I find it so interesting that as a dj you have to start off by opening nights for bigger and more established DJs and yet so few DJs actually know how to open properly.

Time and time again I walk into nights where other DJs are playing and, in typical dj fashion, I think ‘what is this DJ doing? He should be playing this track and not that one’. It is standard for all DJs to think that they can do a better job than whatever DJ is playing, I think it is part of human nature to think you have better taste in music than everyone else.

That being said, there are a few important “what not to do” points that an opening DJ should keep in mind when opening the night:

- Do NOT play tracks of the DJ/Producer that you are playing before. If you are opening for Dubfire DO NOT play any tracks that Dubfire produced or that he has been playing recently.

-128 BPM at 11:00pm is not acceptable when opening for a house dj. A DJ is suppose to read the crowd and play accordingly but the old industry rule is 124 @ 12pm. This means that you should not be playing anything too far over 124 bpm before 12pm. This is so that the headline DJ will have room to speed it up and bang it out if he wants.

-Just because you are playing the right speed (124 @ 12) does not mean that you can just pitch down big name tracks. Big peak time tracks are suppose to be played at peak time. A Richard Dinsdale track or anything that is usually played at 2am and at 128bpm is not opening music. There are always some exceptions to the rule but generally deep house, tech house and even some minimal make for great opening music. Here are some examples of opening music:

I Try AN-2 Remix

François DuBois, An-2,

Urbantorque Recordings 2007-05-14

5:40

$1.98

I Try Original Mix

François DuBois

Urbantorque Recordings 2007-05-14

7:51

$1.98

A Thousand Nights Original Mix

Gregor Tresher

Great Stuff Records 2007-07-30

7:39

$1.98

Seven of Nine Original Mix

Andrew Macari

Nordic Trax 2004-07-13

4:36

$1.48

What God Has Chosen Jimpster Dub

The Rock Solid All-Stars, Pete Doyle,

Defected 2007-04-29

6:52

$1.98

Strategy Original Mix

Joshua Heath

Salted 2007-07-24

7:06

$1.98

Warm, deep, and grooving tracks are what opening is all about.

-Do not hang around in the DJ Booth after the headliner has started playing. If you want to sit back and learn, cool! If you want to have a chat with him or her for a bit, also cool. Do not jump around, play with the eqs or the effects on the mixer or make requests when you are done.

-Do not let all of your friends hang around in the booth with the headliner. There is no reason for them to be up there. Bring them up, show them around, introduce them to whoever but after a few minuets lead them back down to the dancefloor.

-Ask the promoter and even the headlining DJ what style and tempo you should play. Ask the headliner when he is coming on what type of a track he would like to be left off with.

The ironic thing about this industry is that it is generally the DJs that know how to open properly that end up making their way to playing the peak time slots. If you want to be playing to big crowds at decent times, watch the pros, take my advice above and learn how to open.

Best of luck!

“The music, In changes…” These are the lyrics from one of my favorite House Music tracks by Sandy Rivera.

Dan (my business partner in Play It Tonight) and I recently got into a discussion about dance music genres and at the time it got somewhat heated. “Deep house is such a dated sound” said Dan to me - the deep house DJ.

Strategy Original Mix

Joshua Heath

Salted 2007-07-24

7:06

$1.98

“Electro is played out man” I said to Dan - Vancouver’s biggest and best Electro house and tech house DJ.

Road Kill Cedric Gervais Remix

Dubfire

Toolroom Records & Traxx 2007-07-25

7:49

$1.98

Eventually cooler heads prevailed and we came to the agreement that in dance music, some genre is cool in some part of the world at any given time. It is all cyclical. I have been told that as a backlash to the minimal movement in places like Berlin, Deep House is “it”. Whereas over here in Vancouver, clubbers are still losing it to the tech and electro house.

After our coversation I thought about it some more and realized how great it is that the ‘in sub-genre’ changes so much . This almost monthly cycle of the cool sub-genre keeps things fresh and prompts creativity becuase the cool genre is always changing.

Furthermore, this phenominon does not happen in other genres of music. In the hip hop world there are different genres of rap music but there isn’t any changing. If you are a fan of underground hip hop, then you will listen to underground hip hop and that is it. When you go to hip hop clubs you hear mainstream rap and it sounds the same as the hip hope that was being played in clubs 5 years ago. I am not in the hip hop scene as much as some of my friends but it seems to me that the genres are static and that everything is stale. There is no new sounds, there is no “in” genre of hip hop. The radio dictactates what is played and that is considered cool (I guess the same could be said for Pete Tong and Dance Music).

In the end I am glad and excited to be a part of a genre of music that is constantly dynamically changing. It is exciting and refresing to hear new sounds and to hear songs that cross sub-genres but still rock the dancefloors. I look forward to the next cool genre this month and a new genre for the following month.

The music, it changes…

This past weekend I celebrated my birthday. Over four different nights we partied with four different groups of close friends.

One night I was lucky enough to play to a packed club called The Caprice with Dan W, the other owner of Play It Tonight. This was a university crowd that aren’t used to house music and people were losing their minds! They had never heard good ‘techno music’ as they called it and wanted to know where they could find more dance music online.

(Sean Gallagher [CEO] & Brent Sutherland [CFO] helping put up the banners)

(Sean [CEO of Play It Tonight] with Olivia)

(Jerin [promoter], Dan [President of Play It Tonight], Sean [CEO] & Brent Sutherland [CFO])

Later on the weekend I played at one of Vancouver’s biggest clubs; the Red Room. There was one moment where I played one of my favorite tracks, Strategy - Joshua Heath on Salted, and there I was looking out at a smiling / cheering sea of people which included my best friends, my brother and countless beautiful women. I looked behind me and three cute girls were dancing around and hanging in the DJ booth with me. At this moment my friend Anna ran up to the booth with tears in her eyes telling me that this was her favorite song and that she hadn’t heard it in a club before. She had a tough day and hearing this song in the club brought up all of the emotions that she had been storing away from her tough day.

(Sean Gallagher [CEO of Play It Tonight] with girlfriends Katy, Coco & Sammy @ Red Room)

The final night of my birthday weekend was a little more relaxed. A friend and I were hosting a dress to impress cocktail party for our close friends. For the occasion I made some CDs from Play It Tonight and they were played throughout the night. At around 11:30 the party was at its peak. All of my close friends were mingling and having a blast. Everyone was smiling and just as I was looking around enjoying the moment my ears clued into the fact that another one of my favorite tracks Les Djinns (Trentmoller Mix) - Djuma Soundsystem on Get Physical Music was being played through the house system. The song fit and highlighted the moment perfectly and it just added to the magic of the evening.

(Sean Gallagher’s Birthday Cocktail party - Sean Gallager [CEO] and Brent Sutherland [CFO] can be seen in the top middle of the picture)

These three amazing experiences reminded me of how lucky I am to be working with music on a daily basis. Sometimes when you deal with music all day you take it for granted; you forget the power that it holds. Dance music has the power to blow people’s minds, it has the power to evoke such emotions that it can bring someone to tears and it can bring any moment to the next level; for this I am thankful.

I have been playing a lot of shows recently and have been spending a lot of time at Electronic club nights. Over the past few months I have been noticing that the nights are consistently getting busier and I have begun to wonder if this is the same around the world.

Because I am a DJ I get to hop around from club to club and will generally make the rounds to most of the good house nights here in Vancouver, Canada. In the past here it used to be that on a Friday or Saturday night there would be 5 or 6 big house music based club nights. On one of the given nights there would generally be one smoking busy night and the rest of the nights would be half or 3/4 full. However, in the past few weeks every one of these nights has been rammed busy! Its an exciting thing to see.

All of this has left me pondering the question of ‘has mainstream clubland finally begun to get bored of hip hop?’. It seems as though all of the cool kids in Vancouver have now started coming to the house nights and this is also where you will always find the best looking girls. It seems as though its only a matter of time until the general club going populace gets bored of the same old hip hop and looks for something else. My suspicion is that house music is the next in line.

I realize that in a lot of areas of the world electronic music is the biggest genre and can even be considered ‘mainstream’. I am curious to know weather other markets around the world are experiencing the same transition to becoming dance music friendly havens.

Is this happening in New York? LA? Miami? Berlin? Hong Kong? Sydney? London? Moscow? Bhaliwood?

Spread the dace music love, spread the dance music vibe!

I generally feel as though I am the type of person that likes to try new things. I have never been one to shy away from change.

Recently I have noticed that there has been one area of my life where change has been happening less and less. I am referring to my music listening habits.

I used to be able to groove to it all. I loved underground hip-hop, classic rock like ACDC and Led Zeppelin, I could stand some of the mainstream ‘top 40′ songs that are played every day on the radio. I liked listening to different genres becuase I would generally get bored of one and move onto the other.

Then house music came into my life. At first it was just part of my mix of genres. When I needed a break from the classic rock or the hip-hop I would throw on a little Daft Punk or some Paul Oakenfold (I didn’t know any better at the time…). Over time the other genres started getting less and less play time and House music started taking over my life.

Today, 5 years after I discovered house music, it still consumes my mind and my ears. I now listen to house music and only house music. I have no urge to ever listen to anything else. If I go to a club and its not house music I won’t have as good of a time. If I am stuck in a car and the radio has to be on I will be miserable listening to the garbage (whiny, violent and depressing) music that is getting airtime today.

After noticing that house music has consumed my life I am wondering is this healthy? Am I setting myself up for a dance music burnout? Is it a good thing that I have such specific taste in music or is this bad because the music being played can determine my mood in a negative way if its not house?

Do you have a similar obsession?

Sometimes I take our music and our community for granted. By community I mean the people that attend electronic nights and people that all share the common love for electronic music, whatever sub-genre.

Every once in a while I am reminded of how lucky I am to have seen the light. This weekend brought two amazing experiences that put things into perspective. I would like to share these with you:

1) I was leaving my Thursday night residency on the main club strip in Vancouver and recieved a call from a girlfriend. She was at a popular ‘top 40′ bar and wanted me to stop by and say hello. I was walking up towards the lineup and spotted her so I started to waive. As she was waiving back some girl comes flyinging out of the club doors, trips over the velvet ropes and bails on the sidewalk in front of a crowd of people. One of the bouncers had pushed her out and she was so drunk that she fell head first over the rope and onto the sidewalk.

The girl got back up and went at the bouncer. She was trying to fight him by kicking him and swinging her arms wildly at him. She got tangled up in the ropes again and fell face first onto the sidewalk.

She lay there crying in front of a hundred people and then got back up and tried to fight the bouncer again. The bouncer dropped her this time and she cracked her head open on the sidewalk and started bleeding. The police were called and she was also trying to fight the police who dropped her again.

Meanwhile some guys in the line got into an argument and started fighting and ended up hitting a girl by accident. I ended up grabbing my friend (who was crying by this point because of having to watch a girl crack her head open on the sidewalk) and quickly went home.

The point of this story is that I have never seen anything like this happen at a house night. I play at some of the biggest and best clubs in Vancouver and I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fight. This speaks a lot about the people that are attending and also a lot about the vibe that the music sets.

2) I got a call from another friend that I haven’t seen in a long time. She called me to tell me some terrible news; doctors think she might have a serious form of cancer. Hearing this destroyed my mood and when she told me I was just heading out the door to go on a boat cruise where all of my friends were expecting me. She told me to go because she wanted to be alone and I went to the cruise.

At first I wasn’t my usual self. I was upset and bummed out. I was standing at the back of the boat and the sun cracked through the clouds. The sun was shining so perfectly on the DJ, on the beautiful people dancing and smiling and Vancouver, the most beautiful city in the world, was highlighting the scene in the background. At that moment I remembered / realized that house music is a celebration of life. The music was so warm and it was so great to see all 500 people on the boat smiling. Parties like this are about people getting together to enjoy each other and to be greatfull for being alive and house music is the same for me as well.

—

Great people, a celebration of life: House Music.

Great news! Play It Tonight just landed Dance Music heavy hitter Subliminal Records.

Click here to check out Subliminal Records’s full catalog on Play It Tonight.

Artists on their roster include Erick Morillo, Tom Novy, Funkagenda, Filo & Pery, Richard Grey, Jose Nunez, Robbie Rivera, Puff Daddy, DJ Dan, Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso, Joey Negro and many more!

Subliminal’s initial success includes the label’s first Top 10 UK hit “Must Be The music” by Joey Negro featuring Taka Boom which was licensed to Incentive Music in the UK. In addition, their release by Ministers De-La Funk, “Believe”, was championed by many as the vocal record of 1999. It was voted Best House garage 12-inch at the 2000 Winter Music Conference. “Big Love” by Pete Heller also a Subliminal release was voted Underground 12-inch Dance Record that same year. Subliminal Records has received “Best Independent label” honors for the last 2 years at the Muzik magazine awards in the UK.

Recent achievements include UK National Chart success, being named the “Number One 12″ Label” by Mixer Magazine and Subliminal Sessions Underwater at Pacha Ibiza won the Best International Club Award at the Muzik Magazine Dance Awards.

SUBLIMINAL SESSIONS has been the world’s ultimate clubbing experience and is now celebrating its sixth year of residency in Manhattan.

Below are some releases from Subliminal that we recommend:

Euro (Sebastian Ingrosso Remix) - Steve Angello

Euro Sebastian Ingrosso Remix

Steve Angello

Subliminal Records 2005-01-28

6:18

$1.98

Dance I Said - Erick Morillo feat. Puff Daddy

Dance I Said Touche Vocal Mix

Erick Morillo feat. Puff Daddy

Subliminal Records 2006-08-28

6:20

$1.98

Get It On (Summer Love) [Tom Novy Remix] - Joe T Vannelli feat. Rochelle Fleming

Get It On (Summer Love) Tom Novy’s Remix

Joe T Vannelli feat. Rochelle Fleming

Subliminal Records 2006-08-25

11:25

$1.98

My fist video: A TRIBUTE TO HOUSE MUSIC…

Ever since I was a puppy I have been obsessed with music. Oddly enough, the first memory that I have of my obsession with music is of myself going to the local music store with my parents. I convinced them to let me buy my first Tape by the one and only MC Hammer. I can remember spending hours and hours listening to the same song(s) repeatedly late at night and having my parents tell me to go to bed. Despite the fact that my musical tastes have changed, I still have not been able to get to bed on time thanks to my old friend Music. She has a nasty habit of keeping me up late at night.

Don’t get me wrong, my relationship with music isn’t all bad. Scattered sleep and eating patterns aside, music has brought nothing but good into my life.

There is nothing as good as dance music at cheering me up when I am down. Music is always there for me to highlight the great moments and to pick me up when challenges get me down. When I walk down the street with good music life becomes a video game. Trees, people, cars all move erratically but are still somehow in rhythm with the music. There is a piece of music that suits and even enhances every moment of life. There is no better feeling than playing a song that you love to a crowd and having them express their appreciation to you for choosing that song. These are the reasons why I felt compelled to make this video:

If you look closely you will see video of Dan (the founder of Play It Tonight) playing on a yacht party half way through the movie and myself playing in a club at the end. All of the video was shot in Vancouver, Canada. If you guys like the music in the video then I recommend checking out the following tracks:

Leave Me Cold Original Mix

Stef Vroljik, 16 Bit Lolitas,

Deep Records 2005-03-01

7:37

$1.48

Lightsource Original Mix

Mindflight

Esho Recordings 2000-11-15

9:32

$1.48

Italian Summer Original Mix

Niquid

Jalapeno Records 2003-10-01

7:07

$1.48

My name is Sean Gallagher and I will be one of the contributors to this dance music blog. Since I will be talking about various different music industry topics I feel that it is important that you guys know a little about me before doing so:

I have Dj’d all around North America and Mexico for the past 6 years. I have been heavily involved in the music industry for the last four years from a business standpoint and produced for two.

I have played with some of the biggest names in dance music including:

Sander Kleinenberg
Max Graham
Andy Caldwell
Armin Van Buuren
Hybrid
Colette
Steve Angello
James Lavelle (UNKLE)
Scumfrog
Oliver Smith
Gareth Emery (GTR)
Miss honey dijon
Dayhota
Niklas Harding

Now I am the CEO for Play It Tonight http://www.PlayItTonight.com ; the world’s best dance music download store. On a daily basis I deal with executives at the biggest record labels in Dance Music including:

Defected
Om Records
Global Underground
Armada
Black Hole Recordings
Get Physical Music
Ministry of Sound
Toolroom Records
Little Mountain Recordings
Alternative Route Recordings
Southern Fried
Finger Lickin’
Stoneyboy Music
Nettwerk Records
Nordic Trax

I look forward to sharing any late breaking industry news and insights that come my way as we get deeper into this digital music revolution.

At 15 and 18 years old Chris and Steve can really rock it. I had the pleasure of seeing the Martinez Brothers play live @ Ginger Club here in Vancouver, Canada.

To be honest I wasn’t going to go check them out thinking that it would just be another regular night with another somewhat bland middle range professional DJ. What we got instead was two kids that aren’t even old enough to get into a club rocking it so hard that every girl in the place was up at the DJ booth shaking it.

Check out this video of them from Miami WMC 2007:

Go check The Martinez Bros in your city when they come. Here is their upcoming gig list:

Jul 13 2007 12:00A	Alma @ Sullivan Rooms	New York City, New York
Jul 21 2007 4:00P	Objektivity @ PS1 w/ Dennis Ferrer, TMB and special guests	New York City
Jul 26 2007 1:00A	Vinyl Plaza	Figueira da Foz, Portugal
Jul 27 2007 1:00A	Sascha Beach Sessions	Algarve, Portugal
Jul 28 2007 1:00A	Dennis Ferrer & TMB @ World Fashion Center	Amsterdam
Aug 12 2007 11:00P	Utopia Sundays @ Boston Rocks	Boston, Massachusetts
Aug 24 2007 1:00A	tbc	Seoul
Aug 25 2007 1:00A	Dragon i	Hong Kong