networking

^that plus going around to other spots and see if they have an open night you could try out. Like a spot that has a thursday night with no dj and you propose that you spin there and see how it goes.

Find other dj's and see if they'll let you open for them. Eventually they'll call you up and say hey, can you fill in at so and so spot and you'll do the entire night, not just open.

That's if they feel you're good. We as dj's may think we're good, but it's better to see what other dj's feel.
Maybe post a mix here.

He pretty much said it all, it's not what you know it's who you know

The more party people you know the better your chances of getting a gig. Follow the party crowd in your area you cant go wrong.

i started out helping another dj out and learning from him, i would do small sets at first then work my way up to longer sets, he then got me in on an off night at that spot and that night jumped off so i got offered to do my first residancy down the road a a competing spot. kept moving up to bigger gigs

It's still kinda hard for me to getting gigs so finally i just started recording everything i do and when I feel like i got something banging i hit the clubs the bars friends houses hell i even offered to dj at a swingers party i even put adds on craigslist. I got some feed back for weddings and dj service that book dj's for events I'm kinda nervous because i know soon im gonna get a nice gig but hey if you want it you gotta go out and get it right

Sexual Favors.

a friend who knows people at bars

i'm confused, you're looking to get a first gig but your website says you to be "a heavy hitter in the industry" and that you've "showcased your abilities at top Long Island hotspots". Sounds a little embellished to me for someone looking for a first official gig

Guaranteed gigs... Tell them to just give you an alcohol tab...

Friend a local working DJ start hanging around him at his gigs at your local venue. Sooner or later he will want to walk off and talk to Betsy. He will hand it over to you and the rest is hustle.

Thanks guys I appreciate your input, I understand it's networking I was just wondering exactly how you guys went about it, or specific tips and glad to have the oppurtinity to read about a few on here.



Well yea have to make myself sound good lol I just exaggerated the truth is all.

Thanks for your input, I truly appreciate it. As for a mix I have this one soundcloud.com , but I find getting input on a mix is hard just because people mostly skim mixes or I just never hear back from them.

why does that mix sound preproduced?

Preproduced? There are mash ups and bootlegs but not sure what you mean by preproduced

^ example of whats wrong in the DJ game today

How so? Im guessing all these big time DJ's like DJ Chuckie must be doing it all wrong then...

Just learn how to mix records first before spinning preproduced mashups, bootlegs, crooklyn clan tracks, and acting like your big time before you even have your first residency. Not trying to come at you nh,nm but just being brutally honest.

Oh fair enough, I would love get a pair of technics and improve my game by involving scratching just hard to learn on these tiny platters the ns7 has and it also requires a good investment lol. Want to get a few gigs under the belt first, still in the beginning phase.

OK, i don't really want to throw you under the bus here, but i was looking at your website, and its a bit of a stretch if you have never really had a "real" gig before.

"DJ RaGu has made himself a heavy-hitter in the industry as he is considered to be one of New York's hottest rising sensations.

Early in his career, DJ RaGu made many of his first impressions by shaking the walls with house music. As he turned heads throughout the nightlife scene, DJ RaGu's talents continued to grow as his strong work ethic encourages him to never stop improving.

Today, DJ RaGu’s pure on-deck skills have excelled and evolved across all genres, including Latin. Highlighting his diversity in music, DJ RaGu has showcased his abilities throughout various Latin venues as well as top Long Island hotspots."

Also I would get more pictures of you at gigs and not have your main pic be you blowing smoke out of your mouth. If you want to make a career out of this and to be taken seriously you gotta keep it professional.

Make friends with the managers of bars/clubs, make sure you go out every weekend and hit a few places up and try to network, DON'T get sloppy drunk or make an ass out of yourself and keep rocking house parties. Don't use other peoples mashups/mixes, even using intros when starting out is cheating. You need to spend hundreds of hours learning the basic song and making something out of it. i know a couple guys who can tear shit up with the NS7, and i made fun of it until i tried it out one night, you can rock a party with that, oh and don't use the sync button... lunch time, lata

Is this a joke that im not getting or is this guy serious?

theres two gig photos in the whole photo section and they were taken from the crowd. seems odd.

ay
word of mouth
yep

Yikes, your website may be the start of your end if this original thread is true

Now on the second DJing career, here was my trajectory.

(1) Meet people who like EDM.
(2) Play private parties for those people. Meet more people.
(3) Get introduced to out-of-town promoter looking to start shit. Get a starting spot with him. Meet more people, including the manager of the club.
(4) After you've played a few times with out-of-town promoter, get a couple of DJs you've met to pitch a new off-night (like a monday) to the manager.
(5) Play at your night, meet more people.
(6) Go out to other events and meet other promoters and DJs and support their nights. Invite other DJs to guest at your night.
(7) Get attention of a slightly bigger promoter than the guy in #3 and get booked at a night he's starting somewhere.
(8) Play at that night, meet more people.

And so on.

Two years is fairly standard to get from (1) to (8) unless you have LOTS of time to go out and/or have a lot of natural charisma.

I just took a look at that bio and well, nothing personal but people can smell bullshit a mile away. very Myspacey as in written in the third person while still being obvious that it was written by the user, with overuse of buzz words and a whole lot of nothing in between.

I had someone write my bio a few years back (it's well overdue for an update) and yeah it had a bit of flattery in it but it still listed shit I do, not just that I turn heads with my impressive wall shaking while heavy hitting the industry.

Get some better photos happening, rewrite your bio to reflect more on what you do, or (and I don't know why DJs are afraid of this) actually speak to the potential clients as you, not in the third person, about what music means to you and how you'd approach it should they hire you.

These are just suggestions.

As far as your question goes, I honestly can't remember my first official gig, I remember a lot of cool ones in bigger clubs and shows from about the age of 16 and on, and a lot of house parties and BBQ's before that.

What I did to get gigs back then was be everywhere I needed to be when I needed to be there. It's one thing nowadays to have X amount of people on your Facebook, but can you go out on any given night of the week and when you get there (not DJing, but as a patron) and have half of the club come up to you at some peopnt of the night and say "what's up"?

If you can do that, and THEN hustle today's social marketing strategies with consistent mixes (not using other peoples mash ups etc but your own) then you should be able to create your own name and force people to book you.

yep just ask ninos how he met DJ craze

Sorry, was typing too fast.

Lol it's cool about the bio and the website in general, it's still in its preliminary stages. Explains the lack of photos, I did say it was still under construction right before the bio but guess everyone overlooked it lol. No worries. Thanks for your tips though, I will definitely use them.



Yea they were taking by the owner of the place and that was the exact crowd of that live set. Not sure what your point is though.




Thanks man this is what I was looking for, glad to see it all worked out for you.



Lol it's cool no worries I know it's exactly what it seems like, but it actually wasn't written by me and yea I hear you on the personal insight, the person who wrote it for me said the same exact thing. It'll be change soon once I get the ball rolling on my end ha

I wish I could help but you have the seasoned guys like Shamann who speak a great deal of truth......but the flipside is that I see tons of newbs rookies and people who have no business behind decks getting residencies in all the really good spots in DC. Im finding a lot of these dudes have no website, no mixes or mixtape, barely any real push in social media. What I am finding is that they are whoring themselves out to the nightlife just to be apart of the industry.

You can listen to the seasoned vets but you may find the industry has a very different idea of what they want in DJ.....and music selection is the last thing on most promoters mind

Thanks for your input, the common trend here is to not use mash ups. It's good to get a perspective from DJ's because the dance people think its perfectly fine about my mixes but Id love to grow as a DJ and "wow" my fellow DJ's too

Your still helping me lol Thanks yea advice from seasoned vets is more of an honor for me especially being so low on the scale lol

What do you exactly mean by that last sentence?

what I mean is that the industry now a days seem to be more concerned about how many people the DJ can bring to party vs. how good a DJ is or what kinda music he plays. Ive lost several opportunities because I cant bring in droves of people. I always tell em if you bring the crowd I can keep them there and drinking until the doors close

The only way to get around this is to meet and soft/hard-sell the management of the club and somehow demonstrate you have party-starting skills even if you show up stag.

Well it's not about passing as a DJ or what's deemed as fine, my point was that you need to do something to stand out. Some people had mentioned that you were using Crooklyn Clan stuff in your mix, there's way to many DJs out there playing the same stuff making you a needle in the haystack.





Well the point of what I said is to turn the tables and make yourself sought out vs. seeking out.

What you say is true, I even said that a big part of being out there isn't just having impressive social media accounts, but actually being out there where everybody knows you no matter what spot you're at, even when you're not DJing.




What you say is the absolute truth in some situations and a shame for the younger generation of DJs who are trying to put the work in.

But that's why I think it's important to stand out when you do your mixes, and of course when you actually DJ. Along with formula I mentioned you almost leave people no choice but to hire you.

If promoter X sees you out on the regular and people are hailing you up no matter where you go AND you've got people talking about your mixes/DJ style, they have no choice but to hire you.

Sorry, I just read that back and I kind of repeated myself, but you get the idea.


: )

I guess what you are saying is that if you have a network like this, you can count any crowd at a venue as "your crowd." Right?

Remy's point stands, and I think the real way to combat that is through networking. No, not whoring yourself out and telling random peeps on the street to come watch you play. Just meeting other DJ's and people they work with, that's the best way imo. Consider putting on your own event, parties, invite other DJ's to jam with you. Let's face it, unless you're a big name you're not going to attract the regular party goer clientelle these owners and promoters are looking for, so build up your own fan base of people (friends of friends, people that came to your party and liked it, other dj's, etc.).

Yes, because it's a real network vs. having 7000 people on your Facebook who aren't even in the same town/city as you.

I'm actually supposed to meet with an owner tonight who wants to build up one of his nights. I was in there drinking one night and talking to a bartender I knew about the average sales, the manager over heard and knew I knew my shit. So we had a chat, then he passed me off to the owner. When I met him quickly that day he noticed that as soon as I walked in patrons were saying what's up to me. I said "do you see how you have "kind of a crowd" here, well I know most of those people already so all I have to do is build on that, and even if i don't know most of them, word of mouth is a beautiful thing.

What do you think I'm talking about? Going out and making yourself known to everybody no matter what venue you walk into IS networking.

With all due respect it's good to know other DJs but what good is that when they're all working other bars on nights that you need people in your spot? You could throw parties with other DJs (I just did that on Saturday) but what good is that if none of you actually know anybody to fill it?

Like I said, you have 7000 people on FB, yeah it looks good to those who don't get it, but if you walk into one club and 50 people know you, and then you walk into another one down the street same night and 50 more people know you... that's a network.

lol I actually didn't read your post Shamann before i wrote that. yeah what you're saying is pretty much what I meant, and I say network with other DJ's is a way to meet other people, not so much the one thing you should solely rely on. Just as an aside, my friends family own the Queen Victoria you played at (I just checked your profile now). I had no idea they threw those kinds of nights there that's cool.

HAHA that's awesome, small world. Also funny you should mention that because when I mentioned the party I just had it made me think to write another post, in terms of helping online presence.


But yeah, I built this the other day to help that online presence as well. I have my own official website but I'm also interested in how people search the net. So I built another site based around events in a certain area. I grew up out there but it became a ghost town in the years after I was gone (not saying I was so awesome the city dried up when I left) but when I came back to do a special event last year the energy I felt at that event was awesome, I started to look for more stuff to do in that end of the city because it brought me back, but there was fuck all.

So I decided to create this www.partyinscarborough.com , (the party that Phonze is talking about was "REUNION") it's based strictly on events in the area and while it's still a work in progress as it gets going it just becomes more content for Google to see when people in the area are looking for something to do. But this also goes back to what Phonze was saying about throwing your own parties, I've always done that because A) it helps keep you out there and B) for my own sanity, I get to play what i want to a crowd that wants to hear it.

I've held about 3 so far, but I'm supposed to meet later on in the week to discuss the next one. I worked for the owner I guess 12 years back at another spot, and a retired promoter friend of mine maintains friendship with them so we held my birthday out there last year and it's good times when we do it up.

You should come out there one time if you're not doing anything.

For sure Shamann, I've been there a couple of times and they've had karaoke and what not. I heard Jamaal Magloires been by as well. Just had no idea they had DJ nights. Family is good people they've been in the business for a very long time. I'll check their schedule and ask my friend next time, I'm curious to see how this place gets down.

Yeah probably not a place you would expect to have Dj nights, but great for throwing your own when you have a personal crowd, it's strictly our people and we can play and do what we like with full support from the owners. Good for the sanity every now and then after putting in a week of DJing at some of the other clubs we all grind at.

I slept with a guy name Afrojack.... oh wait, that was Paris Hilton.

nm

I also want to add is choose what kind of DJ you want to be. You can either follow trends of what everyone is playing or you can do your own thing and build a sound around what you like and do. Of course playing all the popular is gonna get you liked quicker because your playing all the hot Jams. Im the opposite I could care less whats hot in the hood, or the club.

Its important to be yourself on the decks trying to copy another DJs style is only gonna make you sound exactly like that DJ which is kool when your learning but you have to break away from that one day and develop your sound.

Most DJs who have been spinning under 10 years love AM, but how many times do I have to hear the wonder wall blend......dont be that guy doing AMs blends in the club and pretending like you made it up.

Exactly, if you try and sound like the next dude, how long are you really going to last in this thing? Because if you spent all your time trying to do one thing you might not be able to adapt as quickly when the fads change again. Do you and create your own following.

gotta try that wonderwall blend sometime. haha

A good friend recommended me to a club owner and I played an opening set - after that there was no turning back!

get networking with peeps that can help you, and post mixes up from soundcloud/mixcloud to facebook and related sites - you gotta put yourself out there ... also, business cards help with the networking. good luck brother!

I had an uncle who owned a roller rink back in the 90's. He catered to weddings on Sat. nights and hooked me up with my first gig. I got paid in some old DJ gear that he had in storage (T-bar and a light controller). After that, I did weddings about once or twice a month for a couple years.

19 years later, I'm still going strong and rockin' all kinds of parties.

remember my first ever gig,the promoter got my name wrong on the flyer and other promotion material ..... i still use that misspelled name until now LOL ..... 15 years and counting LMAO!!!

Offered to DJ a church Halloween party in '84 ('83 or '84 but I think '84). That was my 1st paying gig.

I got my first gig on this forum. DJ Action let me open for him i think like 5-6 years ago. Spun there a few times after that.

I think i still owe him a beer or blunt or some shit for that. Thanks again!

After that just started bombarding places with mixes/info/lettersfrommymomsayingimthebest.