AuralCandy.Net
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AuralCandy.Net
ParticipantOh, the nerve on some people! Sure, feel free to borrow my gear. Anything else I can get you while we’re at it, maybe a passionate night with my Mrs? 😀
ParticipantNo matter how bad the night is, always look for that one person who had a good time.
For example, I’ve DJ’d at theme events (mostly house music) which were organized in venues whose usual patrons were extremely unreceptive towards house music. People were complaining all night and it got really depressing. I thought to myself “This is a house music event. I was booked to play house music, so f**k you all. I’m going to have a good time, no matter what”.
Still, at the end of the night I had couple people come up to me and tell me that I was playing literally the best music they’ve ever heard in a night club.
ParticipantDon’t get too hung up to the idea that people are not having a good time unless they are dancing and jumping. Sure, if you’re playing in a dance bar you’d expect them to dance, but if you’re playing in a lounge people are more than happy just to nod their heads while enjoying a drink with their friends 🙂
ParticipantThere is much more to being a good DJ than just mixing, at least if one wants to build some kind of career out of it. Being dependable, professional and good at communicating are things that people value and are the factors that decide whether or not they want to book you again. Nobody wants to work with egoistic jerks or undependable tossers, no matter how brilliant they are on the decks.
ParticipantEliah,
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. However, I think there’s two overlapping topics at hand here.
1) General gender-based hatred toward female DJs.
This I agree is mostly a male problem. If people are hostile towards a fellow (no pun intended) solely because their gender, they’re undeniably being huge jerks. Then again, this is only part of the bigger jerk-problem in the scene; there seems to be a HUGE number of DJs who find the most ridiculous reasons to hate, diss and look down their fellow DJs. Gear purism, genre purism, the age-old sync debate – you name it.
2) Sexualization and objectification of female DJs
Some women choose to take the easy road and choose to present themselves as little more than hot piece of ass. This is a conscious choice on their part. That IMHO it not mens fault. Everybody is free to make whatever career decision they deem necessary. But here’s the thing…if one makes the career decision to, well, basically exploit the way men’s brains are hardwire, they IMHO should take the negative implications that come with it. To put it bluntly, if you look and act like a bimbo I’m going to make the assumption you’re a bimbo and I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
ParticipantEliah,
While I agree that the phenomenons you mentioned are somewhat undesirable, or at the very least negative, I have a problem with your frequent use of the word “misogyny”. By definition misogyny means “hatred towards women” and to me that suggest you are saying that men are exclusively guilty to all the aforementioned negative phenomenons. Having said that, despite the whiff of white-knightishm and moral superiority I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t what you intended to say.
We’ve already established that sex sells. Beautiful face and body just draws more attention, that’s how it goes. However, I wouldn’t call it *hatred* towards women, more like sincere admiration even. And here’s the kicker, according to my subjective experience, beauty/sexiness in marketing material attracts BOTH men and women. Not sure why that is…I guess it’s a matter of “guys want to have them, girls want to be them”.
It’s an age old mystery why there are so few female DJs. However, I think it’s a bit far-fetched to say that women HAVE to resort to becoming mere sex objects to get anywhere. It’s not that different from guys really. Both genders can resort to sell-out tactics, women just happen to have few more of them at their disposal. Building fame and career as DJ is hard because there is so much competition – that goes for both genders. Granted, it’s harder to do it sky skill and sweat of your brow alone.
To me the real question is, why do so many female DJs take the easy road and demean themselves into pieces of meat? It’s a conscious decision on their part, not some male-dictated no-other-options scenario.
June 3, 2014 at 9:53 am in reply to: MK-Ultra – Emerging Ibiza 2014 DJ Competition Mix (Funky & Disco House) #2035569ParticipantThanks for raising an interesting point and giving me some food for thought. I’m glad this turned out to be a constructive discussion even though it didn’t start as such.
Peace!
June 3, 2014 at 8:36 am in reply to: MK-Ultra – Emerging Ibiza 2014 DJ Competition Mix (Funky & Disco House) #2035565ParticipantWhen I mentioned positive political and cultural consequences of MK-Ultra, I was specifically referring to this part of the aforementioned Facebook post:
“Eventually some of the experimented drugs such as LSD found their way on the streets. CIA hoped LSD could be used to rob test subjects of their free will. Rather ironically, it had the opposite effect of making people think outside the box. In fact, LSD played a major part in the birth of the hippie movement during the 1960s. The hippies quite literally turned a weapon of oppression into an instrument of peace. Hippie ideology might seem naive by todays standards, but it’s important to recognize its significance in ending the Vietnam war.”
While ending of the Vietnam war was not a direct consequence rather than the result of a chain of events, it was a positive thing. Obviously there were negative aspects in the hippie movement, such as substance abuse, but its core message of peace, love, tolerance and anti-materialism is something I consider to be positive.
As for the cultural and political consequences you mentioned…yeah, I more or less agree with you there. I’ll deliberately refrain from commenting further. Seeing we’re both into history and conspiracy theories, I’m sure it would be an interesting and fruitful conversation, but it would seriously derail this conversation off-topic, so let’s just leave it at that 🙂
You know what’s rather interesting too? I’ve had this DJ name “MK-Ultra” for more than 12 years, but you are the first person to react to it like this. While one can argue that “DJ MK-Ultra” is comparable to “DJ Holocaust”, people just don’t seem to take it like that. Mostly because extremely few people have ever heard of project MK-Ultra, but even when explained what MK-Ultra is/was, people don’t take it like I’m idolizing the project or its actions. This goes for both Europeans and Americans.
I guess it all comes down to how people associate words and symbols. For example, people of Christian faith often wear crosses on their neck. It’s rather macabre if you think about it. After all, it’s like wearing a electric chair or noose on a pendant.
June 2, 2014 at 11:41 am in reply to: MK-Ultra – Emerging Ibiza 2014 DJ Competition Mix (Funky & Disco House) #2035402ParticipantI’ll give you credit for taking the time to do your homework and dig up the Facebook post that explains the whole history behind the DJ name. Saves me the trouble of explaining it here.
I do agree that what project MK-Ultra did was downright evil, but arguably its political and cultural consequences weren’t (as explained in the Facebook post). While it was stated that the purpose of the DJ name is also to educate the listeners, primarily the name has a personal meaning for the reasons likewise explained in the Facebook post.
After some consideration I’m inclined to agree with you. Without proper context the name might sound like it’s idolizing project MK-Ultra. One might even say it’s a bit like calling oneself “DJ Holocaust”, which would definitely be distasteful by anyones standards.
June 2, 2014 at 9:26 am in reply to: MK-Ultra – Emerging Ibiza 2014 DJ Competition Mix (Funky & Disco House) #2035377ParticipantCare to tell us what’s wrong with MK-Ultra as a DJ name exactly? I’m sure your complaint can’t be about originality, since your own nickname is Alchemy.
So how about it, buddy boy? Spit out what’s bothering you. Give us something concrete and preferably constructive instead of shouting from the bushes like a punk.
ParticipantWhoops, wrong Mixcloud link. Here’s the correct one:
http://www.mixcloud.com/AuralCandyNet/mk-ultra-2-much-disco-4-ya/
ParticipantIf you’re A) really hardcore about making your own visuals B) have some programming skills C) own a Mac, you might want to look into Quartz Composer. It’s very popular among VJs.
Quartz Composer is a part of Apple’s XCode developer toolkit. It’s available as free download from App Store. Among other things, you can use the input signal of your audio device to make your visual elements react to music.
ParticipantI haven’t yet tried this since all my vinyls are fairly new and methods this drastic haven’t been required.
They theory is solid though. The chemical composition of the wood glue does not react with the vinyl. Assuming don’t you spill the glue and make a mess, the glue should form a membrane you can peel right off.
ParticipantIf you really want to go the extra mile and aren’t squeamish, there’s the wood glue method.
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ParticipantEarlier I replied to this thread by criticizing what a beating a dead horse this topic is. My message got removed by the moderator, so Plan B: let’s add something new to the conversation.
Aside being a DJ I’m also an event promoter/organizer. I’ve never cared much what gear other DJs use and how they use it, but when dealing with a number of other DJs from an organizer’s point of view makes such things even more trivial. If a DJ you’ve booked is a good guy, shows up on time, has proper communications skills and most importantly rocks the crowd, I don’t give two s**ts if he mixes on pancakes.
On the other hand an unreliable, arrogant, I’ll-show-up-when-damn-well-I-please jerk with zero communication skills will be DJing for the last time in my event – I don’t care if you mix blindfolded with Polish vintage Unitra reel-to-reel decks, your ass it out with that kind of behaviour.
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