the size of the room and the sheer number of people in it and decided that if I had some people might have been killed.
Don't know if I would have played the room the same way (not that I'm known for flagwaving set) but I suppose when a room is that crowded, you may think about the actual safety issue as well.

Also, I believe most (if not all) of the mediocre critiques mention the fact that those people were not at the Friday night venue or weren't paying attention, but I felt Swifty and Raleigh Rob did play a lot of pre-war Basie and at a usually moderate speed (if not fast) on average to say the least.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:15 pm
by mousethief
Shit, I'm staying out of this one, except to say that Falty said a lot of good things about the event and the organizers as well.

Kalman

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:27 pm
by RaleighRob
I played a couple of faster tunes because I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing if it cleared that crowded floor a bit.

As for the DJ'ing the rest of the weekend, I'm going to keep my mouth shut, except to say that the accordion version of April In Paris on Sunday night just about killed me.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:36 pm
by Swifty
mousethief wrote:Shit, I'm staying out of this one, except to say that Falty said a lot of good things about the event and the organizers as well.

Kalman
Chicken.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:02 pm
by mousethief
The weekend's over and I ain't gonna make the Basie Bicentennial, so what difference would it make? It's not like bigger venues and better lapdances will just appear because I posted on SwingDJs.

I really didn't pay attention to the DJs - I was drinking, watching the contests or there was a band playing. I came *this close* to DJing, too and I'm fully aware that someone could be complaining about my set if that had happened.

I didn't expect variety; I expected a lot of Basie.

Kalman

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:09 pm
by Mr Awesomer
RaleighRob wrote:As for the DJ'ing the rest of the weekend, I'm going to keep my mouth shut, except to say that the accordion version of April In Paris on Sunday night just about killed me.
And did you see how excited that DJ was about that song? He was acting like he was directing the piece.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:18 pm
by mousethief
LAWrence???

Kalman

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:43 pm
by BigCash
mousethief wrote:LAWrence???

Kalman
lol

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:52 pm
by julius
well i was pretty freakin happy on friday night after HRO finished and there was space to dance and some nice peppy music being played. i think that was swifty at work, but i don't quite remember.

i barely noticed the DJing all weekend long as far as the official events were concerned. it was more about live music.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:01 pm
by mousethief
Maybe it was that sidecar.

Kalman

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:24 pm
by LindyChef
julius wrote:i barely noticed the DJing all weekend long as far as the official events were concerned. it was more about live music.
We have a winner!

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:50 pm
by Lawrence
mousethief wrote:LAWrence???
Kalman
No, I wasn't there. :?

But I assume that, considering the source, any such "lack of variety" criticism reflects the fact that the DJ'ed music did not stray far from being excellent.

Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 6:52 pm
by Shorty Dave
Here's what I said:

For those interested in the specifics of Mike's "overall" comment, the lack of variety of DJs throughout the weekend that Mike is referring to consisted of:
-Tomo
-Myself
-Manu
-Raleigh Rob
-Swifty
-Larry Kang
-Reuben (a couple social songs, but not a ton...)
-Bill Borgida
-Greg Avakian
-Matt Perelli
-Ryan Mascaro
-Tina Davis
-I heard Giselle was suppossed to DJ Sat afternoon, but I don't know if she did, and if she didn't, I don't know who did (any care to chime in here?)
-Steve Watkins, Kelly, Devona, Nando, and the rest of the Blues party DJs

Sorry you felt the likes of Swifty, Ryan, Manu and Greg, etc, was "poor" and "sluggish" and lacked "true variety of tempos and styles". You can't please everyone! (shrug)