Killer DJ Promotion 3

1. Entertain, then educate

I’ve seen it loads of times. A DJ comes on, head down, straight into what he or she loves – no consideration for the crowd, who came before, the flow of the night – nothing. And they wonder why their “amazing” music clears the floor. But then there’s the other way, which I’ve also seen, from underground as well as commercial DJs: You have a box of tunes that express you, for sure, but you also have tunes you are pretty sure will please the dancefloor. The thing smart DJs like these do is spend the first part of their set pleasing the crowd, then when they’ve won their confidence, feel their way with twisting things around to their way of thinking, gently and considerately.

It doesn’t hurt, either, that the second half of the night is usually the intoxicated half – or to put it another way, people aren’t going to generally become less likely to dance as the night wears on! So planning your set in this way gives you longer to weave in those 4am techno minimal must-hears that have been kicking around at the back of your collection for months. Get everyone onside, then test your “good” stuff – you may be surprised.

2. Tease and test

Of course, you don’t want to just play a whole pile of tunes everyone knows, then bang into some UK white label dub country step (i just made that up – please tell me I made it up!) and expect the whole floor to come with you. Teasing and testing is your friend here. You can tease riffs, beats, intro sections, vocals, drum loops – anything that is reminiscent of what you want to play later, just for a few seconds or eight bars, repeatedly, to get people used to the sounds you want to move across to.

This teasing is your “test” – you’re watching the dancefloor, watching who maybe recognises stuff you didn’t think they would, getting a feel for what you may or may not be able to get away with. You’re priming and preparing people for the direction you’d like your set to take, in good time. You’re marking our boundaries, pushing things slowly, and always with the dancefloor on your side.

3. There’s a difference between “like” and “know”

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking “like” and “know” mean the same thing. Just because your crowd doesn’t know a song, doesn’t mean it won’t necessarily like it. You’re a DJ, a tastemaker. Let people taste the new music – they might like it! Remember, every song wasn’t known by anyone, once. Use your judgement to decide if a song is going to suit the night or not.

Of course this ties in with points 1 and 2: You can tease and test new music, and you can save it for later in your set, but there’s nothing better than “breaking” a tune that goes on to become huge – it’s “yours”, even though it subsequently gets heard everywhere. People will remember it, and you for first introducing them to it. Having an ear for a commercial song before anyone else is a huge skill and one not to be sniffed at – just ask the likes of Pete Tong, who has signed hundreds of hits with his “record label” hat on over the years, to give just one example.

4. Mix it well

Throwing a different style in badly is one thing. But playing a considered build up to a surprising twist in a pre-planned mini-mix is something else entirely. If you want to play a different style, to try something new, to surprise the crowd, then it definitely pays to plan a little and make sure they way you are going to mix that new thing in is clever, or at least smooth and accomplished.

There’s nothing wrong with practising mixes; it’s not the same as sticking rigidly to a pre-planned set, which is wrong of course (in most circumstances, anyway) – many DJs play from lots of 2-3 tune mini sets, slotting them together as they go along, and this can be a great way of holding the crowd’s attention with more challenging material – plus of course it makes you look good as a DJ, and pulling off pre-planned mixes in public that are maybe that bit more technical as a result is a buzz in itself, whether the material is challenging to the audience or not.

5. Look like you’re enjoying it

It can be really easy to look sheepish when playing tunes you’re not sure of – or to look scared, or be rigid (“rabbit in the headlamps”). It can happen to us all – I remember several times throwing on a tune that just bombed while DJing, and being so embarrassed that I actually hid (crouched down, pretending to look for something in my bag)! Luckily it doesn’t happen too often…

Thing is, you’re the leader of the party. Most people (with the greatest respect) are usually sheep – they’re looking around them for clues and pointers as to how to behave, and will generally follow the crowd. And the leaders of the crowd? Well, on a dancefloor, they’re looking at YOU. If you’re confident, dancing behind your decks, having fun (even if the material you’re playing is unknown to the audience / suddenly challenging), they are FAR more likely to copy you. Make no mistake: when you’re DJing, you’re leading from the front. Be bold. Make it as hard as you can for people to NOT enjoy your music!

6. Use mashups and remixes to introduce styles

Classic advice, but very true. In “old times”, you’d throw a familiar acapella over a challenging instrumental. Crudely, girls can dance to the vocal, boys to the beats. Not always the case, of course, but hopefully you see what I mean: If you can introduce something familiar to your new material, people will more likely accept it – especially if you tie it in with 4 above.

Now, more than ever in this SoundCloud world, there are myriad version of all kinds of tunes available. Find remixes of commercial tracks in the style you love. Find clever or fun mashups where the remixer has done the hard work for you. Have a go at doing your own re-edits to meld stuff more to the way you like to play or mix. Music isn’t sacred; it’s a tool, there to be twisted into whatever shapes you can imagine for your floors. And don’t worry about not being “purist” – remember, this is meant to be fun! Break a few rules – you’ll be remembered for it.

7. Persevere

A DJ (who sadly I can’t recall) once said that he felt if he didn’t empty the dancefloor at least once a night, he wasn’t doing his job right. A bit extreme maybe, but you get his drift, no? It’s OK to like stuff nobody (yet) likes. Sometimes, a tune played one week will empty the floor, the next week it will fill it. Sometimes, the same tune played at the end of a set will work having bombed at the beginning. There are no hard and fast rules – if there were, everyone would know them! So it’s OK to mess up every now and then. In fact, it’s pretty much essential.

Bottom line is you don’t have to play music everyone loves all the time. For example, we all have our favourite comedian, right? But we don’t laugh at all their jokes. We don’t expect to. They’re allowed to push it too far every now and then, to “test out new material”. It’s the same with DJs – if what you do is part of a bigger picture, and you’re letting people glimpse parts of that picture every time you play, they’ll get it. They understand they’re not going to love everything you ever do. Be genuine, try your hardest, keep your vision, and you’ll at least start to work out where and how to get away with mixing the stuff you really want to play in with the stuff you have to.

Killer DJ Promotion 2

1. Brainstorm and research first

If you’re starting off this process sitting right now in front of a graphic design program, turn it off. Seriously, the biggest mistake most make in designing a logo is to just open up a program and go at it without any real research or brainstorming. Take a sheet of paper, or a notebook, or open a text editor if you like to type it all out. Start writing down adjectives, genre names, and any other words you can think of that you want to use to describe yourself as a DJ or artist. Don’t worry if it all looks like it won’t make sense. These are what will help you then do your research.

When you have a list to start with, then do your research. Look at the logos of DJs you admire and even emulate. Take notice to how they design their logos. Look at flyers and ads for the music and scenes you like and want to play for. Believe it or not, the branding of a rave differs from that of a mainstream club and that of a rap music event. I usually like to save logos of where I get my inspiration from. Sometimes it’ll be a treatment I like, or a font, or some unexplainable thing. Many designers will even sketch out rough ideas and shapes they find on the same page as their adjective list.

2. Move on to rough design

This is the point of the process where we hit a fork in the road. Do you want to try designing it yourself? Or go to an actual graphic designer to do the work? If you have the money to invest, then it can be better to get someone to design your logo. Again, I’d hold off on using any computer-based design programs at this point of the process. Right now this is more like writing the rough draft of your bio. You’re better off taking a pencil and a piece of paper. Just sketch your ideas, or what you like.

The main reason for using pencil and paper is so you can just think design and not get too enveloped into choosing fonts, colours, and making things “perfect”. You don’t have to make a fully-refined “polished” logo. You’re just more doodling and toying until you come up with the solid idea that you’ll want to polish.

The kind of logo you make is really up to you. Many logos will have some kind of symbol or item with the name all nicely laid out. Many others do not. I personally like simple text-based logos, but you might be different. One good tip if you want to incorporate symbolism is to look at your list of adjectives, your name, and thus pull symbolism out of it. Feel free to make a few ideas if you have them. You don’t have to just pick one sketch. If you’re torn between a few ideas, then keep them all as ideas you’re going to pursue on the computer.

3. Now you can use the computer

With your sketched ideas all in order, it’s time to move on to the computer and polish them up into what could be your final versions. You will need a vector-based design program. Adobe Illustrator is the most well-known program, but you can easily get all of what you need in the freeware program InkScape. Unless you have a deep need, I’d advise you not to use bitmap-based programs such as Photoshop, GIMP, or the web-based Pixlr. The main reason is a logo should be a vector file that can be easily resized for any purpose. It could be a tiny logo on the corner of a flyer, or a big billboard on the side of the road. With a bitmap image you cannot go larger than its original size without having blurring occur.

From this point, take your ideas and lay them out now in the program. Take your time, as rushing will only give you a mediocre deliverable. Explore not only your idea as a whole, but the font you’ll use, how the lettering will lay out, and the balance you create between your text and any symbols you might create. Don’t be afraid to “play around”. That means feel free to toy with or distort the font and shapes if you need to, or just sit there tweaking and trying variations until you are happy. Also explore colours if it is something that is important to you. I personally like to stay away from picking specific colours, but many others feel the opposite.

4. Review and revise

When you have one or multiple pieces ready, take a moment to review. If you’re going about this all on your own, then perhaps make some kind of rough design of a flyer or an album art with your logo. See how it looks to you. Many logos might look wonderful by themselves, but when you put them into context, you might find one standing out while the rest won’t. If you want to make it collaborative, then show your friends and ask their opinions, or even just check that your final designs fit the list of adjectives you wrote up in the beginning of this process. It’s not the rule you must make it fit that list, but more a good guideline to start from. If you need to collaborate and have no.one, try using our forum.

Make any changes you wish, and keep going back and forth until you feel solid on your final logo.

5. Export the final versions and make your guideline

When you’re finished with your design, you’ll need to save it out as graphics you would send out to designers or whoever might need your logo. The most popular file format for logos are EPS. I’ll usually have my logo ready as EPS files as well as PDF and transparent PNG. Since PNG files are bitmap (ie a “set size”), I’ll make the final file around 1000 pixels wide. It keeps things large in case someone has issues with EPS or PDF files (which are “vector”, as described earlier).

The main point is so you’re covered on all bases. If a designer is making a flyer with a darker image of a big crowd at a festival, he/she might end up using the white logo instead of the coloured one. That, or it could be an inexpensive flyer made on a copy machine, thus the designer will use the black logo.While making these files in every file type, I’ll also save versions in black, white, and any other colour scheme used. So if the final logo is let’s say, red and green, I’ll have EPS, PDF, and PNG files of that, but I’ll also have a white version and a black version in those file types.

A logo guideline isn’t a requirement, but you should make one if you have very specific “rules” on how you want your logo used. I personally hate them, because too many logo guidelines are super-strict and thus do not give designers much room to breathe. Regardless, if you want to make a guideline, then speak of your logo in the following factors:

• Colours / versions that can be used
• Sizing
• What colours can you put the logo on top of?
• Can you put the logo on top of gradients, photos, or textures?
• Space around the logo in design

Killer DJ Promotion

Step 1: Gather information

The first step in writing your DJ bio is to gather the information you want to talk about. Think about the following questions before you write anything:

• Where are you from? Has this had any bearing on the kind of DJ you are/want to be?
• How did you start DJing? Or what led you to want to be a DJ?
• What are your goals as a DJ?
• Who influences you? Where do you draw inspiration from?
• What have you done, in terms of gigs or projects?
• What are you currently doing now, in terms of residencies or other projects?
• What projects are you looking to do in the future?

Take some notes as you ask yourself these things. Even if you’re a rank amateur with little experience, you can still come up with an initial bio by simply focusing on the points that aren’t related to past or present gigs/projects.

Step 2: Write your draft

With your information gathered, it’s time to organise it into a first draft. This isn’t supposed to be a chronological telling of your DJ career, but more a combination summary/marketing story of you. A good way to approach the first draft is to use this basic structure:

• Who you are and what you’re about
• Where you started and what you’ve done.
• Your influences and goals
• Where you’re at now and where you see yourself going

I know it’s tough to talk about yourself, but it is one of life’s challenges that when you overcome it, you’ll be able to more easily promote yourself not even in the DJ realm but even in the normal professional world, if you happen to be seeking a job or opportunity that isn’t even DJ-related.

When you write, think about the tone you want to convey and which “person” you want to speak in. Speaking in the first person (“I did this and I did that”) will give a more friendly, personable tone to your bio. However, it might not come off as “professional”. The third person (“He did this and she did that”) is a better tone for most bios if you’re serious about going deep into this as a potential career.

In terms of tone, you want your bio to sound ambitious, professional, and positive. Try not to sound egotistical, negative, or narcissistic. Also try not to get long-winded, or put in things that have no real relevance to your DJ career. For instance, it’s nice that you were born in a little village and shovelled coal until you were sixteen, but does this have any real deep relevance to you as a DJ and what you bring to the booth? If the sound of a coal shovel rhythmically hitting the black stuff has given you a highly original take on programming drum lines, say so – if not, it’s not relevant!

So how long should your bio be? I’m sure you’re wondering. I will tell you that most promoters or even journalists are not going to have the time or patience to read a massively long DJ bio. I would probably advise not to go more than four or five paragraphs, but at least as long as one paragraph (if you don’t have much to say). One sheet, definitely.

When you get your first draft finished, approach the next step the same way you might have when you write or wrote term papers for school. Write your rough draft, read it a few times, and then tweak or change things as you see fit.

Step 3: Version it out

When you finish and perfect your final bio, you then need to make several versions of this. The main reason is your bio should also be easy content for whoever might need it. So let’s say you made a strong four-paragraph bio you’ll toss on your website and in your press kit. You should then whittle it down into a one-paragraph version showing the most important points. This is what some journalists or promoters might use in some cases, or perhaps for social media sites in the “About” section.

You should also make one or two more versions that are one or two sentences long. This might sound silly, but look at a lot of rave events. When they post their detailed lineups online, many promoters will put those small tiny bios next to each name. These mini-bios shouldn’t so much focus on achievements or where you came from, but more on just who you are and what one can expect of you. Think of this as your “elevator pitch” – what would you tell someone if you had to travel a single floor in an elevator with them about your DJing career, that gets the main point across?

Step 4. Got a related company? Do the same thing!

Are you planning on starting a promotions crew to throw events? Or maybe you’re a mobile DJ and want to present yourself as a company rather than an individual? In either case (or if you’re a PA hire firm, or you run an internet radio station, or you’ve founded a club wear shop, or you run the club listings website for your town…) the simple DJ bio will not do. You’ll still need a DJ bio regardless for your own individual use, but for a company, the “bio” is known as a mission statement. A mission statement is usually one or two sentences that tell what your company does and what it’s about. This could be something like:

“Our mission is to expand the musical landscape of the city while entertaining patrons and creating a balance between underground innovation and mainstream excitement.”

Or even:

“DDJT Entertainment provides top-quality music and entertainment services for your event. We bring the excitement of the club to your wedding, corporate party, or school dance.”

If you need to go further, then you would make a company history which tells of your achievements, growth, current projects, and goals, much in the way you did for your DJ bio. From that point you would perhaps list the principal participants in the company and show their own short one-paragraph bios (see why I had you version things out?).

In the long run, be it a bio or mission statement, the goal is to write copy that allows the reader to get to know you as a DJ, artist, or company. A demo can do wonders, but it’s the bio that separates you from the masses. That’s why it is so important, and why you should treat it always as a work in progress – keep updating and evolving your bio as you grow and evolve as a DJ or artist.