Cloud And Sun DJ Services Weekly Blog

Hi And Welcome to my regular blog. I will try and keep it humorous which may mean mildly colourful language at times. I hope you enjoy it and won't be offended. In order to protect the guilty; no Customers will be mentioned by name unless it's complementary and even then I may opt for anonymity. This is only because I wanted to impress you by putting in the word "anonymity."  If I can think of any other slightly more pointless and annoying rules, I will let you know in due course.


 

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  1. Hi again. Sorry I haven't been back for a while. I usually stay away when I've not got much to say, even about the DJ life so as not to bore you. This time however, I'm prepared to make an exception... Just kidding!

    Oh well, let's have a round up. I've had some good gigs and some "everyone want's to stay outside in the warm weather and talk" type gigs. The latter type are fine but a bit too easy for yours truly. The good ones are when it all comes together and the guests want to go wild. I love those. You get inspired and you really want to go for it. You come up with stuff that you may not have played for a while and when they don't run off it's so much better for the DJ. Some crowds are so fickle that if you're not playing Bryan Adams or Los Lobos  (Macerina), off they go. If they're the type that are waiting to see what brilliance you are going to gift them with next, it get's so much more interesting. It's no good just sticking with the hundred most cheesy songs of all time either. I would get bored to death and each crowd is different anyway (thank God!).  

    I used to think it depends on the venue as to how interested the guests are but it's not that simple. I personally think that we're going through a period when a lot of music isn't that interesting. We've had definite big trends over the last ten years of business and of course before that too. I'm the first to admit that apart from a few major artists same-y styles exclusive to them, I'm struggling to find a link. All in all, there's no big exciting thing going on right now and most wedding guests are too young for something solid like say...70's disco and don't seem to go for much from the last ten years as I suppose it just doesn't have the staying power that the older stuff has. For instance: verses sound the same as choruses and solos have disappeared completely. I hear a lot of music and much of it doesn't have the dynamic that it used to. For instance, just compare the FOO FIGHTERS with NIRVANA. The former have their arses licked regularly on radio 1, but the latter were far superior. Compare MICHAEL JACKSON to TINIE TEMPAH...Stuff is going down hill!
    Or is it? LILLY ALLEN, MARK RONSON, CALVYN HARRIS...maybe things aren't so bad yet...Such a funny business music isn't it? I bet there's loads of stuff out there that's better then what we're being sold. I used to play new stuff that I thought was good, but until radio 1 caught on, no one would dance to it. By the time it got to number 6 in the chart, everyone was asking for it. Suffice to say, my influence counts for nothing right now so on that note, I'll ship out and shut up for this week. Wherever or whoever you are, have a good one!

    Mike.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC31Oudc5Bg Classic Bird and Fortune..
  2. He he! A weekend off. Well sort of...I've been roped into a fund-raising gig on Sunday. Man and the work that I've had to do this week...It's a fairly regular sort of thing and they hand out awards for donations. I have to play cheerful music to accompany them coming up to get their awards. The last couple of times I've done this gig I've cued up the usual suspects: The best-Tina Turner, I need a Hero-Bonnie Tyler etc. But this time to avoid becoming a cliche, I'm locked and loaded. I've been up half the night for most of this week editing 30 second samples so I can fire them off "like what they do" on TV when a celebrity walks up to the stage. It's a long old process I can tell you. I've done around 26 of them and I might add some more today. Probably not though, as I've got to process the latest downloads from the charts and request lists for upcoming gigs. Some people think this job is easy but the prep work...You've no idea! Once you've done all that stuff at home from phone calls and bookings to the above and then heaved all the equipment into the venue, then finally the easy bit starts, providing you don't get equipment failure of course which I try and iron clad myself against. If you can imagine a crowd at an execution it can't be far off from the atmosphere that seems to instantaneously emanate from the bevvied-up crowd when the music goes down at a gig. If you add up all the man hours I should be charging around three times as much I think.  Still I enjoy what I do and how many folks can say that?

    Well I'm going to enjoy my Saturday off and do something nice with Becky who's been in Germany all week and came back last night. Soooo good to see her again!

    I should have a party of my own really to celebrate the last ever series of "Big Brother". Thank God I won't have to hear about that crappy excuse for entertainment again after this summer. Let's all watch a bunch of freaks trapped in a box house. How did they ever manage to pitch that to the execs at channel 4? I guess they must have been desperate even back then.
    Which begs the question. Do all ideas have to be new these days? Can't we just make programmes and dramas based on say...oh I don't know...Adventure? Just to throw in an example... The kind of escapism that most of us don't get to experience? Having said that, I think Apart from that excellent BBC crime drama "Luther" I don't need to worry about getting distracted by the telly any more. It's gotten so bad it's just not worth booting up the freesat box and I've already given up on SKY long since. I guess that the advertising budget is spread too thinly now with all the channels out there and this has taken the money out of production for what used to be the big four channels. Yeah, I think it affects the BBC too as it has less to compete with. Although, kudos to them for there HI-Def nature programmes with good old legend David Attenborough.That time laps photo/filming was great the other night. I only caught it on the grave yard shift with some chick waving her hands about next to it.

     I still recall the Seventies and eighties when you used to really look forward to sitting down and watching such programmes as Tomorrows world and Top of the pops followed by the Sweeney or Some such thing. Maybe some Morcombe and Wise on Saturday as opposed to ruddy X factor etc. where once again they save money on professional talent and ridicule the contestants with creative chopping and pasting in the editing suite. For a while Simon Scowl had a point when he claimed that he was giving artists the break that record companies were denying the talent. But these days, artists are celebrating the END of their record contracts as they can make all the profit from their own download links to I-tunes and the like and not get constantly ripped off by EMI/Virgin or Sony etc.  "Oh the times, the times they are changin'"...You could never fail to strike a chord with a song title like that could you?

    You lot have a great weekend and let's hope England do well this time. We've certainly got enough songs to jump around to this time if they do...


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLvS_w9gy8g

    Rick and Ade at their very best! Enjoy..




  3. Woa flippin' 'eck. It's the season of weddings and I'm happy to say I'm rushed off my feet. Had a brand new bass bin go wrong on me last week so thank God I decided to hang on to the old ones. The gig went alright. I still had 1000 watts on the other side and since bass is omni directional it wasn't a problem.

    This is the weather where as your setting up the sweat starts rolling down your neck/face and everywhere else. That cooling fan comes into it's own at this time of year.

    Well the reviews keep rolling in week after week so I must be doing something right.

    Beckies off to her fatherland this weekend but I haven't time to miss her too much. Talking of which, I'd better get going as I've lots to do. If you live near Littlehampton, keep September 5th free as the seafront will be full of classic cars, competitions, fireman displays, stalls, beer tent, food, Splash FM, myself and other acts. I hope the weather is as good as this week. Should be one nice, big charity day out.

    Check out this classic topical sketch from Mitchell and Webb

    See you next time.

    Have a great weekend.