The weekend starts later today, so many of you will be gathering your DJ existence into pockets, bags, and flight cases, in a bid to establish your underground cred, keep pissheads happy in a wine bar, or get paid fat loot for an arena set. But despite the wide variances of our assorted scenes, one thing unites each and every one of us — we’re all DJs, just with different experiences of the so-called DJ culture.
I just read an interview on the BBC website with Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim aka a long list of aliases, and he laments the changes in DJ culture. He said this:
“I was thinking the other day about how DJ culture has changed – and one of the things is you don’t have the same sense of brotherhood. If you were sitting in the airport, you’d know another DJ because they had a record box. So you’d immediately try to work out from the stickers who they were – and then you’d get into a conversation with them.
We considered ourselves outlaws because no-one really respected us and we lived outside the normal working hours. Nowadays, everyone is a DJ.”
This is one very successful DJ’s view on such things. But being a superstar DJ and producer over the course of two decades, his perspective is reasonably unique in the whole DJ scheme of things.
YOUR SAY
I talk to much so I’m leaving this right here right now as a weekend discussion point. I’m interested in your own personal perspectives on how you see DJ culture, your routine, and your lifestyle have changed over the years. For the better or worse? Are you happier to not be lugging the contents of your spare bedroom out every weekend? Has the digital age freed you to do more in the DJ world? Are you happy sitting in an airport knowing that all your gear is safely stowed above your seat? Or like Fatboy Slim, do you miss the good old days when the record box marked you out as being special and you could connect with fellow DJs? Do you feel a sense of community with other DJs, or are you a lone wolf lost in music?
He is dead on. There is something about a record box that “invites” conversations and creates this “brotherhood, bondhood” because they know it takes skills to get to that level. It’s a symbol of achievement, personal pride. The laptop gives the opposite sentiments. In fact, it pushes people away because they don’t want to be associated with “just any DJs”.
Before, it took dedication and persistence to master the craft; it required a lot of money and time to build up a collection; and it required hard work to earn the name “DJ”. And these are what symbolized by a record box. Now, it takes a few hours and a good internet speed to amass all possible tracks in any available genre and one can be a DJ. So you can see why many artists are repelled by a laptop.
So true
The community changed a lot. The internet /global festivals and the EDM explosion in the US has seen to that. The big name DJ’s used to play a circuit of venues and there were a certain number of DJ”s on the circuit within Europe. There was a real familiarity about things, now they go where the money is at. As generation after generation of DJ’s come and go it is pretty inevitable really. The DJ’s who have been lucky enough to build a life long career out of it are few and certainly never expected it to be still doing it today.
I agree that there seem to be too many DJs these days, however, I really dont think the number of good DJs has necessarily increased as well. A huge majority of DJs now are just top 40 regurgitation machines so yes, DJ culture as a whole has changed but the underground (aka those who pursue the art vs the money) hasn’t changed too much in terms of its ethos.
It’s really time for the younger generations to invent a new kind of entertainer type. DJ:ing is indeed dying as a unique talent due to all the technology, over-exposure, copy-cat:ing and lack of unique directions.
he went from playing and producing quality house music to just playing EDM anthems to get crowd reactions. He’s only about making money now.
For me personally, I feel it’s no longer a DJ culture. I cannot think (outside of turntablists) of a single person who has made a solid high profile career out of JUST being known for being an incredible DJ. Nobody has been discovered for being a ridiculously talented resident DJ in many, many years (perhaps Erol Alkan was the last in the UK, because of Trash).
So it’s categorically NOT a DJ culture. It’s a producer culture.
To get anywhere in this game nowadays (by which I mean to become a successful touring, city to city, DJ) you have to have productions out. It’s as simple as that.
I grew up on Technics and turntablism/dexterous skills and the craft of DJ’ing being all important….but to be brutally honest if I was encouraging a younger brother or some kid. I’d honestly tell them to buy a Maschine, Ableton rig or Akai Renaissance well before buying decks and if the production takes off THEN i’d advise investing in DJ gear.
I mean for gods sake, to buy half decent decks/CDJs and a decent club standard mixer would cost GRANDS. You could buy Ableton for peanuts in comparison and/or a Mac with a Maschine for well less than two CDJ’s and a DJM.
I stress: I don’t actually LIKE the fact that it’s this way. I’d rather things go back to guys/gals having SKILLS and the manual dexterity of being a great technical DJ with great crowd reading skills….but the facts on the ground are pretty clear; we don’t live in a DJ culture, it’s a producers culture. You have to have a track out (and DJ’s it seems to me are there to either promote their own tracks or “support” other producer’s tracks).
Is there any culture at all in DJing? Perhaps Northern Soul is one, where the music and vinyl is very much part of the wider scene. Turntablism could be another… well perhaps back in the day when people dug for music. But otherwise, all I see are lifestyle choices.
For me DJ’ing is something that was very DIY, almost punk/early Hip-Hop ethos. We got together to play records in friends houses and put on occasional nights for a select few that were interested. We did it ourselves, we weren’t arsed about money (in fact it cost us money). So yeah it was our culture. Yeah….a bit like Northern Soul I guess.
Now it’s people in their bedrooms playing with audio equipment and trying to get a few plays on Beatport and “support” from other producers. I can’t see it as a culture now frankly as culture for me requires a bit more than sitting off in a darkened room playing with an Akai. No today’s “culture” is a producer thing. It’s a means of getting into a specific business. The DJ’ing then is just the touring side arm of the business and almost an afterthought. It’s something that’s done to capitalise further on having a small hit on Beatport/Juno.
That’s why I say: If you LOVE the PROCESS of dj’ing you’ll get finance for that £3.5k CDJ2000 DJM mixer setup or (say you’re a turntables who just wants to scratch for their own enjoyment) you’ll happily find a way to spunk over a grand on a decent battle mixer (Rane or the new S9 well over a thousand pounds FFS) and your Technics (god knows how much they’d cost nowadays), or Pionner vinyl deck….but do not expect to actually make a living from it, or to be discovered in any way. You’ll do it for the love and it will be your own personal thing. Never expect this shit to be anything other than an expensive hobby.
Alternatively spend a grand and a half on a Macbook and Machine and get into a Beatport chart/someone else play your tune, get few noted remixes out on someone else’s work, and very quickly see there bookings come in. You can use Ableton/Traktor in sync mode and a cheap controller while you learn to DJ “properly”.
Thing is by going down the solo producer route you are MORE likely to become a successful DJ (hence my advice to anyone being get on the production).
i am an up & coming producer myself, but i have to agree with you. i think the sense of community one could once find in a musical scene is waning. i make and play drum & bass and i’ve started doing live shows of my current project with Ableton this summer, and while i have a lot of control over my tunes when playing them, it still feels like a glorified DJ set. At least it’s not about playing only the hits and people get to hear new music.
But a few weeks ago i was playing at a rave and all the others booked were DJs using vinyl and CDJs, proper jungle/DnB DJs, and i really felt like the odd one out. but i could see they definitely had a sense of community and were really passionate about the craft of DJing, and their sets were awesome! I think there should be a healthy balance of both skilled technical DJs who really know their craft and producers actually performing their own music at club nights. That would be really interesting to see and hear. Producers and DJs can’t really exist without the other, so instead of segregating ourselves we should embrace our respective roles and build a stronger community. Really change the way people experience electronic music live and force the promoters to accept this new reality. :)
We see a “watering down” of any sub-culture when it’s brought into pop culture. We saw it with Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Punk and now Electronic. DJing definitely has a social aspect to it, there’s nothing like chillin’ at a buddies place with a bunch of friends and playing some records for an evening. Switch off every 3 – 5 tracks and have a listen to what other people have found while crate digging during the week. The one thing that brought a lot of us together was a pair of Tech 12’s. Sometimes we’d find a Cafe, Jam Hall, empty commercial space or storage area and throw a small party because clubs wouldn’t cater to music that wasn’t top 40’s, but times have changed and so has the “scene”.
I feel like the proper house music scene is also a cultural thing.
They absolutely loose it about their lollypop headphones, rotary tube amp mixers and massive weights on the records while playing. All things that feel way more like a tradition than just a “i use whatever I want”.
I would say that at this point it’s a consumer culture, and the various branches of our culture have been consumed by capitalism. That said, I feel like all cultures are being consumed, used, and spat out by capitalism. None of us feel connected to culture because at this point culture is a commodity.. weakened by a soup of internet memes.
Knowing the Berlin scene I can say that fortunately in the recent time there are a few guys/gals who got bigger and bigger from just DJing very very good. For me that is a really good development. I have seen/heard too many producers who DJ mediocre sets and heard too many productions from DJs that where obviously ghostproduced.
It
is hard for jockies who began in the late 90’s to get any gigs these
days, just because we don’t produce, but are full-on technical Jockies.
Since when was a producer more in favor than the skilled Jocky?
I
think Derrick May said something about this matter, don’t know what
exactly anymore, but as always he had a strong opinion about it!
In
short.. being a producer doesn’t make a good DJ, who have been putting
in the hours to be at a level where producer / DJ’s still dream of
getting and in my opinion a necessity for a good night out of dancing.
No ill saying about producers, because without them there would be no scene, or at least what is left of it.
Partially the fault of promoters who don’t got the balls, to choose for
quality instead of Producer names and who will draw people to their
promoted parties, just because of their hyped names.
It is what it is unfortunately.
Jockies who strive for the perfection of the art itself… creating the
skills along the years… perfecting it… learning better every time, being innovative without making compromises… that is something to strive for.
Be real and don’t be in it for the fame, money or whatever reason besides loving the music.
For those shallow reasons it all went to shit any way.
Another thing… reading crowds is almost a lost art, but if you can
read a crowd, act on it with the music you love and than getting the
preferred reaction from the crowd is true artistry.
Not going for the easy road, like slamming the hits every time, but
taking the crowd on a musical journey and perhaps a frenzy as a climax.
Back in the day, DJ’s where there to introduce new music as teachers to the crowd which had a dancefloor quality.
Nowadays it is a producer scene like a fellow commenter stated earlier,
which is more focussed on promoting their own mediocre shit than
supporting the fantastic quality music from people they (for example)
just discovered or are not producer friends with.
It is just the selfish and narcissist ways of today and it reflects perfectly in what kind of state the world is in.
It’s all about the “Selfie” being it an audio (Soundcloud) selfie, or a
video (Youtube) selfie or just a plain old “look at me and my glorified
studio” selfie.
Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory!
I am not bitter, but I see the reality how it is.
One more thing… today I saw a video about the UK underground scene and
the early disco dancing… man, you could send a spaceship to the moon
with that energy.
Everybody
had super bodies, slim, fit and now people are fatter then ever, fist
pumping away, because the music doesn’t provide the right groove and
funk to bust out the moves to make you sweat like you were in a Russian
Sauna being beat down with branches and twigs.
If it ain’t funk or got a good groove you don’t have jack shit.
Keep on doing what you love people and do it for the right reasons.
Hopefully in the future I can salute you as a fellow musical brother.
Cheers everyone and all the best!
Sometimes I get frustrated at how stupidly easy it has become to be a ‘dj’ and yearn for the old days. But, like everything else from the past, we see it through rose tinted glasses.
For instance, I don’t like that everyone can hit sync and put zero effort into mixxing; or that anyone can use shazam to copy their favorite dj tracks and sound like they have good taste. But on the other hand, it’s nice not going to a club and having 3-4 warm-up dj’s who can’t beat match and have crap records screwing around while you wait for the real guys to play. So, yeah there’s good and bad in the modern era, but so there was in the past as well.
The one thing I see changing slowly is the advent of more and more live PAs
where Djs are bringing in multiple instruments and creating unique one
off performances. I hope this trend continues because it is much more
technical and rewarding for everyone involved. That, and I wish they would create a sync/auto-chord button for guitars so every douche could become an immediate rock star and take the spotlight back of electronic music :)
What do you expect when there are so much options available at low cost…On one side all those companies want to make money and sell tons of products, and they involve big names in promoting that gear,,,,on the other side some of this big names do not like that everybody is a DJ now…It’s just strange. May be the education process is misunderstood, may be passing the knowledge is not done appropriate, but how this can be done when almost all the information on a subject is available on the net? We live in strange and dynamic times. A good DJ is a good DJ no matter what. You can tell by their selection and skills. People are different and like different type of music. Oooo and I want to hit the sync button as much as I enjoy cutting doubles on vinyl…
You talk about “DJ Culture” and “Producer’s culture” as if they were separated from each other. I’d say they are more like the two sides of a coin. I am pretty sure the future will see the symbiosis of DJing and “producing” (god how I hate that word btw, so misused for so long..) and then the circle will finally be complete. Technology is marching to that direction already. That will change things up a bit!
I see no sense of “pride” in having a box of vinyl vs using a laptop. Both can be obtained “without paying dues”. Nowadays since most music is made to perfect integer BPM numbers you could just buy vinyl online that had music in the same BPM. No beatmatching required, just an excel spreadsheet and a lil geekery.
I think the “problem” (if we consider there to exist one) is that the audience have no idea nor desire to find out how DJing is actually done. All they see is someone doing stuff with machines and sound is coming from the PA. Add to the various ways one can “DJ” these days and eventually the lowest common denominator becomes the way people think everyone is doing it (just pressing play argument). People love stereotypes and easy categorization, so just lump everyone into that same hack/fake/nothing-special-required pool. I guess it can be argued that in the quest for better technology to DJ with, we eventually did this to ourselves.
Test
“We considered ourselves outlaws because no-one really respected us and
we lived outside the normal working hours. Nowadays, everyone is a DJ”
Speak for yourself Mr Cook ..
It’s common knowledge that many of us were inspired & influenced by respectable dj’s .
Norman Cook was never respected as a credible dj by many in his prime because he had the knowledge & sources as a beatdigger & many contacts but released many awful productions & remixes.
I acknowledge his longevity & growth in the industry & his contributions on the 2nd Freakpower album was fairly decent But I believe he chose to be the outlaw and no amount of revisionism can alter this. I also recall reading many interviews of Artists & reviews complaining about the quality of his releases.
Examples.
Beats International – Dance to the drummers beat. ????????
Silver bullet – Bring forth the guillotine remix.
Cornershop – Brimful of Asha remix.
Eric B & Rakim I Know You Got Soul – (Double Trouble Remix)
still love bangin it out on vinyl and yes usb or laptops its not the same … Fatboy slim you a true to the game nobody cares we ve become nothing the scene is shit ….I WOULD NOT PAY A CENT FOR A DJ IF NOT PLAYING VINYL OR AT LEAST SERATO BUT THERE IS A LOT OF STUPID PEOPLE PAYING SILLY MONEY
Since some people here have bashed Norman a little, I’m gonna veer off-topic for a second and give you my take on Fatboy Slim first. Next to Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and Crystal Method, he was my main source of inspiration when I started out. I really appreciate and respect his ability to take a 2-3 second sample and build a super catchy tune around it; DJ Shadow-esque digging skills applied to dance music instead of hiphop. There’s a compilation out there called “A break from the Norm” which contains some tunes he used as a source for his most famous productions – if you don’t know it, I highly recommend you check it out.
Watching the Big Beach Boutique DVD still gives me goosebumps and “On the floor at the Boutique” remains one of my all-time favourite DJ sets, even if it’s not really my style… to me Fatboy Slim is a complete boss behind the decks and knows how to entertain a rave crowd like few others. It’s no shame to admit I was trying to imitate him until I grew old enough to discover who I was, and I have learned a lot in the process.
Sadly, that magic only lasted for two and a half albums and some b-side gems on the individual single releases (such as “Next to Nothing”). I was rather disappointed by Palookaville and everything that came after, but it’s probably like the man himself said: you can only keep a purple phase going for so long. However, everyone with an actual discography – and I do mean EVERYONE – has had a few releases that were shit. It’s part of the game – you just can’t always nail it. But if you don’t take any risks, you’ll end up sounding like the next dude, and Fatboy Slim was never like that. He’s got proper cojones, and his career is proof that it can pay off. But he’s still, quite literally, one in a million.
As to the whole DJ culture thing, I think no one can deny it has changed for the worse, and I’m pretty sure I wrote this before – but heck, I’ll write it again. In the 90s, it took a tremendous amount of dedication, blood, sweat and tears to get successful as a DJ, but you could still do it just by DJing alone if you were in the right place at the right time (again – one in a million). Today, you just have to be a producer – it’s not your mixes, but your releases that get you booked. Of course you still have to have mixes, but it’s just not the same; your signature sound is not in your collection because everybody can find the same tracks these days. If you want to stand out, you have to have your original sound, and the only way to achieve that is to create it yourself. Even if it’s just a bunch of custom edits or mashups – it will be stuff no one else has, and that stuff defines YOUR sound. But even then, you can simply vanish among the thousands of people like you. It’s mostly who you know, combined with true originality and a shitload of luck.
As to technology… as much as it has made easier, it’s also made harder – where you used to lug around crates of records, you now lug around a whole bunch of gear and backup gear, depending on how deep you want to go with the live part of your performance. For some people, a bunch of USB sticks will do, and you can never tell they’re a DJ just by looking at them. For other people, it’s 2-3 bags full of boxes with buttons and miles of cables, and pain and suffering at every single goddamned airport.
Regarding the sense of brotherhood between DJs… while diminished, I’d say it’s still very much there. For me, the most recent fond memory is meeting half of the CYLS duo on the train back home from Musikmesse – as we were trying to cram our boxes of stuff in the compartment, we just looked at each other and immediately knew what’s what – then spent 4 hours playing each other tracks, and despite our completely different styles (CYLS make dark ambient, I’m more of a dnb head) we immediately hit it off – and each walked home with a new record.
As “online” as our lives are, there’s nothing like getting together with other DJs IRL and doing back-to-back sessions, and that’s the part I miss at parties. It used to be different. These days, you show up to play your 2-hour set and you’re done for the night – that sucks. The best parties I remember have always been like “hey screw time slots, let’s just go b2b all night”, and that energy would immediately transfer to the crowd. A bunch of people having fun works much better than a solo performance, and the sets you create feeding off each other’s energy and ideas surpass anything you can do on your own. But in order to do this, you have to let go of your ego – and most people seem to be incapable of doing that. We’re all trying to make ourselves known, because there’s so many of us, and we fight an endless battle for attention and popularity though all that matters is to have a good time and share that with a crowd.
Maybe the key word here is patience, maybe it’s perseverance, but to me it’s humility. You gotta realize that success doesn’t come overnight and it sure as hell doesn’t come to everyone. Just be a good guy, or a good girl, keep doing it for the music and be happy every single time you get to take it outside your bedroom.
I recently watched a Fatboy slim session on be-at.tv was in physical pain after a few songs.
Can’t take this guy serious anymore…