“Why haven’t you got it?”

As DJ’s we have a duty to our customers to ensure the night goes well and that we do as much as we can to ensure people have a good time.

But there’s always one punter who approaches you to ask “Have you got xxxx?” and when you reply “no” the retort is invariably “well, you’re a **** DJ then aren’t you if you don’t have that, why haven’t you got it?”

Now I may not have entered the digital age of PC DJing yet, but I would hazard a guess that in my 2 full UDG cases and the bag with various stuff that I haven’t filed, I carry about 8000 tracks around with me (some other DJs I know are more than confident just to take their Professional and Decades Sets with them to a gig). This is normally enough for a gig… but not for these particular punters.

I like to classify them into three main types:

The Upfront

This is the person who requests a track that they’ve seen on a music channel which isn’t even available on promo yet, or some obscure dubstep track that would never work at a function. More often than not they don’t even know the name of the track, instead they try to slam a mobile phone to your ear asking “you got this mate?”. Do they really think I can identify this through a tinny phone with a full sound system in my other ear??? I consider myself pretty upfront, I use Pro Disc and Pro Dance along with being a member of label promo groups, so I cover quite a lot – but this isn’t enough. In their opinion, it makes no difference that only they will know it or that it isn’t even released yet, you are rubbish because you don’t spend all day on P2P sites infecting PCs with viruses.

Sometimes you even get them offering to plug their phone into your system even though they have no connection. These are the people who also ask why you don’t have a laptop to instantly download everything, not caring that the track isn’t available through legal means yet and assume that I’m quite happy to infect my pc and play unlicensed material clearing my floor just to satisfy Chris the Chav.

The Retro

These are the people who are normally creeping past middle age, used to rule the roost on the dance floor and still think they can. They had a special dance to certain records back in the 70’s which they want to re-enact to “show young un’s what proper music is”.

The problem with the retro requester is that they can’t accept that nobody plays their music anymore. As DJs, we have limited space in our CD cases and have to be selective about what we take, therefore the obscure request you last played about 15 years ago is no longer in your wallet.

These people, depending on what time of the night it is (for that read ‘how drunk they are’) normally accept this as a valid reason and I always ask if there is anything else from that era that would suffice, making suggestions that I know I have. This way they still feel involved in the night and I have another satisfied customer!

The Geek (aka the DJ)

Sorry guys but we’ve all done it at some point. But DJ’s really can be the worst customers. You can spot them a mile off, they tend to be fairly non-reactive to tunes or can be seen talking to the long suffering partners who, having finally got them to have a night off so they can go out, has to sit there listening to them talk about the guy who’s working. It must be some kind of “Djdar”.

Then they approach you, always casting a beady eye over the equipment just to gauge what you use and ask for a remix of a track that they have, which they think you don’t. As you’re looking for it, you then hear the words “I’m a DJ too”… Sorry guys, but you aren’t that night, you’re a customer. So when you find you don’t have the Fonzerelli Bootleg remix of Usher’s ‘My Boo’, a little smile creeps across his lips and as he (and yes guys, it mainly is men who do this) walks back you can see him say “he’s not got it” as if some mini battle has been won.

I’m not saying all DJ’s are like this but I’ve come across enough in my time who are. The majority of jocks I’ve encountered are generally socialable but you do get a few…

The other geek is the one who wants a B-side from a release back in the mid 90’s when the band was signed to an obscure indie label.

Well folks, ask for what you like, I only have so many tracks and if I don’t have what you want then I’m sorry and maybe I am a **** DJ but I’ll be the one with the video camera filming you running to the dance floor later in the night when I play Cha Cha Slide and YMCA to post on YouTube the morning after.