@eulestadt my friends and i call this ‘playing youtube dj’ (even if youtube is not involved at the exact moment). it’s lots of fun, and also the reason i have an ipod from ten years ago filled with almost nothing but 90s music.
I was a DJ in the original sense—on the radio. In 1987-1989, I was at KUSF which was generally regarded as one of the top college stations in the country (in spite of me being on the air). And, yes, it was vinyl. We had some CDs but management kept them in a locker because they were afraid we’d steal them.
@SSteve I was also a radio DJ ('91-'95). But it was for a small local station, and really it was more “announcing and cueing” than what people think of as a DJ today - no mixing, cuts, etc.
I will say, it’s completely killed my fear of public speaking though. “Here, read this to a gym full of people”. Me: “Arright”
@SSteve KYES (generally regarded as a top 40 hole) in Roseburg Oregon 79-80. I played “Rubber Biscuits” backward, slowed to a stop, jumped, scratched needle, any which way to start my show “Crazy Sundays”. If I had only known I could have been a star! I still love doing voice over and making fun of the horrible narration on nature programs.
@SSteve WKNC from 2007-2008 for me, also a well-regarded college station, out of NC State. By then we were running most of our stuff off AudioVAULT and the station management (all students) kept encouraging us to play music off the CDs and records. I do know some people would come in and rip as many CDs as they could, but I don’t think theft was really a problem by then since copying was so easy. It was also kind of encouraged, so that we could be more familiar with our station’s library of music without tying up the actual collection.
Man I miss being on the radio. The only thing I’ve found close to being that fun is directing newscasts. It’s too bad radio DJ isn’t much of a viable career anymore. They’re also trying to kill off the director’s job, turning it into a position where you just keep hitting the Next button throughout the entire show and a computer does the rest.
@smyle My very first time by myself I was so nervous I let the automation run for half-an-hour before I finally attempted a break myself and playing my own music, and it was really bad. After a few months, though, it was no big deal, and I’ve never been better at improvising what I’m going to say on the fly with almost no planning than when I was on the radio.
@jqubed I remember when i first started, I’d be nervously finding CD tracks, making sure everything was ready to go, and it taking all the time while music was playing. A couple of years later and it was “Oh dang, that’s the outro, I should find the next track real quick”, and nobody was the wiser.
@SSteve I DJ’d further back – AM college radio 1966-68. Role models were Allen Freed, Cousin Brucie. Alas I never achieved that level of talent. But with a 500 watt AM station in western Pennsylvania, it was fun trying.
No option for “I own a copy of Traktor and a shitty panasonic DJ controller and I’ve used it to make shitty mix tapes and it’s somewhere collecting dust now”
I DJed my own wedding, because my bro-in-law couldn’t figure out how to play what I wanted or when I wanted it. It’s not like it was an extravagant wedding, or anything. (I am now divorced).
It’s where my name came from. College radio, KLPI, last half of the 90’s. Real vinyl, real mixing on what equipment I could scrounge. Played alternative as the staple of the station, but mostly to pay my dues to get a “specialty show” playing electronica (just about every genre except hardcore, but drawn to big beat and breaks) at night. Occasionally pulled all night hip-hop shows with drinking and scratching involved just for fun.
In what would probably be considered sacrilege, I scratched with an original Elvis LP of “Blue Suede Shoes” in production to produce a promo spot (still on carts at that time). A DJ I really like and respect (who went on to continue spinning after college) said it was the best scratching he had heard.
I turned the on-air thing into a couple of live gigs doing dances and the like at the school, but always found it to be more of a pain in the ass than it was worth compared to doing radio. Did more than a few backup nights at a bar I frequented after college (now on digital equipment), and was the owner’s favorite dj (but maybe because he didn’t have to pay me).
This ruined me because even 15 years out from my last set, anywhere I go where there is a DJ attempting to mix I hear and am bothered by every mistake. Just a few weeks ago I spent an afternoon in the pool in Jamaica explaining every issue with the resort dj’s efforts to my wife. This probably drove her crazy, but she puts up with me anyway.
@djslack I eventually became the electronica music director at my college station, although it was more because no one else was doing it than because I was thoroughly familiar with the genre. I never did learn to do club-style DJing, though.
Man I miss big beat. Did you ever hear Sonny J’s album Disastro? It was one of the last great big beat albums.
@jqubed Hadn’t heard it until now, but I like what I’m hearing.
I just googled it, and it came out a few years after I stopped keeping current on music. It seems no matter what comes out, time has mostly stopped and the best music is pretty much what I liked in the ten years after I graduated high school.
no never, but pretty much everyone i know is or has been a dj, and i was routinely put on ‘watch the booth’ duty. in other words, close but no cigar.
actually, as it happens my dad was also a dj, and just last night i opened a copy of a car key he had made for me & mailed and found it wrapped in one of his old comic flyers. that was pretty cool.
A coffee shop that I used to frequent inexplicably decided to stay open 24/7 for a year or so. I guess maybe they figured staff were there roasting beans anyway, they may as well sell a coffee or two. Didn’t take long for DJ nights to become a thing, and I had a lot of fun spinning there when I had the chance. Most people went digital, which probably made more sense - there wasn’t much space for 1200s. The smoke from the roaster made for a solid ersatz fog machine. I don’t know that the homeless fellow who slept on the couch liked it as much as the rest of the patrons.
Humorously, I live right next to the place now, but prefer to walk a few miles out to go to a different coffee shop instead… it lost all its soul years ago.
In video games… Sure.
/image gif DJ hero
I didn’t buy it, just borrowed it.
Does putting my phone in a JBL Speaker Dock count?
@eulestadt my friends and i call this ‘playing youtube dj’ (even if youtube is not involved at the exact moment). it’s lots of fun, and also the reason i have an ipod from ten years ago filled with almost nothing but 90s music.
I was a DJ in the original sense—on the radio. In 1987-1989, I was at KUSF which was generally regarded as one of the top college stations in the country (in spite of me being on the air). And, yes, it was vinyl. We had some CDs but management kept them in a locker because they were afraid we’d steal them.
@SSteve I was also a radio DJ ('91-'95). But it was for a small local station, and really it was more “announcing and cueing” than what people think of as a DJ today - no mixing, cuts, etc.
I will say, it’s completely killed my fear of public speaking though. “Here, read this to a gym full of people”. Me: “Arright”
@smyle Not me. I freeze if I try to speak in front of more than two people. Singing, on the the other hand, is a piece of cake.
@SSteve KYES (generally regarded as a top 40 hole) in Roseburg Oregon 79-80. I played “Rubber Biscuits” backward, slowed to a stop, jumped, scratched needle, any which way to start my show “Crazy Sundays”. If I had only known I could have been a star! I still love doing voice over and making fun of the horrible narration on nature programs.
@SSteve WKNC from 2007-2008 for me, also a well-regarded college station, out of NC State. By then we were running most of our stuff off AudioVAULT and the station management (all students) kept encouraging us to play music off the CDs and records. I do know some people would come in and rip as many CDs as they could, but I don’t think theft was really a problem by then since copying was so easy. It was also kind of encouraged, so that we could be more familiar with our station’s library of music without tying up the actual collection.
Man I miss being on the radio. The only thing I’ve found close to being that fun is directing newscasts. It’s too bad radio DJ isn’t much of a viable career anymore. They’re also trying to kill off the director’s job, turning it into a position where you just keep hitting the Next button throughout the entire show and a computer does the rest.
/image Dr. Johnny Fever
@smyle My very first time by myself I was so nervous I let the automation run for half-an-hour before I finally attempted a break myself and playing my own music, and it was really bad. After a few months, though, it was no big deal, and I’ve never been better at improvising what I’m going to say on the fly with almost no planning than when I was on the radio.
@jqubed I remember when i first started, I’d be nervously finding CD tracks, making sure everything was ready to go, and it taking all the time while music was playing. A couple of years later and it was “Oh dang, that’s the outro, I should find the next track real quick”, and nobody was the wiser.
@SSteve I DJ’d further back – AM college radio 1966-68. Role models were Allen Freed, Cousin Brucie. Alas I never achieved that level of talent. But with a 500 watt AM station in western Pennsylvania, it was fun trying.
No option for “I own a copy of Traktor and a shitty panasonic DJ controller and I’ve used it to make shitty mix tapes and it’s somewhere collecting dust now”
/image traktor screenshot
/image panasonic DJ controller
@awk was your dj controller two disc players as well?
Edit: aww, you changed the photo.
@RiotDemon That picture was pretty awesome, I can almost hear the trainwrecks:
/image shitty panasonic DJ controller
I DJed my own wedding, because my bro-in-law couldn’t figure out how to play what I wanted or when I wanted it. It’s not like it was an extravagant wedding, or anything. (I am now divorced).
It’s where my name came from. College radio, KLPI, last half of the 90’s. Real vinyl, real mixing on what equipment I could scrounge. Played alternative as the staple of the station, but mostly to pay my dues to get a “specialty show” playing electronica (just about every genre except hardcore, but drawn to big beat and breaks) at night. Occasionally pulled all night hip-hop shows with drinking and scratching involved just for fun.
In what would probably be considered sacrilege, I scratched with an original Elvis LP of “Blue Suede Shoes” in production to produce a promo spot (still on carts at that time). A DJ I really like and respect (who went on to continue spinning after college) said it was the best scratching he had heard.
I turned the on-air thing into a couple of live gigs doing dances and the like at the school, but always found it to be more of a pain in the ass than it was worth compared to doing radio. Did more than a few backup nights at a bar I frequented after college (now on digital equipment), and was the owner’s favorite dj (but maybe because he didn’t have to pay me).
This ruined me because even 15 years out from my last set, anywhere I go where there is a DJ attempting to mix I hear and am bothered by every mistake. Just a few weeks ago I spent an afternoon in the pool in Jamaica explaining every issue with the resort dj’s efforts to my wife. This probably drove her crazy, but she puts up with me anyway.
@djslack I eventually became the electronica music director at my college station, although it was more because no one else was doing it than because I was thoroughly familiar with the genre. I never did learn to do club-style DJing, though.
Man I miss big beat. Did you ever hear Sonny J’s album Disastro? It was one of the last great big beat albums.
/youtube sonny j disastro full album
@jqubed Hadn’t heard it until now, but I like what I’m hearing.
I just googled it, and it came out a few years after I stopped keeping current on music. It seems no matter what comes out, time has mostly stopped and the best music is pretty much what I liked in the ten years after I graduated high school.
@djslack That link wound up as just the title track; the real winner from the album was “Can’t Stop Moving”:
I think if this had come out 10 years earlier Sonny J would be spoken of alongside Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy, or The Chemical Brothers.
My favorite track from the album was “Sonrise”, though:
no never, but pretty much everyone i know is or has been a dj, and i was routinely put on ‘watch the booth’ duty. in other words, close but no cigar.
actually, as it happens my dad was also a dj, and just last night i opened a copy of a car key he had made for me & mailed and found it wrapped in one of his old comic flyers. that was pretty cool.
I DJ’d a few obscure school functions.
/giphy mad cool
Barffff. Made me lol.
So about 18 ppl (so far) said they “VeeJayed for a spell in the 90s”. Liars? Or totally on brand for mehtizens?
A coffee shop that I used to frequent inexplicably decided to stay open 24/7 for a year or so. I guess maybe they figured staff were there roasting beans anyway, they may as well sell a coffee or two. Didn’t take long for DJ nights to become a thing, and I had a lot of fun spinning there when I had the chance. Most people went digital, which probably made more sense - there wasn’t much space for 1200s. The smoke from the roaster made for a solid ersatz fog machine. I don’t know that the homeless fellow who slept on the couch liked it as much as the rest of the patrons.
Humorously, I live right next to the place now, but prefer to walk a few miles out to go to a different coffee shop instead… it lost all its soul years ago.
Yes. Yes I have.
Five nights a week at a major NY club for nine years. Still do nights when I feel like it.