I've been meaning to write this entry since Tuesday, but as will be shortly explained, there is some poetic justice that it took until 4:30 am on Friday night (techincally Saturday morning) to share this news on my blog.

Anyway, the news is that on Tuesday night I quit my Friday night residency at Boltini and resigned as music director. Also leaving that night was the Saturday night DJ, Chris O, the sound engineer and one of the bartenders that had been at Boltini longer than I had been (so that's like 3+ years). Over the course of the week, I guess a slew of servers, barbacks, doormen and others have quit as well. The problem stems from our new general manager running the lounge into the ground in a multitude of ways. The important thing for me, a few days after all the dust had settled, is not all the idiotic decisions the new manager made, and all the offensive (and potentially illegal) things he said.

What is important for me is that this is the first time I have quit a residency. I had been fired from my four previous residencies due to slowdowns in the nights. Over time, I've come to terms with the fact that nearly all weekly DJ nights slow down to the point where it is wise for the bar to make changes. However, I feel so much better about jumping off of the sinking ship that was Boltini under new management, than if I had stuck around until I got fired (which could have been another year ontop of the year and a half streak I had going with Fridays). I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson, and exhibited courage that I should have exhibited with at least one of my past residencies that I let haunt me for months longer than I should have.

If there is any sadness, it is that I won't get a chance to make Boltini bump like it bumped at the end of April. Also, this is the first time that I am without a DJ home in over two years. Ironically, hanging out at Smartbar tonight, I got to hear Jesse Rose play the Switch remix of Spankrock's "Bump." That was the tune that kickstarted the crowd at the awesome J Phlip & Mertz gig at Boltini. For half a second, it crossed my mind that I wasn't playing on a Friday night in Champaign. I was a little bummed. And then when the crazy synths kicked in, I really didn't care anymore. It was just a regular weekly night that had a beginning and an end.

Some weekly nights are something truly special. They create an environment and vibe that transcends just going out to a bar. There is a sense of family with all the regulars. There is anticipation of what new tricks and surprises will emerge this week. There is just something different that never really took root during my year and a half playing Fridays at Boltini. Sure, I had many a busy night, but there was never an extra special connection between me and Friday nights.

Many people have been asking where I am going to play next, and I can't say that I know just yet (I'm sure I'll write about it once I do). However, I do know that I am going to use this free time to reevaluate my strategy when it comes to DJing, and to try a few extra new things that might help my DJing career.

Jazzernover

Recent house releases, for the most part, have been painfully weak (and if you disagree with me on that, post 10 house records that have come out in the last month that are worth buying). Because of the dearth of quality house vinyl to purchase, I've been digging a lot harder for chilled vinyl, old funk, old jazz, etc. A week or so ago, digging through the shelves at Reckless Records, I came across a compilation compiled by Jazzanova. It is called Blue Note Trip, and instead of the usual Jazzanova re-edits and remixes, it is a simple double LP that provides classics from the Blue Note catalogue in their entirety. Jazzanova's contribution is that they selected the tunes for this compilation, but as far as I can tell, they haven't done any reworking.

I'm sure to people that dig hard, Blue Note Trip isn't anything groundbreaking. However, as a primer for people who are just getting into digging into the past, this is a great starting point (for example, it taught me to look for anything produced by the Mizell brothers). Anyway, I have been listening to the wax in my room whenver I'm home, and some of the songs are just mindblowingly good, and still manage to sound fresh and relevant today. The song I've decided to share is one of those tunes:

Donald Byrd - Think Twice

A few weeks back I was playing a gig. I've been doing that almost every week for nearly three years straight now. For the most part it is a pretty routine thing for me.

So I was quite shocked when I couldn't hear anything out of my left ear while mixing a record. At first, I thought it was the mixer at the subpar bar I was playing at. But after looking down and seeing that everything on the mixer was fine, I turned and saw my left headphone cup dangling near my chest. Just to clarify, headphones are best used over your ears, not dangling around your chest.

I thought I should write something about these busted pieces of junk, the Sony MDRV700 DJ headphones. I hope that maybe a Google search would yield a link to this post. See, this is not my first pair of headphones that has broken at the left cup (as you can see above). This is my second pair. I have some DJ friends that have gone through up to five pairs of these things. They all have broken at the left cup. Almost every DJ that buys these headphones, has them break at the left swivel point.

For me, this second pair, just breaking on my head (not even turning the headphones or anything) was enough. I'm done buying the Sony MDRV700 headphones. Obviously, Sony has to be aware of this problem, but does nothing to fix these headphones. And why should they? If people keep buying the headphones, it makes sense to have them constantly breaking.

Instead of falling for Sony's corproate chicanery for a third time, I ordered a pair of Pioneer HDJ 1000 headphones. They feel great, they sound great, and it's already obvious that they are more sturdy than those piece of crap Sony's. My advice to everyone thinking of buying DJ headphones is to ask any DJ that has been DJing for a while and using Sony headphones what pair they're on. If it's more than 2, that should be a sign that it's not worth buying two pairs of headphones when you can get a better pair for the price of one.

Blowing Up The Crowds


This weekend I logged 14.5 hours playing music for people. On Friday I played 4 hours at my usual Friday night residency at Boltini. On Sunday I did a half hour bootleg set on the Sunday Night Sound System show and the usual two hours of deliciously laid back music on my radio show Chilled Beats on WRFU. And while all of those things were nice, none of them matched what went down Saturday. Actually, no gig in Champaign in my four years of playing out has matched this Saturday.

On the 28th of April, J Phlip and I reunited for three gigs. The first was providing the music for an art show that featured works from our good friend and our personal photographer, Elise McAuley. We played a ton of stuff, including Herbert, Bjork, The El Michaels Affair, Lily Allen, Coco Rosie, Mr. Scruff, DJ Krush, Mum, and Spankrock. I probably should have recorded it, but oh well. It was a good time, and a good way to ease into what would be one of the most memorable nights in Champaign.

Next up was a gig at Boltini on the full dancefloor. After a slow start on the floor (caused largely by people wanting to either enjoy the gorgeous weather outside, or oggle at the GoGo dancers up on the bar), and then after overcoming some sound difficulties, Jess and I ripped through one of the craziest sets we've ever played together. The crowd response (pictured above) was amazing, intense, inspirational, and an enormous shot of adrenaline. We ripped that dancefloor for over about an hour and a half. It seemed like it was over in a heartbeat. I can't remember exactly every tune that we played, but it was huge.

After that, we picked up at an afterhours where we left off at Boltini... decimating a grimey basement dancefloor for an hour. I haven't seen Champaign act like this ever. It was so inspirational, and the shot of happiness and hope that I really needed (things had been slow as of late).

And for the record, all 14.5 hours of DJing were done using my new Pioneer headphones. There were no problems. Take that Sony!

For the tune for this post, I'm going to post up something that has been on blogs a bunch already, but it was one of the huge tunes of our Boltini set. People freakin went crazy on every drop in this song:

P Diddy ft. Christina Aguilera - Tell Me (Switch Remix)