My First Ever Gig

It is hard to believe but already it is three years since I had my first ever gig. It took place in a bar in Dublin called Traffic. It's a fairly hip place with a really cool bar and big, comfortable leather chairs and booths.

The bar had only been open a few months when a couple of DJs / promoters decided to start a club night on Sundays called Nylon. The idea was to blend music with images (provided by a projector) and create a different sort of night to what most bars in Dublin were doing at the time. I had the pleasure of playing at the first ever Nylon night along with about 4 or 5 other guys. The night kicked off at 18:00 and each of us played for about 90 minutes. It was a lot of fun and really interesting because each of us had totally different styles & tastes in music - there really was something for everyone.

My setlist for the night was:

Sure Thing - St Germaine
Breezin' - Columbia Carina
The Child - Alex Gopher
Papadam - Yonderboi
Tsunami (Inside My Soul) - Sven Van Hees
Honey - Tosca
Fairplay - Soul II Soul
Don't Mess With My Man - Lucy Perl
Someday - Roy Davis Jr.
All Night Long - Mary Jane Girls
Think (About It) - Lyn Collins
Get On The Good Foot - James Brown
Just Plain Funky - The Bucketheads
Me Myself And I - De La Soul
Know How - Young MC
Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
Root Down - Beastie Boys
Can I Kick It? - A Tribe Called Quest
Rappers Delight - Sugarhill Gang
Super Disco - Alex Gopher
The Way (Original Mix) - Global Communication
Spanish Grease (Remix) - Richard Dorfmeister
Finally (Original Version) - Kings Of Tomorrow
Machine Vibes - Metro Area

Unfortunately after a second performance 2 weeks later, I was told that I would no longer be needed for subsequent gigs. It was pretty frustrating since I was doing something unusual myself - playing off a laptop. Despite wanting to offer an alternative to all the other bars and clubs in Dublin, these guys didn't want to rock the boat too much. They (like every other DJ in Dublin) reckoned that you have to play records to be "real" and "hip". If you didn't then you were a poser and faking it (or at least that is what they told me).

However, 3 years on and Nylon is still going strong on a Sunday night in Traffic although I don't know how many of the original guys involved are still there. Most DJs in Dublin are still playing records but the whole scene has really diminished in the last two years. Lots of bars have discovered that with a fairly decent computer, mp3 software and a large hard drive you don't need to pay someone to play tunes.

Ahh... computers. Is there anything they CAN'T do?..