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DJ SETS NOT LIVE ACTS
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Mad Ron
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 25, 2003 19:42
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After a few great all-dj outdoor events and many awesome all dj festival rigs (voov being most memorable) as well as great all dj parties in bristol (at the Depot) oxford and Leeds (at Gecko). Compared to many dissapointing live acts...
It seems that maybe a couple of nights in london with just talented djs playing long sets would be a good idea.
With a few notable exceptions all of my best psychedelic experiences ever have been the result of djs who really think about their music being given free reign and enough time to really push the envelope.
Before someone (...) bites off my head this is by no means a snipe at the many-live-act parties going on at the moment. |
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nobody_3
Inactive User
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Posted : Nov 25, 2003 19:50
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I could not agree more.. I have always thought that livesets break up the flow of a party anyway. Having been away for a long time from the scene it does seem to me that it's for sure more a concert than a party these days. I hope London get's back to it's roots again without going backward 
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John
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 25, 2003 23:43
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I'd started a new thread then noticed it had already been done!! So ignore the other thread...
“Somehow seems that a lot of parties are not parties - more like rock concerts. Music showcases. How can you fit in 3 live acts and 3 dj`s into one night ????”
Humph in a different thread
I’ve thought for some time that live acts are becoming more and more important and less people seem interested in DJs. How many new DJs can draw a crowd to a party in the same way as Mark Allen or Tusyoshi (sorry I can NEVER spell his name!) used to be able to? Any new “name” DJs on flyers just seem to be live acts who spin a few CDs on the side.
A very good example is the Astral Phoenix NYE party that has 5 or 6 live acts advertised and no DJs. Now I’m sure it’ll be a great party but the fact that its now the “live” acts and not the DJs that are the main pull shows how far psy trance has changed. It does seem to be marketed in a very similar way to rock with recognisable artists and the DJs – which are the main stay of most other sorts of dance – relegated to second place. Wonder why this is the case?
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jon
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 01:24
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I agree that the emphasis on Live sets moves us more towards rock music than other kinds of dance music....
This book i am currently reading about the history of dance culture talks about how in dance music the artist is relegated to anonymity, while the DJ takes centre stage (compared to rock which is the authors original background). Well it was funny for me to read that cos I thought of exactly this current forum topic... in Psy Trance the artist is in fact more important (on flyers anyhow) than the DJ.
I am not sure it is good or bad, just the way things have evolved.
I also do not believe that this is a UK thing! It is true wherever you go in the world to get your psychedelic trance.
Ok so why is it happening/has it happened? Do you have a theory John? I dunno myself.... does it come partly from the fact that in the early goa days the music had features in common with more performance oriented kinds of music ... ? I mean you could improvise extended synth lines where you messed around with your 303s cutoff or your juno or whatever.
It's an interesting topic! |
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humph
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 13:22
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Well, just to clarify. I`m not cussing parties with lots of live acts, i`ve heard some outstanding music from live shows. just that live as we all know is generally just a laptop running a few audio tracks. bit of a con really. there are some excellent acts though, kox box and saiko-pod being at the top. It is good that the Artists is getting more recognition and in this day and age the "live" show boosts there income when sales of records are so low - due to piracy etc. It is necessery for them to now dj or play from laptop just to keep writing music - otherwise they would be so skint they could not makje the music we all love.
But i just concerned that the idea of a trance night being a journey has been lost. people all just seem starstruck like at concerts nowdays. remember , we are there to plug in - to dance !!! all dj`s and artsists deserve recognition - just better that the music flows more in an evening than the last few nights i`ve been to. what do others think ?
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Mad Ron
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 17:12
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This issue of plugging in is where the dj really comes in. The ability of a really great dj to read the crowd and play with their emotions is what drives a dancefloor crazy.
Unlike many other stles of music your average trance dj might have up to 1000 tunes with him/her biehind the decks to choose from. The aveage live act has 12.
It is true that we go crazy when we hear our favourite tune but I always feel that brings me back to earth a bit. The unknown journey mixing acts and styles is what I want to experience.
As a rule most great djs stick to a style for a maximum of 45 minutes and then subtly move onwards and upwards.
Not so many live are capable of this.
Also how many live acts have the self control to only play the tracks which are of utmost quality? How many have even released an hours worth of top quality tunes?
Finally who honestly wouldn't like to go to the rex and hear a couple of the following do 3 hours or 4 hours each:
Max etnica, Franky Kox Box, Serge souque, Dino pasaras, tristan, Mark allen etc
I know I would..... |
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Nik
Error Corrective
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 17:24
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i think live sets are great just that theyre arent many good ones....for instance halluicinogen live set has been the same now for 5 years. an alot of artists are turning up to play live expecting promoters to hire out equipment that they aint gonna use (it costs £50 to hire a keyboard stand) this is out of order! Astrix turns up at the eq to play cds anyway!!!
promoters need to have more front with the artist and explain to them what they want from them cause a grand + is a lot to pay for a bit of tomfoolery. maybe a grand + is too much regardless. why the fuk are we paying more and more to get in to these psy parties, prices are rising way past inflation!!! are the live sets simply costing too much? should psy-producing be a full time job?
but i think it is a good thing that the artists can grab a bit of limelight because it is their hard work that creates the tunes. but i feel that live sets need to be written and performed for the party and not just a reiteration of their released tracks.
 1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-?-0-1 |
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nobody_3
Inactive User
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 18:56
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The problem is that in order to produce a really good "live" performance you need extra people on stage, tons of gear, visuals ect ect. It's simply too costly for the organisers and therefore we still see the endless boring playback performances today. It wont change until the organisers are ready to pay what it cost to put a vibrant and exciting act on stage (be sure it's much more expensive than a grand +).
And it wont change until the artists (incl. myself) get their act together and start to look at the live side from a professional angle and not just another "Hit the play button" gig
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John
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 20:16
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Most of the replies have concentrated on live acts –but why are there so few prominent DJs any more? Can anyone name me a DJ (not producer) who hasn’t been doing it since the goa days who would pull a crowd to party? Promoters will generally put on what people want to hear and if DJ X was a big draw – lots of parties would feature DJ X and advertise them very prominently. I’ve got a few thoughts on why there has been a shift.
1. Psy Trance is mainly CD based – this is very unusual for dance music, which is normally 12” driven. This means that albums are often the main format rather than a 12”. This has meant that it is artist driven and has made it a lot easier to market – especially to people or in countries that have been more comfortable with rock formats.
2. As fans buy the CDs – they want to see the artists and hear the “tunes” that they know and listen to at home – so “live acts” become bigger draws.
3. Mixing tunes together and creating something new is a lot less important in psy trance than many other off shoots of techno (whether that’s good or bad is a topic for another day) – and the technical standard of DJing is quite low compared to equivalent genres (there was a young lad of 17 with our group at Samothraki who is mainly into techno and has been Djing for a few years – he was new to psy trance but couldn’t get his head round how technically poor professional DJ playing to 1000s of people were – we tried to explain that “its different in psy trance” – but he didn’t seem too impressed)
4. Basically people seems to want the “tunes” a lot more than being “taken on a journey”.
5. Promoters are happy to book live acts to do an act and to DJ as well – why not as you’re getting two acts for the price of one. But being a good producer does not neccesarily make you a good DJ or vice versa. So crowds are used to mediocre or competent DJs rather than special ones and DJs just become somebody to fill in until the next act.
But I think more than anything – the over riding reason is the shift from 12” to CD as the main format which pretty much encompasses all the above points.
end of ramble/rant!!
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jon
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 26, 2003 22:07
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I was thinking about the CD thing too... I think it goes hand in hand with the Live Set as you say.
But the thing is this hasn't really been a recent shift - the 'psy trance album' has been a feature of the scene ever since the early days.... Hallucinogen Twisted, Green Nuns, Astral Projection albums etc....., then The Gathering a bit after, etc....
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Mike Indidginus
Indidginus
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Posted : Nov 27, 2003 12:54
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Quote:
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On 2003-11-26 18:56, Elysium Project wrote:
The problem is that in order to produce a really good "live" performance you need extra people on stage, tons of gear, visuals ect ect.... It wont change until the organisers are ready to pay what it cost to put a vibrant and exciting act on stage....
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Bang on Kristian If the people who write the music are having to work full-time jobs to live, then they do not have the time to put in the huge amount of preparation to make a live set more "live".
What exactly is meant by playing live anyway? With electronic music it's very hard to play "live". Sequencing/loops go with the territory. It's not like, say, a traditional 4 piece rock band where you can recreate the bass, drum, guitar & vocals from scratch on the night.
I am not a household name, but in my case, if I have a laptop available to me (courtesy of Colin OOOD!), the Indidginus set comprises bounced versions of the tracks in Cubase, with tempo/time signature changes marked in the list mastertrack, so that the midi clock sends out the messages to any keyboards connected. That way live parts can be played (especially things like arpegg's) as tightly as possible over the top of the base tracks. The monitoring in a lot of clubs is generally not very good, so to set things up like this means less mistakes will be made. Live didg gets played over the top also. And when Mr. Colin Bennun esquire is playing, live drumming gets added to the mix too. So, in my opinion, that's the best of both worlds - electronic & organic at the same time. If I don't have a laptop to use then the tracks are played off CD & I play didg over the top & do twiddly bits on me synth. Going back to Kristian's point - if gigs paid decent money perhaps I could buy a laptop!
Ultimately I would love to work my tracks into Ableton Live, but don't have the time. I work a full-time (often quite hectic) job during the week. I know other people in a similar situation. But even if I did use Ableton, it is still not fully "live". But it's about as live as you're going to get. It would mean I could trigger loops of the track segments off in different sequence, thereby creating a sort of "on the fly" mix of the tracks. But the pre-recorded element still exists.
Sorry for any incoherence. I have got a rocking head cold, which is effecting makljfdl mmadfy mjujkdgjdement... |
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NeutroN
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 27, 2003 18:49
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I must admit the best DJs that I have seen playing (remenber that this is my opinion no right or wrong here lolol) was Mack (Brain XL), what a great mixing never seen anything like that and Stella Nutella, her energy on stage (which in my opinion counts big time) was great. Also in sets the dj has the option of picking what they think is the best.
In a live set, you can never know what is live and what isn't to be honest I've seen some 'live' sets that i doubted it was live lolol and another problem that I find sometimes specially with newcomers have 2-3 tracks in their live set which are good and the rest is just looks like the previous one, IMO the artists which have been a while playing live etc... should play live the best tracks from his new album (at leasts the ones that he thinks are the best) and this old classic stuff which he know the crowd will enjoy.
I might've said something totally inrealivent to the thread, but hey I gave my opinion in both dj sets and live sets lolol 
"Great things are only possible with outrageous requests." Thea Alexander |
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time traveller
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 29, 2003 04:52
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I would say the reason to that is because of the stigma attached to the psy scene yes there would be more BRITISH dj's but there is loads of british dj's outhere .......and how many of them play psy trance ..........answers on a postcard please !!
The media doesn't help by neglectin the scene in which many who want to become dj's haven't heard about psychedelic or it's roots all they know is cheesy cack euro trance , hip hop , rnb etc yet many today still rave about oakie's goa e-mix ....
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time traveller
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 29, 2003 05:01
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And as john quite rightly says psy trance is mainly cd based ...and THAT IS THEEEEEEEEEE MOST ANNOYING THING about psy trance ......IMO
I PLAY VYNIL and those that use cd's r just born lazy ....... |
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nobody_3
Inactive User
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Posted : Nov 29, 2003 11:47
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time traveller that's just plain silly to say that because you use CD's you're born lazy. I use CD's and I can tell you that there's nothing lazy about me. And I beatmix perfectly with CD's too. Admitted I dont play psy I play progressive.
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