Aside from having dance music play everywhere, one of the largest differences that I have found with the English culture is that people seem to keep to themselves a lot. In a lot of smaller towns people will greet each other on the street and generally look forward to meeting new people. On the flip side, in the big cities people keep their heads down and generally mind their own business.
As I mentioned above, dance music (mostly house) is everywhere here. Even today I was having lunch in an amazing Chinese resteraunt and heard the following track:
This is not exactly your typical Chinese restaurant music.
I was pondering why dance music took off so fast and furious over here in the 80s and it wasn’t really making sense. There is so much heritage and culture in England but that doesn’t explain it. People have their own musical tastes in all areas of the world, so that doesn’t explain it.
It didn’t click for me until I was walking down the street in London and someone bumped into me and didn’t say a word. One word jumped out at me “ecstasy”. With such a lack of friendliness and togetherness in day to day street life in the super-cities like London, its no wonder why the feeling of oneness that the combination of dance music and drugs like ecstasy caught on so quickly and took the highly-populated nation by storm.
You will see it in the clubs here in London; kids freaking out with each other, hugging, smiling, laughing and letting all of the stresses and the self mindedness go. People party together when dance music is present and the feelings that it brings up can defiantly be addictive, especially when you are raised in a culture where the people keep a ‘stiff upper lip‘ and their heads down in the big city.
This is a video blog of the two owners of Play It Tonight, Dan and Sean, doing what we do in the 10 hours a week when we’re not in the office.
Sean is doing the majority of the talking at the camera but there are shots of Dan talking on the phone & DJing and our financial guy Brent dancing at a party.
Let us know your thoughts or anything else that you would like to see us get on tape (More girls? Gigs? Office stuff? More of our friends and staff?)
For the first time, Play It Tonight will be heading to Amsterdam to check out the Amsterdam Dance Event(ADE). The event takes place in the downtown core of Amsterdam from October 18th until the 20th.
The ADE has taken the place of the Winter Music Conference (WMC) Miami as the ‘go to’ dance music event for music industry business, djs, producers and for great music. Rumor has it that the ADE is a great mix of business and fun which is what the WMC used to be all about 5 years ago. Now South Beach is flooded with party kids from all around North America that go down to get fucked up and party. Thousands are there just because it is the place to be and because they have money and they are not there for the actual conference or for the business. It is the wrong crowd heading down south and less and less business gets done each year.
Navigating the streets, alleys, and water ways of Amsterdam can apparently be a nightmare. Aside from this we have not heard one negative thing about the event or the city itself.
The conference features many different business networking events and conferences along with performances at night from some of the biggest and best artists in the world including:
If anyone would like to meet the Play It Tonight staff at the ADE please feel free to click here and email us with your contact info and we will set up a meeting with you over a pint or some lunch.
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 Heathon 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 Soundsystemon 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.
