hmmm I've never had anything to serious happen (knocks on wood)

~ Lights / Fuse blew on the dance floor once and I didn't know what breaker it was
-- Ended up playing "Gimme the light" about 30 seconds before the lights came back on so it worked out pretty cool.

~ A few times I've had fuses / circuit breakers pop and everything dies. Not really my fault but everything stops so it's more or less annoying.

Having an impromptu mosh pit break out right in front of the booth, resulting in it getting slammed hard enough that A) I had to catch my laptop, and B) it ripped the ground for one of the decks right out of my mixer. The club's decks still haven't been right since.

Last night, the left channel mysteriously disappeared from my mixer for a few songs. Fortunately, it was still early and no one cared.

At some point, a drunk dancer managed to knock the AC adapter out of the SL-1, which resulted in much anger from the crowd when I turned my laptop off and the music stopped.

Was having a really bad start to the night last weekend - my rig had this hellacious ground loop and I ended up having to revert back to the club's system (ancient dual denon CD deck, broken xfader on mixer, cue button only works when halfway depressed and no split cue, etc.).

While I was doing the rewire hokey pokey with the SL-1 (club had already opened), had 3 people come up and make requests including one bitchy chick who wanted all the hip hop heaters that I wasn't going to play until hours later and wouldn't shut up.

Anyway, got distracted and realized I only had about 15 seconds left on the current song. Someone had just requested Holiday by Madonna, but I had some criteria selected in the browser and got the wrong thing.

Ended up playing Billie Holiday for about 20 seconds until I could figure out what the hell I had done to my library. Luckily it was only about 8:30 and my night got better. =-)

Hahaha....Billie Hoilday??? You need a separate laptop. lol

+1

yeah I hate those dam requesters.. I usually say this isn't TRL on the mic and start charging a drink for a request or a shout out..

I was playing a house party for Denise Rich and I was spinning whenever the band would stop. I played a nice opening set, then the band comes on and rocks for a while. At this point the dancefloor is packed, and the band is about to take a break and switch to me. They must of riffed too hard or something because they blew a breaker. This killed the power on my external hd, so no music for Serato. The host is freaking out, "where's the music!!" I had to reboot the macbook a couple time before the drive would show up again. People were starting to leave and shit. Then I finally got back on and all my crates were all scrambled and it was tough to regain the vibe after that. I still don't have a back up plan for this. I was going to get an UPS or a bus powered external. I think I'll just buy a new macbook this spring and get a 250 gb hd in it. That way I can put my 180gb of music on there.

I use an external as well and I have two backup plans for this situation.

a 2nd external hdd with the same music / crates / etc. It's basically a backup of my main external hdd. Also nice because since I got the exact same one I have two power adapters, two firewire cables, and two usb cables that work for it.

my other backup is having a couple of 30 min mixes on my internal hdd. If something does happen to my external I can just toss on a mix I recorded for a few minutes until I get everything back up and going.

:)

About a month or two ago,I got my first USB dropout at the bar. At first I thought "No problem. Just pop in a CD." I didn't realize that there was a CD already in the player and tried to slam another one in it. Needless to say, that really messed up the CD player and I could not figure out what was happening to Scratch Live. I turned the satellite radio back on and had to reboot twice to get it running right. Turns out it was my Mcafee downloading updates. The bar has free wi-fi. I immediately disconnected from the wireless connection and everything went fine from then on, but that was the most stressful 10 minutes I've had in a loooong time. And at the same time I had some ass wipe begging me to play "Wipe Me Down" like armagedon was gonna break loose if I didn't.

here's a recent one... show up to DJ @ Sundance... the fucking idiot who hooked up the system didnt have the mixer for me, and had wired all of the speakers backwards... this is why i always show up a day early. it took me 9 hours to make it work because i had to troubleshoot stuff cause some of the speakers (Mackies) were having issues. took 3 hours of waiting just for the mixer to get there... i wanted to punch someone by the time i was done.

call me crazy but I find pleasure in hooking up the equipment myself (especially if the person before me hooked it up wrong). Not only is it relaxing but as a DJ who is playing on it, it's important to understand how/where/why everything is hooked up to where it is.

^^^yeah, i'd rather do it myself and know it's done right the first time... If it's not me, then i want to know it will work...

i think this definately desirves a WTF

Djing a party with half conscious rastas and half ppl who wanted pum-pum dancehall beats. I went with a roots selection as i was gettin laser stares from bobo dreads, lol

for reals...

My worst experience was at an outdoor rave event in a small copse of trees about 200 feet from the pacific ocean. A couple guys had played before me, but the fog had started rolling in, and by the time I went on, it was condensing in the trees and raining down on the setup (my 1200s, my friend's DJM-600.) Several of my friends grabbed a tarp and told me to keep spinning, while they were busy putting up the tarp. It took ten or fifteen minutes, most of which I spent trying to spin with somebody else's headphones (I had forgotten mine that night) while I had a tarp draped over my head. By the time the tarp was actually up, my set was most of the way over, and it had sounded like crap because of the "rain" and the tarp ceremony. It was probably the worst set I've ever spun.

one time i forgot to plug my laptop into the wall, I didnt notice anything wrong until my laptop shut off without warning @ primetime right aroung 11:30 ugh...

My worst DJ experience was my Pre Serato days in 2004:

Spinning at a private loft party in NYC, that was known to stay packed and crowded till' at least 7/8 am. At exactly 4am, my f-ckin brand new power amplifier blew. 10 minutes later it was a wrap for the party

The crazy thing is, I had always used a old rigged up modified guitar amp for this particular party for at least 5 years. The day I decided to switch up and bring a REAL amp, disaster struck.

This happened to me and my partner at a big rave once - our set time was 7am or something and we were booked for a 2x4. After practicing a shitload from 2am - 5am we drive to the venue, park, and then hike to the entrance. After getting to the entrance, we're told that DJs were supposed to enter at a seperate entrance. We walk there and apparently, the promoters didn't bother to leave a DJ list or anything so security refused to let us in. We wait for someone to find a promoter or organizer while our timeslot creeps closer and closer and get nothing but runaround. by then, our booked timeslot has already started so we head back to the first entrance trying to find someone who can get us in where there's at least 2 other DJs in the exact same predicament as we are.

Wait around some more and after a while, we've only got like 15 minutes left to our timeslot so we bail and go home. The day after, we're told that they didn't even have a 2x4 setup for us like they promised so even if we had gotten in all that time spent practicing was for naught.

In the end we still made them pay us for wasting our time .

I thought of another one. I was doing a house party that was at least 40 minutes from home. As we are unloading the car to set up my turntable case opens up and the 1210 lands on the tone arm. The arm is busted and I end up having to spin for a couple of hours with one turntable and a non-DJ CD player. Every other song was mixed properly and the rest were just faded in an out. I was able to get ahold of another table before the night was over, but the broken tone arm ruined my mood for the rest of the night. To this day I never use the handles on my cases. I always hold them flat.

I was spinning at a club in NYC (somewhere in the Village) on a Friday night. At 1am, me and one of the promoters go outside for a ganja break. He lights the roach, takes a pull, passes it to me, I hit it, then pass it back. Then a damn plainclothes walks up to us, flashes a badge, grabs the roach, and tells us we're under arrest! I was dumbfounded! Luckily I had a guest DJ with me that night, because I was supposed to spin till 4am. The head promoter comes outside, and walks up to us and he's like "what's up?" I show him the cuffs, and he's stunned.

To make a long story short, I got processed, released midnight Saturday night, went to the club to get my records (this was in 2003), and went home. Me and the promoter still laugh about it (in hindsight).

LAST WEEKEND:

I'm spinning at my normal spot, using my normal PA system that has always worked. The bar got packed abnormally early. (usually around 1130, this night around 1030-1045. Everything's going great...crowds lovin' it. My other DJ shows up, and as soon as he touches the tables the sound cuts completely except for my monitor. After checking everything I figured out that my amp had overheated, so I cranked my monitor, faced it toward the crowd and let the amp cool down. after about 10 minutes i turn the amp back on and we've got full sound again, for 20 minutes. again i turned off the amp, cranked the monitor, waited, then turned the amp back on. this time it was good for about 40 min. As soon as I get back on the tables the sound cuts again and continued to go in and out every 10-15 minutes for the next hour. At one point a guy was walking in front of me toward the bathroom. All of the sudden he stopped, looked down, then up at me. I looked at him, then looked down and literally saw a tomato rolling across the floor. I'm assuming it was meant for me (since this whole problem with the sound system made me look like an absolute chump), but happened to hit him as we walked by at the perfect time. All I could do was laugh. [i] Who the hell just randomly keeps a tomato in their pocket at a sports bar?

[i]Who the hell just randomly keeps a tomato in their pocket at a sports bar?[/i}

god damn it...

Who the hell just randomly keeps a tomato in their pocket at a sports bar?

LAST NIGHT:

I'm spinning at an annual party that a promoter friend of mine throws. Packed venue (550+). Standing room only. Around 1130 we start doing live hip hop performances.

First act goes well.

Second act goes well.

Third Act---oh boy. Act #3 just happens to be the only female rapper on the bill. Her manager and hired personal sercurity make this big deal about clearing a path for her so she can make her 'grand' entrance. She's all laced up in this crazy sexy/sheik trench coat thing as she walks up on stage, while rapping over her own prerecorded vocals (come on with the bullshit). While performing her first track she takes off the trench coat to reveal that she's wearing a mini skirt. When she starts to perform track two she's all amped up, jumping around on stage and then just stops, runs off stage while he vocals are still playing, exposing the fake that she was (as if you couldn't already tell) and before I had an opportunity to figure out what the problem was I start hearing people muttering "there's blood on the stage. there's blood on the stage." Now like I said, the place was fucking packed so I'm thinking somebody threw something at her and cut her with it and she tripped out and ran off stage, but when i went and asked her manager what the problem was he proceeded to inform me that she was on her period and prior to taking the stage she was complaining about needing to change her tampon but didn't have time because we were already behind schedule. I don't know about you guys, but if a comparable "male-type" situation had happened to me in front of all those people I would've chocked it up to a blow performance and gone home...but she cleaned up and came back and finished her set i don't think that anybody took her seriously after the first attempt tho.

blood drops aaaallllllllllllll over the stage...seriously. we had to have it mopped before the next act could go on.

dude, that sounds tough!........... weird event pull.

for me one of the worst times was the following, its happened more than once...

awesomme awesomme gig, private party, not much between me and the 100+ packed marquee/tent, a few foldout tables..

end of the night comes and I ve wound them up to a frenzy and announced last song, hit the house lights and make a show off turning off laptop and pulling down speakers in a bid to fight off chantings for 'one more song' again. (give them an inch...)

Halfway home, realise I havent saved the set recorded in serato, never to be heard again, gone.

i can't believe i haven't been clowned about the tomato yet...

seriously... who just carries a tomato.

LOL

probably one of my worst was last year. one of my CDJ-800's (since replaced), apparently had a shitty power supply that didn't like weak power or dips in the current. so of course, when the speakers were drawing massive power, going wide open at the peak of the night, at one of the biggest parties i had done up to that point- 400 or so out on the patio where i was DJing (and 150 more inside where we had another zone going)... and my CD player craps out in the middle of the song (this was pre-Serato). that sucked ass. luckily i had pretty much cued up my next song so i switched it over.

it was definitely a problem with that one player too, the other one never had an issue and the mixer either. just the one. it happened intermittently throughout the night, i tried to make sure to have the next song planned out in advance. after that i made sure to run the amp/speakers on a separate circuit until i replaced it.

About a year ago. Get booked for a private party. We get all expectations clear beforehand. We need to bring equipment, but the hall has a PA. We double check, triple check, offer to put them in touch with a guy we know and have used before in renting a sound system. But it's taken care of we're told, just bring our tables and go.

So we show up at the hall the night of the party a couple hours in advance as usual. Scout the place out try to figure out where to put our equipment and what the PA's like. There isn't one. The girls throwing the party haven't shown up yet, so we find the owner of the hall and ask about it. There is nothing. The girls show up. They "were told there was a PA". So by now it's an hour before the party and there's nothing. We have some booth monitors but that's it. Not nearly enough to even be heard over a crowd the size we're expecting in the size of space we have.

With an hour before the party, we have to run home. Grab the system we have (which is still kind of underpowered for the needs), barely manage to fit it into the back of a range rover, and book it back to the party. We roll in with the system just as the party's starting and manage to get music going only fifteen minutes later. All in all the most hectic fifteen minutes of any gig I've done. But after that the party goes off without a hitch and we rock the house.

But after the party we manage to get twice our negotiated rate because of the whole situation and I could afford the flight to London I needed to make.

^^^Hate the stress, but love the money...

2002 (pre serato)


This was my first time doing a party at this college about 1 hour away from where I live. I arrive 1 hour early and set up everything. Buy the time I finish setting everything up I realize I left home my slip mats. So I made on out of some old record sleeves, problem solved. Then after getting past that problem I notice I left home my 1/4 adapter for my headphones. Luckily I brought my Numark cdmix 1 to play a few cds. The Numark cd player had headphone jacks for the regular size and the 1/4 inch size. So basically I used the mixer on the cd player as my main mixer instead of my Vestax 05. Keep in mind I like to scratch alot. So the whole night I had to put up with a shitty cross fader, shitty slip mats, and shitty sound quality from the mixer. I got through the night and everybody enjoyed themselves. I would have been 100 times better that night if I hadn't left home the most smallest pieces of my set up.

ketamine usually messes with my djing

<reposted from an older thread but this is a good one...>

Ok how about this sh!t. I was visiting NY for the first time, and go to a club at about 3AM just to see what it's like (i'm from Denver). After a few songs I chat up the DJ and somehow talk my way to DJing a set there right then. (holy crap, right?) So I cab it from 9th to 79th to get my gear and burn some CDs (wasn't even going to try and hook up Serato) and head back to the club.

So I plug in my headphones and spin for 6-7 tracks or so, and did just fine (on an RANE MP24 with NO CHANNEL EQ, thankyouverymuch). As I'm finishing I'm chatting with the house DJ, unplug my headphones while my last track is playing. House DJ goes to plug in his headphones and THEY WON'T GO IN BECAUSE I BROKE OFF HALF THE ADAPTER INSIDE HIS MIXER, IN THE MIDDLE OF MY LAST SONG, AT A NEW YORK NIGHTCLUB.

Panic stricken, we (ok I) yank the mixer out to look for a second headphone out, no dice. No way to take apart the mixer to get the adapter out with 90 seconds left in my song. Out of sheer desperation, I plug my headphones with the busted ass adapter hoping somehow the wires inside will somehow line up.

I turn it about a 1/2 turn and then hear the cue. So I hold the adapter part while the other DJ UNSCREWS MY HEADPHONES FROM THE ADAPTER AND SCREWS HIS IN. For some reason which I still thank the DJ gods for, he can hear the cue through his headphones and somehow makes the mix.

I take a rash of sh!t from the club manager, pack up my stuff and leave the club with my tail between my legs.

And after all that I still FORGOT MY HEADPHONES AT THE CLUB. No way in hell I'm going back there.

And between the club cover, $8 bottles of water, cab fare to my hotel and back, and a $100 pair of headphones, I paid about $200 for the privilege of embarrassing myself and probably the whole city of Denver.

Moral of the story is,

No matter how much backup stuff you have sometimes it's just dumb luck that separates a minor inconvenience from a major catastrophe.

Wait... there's more..

Spinning at my regular thursday night spot.. Birthday boy who is lit is begging for a spot...I let him spin after me.. HE UNPLUGS MY MAC WHILE ITS PLAYING MY LAST SONG!!!!
(crowd is yelling, booing, etc)
WTF!!!!!!!!!!

He goes on after about 30 seconds,(which = forever in DJ time), then his laptop is in phone mode and his tracks wont load up.. WTF!!!!

I left the booth, angry of course.. I let the other residents handle it..

oh and that was last night...

i bet you're still pissed...

yeah and i wasn't gonna drink last night but that made me wanna take a few shots.. and a few drinks..
this guy used to spin for us and he was calling me a jerk and what not cuz I wouldnt let him take my spot.. F that... Never again..

I had An expensive weekend last week , Smoked 3-(of 4) $300 JBL 2206 12"s and a Baby cheek horn Basicly means i worked the night for free. At least the 2" horns didnt go, And 2 of My vega 18"s were smokin Hot I mean smokin hot, I smelled somthing burning and couldnt figure out what it was i checked the subs on stage right and they were fine at the end of the gig i kept smelling it and it turned out my 2 stage left subs were so hot i couldnt even touch the magnets on them. But there not blown or rubbing CERWIN VEGAS ARE TUFF SPEAKERS. I also found the Gain On the Crown CE 4000 that was powering the Subs on Stage Right was at 3- o'clock not full tilt so to get the level i wanted the the left side was making up for it thats why they got so hot.
Also going back a ways i was doing a 40th Birthday party and had bought a referbed american DJ razz Matazz light , it caught fire in the middle of the gig , it looked like a Lantern with the flames inside behind the lenses. Someone pointed out "is that suppose to be smoking like that" "oh Shit No" So got it down off the truss quick and got it outside, Put it out and returned it to the dealer. They gave me a brand new one.

Hey cisco, was that at Buzz? i remember you said somewhere that Thurs. is your buzz night.

Yeah it was at Buzz..