Morning all!
Just a blog to say that over my month off, I put together a really special DJ mix that showcases my preferred sound. As a DJ, whenever I am doing mixes, performances or radio shows, I am 'cookie-cuttered' into performing a certain type of way or in a certain style of music; and sometimes I find that really restraining. Music is, as ever, a creative thing so the freedom of expressions should come with that. ONLY doing a techno set (for example) can be very monotonous and boring, trapping in a sorts because I'd like to take the music in a certain direction but can't. I understand that its a dj's job to play for the crowd as well, but in this mix, I threw off such shackles and played for ME.
I wanted to create my sound again, something I used to do in my old free mixes (when I wasn't making a trance only or techno only mixtape) back in the day.
Which is it why, with great joy, that I am able to bring you my 'Hold My Beer' dj mixtape, it wasn't made solely for trance fans, because its not 100% trance, its not for techno fans, because its not 100% techno (Lord help the purists who can't accept more than one genre in their DJ sets), this mix is a musical playground, to have fun, to go off in tangents and to play the right tracks at the right time.
It's very rare these days for DJs to do such a mix, because usually they are playing to a niche crowd, and that crowd expects a certain type of sound otherwise the DJ is trashed within the community (I've seen it... "Urggh DJ X dropped a progressive record in their set...they've lost it") Their agents will try and mould them into a certain sound so they can be packaged and sold as a product (Hey TRY DJ X, they play only the purist darkwave neurofunk techno!), which for me, feels against all creativity and musical freedom for the DJ. But I've come to think, what is a DJ? A human jukebox? Many of the topflight are because when you go and see 'BIG NAME' you know what to expect, its formulaic, and isn't that boring? Wheres the surprise?
Hell, if I want to see a formula, I'll go rave in my old maths classroom.
So enjoy this. No formula. No format. Just me, enjoying myself, whilst in 'birthday-mode', smashing the typecast and expectation that a DJ should play only one genre. Snobby crowds, move aside AND JUST HAVE FUN!