DJ's - When Did You Stop Getting The Fear Before Gigs

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*runs to vomit*

― don (don), Saturday, 22 May 2004 11:03 (twenty-two years ago)

where you playing don?

bangkok impact tonite innit

― gareth (gareth), Saturday, 22 May 2004 11:05 (twenty-two years ago)

buttoned down disco, london. doing an 8 hour set. should be fun but The Fear has set in.. haha.

― don (don), Saturday, 22 May 2004 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

ah, is a shame, i think we'd have come to that if it wasnt for bangkok impact playing. is it at asylum again?

― gareth (gareth), Saturday, 22 May 2004 11:10 (twenty-two years ago)

nah it's at a club off charing x road. have fun at bangkok impact though :)

― don (don), Saturday, 22 May 2004 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Selecting music to play for other people is a gig?

― peepee (peepee), Saturday, 22 May 2004 13:38 (twenty-two years ago)

― cutty (mcutt), Saturday, 22 May 2004 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Banging the strings on a guitar is rock and roll?

Poking around in peoples guts is surgery?

Splashing paint on some paper is art?

Moving one body part in and out of another body part is making love?

― don (don), Saturday, 22 May 2004 13:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not attempting to be difficult.
(I publicly select music for others myself.)
It just strikes me as a bit odd to call it a gig.
I mean, is a radio DJ shift a "gig"?

― peepee (peepee), Saturday, 22 May 2004 13:58 (twenty-two years ago)

But my answer to the thread's question = ~ 1981

― peepee (peepee), Saturday, 22 May 2004 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

selecting music is indeed a gig. a gig's a gig, innit!

to answer th equestion at hand, it took me about 15 years to stop getting the fear.

― stirmonster, Saturday, 22 May 2004 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

After my first gig it was pretty smooth sailing.

― Gear! (Gear!), Saturday, 22 May 2004 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

win the crowd over early when they're sober with some really good shit and you'll be fine for when they're pissed. only after i've done that do i not feel nervous. good luck don!

― myke boomnoise (myke boomnoise), Saturday, 22 May 2004 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Relax and let your love of music open you up. Then you won't have The Fear. After you've played like two songs it won't seem like such a big deal anymore, you'll be in the groove.

― Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 22 May 2004 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

it comes an goes with the context. Myke, I have the opposite issue. When it's early and everyone's sober it's a room full of too cool for school jadedness, once the clock strikes midnight and everyone's onto beer number whatever...you could beat-box and rock the party.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Saturday, 22 May 2004 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm usually only nervous the first night of anything regular I'm putting on. Mostly because of financial reasons. I never get DJing anxiety. It helps to have a healthy sense of ego about it all.

― Xii (Xii), Saturday, 22 May 2004 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

ugh - I played a set recently, It was like 4 or 5 onehour sets. Everyone else used CDs and I used vinyl. Their gear was rubbish and the needle kept drifting. Thats put me off for a while...

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Saturday, 22 May 2004 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

When I started huffing glue backstage.

Just kidding. For some reason I've been lucky, of late, mostly to be avoiding The Fear -- although when I played in Austin this week, first gig (er, booking) where I'd actually been flown somewhere specifically to play, I did have a moment of soft panic right as I stepped up to the decks and put my first record on. (This soft panic quickly compounded itself into a substance with the density of steel when I slid up the fader on my first track and heard silence... turned out the previous DJ had swapped the crossfade assigns over to the CD decks, and lo and behold, the Pioneer mixer handles crossfade assign and override totally differently from my own mixer. Thank god people started clapping in the silence, assuming the transition was natural...)

When I was a young'un I studied piano pretty seriously, which included a fair amount of recitals and, later, competitions, master class auditions, etc. Somewhere in my junior year of high school I was laid low with a pretty much terminal bout of stage fright that derailed every single performance I had that year. I quit playing competitively. For years, as a DJ, I would get the shakes before playing -- I can recall gigs (g*gs) where my hands would shake so badly I could barely put the needle in the groove. (Alcohol helps.) Finally, though, that seems to have gone away, through no particular effort of my own.

The best cure is probably copious doses of Fernet. Gets you absolutely wasted, but preserves (the illusion of) motor control.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Saturday, 22 May 2004 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Fernet?

― Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 22 May 2004 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

try hosting a 3-hour auction and then running over to dj right afterwards, like i did last night! then you will know no fear

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 22 May 2004 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i have played a few parties where nobody was listening to the music, nobody knew what "mixing meant" and i was off in the corner irt the "dance"floor. i wasnt nervous then. ;-)

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Saturday, 22 May 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Fake confidence. Self-deprecation. Happy thoughts. Deep breathing. Whisky.

And Tequila!

― Crickets Dance On Tequila Booty (Barima), Saturday, 22 May 2004 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

That's right. My experience has been people give a hell of a lot less of a shit what's playing than you think.

― Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 22 May 2004 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

phil, you used to play piano? AND acted in that norelco ad? you're truly a renaissance man.

― ken taylrr (ken taylrr), Saturday, 22 May 2004 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Schedule something fairly physical and intense that lasts up until the last possible minute you can spare to get ready for your gig, then go straight to the gig and just do it -- it will feel like an extension of whatever you've been doing, you'll have plenty of energy, and you'll do fine. It's that reflection time that will get you -- just don't allow yourself any!

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Sunday, 23 May 2004 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but I had to give up acting in order to pursue my lucrative career in journalism. That and the SAG blacklist.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Sunday, 23 May 2004 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

i didnt go to bangkok impact, i felt ill:(

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 23 May 2004 18:03 (twenty-two years ago)

how was the gig don? what did you play?

― charltonlido (gareth), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Just thinking about pulling together records for an eight hour set is giving me The Fear.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

It was ok, charltonlido, there were some problems with the venue staff (right hand deck had a sticky Start button, left hand deck had a totally non-functioning Cue button, bar staff kept turning music right down, manager let in 50 of his pikey-gangsta mates etc) so we won't be using that venue again.

I played mostly reggae, rocksteady, funk and old-school hip hop and breakdance. Not that anyone could hear it hahaha.

― don (don), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Next one will be better though. Why do so many venues not have their shit together?

― don (don), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 15:35 (twenty-two years ago)

bar staff turning music down, GAAAAAH. so annoying, just cos they're disgruntled and at work does not mean they have a right to ruin a night.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe we'll come to the next one, providing it doesnt clash with something that i end up being too ill to go to either;)

― charltonlido (gareth), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

charltonlido - cool.

ronan - believe.. this one barmaid was terrible, i mean.. not turning it down a little but to almost inaudible levels. on the plus side, my Fear was quickly replaced with burning homocidal anger.

― don (don), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 22:35 (twenty-two years ago)

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