STU Graffiti Party 2013

I played at the annual Graffiti party at St. Thomas University in Fredericton again last night. A fun crowd, as always. I didn't take any photos this year.

For anyone who was at the party and wanted to figure out any of the songs that I played, here's the set list:

01. The Lumineers, "Ho Hey"
02. Phillip Phillips, "Home"
03. Train, "Fifty Ways To Say Goodbye"
04. Demi Lovato, "Give Your Heart A Break"
05. Gold Fields, "Dark Again"
06. Fun, "We Are Young"
07. J Cole, "Work Out"
08. Imagine Dragons, "It’s Time"
09. Taylor Swift, "We Are Never"
10. Passion Pit, "Take A Walk"
11. Ellie Golding, "Lights"
12. Fun, "Some Nights"
13. Carrie Underwood, "Good Girl"
14. Maroon 5, "One More Night"
15. Griswolds, "Heart Of A Lion"
16. Sleeper Agent, "Get Burned"
17. Neon Trees, "Everybody Talks"
18. Atlas Genius, "Back Seat"
19. Gotye, "Somebody That I Used To Know"
20. Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"
21. Linkin Park, "Burn It Down"
22. Karmin, "Brokenhearted"
23. Ellie Goulding, "Anything Could Happen"
24. Maroon 5, "Pay Phone"
25. Selena Gomez, "Love You Like A Love Song"
26. Jjamz, "Heartbeat"
27. Christina Aguilera, "Your Body"
28. Yuna, "Live Your Life"
29. Gym Class Heroes, "Ass Back Home"
30. Justin Bieber & Nicki Minaj, "Beauty & A Beat"
31. Ke$ha, "Die Young"
32. Pink, "Blow Me One Last Kiss"
33. Pitbull, "Back In Time"
34. Flo Rida, "Whistle"
35. Calvin Harris & Flo, "Sweet Nothing"
36. Nicki Minaj, "Pound The Alarm"
37. Psy, "Gangnam Style"
38. Calvin Harris & Ne Yo, "Let Me Love You"
39. Katy Perry, "Part Of Me"
40. Pitbull & Chris Brown, "International Love"
41. Usher, "Scream"
42. Nicki Minaj, "Starships"
43. One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"
44. Icona Pop, "I Love It"
45. David Guetta & Sia, "Titanium"
46. Kylie Minogue, "Timebomb"
47. Swedish House Mafia, "Don’t You Worry Child"
48. Flo Rida & Sia, "Wild Ones"
49. J-Lo & Pitbull, "Dance Again"
50. David Guetta & Usher, "Without You"
51. One Direction, "Live While You’re Young"
52. Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe"
53. Snow Patrol, "Chasing Cars"

 

 

As you can see, the music that I played at this event was mostly mainstream club dance hits, and top40. It's the same sort of music that I put on all my Workout Mixes. If you'd like to check out any of my Workout Mixes, you can download them from this page:

www.djbolivia.ca/workout.html

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

STU Graffiti Party, 2012

I just played at the Holy Cross Graffiti Party at STU this past weekend in Fredericton. As always, the crowd was great and I had a lot of fun.



The set was done on CDJ players, not through Ableton. I didn't record it, but I did write down a set list below. It was a very mainstream/top40 sort of event, and I played requests for most of the night. I ended up playing about 17 or 18 requests, and unfortunately I had requests for four songs that I didn't have (well, one that was an inappropriate genre at the time, one track that I didn't have, and two tracks that I couldn't identify based on the possibly-inaccurate titles that I was given). I played some downtempo tracks (mostly classic hip hop) for the first hour, and the dance floor was pretty packed for the last two hours, when I played a lot of older top40 hits (these were mostly requests).


Here's the set list:

01. Digable Planets, "Rebirth Of Cool"
02. Black-Eyed Peas, "Imma Be"
03. Dre, "Nuthing But a G Thang"
04. Fugees, "Ready Or Not"
05. Outkast, "Ms Jackson"
06. Kanye West, "Golddigger"
07. Notorious BIG, "Juicy"
08. ODB, "Baby I Got Your Money"
09. Nelly, "EI"
10. Nelly, "Hott In Here"
11. 50 Cent, "In Da Club"
12. Jay-Z, "Big Pimpin'"
13. House Of Pain, "Jump Around"
14. Chiddy Bang, "Ray Charles"
15. Snoop, Wiz Khalifa, & Bruno Mars, "Young, Wild, & Free"
16. Gym Class Heroes, "Stereo Hearts"
17. Jay-Z & Kanye West, "Ni**as In Paris"
18. Downtown Fiction, "Thanks For Nothing"
19. Hot Chella Rae, "I Like It Like That"
20. Lady Gaga, "Just Dance"
21. Ke$ha, "Blah Blah Blah"
22. BOB, Airplanes.
23. Estelle, "American Boy"
24. Rihanna, "Please Don't Stop"
25. Usher & Pitbull, "DJ's Got Us Fallin' In Love"
26. Katy Perry, "Firework"
27. Jennifer Lopez, "Papi"
28. Flo Rida, "Good Feeling"
29. LMFAO, "Sexy & I Know It"
30. LMFAO, "I'm In Miami"
31. Maroon 5, "Moves Like Jagger"
32. Alexandra Stan, "Mr Saxobeat"
33. Milk & Sugar, "Hey Nah Nah Nah"
34. David Guetta, "Who's That Chick"
35. Ke$ha, "Take It Off"
36. Yolanda, "We No Speak Americano"
37. Sak Noel, "Loca People"
38. Ke$ha, "We R Who We R"
39. Katy Perry, "The One That Got Away"
40. Rihanna, "Only Girl In The World"
41. Rihanna, "Rockstar 101"
42. Swedish House Mafia, "Save The World"
43. Avicii, "Levels"
44. Wolfgang Gartner, "Illmerica"
45. Tiesto & Diplo, "Maximal Crazy"
46. Benny Benassi, "Cinema"

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

Bolivia: Live at the Pump NightClub, Saint John

This past Friday night, I played at the Pump nightclub in Saint John, New Brunswick. I took some video and recorded my set, which I'll be sharing later in this post.

To give you some background on the set, I told Fred Bissnette that I wanted to bring an Allen & Heath Xone 4D mixer and do an Ableton Live set using the mixer as an audio mixer, but also using the MIDI controls at the same time to control many of the effects/controls in Ableton.

I decided to play a set of classic house tracks. And I'm serious when I say that; I really dug up some older classics, a la Nexus6ix and Tommy Knuckles style (for those of you from Atlantic Canada). Many of the tracks were released between 1995 and 2003. I couldn't find electronic copies of a lot of them, so although a few were bought from Beatport, I actually got most of these by ripping digital copies from my own old vinyl records. Unfortunately, the quality isn't "wave" quality for all of the tracks in the set, but I think that just adds to the authenticity of the set.

As usual, I was running late and didn't have as much time as I would have liked to prep before the show. It was a two-hour drive to get to Saint John, but luckily one of my friends (Ian Allen) was driving, so I had that time in the car to prep for the set on my laptop. I warped the tracks and barely had time to set up some basic effects - enough to get me started. I expanded on the layout of the session once I got into the club and started playing.

Here's a quick two-minute video that roughly explains how things were organized once I first got set up. As mentioned in the video, I set things up to be a bit more complex as I was playing, and added some extra mapping and processing:

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/mixes 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

And here are the track listings from my set:

01. Crystal Waters, "Gypsy Woman" (Teddy Douglas Edit).
02. Alcatraz, "Give Me Luv" (Original Mix).
03. Funky Green Dogs, "Fired Up" (Twilo Anthem Edit).
04. Jungle Brothers, "I'll House You" (Club Mix).
05. Eddie Amador, "Rise" (New York Preacher Mix).
06. DJ Sneak, "All Over My Face" (Original Mix).
07. Deep Forest, "Deep Forest" (Sam Slam Remix).
08. Nuyorican Soul feat India, "Runaway" (Armand Van Helden's Mongoloids In Space Mix).
09. CZR feat Darryl Pandy, "Bed Enough."
10. George Morel, "Let's Groove" (Original Mix).
11. Cheek, "Venus" (Sunshine People Remix).
12. Eivissa, "Move Your Body" (Extended Mix).
13. Bionik Phunk, "In My Head" (ATFC's Timmys In My Head Remix).
14. Deep Swing, "In The Music" (Original Mix).
15. DJ Sneak, "Fix My Sink."
16. Chili Hifly, "Is It Love."
17. Pontiac, "Everybody Dance To The Music" (Carrad House Reprise Mix).
18. South Street Player, "Who Keeps Changing Your Mind" (Club Mix).
19. Joey Negro, "Love Hangover" (Joey Negro Luv 2 Dub).
20. Milk & Sugar, "Higher & Higher" (Montilla 2000 Remix).
21. Grace Jones vs Funkstar Deluxe, "Pull Up To The Bumper."
22. One Phat Deeva, "In And Out Of My Life" (Knee Deep Vocal Remix).
23. Octave One feat Urban Soul Orchestra, "Blackwater" (Original Mix).
24. Joey Negro, "Must Be The Music" (Crazibiza Remix).
25. Soul Providers, "Try My Love" (2001 Classic Vocal Mix).
26. Barbara Tucker, "Stop Playing With My Mind" (Whiplash & Turner Vocal Mix).
27. Bob Sinclair vs Bucketheads, "Gym Tonic" (Thomas Banglater Remix).
28. Back To Basics, "Where's My Money" (Bongo Beat Mix).
29. Shakedown, "At Night" (Kid Creme Club Mix).
30. Jerry Ropero, Denis The Menace, & Sabor, "Coracao" (Axwell Remix).
31. Love Connection, "The Bomb."
32. Max Linen, "The Soulshaker" (Original Mix).

I was going through the tracks a bit faster than I should have. I probably could have played the same music as a three hour set, instead of the slightly-under-two-hours that it was. To be honest, although rushing through the tracks led to a bit more variety and entertainment for the dance floor, I really think the set would have sounded better if I had mixed it over a longer period (less melodic overlaps and disharmonies in the key signatures). Also, the set is FAR more "busy" than I would play if I was playing progressive or tech-house, where I really aim for smooth mixes. The energy levels are high here, and there is a lot of chaos.


I'd like to thank Fred Bissnette (the resident DJ) for setting up this special event, Troy Morehouse (the owner at Pump), and the staff and other DJ's for making the night so fun. 

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

Show: Irish Party at STU

I played another show at St. Thomas University tonight. To be honest, it was one of the toughest dance floors that I've had in the past dozen or more shows.

The format was a bit different than normal. I was asked to try to play a mix of "Irish Music and Pub Music" for the first hour or two, and then move into normal club dance music for the last couple hours. I played a dance set at the same school only three weeks ago, and it was one of the best events that I've played in ages. But tonight's show was harder.

For a DJ, trying to analyze the dance floor is the hardest part of the job. No matter how much music you know, you can't just play the music that you like personally, or else you're probably not going to make a lot of people happy. And what's tougher, the music that one person enjoys is quite often NOT the music that the next person enjoys. For a DJ, the best dance floor that you'll ever get is one where everyone likes the same kind of music, and it's also a genre that you like. But no matter how talented you are, if you have a "fragmented" dance floor, you're going to be banging your head against a wall. That's how I felt tonight.

 

 

Generally, around my corner of the world, there are three main genres of music for club-goers: classic rock, hip hop, and dance music. I'll ignore indie music, which is another important category, but not one that many "club" goers listen to. The indie-loving hipsters hang out in the cool bars (by the way, I occasionally work as a bartender in one of those sort of places, and I love it - you can find the "Ducky's" photo album on my facebook page). Anyway, usually, each person on the dance floor prefers one of those three genres, then tolerates or appreciates a second of the three, and prefers to avoid (or adamantly detests) the third.

So for tonight, since it was a couple days after St. Patrick's, I assumed that I'd be playing a combination of classic rock and "east coast" music and Irish or Celtic music. And I did. It actually went over much better than I had hoped (and I enjoy playing this sort of stuff). I prolonged moving into the dance music for a bit longer than expected. At this point, I was worried, because I had moved with some pretty up-tempo east coast music (Great Big Sea) right into dance tracks that actually had a slower tempo. So for the first ten minutes of dance music, it felt (to me) like the tempo was "dragging." Mental note for all DJ's out there: if you're in a situation like this, you're far better off just dropping to a track with a really slow tempo at first, to break up the energy expectation, and then start building slowly again. I knew this lesson; I just thought I could ignore it tonight. In retrospect, I'd do it differently. But other than that slight hiccup, once the "dance music" (top40) started, the energy of the dance floor really started to pick up.

Hip hop wasn't a problem tonight. I don't mind playing hip hop at all, in fact I enjoy it at times, but tonight wasn't the right setting. Luckily, I only had three requests for hip hop tracks. By the way, "Black And Yellow" was one of those requests as usual. When I started playing that back in September, I really liked the song but had no idea that it would peak six months later, instead of within the month. But I think I was able to steer two of the three requests to top40 tracks, so not a big deal.

The only real problem was that a lot of the people who really enjoyed the east coast music didn't seem to be completely into the dance music too. The dance floor was great for a few hours, but towards the end of the night it started to die down. I'm not used to that. I'm used to having the "peak" of the dance floor be at the end of my set (when I headline at clubs), then the lights get turned on and people go home wanting more. I suspect that since I was playing at a university, with a lot of students who are approaching finals in a few weeks, they were pretty worn out (especially after the real St. Patrick's parties on Thursday night). And to be honest, I also played two tracks tonight that are extremely popular in my own university town, but which didn't go over well at all tonight. Different universities, different mindset. Live and learn.

But anyway, although it was a pretty challenging night from my own point of view, every night can't be the best show of your career. There's no question that I'd still go back to play there again, and I still enjoyed most of the night. And learning new nuances about a dance floor is something that a DJ needs to be prepared for, even after years of experience. Also, the promoter/organizer was great.

Here are track listings from tonight's show. Remember that the first part was all supposed to be classic rock and east coast, and the rest could be loosely categorized as "top 40" and "club dance music." Also, more than a dozen of the dance tracks that I played in the second half of the set were requests - some of which really surprised me. Here we go:

01. Chumbawamba - Tub Thumping.
02. Georgia Satellite - Keep Your Hands To Yourself.
03. Men Without Hats - Safety Dance.
04. Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire.
05. Signal Hill - Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard.
06. George Thorogood - One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.
07. Nazareth - Hair Of The Dog.
08. Grand Funk Railroad - American Band.
09. Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me.
10. Rick Derringer - Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo.
11. Dr. Hook - Cover Of The Rolling Stone.
12. Stampeders - Wild Eyes.
13. Steven Stills - Love The One You're With.
14. Rawlin's Cross - Long Night.
15. Derek & The Dominos - Layla.
16. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall.
17. Ram Jam Band - Black Betty.
18. Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music White Boy.
19. Sweet - Ballroom Blitz.
20. Golden Earring - Radar Love.
21. Loverboy - Loving Every Minute.
22. Thirty-Eight Special - Back To Paradise.
23. Run DMC - Walk This Way.
24. Los Lobos - La Bamba.
25. B-52's - Love Shack.
26. Dee Lite - Groove Is In The Heart.
27. Great Big Sea - Run Runaway.
28. Great Big Sea - The Night That Patty Murphy Died.
29. Signal Hill - Cracklin' Rosie.
30. Spirit Of The West - Home For A Rest.
31. Great Big Sea - The Old Black Rum.
32. Great Big Sea - Mari Mac.
33. Riviera Project - Young Folks (Robbie Rivera Electro Mix).
34. Ian Carey & Snoop - Last Night (Extended Mix).
35. Usher - More (Gareth Wyn Remix).
36. Jennifer Lopez & Pitbull - On The Floor (Brian Cua Summer Club Mix).
37. Rihanna - S&M (Joe Bermudez & Chico Extended Mix).
38. Paul Oakenfold & Benny Benassi - Otherside (Rock Radio Mix).
39. Katy Perry - ET (Dave Aude Club Mix).
40. Ke$ha - Take It Off (Jake Walmsley 2010 Electro Remix).
41. Beyonce - Single Ladies.
42. Taio Cruz - Dynamite (Mixing Marc Club Mix).
43. Enrique Iglesias - Tonight I'm Lovin' You (Clean Edit, maybe Dresden & Johnston?).
44. Paradiso Girls - Patron Tequila.
45. Black-Eyed Peas - The Time/Dirty Bit.
46. Kylie Minogue - Get Outta My Way (Tommy Love Dream Mix).
47. Pink - Fu**ing Perfect (Liam Keegan Club Mix).
48. Nerve & Ollie James - Irresistable (Chuckie & Gergori Klosman Remix).
49. Beyonce - Diva.
50. Edward Mayo - Stereo Love (Molella Remix).
51. Swedish House Mafia - Miami 2 Ibiza.
52. Rihanna - What's My Name (Steamweaver Does Moran & Rigg Club Mix).
53. Lady Gaga - Born This Way (Liam Keegan Extended Remix).
54. Britney Spears - Hold It Against Me (DJ Kue Remix).
55. Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition (Axwell & Dirty South Remix).
56. Tiesto & Diplo - C'mon.
57. Sonny D - Barbara Streisand vs. Sofi Needs A Ladder.
58. Global DJ's - Sounds of San Francisco.
59. Madison Avenue - Who The Hell Are You.
60. Alyssa Rubio - Keep On Dancing (Wideboys Club Remix).
61. Alex Lamb - Freedom (John De Sohn Remix).
62. J Pearl - It's Getting Physical (Wideboys Dub Mix).
63. Kim Sozzi - Rated R (Jump Smokers Clean Extended Mix).
64. Remady & ManuL - Save Your Heart (Extended Club Mix).

Sorry, no photos this time. I forgot to bring the camera.

To download any of my studio mixes or recordings of lives shows, visit:

djbolivia.ca/dropbox 

Then go into the folder called "Bolivia's DJ Mixes & Live Shows"

Thanks for your support!

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca