We Are in the Age of the Knob Twiddling TRY to Look Good for Social Media DJ Sadly

0:01 Firstly before I start, I'm going to give you a bit of history

Alright ladies and gentlemen, firstly before I start, I'm going to give you a bit of history. When I was 10, I had an 18 year old bloke pick me up, throw me on concrete and broke my two front teeth. Broke one of my bottom teeth, displaced every other tooth in my mouth, slowly over the years they've been deteriorated. Recently I've come back from Turkey and I'm having my teeth fixed. So, got 10 of these in at the moment. It's something I've wanted to have done for a very long time. But anyway, that's it. So you know. Right, I think we're at an era now, and we have been for quite a while, where a DJ on the stage in front of a crowd of people is slowly, sadly, becoming not a true old ethical DJ. But, someone who is more interested in their ego.

Now, if we go back to the 90s or even earlier, a DJ would turn up with a bunch of vinyl records and I would hazard a guess to say, and again you can agree with me or disagree with me, but on the night he or she would form a great set based on the crowd in front of them. Now that's the key there, on the night. Not beforehand, but on the night. I mean, they may flick through a few tunes and say, yeah, I like those, they're in vogue at the moment, we'll play them. But I'm speaking from personal experience myself and watching other people and friends of mine who were DJs back in the day. The trouble is nowadays with the computer and a laptop... Yeah. You're probably already reading my mind. DJs are able to formulate some kind of set prior to getting to the gig, they get to the gig

2:17 What do I mean by a real set?

And then they're more interested in dancing around and having people thrust phones at them instead of really enjoying the energy, the vibe and concentrating on a real set. So what do I mean by a real set? Well, if you are said DJ who likes to just get set together in your bedroom or in your hotel room and then play it in front of a crowd, that's all well and good. But what you're not doing, what you're missing out on, is the energy that the crowd are giving you and where they want that set to be taken. You see, for me and for any professional DJ out there who's worth their salt, what you should be doing is formulating a set on the fly. Now take that on board because when you're doing that you are now concentrating more on your set

And what you should be doing and not concentrating on how good you look and what I class as the knob twiddler. Yes, we've seen them many times on many videos. The DJs that they're in front of the kit and all they do is twiddle knobs. Well if you are a professional DJ and you know your trade in fact if you know any trade and you watch someone who is doing the same thing as you you know straight away if their actions are actually cause and effect or their actions are cause and no effect so very easily what does that mean? Well a cause is you're doing something, something's happening and then there is an effect because of what you've done. Whereas a lot of DJs I watch they're twiddling about like this and I'm thinking

I can't hear an absolute frigging difference at all it just looks good. You see this is where we're getting now we get into the stage where a DJ sadly is there as an entertainer it's almost as though it's an act and the music now is getting left behind it's almost like the music, the set the actual set is secondary to how good they look and how well they come across and how much they can bounce their boobs around or shake or whatever I don't know and again I don't mean to say that nastily for all the lady DJs out there because there are some bloody good lady DJs but let's be honest if you're going to turn up if you're a lady DJ you're going to turn up to an event wearing not much but pretty much half a hanky then of course you're going to get lots of people looking at you

5:02 Needle

But can you really DJ? This is the question. Alright so I've covered quite a few subjects here but what I would like to see and I'm sure you would as well if you are like me you've gone through all of the formats and you're still sticking to the original format which is vinyl I would love to see some of these world class professional DJs who solely rely on a laptop and sync give them a bunch of records give them a set of Technics turntables where the pitches aren't precise because they've been used that much and get them to do a set just with vinyl I guarantee it most of them will not be jumping around will not be smiling they will be desperately trying to find the next record or beat match the next one in, in phrase

And then have to rush quickly because it's just skipped when they're just about to drop it in on the drop and the record's skipped and they've got to start all over again but they can't pause go back set a hot cue on the one that's playing already because you just can't do it the only thing you can do is lift the needle up and start again but anyway there is a tip to that as well because if you're good on the microphone you can actually talk on the mic lift the needle put the needle back and guess what no one probably knows what you've done talking in the gap of music means that everyone thinks you're just talking but really what you've done is you've moved the needle back and I've done that many times that's almost like a get out of crap scenario

Anyway what do you think let me know in a comment videos to come on the AZ it's one heck of a beast but thank you for watching practice and enjoy

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.