Beauty Bar (dive on 14th st between 2nd and 3rd ave) I roll in around 8:30 and talk to the older woman DJing (from 7-11pm). She says she used to spin every week there and now is only asked to spin once per month on the happy hour shift. She says for the 4 hours she works, she makes about $75- but it’s not about the money, she does it because she loves it.
Bar 13 (sports bar on 9th and 2nd ave) This bar is always filled with the ‘I just turned 21 crowd’. Cheap drinks and beer pong. The DJ booth is this awful box at the end of the bar - you can barely see the guy. It’s unlikely people know that there is a DJ. In fact, even though I’d been there a number of times, I wasn’t sure they ever hired one. I go up to talk to the DJ, his name’s Anthony, and he says that he’s making less than $200 for over 6 hours of DJing. I ask him how he got hired and he says he knows the guy responsible for hiring the DJs because they went to college together and that he’s actually a tech recruiter by day (interesting). The DJ says the whole business is quite “incestuous.” You hire who you know. That’s nothing new to me.
Solas(9th st between 2nd and 3rd ave) I sit at the bar and ask the manager about how he hires DJs. He gets super cagey once I get to question 3. Anyway the DJ that spins there regularly is apparantly exclusively responsible for hiring any other DJs.
Whisky Town (~4th and 2nd ave) The place is empty when I walk in around 10pm. I talk to one of the bartenders for a while- he’s very nice. He tells me that one manager hires the DJs for all 4 of the bars, which are under the same management. There are the same people each Thurs, Fri and Sat that regularly spin. He says that if I were to get a job, they’d require me to play “top-40 generic kind of music just so I know ’s what I’d be getting into.”
Von Keller AKA Von (Bowery and Bleaker) The place is very crowded and people are having a good time.. I go up to the DJ and ask him how how much he charges. He takes a beat and before he can answer, I say “you’d charge more for a private event than something like this” he nods n agreement. He says he’d charge anywhere from $500-1000 for a private party and hands me his card.
Bowery Electric (2nd and Bowery) I was here most of the night and had a generally good time. People were dancing and for the most part, having a lot of fun. The DJ played mostly top-40, some older songs, some new pop songs that I wasn’t familiar with but the groups of 22 year olds were singing along to. Just because someone plays the crowd-pleasers doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy it or that the DJ isn’t good. But there are very obvious changes to how a DJ plays a progression of music that regardless of the song selection, distinguish a shitty DJ. And it baffles and hurts when someone in a position as a DJ at a crowded popular bar can’t do that bear minimum. For example, the DJ regularly was playing almost the ENTIRE song. Like, it’s fine that you played Katy Perry -Last Friday Night- I genuinely like that song but when you’ve gotten to the third verse Seriously, the third verse, you’ve done something wrong.
But then on the same token, it didn’t really matter. People, for the most part, were having a blast. I had a good time dancing and singing along to few of the songs, whereas others made me want to go up there and smash her laptop. They made me genuinely angry.
I don’t think the majority of the crowd was as discerning as me.
What does this mean in terms of DeeJBase?
There are 2 types of people in this industry:
1. Those who care about a crowded room where people are drinking and having fun. These people include, pretty much any bar manager, pretty much any DJ, and most consumers of DJ music and nightlife - people like you and me. This is what matters most in a general sense. This is why people stay out and drink and make the business possible.
2. Then there are people who care not only about having a good time, about drinking and dancing, but about the art of DJing - that appreciate a DJ that doesn’t just play “crowd pleasers.” And even if they stick with top-40, that they play that music in a way that make sense, that they transition seamlessly, that they don’t keep the same song on for more than 2 minutes, that keeps us interested beyond the cheap shots. Those people who care- who value the art, those are the people that I want to bring together - that need a voice. And those people include a subset of bar managers like those at Folly, VIP Room, and Madame X. A subset of nightlife consumers, like myself. And many, not all, but many DJs. Many DJs who have no gigs - who would also work for peanuts and deserve that rush that comes with seeing an elated crowd.
So that’s who DeeJBase is for. It’s for talented DJs, the venues who hire them, and the people who love them.