Seven Pieces Of Advice For DJs In 2023

for a fun and healthy new year behind the decks

For clubs and parties, 2022 was the year of rebirth, with dancefloors getting stably full again after the pandemic. During this time I felt that more and more people are being drawn to DJing, a phenomenon ongoing for a few years now that was boosted by many electronic music fans locked down at home looking to develop their passion. 

And why not? Selecting music at a party or just mixing together your favorite tracks at home can be one of the most fun activities in the world. At the same time, having observed things from a number of perspectives (as a long-time DJ, but also as a booking agent, manager, and promoter), I started noticing how DJing can quickly lead to frustration, forms of gatekeeping, and in general toxic attitudes and bad train of thoughts. Take them with a grain of salt and some humor - but I hope these seven pieces of advice can help you keep things fun and healthy into the new year.

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1. DON’T GET FRUSTRATED IF YOU DON’T GET NOTICED

In a more than ever DJ-saturated world, my first advice for DJs is to try and avoid getting frustrated when you don’t get noticed. You just can’t expect everyone you know to listen and share your latest mix, or all the promoters you know to book you at their parties, just because you put effort into what you do and believe in it. 

DJing can make you experience some really unique “highs”; playing and feeling one with the crowd in certain moments feels like an ecstatic communal experience that is hard to put into words, something that often DJs themselves admit to chasing. These moments are real and you should cherish them. At the same time, you should keep in mind that they depend on a number of variables, from the crowd to the club’s atmosphere and soundsystem. As a DJ, you are not the center of a party, but a part of what makes it great. In short - keep your ego in check.

Looking at the broader picture, the tough reality is that there are just too many good DJs for everyone to get properly noticed. “Making it” professionally, or even at a semi-professional level, is the result of a number of different factors and often a process of many years - it’s not simply the measure of how good you are. Becoming frustrated about the attention you (don’t) get can really ruin this passion and turn you bitter in the long run… Remember why you started in the first place! DJing is about having fun, sharing music and moments with other people, and escaping from the staleness of everyday life. If you are doing this because you want to be the center of attention, I advise you to find a different passion.

2. Keep a positive spirit

Not getting frustrated doesn’t mean 'stop trying to get more attention and gigs'! For this, the best advice I have is to keep an honest and good spirit - try and keep a positive and proactive mindset and build new relationships with music peers. The fact that it’s hard to get noticed doesn't mean it’s impossible, our music scene is full of amazing people and wonderful things can always be around the corner!

Be it in trying to connect with other artists, labels, or press outputs, don’t be afraid to reach out with your latest release, mix, or just with an honest ‘hi’ and some kind words - the worst that can happen is that they won’t answer you! At the same time, be aware that being patient and respectful of boundaries is key to creating long-lasting relationships. People in the club world can be extremely busy, often working extra jobs just to maintain themselves while focusing on their passion, and/or tired and worn out when attending parties. Being pushy is never a good look!

3 Don’t get too fucked

Ok, ok, ok. Without giving you ‘that talk’ and going over the specifics, if you are playing out more often you most likely noticed how dangerous of a game being a DJ is in terms of substance abuse. Starting with alcohol, staying sober in a party situation is already difficult as it is. If you are the one handling the music for the whole party that can be a nerve-wracking scenario that drinking and drugs are the perfect antidotes to.

Ideally, try and play sober once in a while - or at least watch out for heavy drinking or hard drugs habits. The best advice is probably to search for a balance that works for you. Some long-time DJs become completely sober to handle it, others start taking just 2 or 3 shots every night, while others turn to microdosing or weed-only night rituals. While you also have the party-forever kind of DJs who miraculously keep up their 20s routine for decades, these are exceptions that you really shouldn’t take as examples if you are looking to do this long-term (sorry but Ricardo Villalobos is not a realistic standard). Also important: do not think that because you “can manage” to play under high amounts of a certain substance you are playing well - drugs like cocaine can make you feel like you are playing great although nothing too special is happening.

4 Fuck vinyl-only, trust your guts

A lot could be said about how vinyl-only DJ culture can be kind of toxic and borderline bullying at times - this is not something that I want to discuss extensively in this article, but I think it’s key advice for any DJ to never feel forced to play a certain format just “to fit in”. DJing is about delivering music and creating special atmospheres to craft fun and unique experiences for party-goers. If to do your special thing you need to play three digital-only available tracks, perfectly beat-matched on CDJs, go for it! Of course, the ‘fuck vinyl-only’ title of this section is tongue-in-cheek - if you just can’t vibe with digital formats and fell in love with digging and playing records, you should still trust your guts and go with that (just don’t be asshole about it). 

In 2023, let’s stand by this more than ever: music and making people dance should always be the priority and the measure under which a DJ gets judged!

5 Play for the crowds, not for other DJs 

This leads to the next point - play for the crowds, not for other DJs! Yes, your more experienced peers might be why you started playing in the first place, and even a word of compliment can mean the world. But in the end, the DJ has to play to make people dance. A room full of indulged, dancing clubbers will be always more important than the way you beatmatch two obscure records that only you know about (IF no one in the room is dancing to them). This might sound obvious, but you would be surprised by the number of DJs that constantly feel anxiously judged by their colleagues in every track and transition. 

Explore what works for you, don’t be easily influenced, and always try to click with the crowd you are playing for!

6 Don’t become a trend

It’s a fine line, but playing to make the crowd dance doesn’t mean playing exactly what the crowd expects! I think it was said before that a great DJ plays what people don't know they want to hear. Walking the fine line between familiar and experimental is where the magic happens.

This means that you shouldn’t be afraid to hop on trends when it feels right; it’s no shame to play your favorite pumping 00s tech house bomb if the crowd is just asking for it. At the same time, you should not base your whole set around that vibe just because you get a visible reaction. Yes, you might have a bunch of people going crazy in the front with every drop, but the rest of the club is yawning in the back even when you might not see them. Take risks, they will pay off!

7 Sharing is caring

Closing the list I want to share ever-valid good advice for all DJs, that I feel is more relevant than ever with more and more ‘competition’ out there. Don’t be afraid to share music, tips, and knowledge with other DJs! You might feel like you are giving away your hard-earned knowledge or seeking out tracks too easily sometimes, but just remember how hard it was as you were just beginning your DJing path or you were stuck in an uninspired phase, and how helpful any input was in those moments.

These days it might feel like you are in a competition with all the other DJs to get booked and play the best slots, but if we don’t make our local scenes thrive and grow there might not be good parties at all to compete for in the future. Dance music is by design based on community, and it always will be. If all DJs give in to this type of fear, putting their own success before everything else, the underground dance scene as we know it might not exist in the future.

Happy 2023 and see you on the dancefloor!

Written by Giovanni Bodrato

Instagram DJs, Party Videos, and Anxiety

We investigate how Instagram links to anxiety for professionals of the underground music scene

Being a DJ nowadays comes with a lot of struggles. Covid times were tough, but it seems like a lot of the difficulties of the underground music scene are sticking around. In this highly competitive and resource-limited environment, it’s not just about wanting to perform and tour more; not playing enough for a professional DJ can quickly lead to economic difficulties.

Instagram can easily amplify this anxiety. If you are a follower of the underground DJing scene, it seems like everyone is playing at all of the best parties, all the time. Hyped party videos and full touring calendars are not exceptions but promotional norms. For a DJ, just a month with no gigs can feel like you are completely falling behind everyone else’s success. This creates a harmful feedback loop of biases; as soon as DJs have a few gigs ahead or a nice party video, they have to quickly post about it, filling each other’s feeds with flashy success badges, and leaving each other the impression that all their peers are constantly touring successfully.

And this tendency also concerns the other players of the underground clubs’ environment; there are promoters who need to post videos from the previous party to secure more attendants for the next event, while on the other hand, you have music workers such as club bookers and booking agents that need to spend a lot of time on the app, to stay updated with new talent, new parties and with what’s going on in the scene in general. 

This is part of a larger phenomenon where a lot of our behaviors changed - people can get so caught up documenting an experience that its visual appeal and imaginary become more valuable than the experience itself. This is happening to a lot of domains of our life but when it starts creeping into what used to be moments of socialization and bodily delight, something's gone terribly wrong - and professionals of this scene are often the ones suffering this commodification the most.

Therefore, to explore this subject, we thought the best is to speak directly to players of the underground music scene - this article explores the topic through a number of anonymous submissions, from touring DJs of the underground music scene, to bookers, promoters, and other professionals. 

“I’ve had moments where I didn't want to post anything at all, but you feel like if you don't have an online presence, you don't exist.”



As a start, we should mention that all the DJs and music professionals we spoke with reported feeling overwhelmed, at least at times, by the content appearing on their Instagram feeds. “It became particularly noticeable post-COVID with the opening of clubs,” one of the interviewees told us, “most of my feed was music or party-related, quickly becoming overwhelming and frankly quite exhausting.” These party videos can feel highly detached from weekly life — as another interviewee reported, “it is quite dissonant to be confronted by this amount of party-related material when you are going back to your daily life.” 

These overwhelming and dissonant feelings can quickly grow into anxiety when you consider that Instagram use  has become the preferred means of promotion in the underground music scene — if you are a DJ, it is highly suggested to post videos of the parties you play at, to establish a presence and promote success. A touring DJ mentioned: “I feel the pressure of having to post gig-related content often while sometimes I would just rather post other things. Balancing between having a digital space to creatively share inspirations and creating a portfolio can be difficult.” Another one told us: “I’ve had moments where I didn't want to post anything at all, but you feel like if you don't have an online presence, you don't exist. Artists are now freelance marketers working for free: they cover all fronts of the social media universe, promote venues, labels, and agencies, have to post that they will play somewhere, post when they are playing, and post after they play. It acts like certification of their presence. It's pretty surreal when you think about it.” 

The pressure described here is probably very familiar if you are a DJ. In fact, all the DJs we spoke with feel some kind of pressure to promote themselves. “After the gigs,I’m always trying to find good videos to post, and if there are no good ones I have to say I get disappointed,” an interviewee added. “I really shouldn't be caring too much about this but there is some pressure when seeing that everyone is posting all these great videos — it feels like something you have to do.”

“We are competing to see who has the most successful career and in the meantime, we are losing the real connection with the music and the people.”
 

Considering the algorithmic dynamics of Instagram (if you are not consistently posting fitting content, your content will slowly stop appearing on the feeds of your followers, possibly resulting in fewer bookings) setting clear boundaries on how often you should post becomes arduous, to say the least. One of the interviewees stated: “I felt anxiety from whether the effort I am putting into Instagram is worth it or not, and having to adjust the way I express myself to fit with Instagram's 'rules'. It also encourages comparisons with others, which are never helpful.” The fact that the dynamics of the platform push artists to compare themselves to others is another very toxic element that’s important to note. “It [Instagram] created more comparison and envy, because you always see what everyone else is up to.” 

In many ways, Instagram drives a representation of the life of touring DJs as an untruthful portrayal. A DJ reported that “the perception of the party scene that comes from social media is, quite often, fake, exacerbated or detached from reality,” In this regard, another interviewee noted: “it's a bit stupid how DJs are always saying that it was the best night of their lives for every gig… You can tell that they just want to make it look like they are the most successful and happy artists. I feel like we are in a competition to see who is having the most successful career and in the meantime, we are losing the real connection with the music and the people.”

Adding to how alarming the topic is, some of the DJ and music workers we spoke with explained how they even have to take complete breaks from Instagram for the sake of their mental health. One interviewee mentioned, “I have stopped using Instagram on the weekends as much as possible.” Another one explained to us how deactivating their profile for a few weeks once in a while is great for their mental health, even though that might not be the most professional approach.

Throughout these interviews, we have also explored the impact that Instagram might have on the overall quality of club nights and festivals. “DJs that become insta-famous rapidly climb and skip steps that would usually happen for other DJs who are organically getting recognition for their artistic output” one interviewee noted, while another noted “social media has become a metric of someone's success, which is not necessarily accurate or correlated with musical merit. It has also definitely encouraged DJs to play more 'Instagrammable' music - instant gratification and instant (and visible) reaction”.

One interviewee also added on how these shifts in the way people use Instagram affects the crowd attending specific events: “Some events that used to be more "underground" now lose a bit of their essence as more people attend who might not be the right crowd. You can see people who are just going there to post about the event and do not even care about the music, recording videos, and overall killing the vibe just for content.”

“Instagram has definitely encouraged DJs to play more 'Instagrammable' music — instant gratification and instant (and visible) reaction”

Like it or not, Instagram is likely to stay around as the main promotional tool for our favorite music and parties for a while. But this does not mean as music professionals (or music enjoyers and party-goers) we should not use it carefully and be aware of its dangers and harmful dynamics. 

Speaking publicly about these topics can be in itself a turning point and provide solutions to some of these problems. Anxiety can spiral when we think we are the only ones experiencing it while the whole world is healthy, shiny and thriving. Into a more and more social media-alienated reality of the post-pandemic world, these types of issues are not an exception but a systemic norm that everyone experiences, and that everyone should be aware of. There are things we can do to navigate Instagram use in a healthier way as music professionals, and it starts with awareness and public discourse. As one of our interviewees noted, keep your mental health as a priority and remind yourself that your work is not tied to what’s happening on the platform: “Artists and labels must keep doing what they believe in while minimizing the outside noise as much as possible. Shut down IG occasionally, and don't let it affect your mental well-being. Keep up to date with what's happening outside your bubble; you don't need much more.”

Written by Giovanni Bodrato

The Great Focus Shift

A short essay on TikTok, distraction and the potential of the loop in the current times

Once again, I am stuck at home; is it the fourth or the fifth time I find myself locked in my house? I am losing count, but the act of turning nearly all my work, my social activities and entertainment needs to my phone and computer does not feel odd - in fact, it does not even feel that much different than most days I would have outside of a quarantine period either.

The umpteenth corona wave gave me the chance to think about our relationship with technology: recent times saw a massive increase in the use of technology worldwide, and subsequently in the use of social media platforms. As much as it’s easy to understand how this was a direct consequence of being stuck at home and needing to socialise, the effects of this increased presence in our lives have yet to be completely comprehended. I am not only thinking of the direct correlation between anxiety, depression and the take-over of these digital platforms, but also of how we experience music, which for some prolonged periods had to be strictly enjoyed at home, leaving a powerful mark in how everyone, especially in younger generations, is exposed to and enjoys it.

I am reluctant to even talk about it in this space, but it is undeniable that TikTok (and more recently Instagram with its latest video-oriented algorithms and policies) have majorly impacted global music consumption. You can find countless sources that analyse how trending on TikTok took over as the deciding component of a worldwide hit. When you put your head out of the underground scene bubble, you witness a world where number one hits are decided by how one or two 10 seconds bits are tied to trends and their success. 



Does it sound horrifying? It absolutely is. But here is where I would just like to put things into perspective and try to tickle your minds with a different view. 

If it’s true that a lot of this algorithmic success is driven by obsessive repetition of the same music bits, isn't repetition also that we seek for as underground dance music listeners, promoters and makers? Yes, there are different aspects to it, but a lot of the dance electronic music craft, for as underground or avant-garde as it can be, comes from obsessing over a 4, 8, or at most 16 loop bar... Which is likely to result in fewer seconds than a song bit for a TikTok trend. 

Don’t get me wrong, I could go on and on about how it’s the micro-adjustments and slow progressions in these loops that make it interesting. But at its core, there is a certain love for hypnotising grooves, mesmerising iterations, and inescapably repetitive composition.

If we compare the experience of a TikTok music trend to an underground electronic music piece, on one side, I hear the same 10 seconds of music copy-pasted, used as a tool for a different piece of video content or meme, while on the other side, I also hear 10 seconds of music copy-pasted, but perfected to sound as interesting and enjoyable as possible in the name of repetition itself, as a work of art, and not as a consequence of a need for absorbing as much attention as possible. Moreover, one is essentially made to be reproduced on phones, computer speakers or AirPods at best, while the other is created with the ultimate purpose of being played as loud and clear as possible, in highly qualitative sound systems. This creates another difference in the improvement of the loop in underground dance music compared to music made to be used in the social media context, also in terms of sound design.

My reflection brings me to this: the world has changed, and the focus shift affecting music consumption might be irreversible. Our collective attention span is probably doomed to shrink more and more in the next few years as a direct consequence of technology taking up more space in our daily lives. But we need to try and take the good from this focus crisis. As electronic music lovers, we have something good to obsess our attention (and the attention of new potential fans) with - pushing sounds forward and introducing new generations to the cult of the loop, to the blissful abandonment that comes from giving up quick judgements in favour of a more primordial, instinctual and physical reaction for abstract and repetitive electronic beats.

I remember when I was just back on the dancefloor after lockdowns - thinking back I rarely felt so disconnected from technology such as in those moments during the last few years. Especially when there’s an exceptional DJ set going on, the urge to peek at my phone quickly fades away, crushed by an obsessive attention for the sound details that are being thrown into my ears, and the welcoming surrounding filled with music lovers doing the same thing in a silent yet loud understanding... I believe this exciting feeling of freedom is something familiar to anyone who lives a love affair with electronic dance music.

Ultimately, as a collective underground music scene we need to better understand this shift in music experience, and perhaps embrace some elements of it. To embrace the need for repetition, not to suffer it. To dominate the loop and bring it forward. To communicate real emotions and not to end up consuming something we don’t actually like over and over.

The post-corona dance scene will surely need some fresh and exciting dance spaces and selectors. But it will also need a better understanding of how music consumption is changing to create a new exciting present instead of merely replicating the past: this can either be the tail end of underground dance music history or the very beginning of an exciting new chapter.

Written by Giovanni Bodrato

Special thanks to my dear Amelie and my friend Alessandro for the precious feedback and notes.