Hi Raphael,
You asked a few questions but ill start with a little bio on how i got started in the industry.. (prepare yourself lol)
I was 17 and a very good pool player, so one of the local pubs signed me to their pool team. The matches used to be on Thursday evenings and used to finish just before the DJ came on. Well after a few months, one night our match played on a little longer than expected and the DJ didnt show up, so the landlord asked if anyone could fill-in.. i was of course underage but bragged that i could do the job. I had no experience in DJing, i just thought "how hard can it be" lol. It turned out i did pretty well, karaoke soon came after also. I played their until shortly before i turned 18. Here i started making little looped remixes and mashups in my spare time. I lost the job because the landlord's wife hired this butch looking chick to DJ, it soon finished in a divorce due to the landlord's wife having an affair with this new DJ lol. I was having some problems at home and my ex-gf's uncle generously offered me a place to stay. He ended up funding my interest and became my financial investor. He bought me a shitty pair of Citronic belt-driven turntables with some rubbish 2 channel mixer with a master EQ only. My gf (at the time) had an older brother who dabbled in bedroom DJing and had loads of vinyls, he generously donated some of them to me. So we bridged my booth output to an MD recorder and i spent 6 months mastering mixing, recording them and listening to them back. During this time my website designer tutor (unknowingly to me was a former DJ) give me a few demo's on his kit at his radio studio and i also got in contact with Radio1 DJ Judge Jules and he gave me a few tips on promoting myself. A local hotel/bar wanted a DJ for functions and Quiz nights, we applied and got the job. We did many occasional functions and even a NYE, earning up quite a bit of money. Me and my investor (now manager also) decided to go on a vacation to Magaluf (Balearic Islands). While out there there was a club requesting a DJ "URGENT", so i went in, had a drink (or few) and told em id do a trial if they needed. I did from 10.30pm till 4am when it closed. They offered me the job! So i made a few calls to my parents, told them i wont be coming home. My investor sold his 20k car back in England and we stayed from April till September. My old high-school best mate came over sometime in July after a bad break-up with his gf, he got a bar manager job. When winter came we came back to England and heard of the local newspaper had done an article on my career, i was offered the DJ job in every bar in our little town. I ended up working at 4 different bars over the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. After a few months an opening came in a club just out of town, i did a trial night. Had the whole club packed door to door 700+ people, obviously offered the job, until just 1 week later the old DJ undercut my prices and stole his job back. The next couple of years were just floating from job to job over radio stations and clubs at different venues, different cities, different countries. I ended up announcing my retirement late 2009, until a close friend and bar owner pleaded with me to take the DJ job at a local bar/club. I still remain there now. Its not a big club, holds about 500 maximum. I opening a music production website to share acapellas, instrumentals, samples and other production tools and tips (www.lazyrecords.net), and have been remixing here and there while still making mashups. That is a (surprisingly) brief story of my 5 year DJ career lol.
I didnt go into detail in how me and Leon became TopFloorDjs, or how i taught Leon to mix. What difficulties i went through in my 2nd year in Magaluf... just basically stuff that would bore ya, if the above didnt bore you enough lol.
If you want my advice on promoting yourself i suggest lining up 5/6 tracks of your preferred style of music, mixing them over and over until they are perfect, then record the mixset. Burn it to about 20 discs and give them to bar owners (i suggest looking for clubs with a similar style to your own). write your name and number on the discs and wait for a call. In the mean time get down to a second-hand store like Cash Generator and pick up some cheap rubbish turntables. Grab a few old vinyls of your style and mix and mix until you can beatmatch with little problems. I always stand by: learn on belt-driven turntables and every other equipment will be easy! Ive gone from belt-driven turntables to Technic 1210's to stack panel CD Players and now to CDJ1000mk3's. Trust me when i tell you its best to learn on the most difficult.
Brad Szorts from TopFloorDjs.
You asked a few questions but ill start with a little bio on how i got started in the industry.. (prepare yourself lol)
I was 17 and a very good pool player, so one of the local pubs signed me to their pool team. The matches used to be on Thursday evenings and used to finish just before the DJ came on. Well after a few months, one night our match played on a little longer than expected and the DJ didnt show up, so the landlord asked if anyone could fill-in.. i was of course underage but bragged that i could do the job. I had no experience in DJing, i just thought "how hard can it be" lol. It turned out i did pretty well, karaoke soon came after also. I played their until shortly before i turned 18. Here i started making little looped remixes and mashups in my spare time. I lost the job because the landlord's wife hired this butch looking chick to DJ, it soon finished in a divorce due to the landlord's wife having an affair with this new DJ lol. I was having some problems at home and my ex-gf's uncle generously offered me a place to stay. He ended up funding my interest and became my financial investor. He bought me a shitty pair of Citronic belt-driven turntables with some rubbish 2 channel mixer with a master EQ only. My gf (at the time) had an older brother who dabbled in bedroom DJing and had loads of vinyls, he generously donated some of them to me. So we bridged my booth output to an MD recorder and i spent 6 months mastering mixing, recording them and listening to them back. During this time my website designer tutor (unknowingly to me was a former DJ) give me a few demo's on his kit at his radio studio and i also got in contact with Radio1 DJ Judge Jules and he gave me a few tips on promoting myself. A local hotel/bar wanted a DJ for functions and Quiz nights, we applied and got the job. We did many occasional functions and even a NYE, earning up quite a bit of money. Me and my investor (now manager also) decided to go on a vacation to Magaluf (Balearic Islands). While out there there was a club requesting a DJ "URGENT", so i went in, had a drink (or few) and told em id do a trial if they needed. I did from 10.30pm till 4am when it closed. They offered me the job! So i made a few calls to my parents, told them i wont be coming home. My investor sold his 20k car back in England and we stayed from April till September. My old high-school best mate came over sometime in July after a bad break-up with his gf, he got a bar manager job. When winter came we came back to England and heard of the local newspaper had done an article on my career, i was offered the DJ job in every bar in our little town. I ended up working at 4 different bars over the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. After a few months an opening came in a club just out of town, i did a trial night. Had the whole club packed door to door 700+ people, obviously offered the job, until just 1 week later the old DJ undercut my prices and stole his job back. The next couple of years were just floating from job to job over radio stations and clubs at different venues, different cities, different countries. I ended up announcing my retirement late 2009, until a close friend and bar owner pleaded with me to take the DJ job at a local bar/club. I still remain there now. Its not a big club, holds about 500 maximum. I opening a music production website to share acapellas, instrumentals, samples and other production tools and tips (www.lazyrecords.net), and have been remixing here and there while still making mashups. That is a (surprisingly) brief story of my 5 year DJ career lol.
I didnt go into detail in how me and Leon became TopFloorDjs, or how i taught Leon to mix. What difficulties i went through in my 2nd year in Magaluf... just basically stuff that would bore ya, if the above didnt bore you enough lol.
If you want my advice on promoting yourself i suggest lining up 5/6 tracks of your preferred style of music, mixing them over and over until they are perfect, then record the mixset. Burn it to about 20 discs and give them to bar owners (i suggest looking for clubs with a similar style to your own). write your name and number on the discs and wait for a call. In the mean time get down to a second-hand store like Cash Generator and pick up some cheap rubbish turntables. Grab a few old vinyls of your style and mix and mix until you can beatmatch with little problems. I always stand by: learn on belt-driven turntables and every other equipment will be easy! Ive gone from belt-driven turntables to Technic 1210's to stack panel CD Players and now to CDJ1000mk3's. Trust me when i tell you its best to learn on the most difficult.
Brad Szorts from TopFloorDjs.
