It is well known that a DJ can set the mood for an evening. You can watch the crowd respond to the mood of music that the DJ is playing as he mixes.

When I was playing last week at the Red Room, one of the clubs I have a residency at here in Vancouver, I accidentally-on purpose played a string of songs with really sexual and dirty vocals. The girls reacted to the sexual vibe and started freaking out and dancing differently and of course the guys followed the girls (as always).

The vibe of the entire room shifted and everyone could tell. Couples started making out and getting down on the floor. Girls rushed up to the dj booth to say “I love this song. Its hot!” with a look of lust in their eye. Have I said that I love what I do?

Below are just a few of the many songs on Play It Tonight that have a dirty / sexual vibe that works so well with the dance floor:

Bilingual Dirty Mix

Jose Nunez feat. Taina

Subliminal Records 2004-10-05

7:26

$1.48

La Discotek Original Mix

D. Ramirez

Underwater 2007-01-01

8:36

$1.48

Lipstick Original Mix

DJ Timeline

Live to Tape Recordings 2005-11-17

6:51

$1.48

Pick up these and other dirty dirty tracks today to shake things up in your next set!

This past weekend I played another gig at Ginger 62, Vancouver’s hottest club for House Music. It was the most fun I have had DJing in some time and I thought I would share a few pictures and a bunch of the tracks that I played to share the experience.

I still can’t believe that I get paid to drink for free, play awesome tracks from Play It Tonight and have girls come up to meet me while I play. The girls were loving the tracks from our site.

Here are some the tracks I played in the club this night that had the girls shakin’ it and the guys groovin’:

Didn’t Mean To Turn You On Kaskade’s Extended Mix

Colette

OM Records 2005-11-29

6:18

$1.48

Ain´t Nothing Personal Christian Alvarez Bling Bang Hype Mix

DJ Marmol

Diamondhouse Records 2007-04-27

7:41

$1.48

Warrior Andy Caldwell’s Electric ReRub

Andy Caldwell

OM Records 2007-04-13

8:10

$1.48

Lei Lo Lai Original Mix

The Latin Project, Jez Colin, Matt Cooper, Robbie Nevil, Vancho Manoilovich,

T.L.P Musica Records 2006-11-28

4:19

$1.48

Can’t Get Through Original Mix

Miguel Migs

Salted 2007-03-20

5:19

$1.48

A Thousand Nights Original Mix

Gregor Tresher

Great Stuff Records 2007-07-30

7:39

$1.98

2 Doors Down Sax Mix

Kelvin K F. Dom Thompson

Nordic Trax 2006-08-15

6:09

$1.48

“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 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.

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

2007 Release of the Hit Single from the Italian DJ (From the Trio L’il Love) that Employs the Sax Riff from the Song DJ Rune Rk’s “Calabria” and the Vocal Track from Gaudino’s Own “Destination Unknown” that Featured the Voice of Crystal Waters. This Edition features Five Different Versions of the Title Track and an Enhanced Element!If you have been in a night club over the past few weeks you have heard this song EVERYWHERE! The sexy saxaphone and amazing vocal are impossible to miss. The is going to be one of THE house music tracks of the summer.I hope it doesn’t get played out like past house hits from summers gone by such as: Lola’s Theme by the SHAPESHIFTERS (which is now cool again) and World Hold On by Bob Sinclair.

Destination Calabria Club Mix

Alex Gaudino Ft. Crystal Waters

Ministry Of Sound 2007-05-18

6:57

$1.98