Daisho Con

1stAgent wrote:When Sarah and I walked into the dance at Detour, they were playing Caramelldansen. Later in the night, they played the openings to Naruto and Gantz. I enjoyed the dance at Detour. They don't necessarily need to be remix versions (although as you said, they're certainly out there). Hell, even Greg Ayres played the Beck opening straight-up last year. The songs just need to be played. A mix of everything is the way to go, so long as the DJ can justify everything played beyond "it was requested."

And while I tend not to make specific requests, say the word and I can send a ton of anime music that I'd consider dance-worthy.

This is also why the rave and the "geek dance" are being kept separate. I will take a lot more creative license on the rave as i have done several, and the format of this will change as I see it necessary. That being said though, I have a lot of great remixes of Anime OPs/EDs that i will be toting this year as welll as favorites like caramelldansen and other jap-tech.

@ 1stAgent: In a rave, I need a beat to work with. I know you don't find it necessary 1stAgent, but to run loops, make cuts and beat match it is necessary for me. One can get into how a lot of DJ's drop cue, make blind cuts, use table brake and table dump effects etc. to get away with an abnormal music selection, but that's not my style, it starts sounding unharmonious and disjointed to me. This is why we have 2 different dances. The rave is a crowd specific event, and based on what I saw friday night people enjoyed it. If you are not a part of that crowd, then we have to agree to disagree on this, im sorry. And quite frankly, sometimes in this line of work "It Was Requested" is the ONLY justification one may have. It's not nearly as simple as you are trying to make it sound.

The dance however is a different story. We rolled with as many requests as we could because that's the surefire way to make as many people happy as possible. I walked in with a planned set that was quickly cast aside as requests were coming in much faster than we could even handle. Theo and I were not prepared for this which is why I am extremely open to any and all suggestions you guys have, we absolutely need to play more. This event is for you all, a tried and true straight up geek fest and we need to make it better music wise. Aside from a few 2-3 song techno short mixes I may toss in, we need to fill the other ranks with con music. There was plenty of top 40 stuff that I played that could have very easily been replaced with j-rock or j-pop. Theo and I are just here to provide a medium, we need your help on the music selection for the dance. Thank you for those offering up suggestions! Theo and I are currently working out a different system for taking requests at the geek dance, as we need to preserve the integrity of it being just that, a geek dance.
-Jason

Oh, I was specifically talking about the geek dance. I wasn't able to make it to the rave Friday night, so I have no comment on that. I understand that's a different ballgame and agree with the way that you split it up.

1stAgent wrote:Oh, I was specifically talking about the geek dance. I wasn't able to make it to the rave Friday night, so I have no comment on that. I understand that's a different ballgame and agree with the way that you split it up.

Ah yes, very good, right-o.

Now, I have a proposal... more of an epiphany... I frequently use this system at (of all things...) wedding dances (hey, aside from our day jobs, they pay well ). Now we have no idea what the timetables look like for friday or saturday night yet, but assuming we have the same time blocks as last year (and that we can get setup more efficiently) this is what I propose. I am going to construct a "genre playlist", this will help me decide what types of music go where without actually picking a specific song or track. Thus upholding the integrity of the dance music without creating a disorganized mess of different sounds. (@1stAgent, this should solve the integrity issue). Now, as far as requests go, what I need people to realize immediately is that they will not all get played, in fact we may only have time for about 30-50% of them.

However...

Requests are going to be handled a bit differently this year. One of our problems is, with the setup we were forced to use (which is being iomproved) I have limited time between songs to cue up a new song and plug it into my board, and having to lean over my decks and take a request deprives me of much of this valuable time.

Example:
Dance patron walks up, gets my (or theo's) attention, makes request, repeats request since I usually can't hear them the first time, I either cue up the request or try to make note of it for a future play.

This is inneficient, so what we do for weddings is have a piece of plexi-glass that we set up with some sharpies and post-it notes in front of it. Dance patrons can write their requests (hopefully legibly) on the back of a post-it and stick it to the glass, when I have a free moment in my playlist I can default to the glass. Once it's full it's full. This eliminates the urgency of a request, allows me to place requests where they make sense in the rotation, and frees me up to work fun magic like brakes, dumps, stops, flangers and other nifty effects to elevate the music and feel the crowd more. The best DJ's actually eleminate all direct contact with their crowd other than visual and what they do on the mic.

Now I know some may not like this, but this solves a secondary problem. For anyone who has ever been inside of a stage-platformed DJ booth, you know it's a jumbled chaotic mess of truss stands, wires, junk, empty red-bull cans, girlfriends, that idiot friend you brought along for muscle, etc. Having audience members approaching this mess can be catastrophic (think 1000lb lighting truss falling over...). If I allowed you up on stage with me feel honored, seriously, not that im special or anything, but I booted my own GF off the stand a couple of times because it was getting so crowded up there .

Whatcha Think Folks?

While I wasn't there for last years dance, this method seems very doable.

I even suggest maybe having some sort of board or box set up for people to input their requests before the dance, for songs they really want to hear. Obviously, a lot of the songs people want to hear are going to be made up on the spot, but I can also see a lot of people thinking "I hope they play this song" and putting a request in hours before the event. You wouldn't need to do this, but I think it might make it a little easier on Mr. DJ.

The clip board approach works well...I remember it was used back in my goth clubbing days....

I sent you a pm with a list of j-rock to start with...let me know if you like any of what I listed.