Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Brazil-ectro

Another Saturday night and another gig under my belt - in fact it was the public debut of DJ Kub...

Three of my friends are doing a trek in Brazil in September in aid of a children's hospital in Dublin. Last Saturday night was one of their fundraising events - a Brazilian theme party, complete with a Samba band and DJ (me). It was an absolutely brilliant night. The girls put so much effort into the food, the drinks and the decorations. Everything was fantastic and of course there was the music.

I was first up at 8:00 as a bit of a warm-up, playing some lounge and Latin flavoured tunes for about 90 minutes. Then, it was time for the band. They played for 45 minutes covering some well known stuff as well as some much more traditional Brazilian music. During their break, I played a couple of more tunes and then they took to the stage again. For the second half of their set they had a woman give an impromptu salsa dancing lesson. Everyone was having a great time except that they only played one song for about 15 minutes during the lesson / practice session. I think it was a cover of Bob Marley's 'No Woman No Cry'. That would have been fine except they played a 10 minute version of it during their first set!

After they finished to thunderous applause and cheers, one of the girls asked them to play a brief encore (only about 15-20 minutes). They willingly obliged (much to the dismay of the sound guy who had already unplugged all of their mics). After frantically trying to reconnect everything they began their encore. Unfortunately, this also contained another version of 'No Woman No Cry'! It was only for a couple of minutes in between two other songs but it was still there.

Next up after the band was a bit of a curve ball - a flamenco dancer. Direct from Spain. Apparently the band leader had the idea and didn't tell anyone. But after several attempts of actually trying to find the woman we discussed the music and she chose a couple of tunes to dance to. Again, it was really good and very entertaining.

All in all the band did an excellent job of offering some great tunes, varied music (except for the Marley tune) and dancing.

But the time had finally come for the disco...

Now the pressure was on. I was going to have to keep the atmosphere going and get everyone on the dance floor. If I was able to do that I was going to have to keep them there. Fortunately, I had a good night. I played some requests, threw in a few "floor fillers" and served up just the right amount of cheese to satisfy almost everyone.

One woman asked me to play the song 'Shame' by Evelyn King and when I obliged she went bananas. On her way out, she hugged me and thanked me for "getting her in the mood". I am not quite sure what she meant but her boyfriend / husband had a huge smile on his face as they were leaving...

During one of the songs a member of the bar staff approached me to "constructively" offer his opinion on the sound. He thought that I should turn down the bass a little bit and perhaps lower the overall sound as well. I thanked him for his input, turned a few knobs and when he went back to the bar I turned the volume up even more. He didn't come back and I had a good laugh with the sound guy about it.

Once the bar closed (around 1:15) the staff started to get a bit itchy about wrapping things up. I spoke to one of them and when he asked me to stop around 1:30, I asked for an extra 10 minutes to which he agreed. But that was not to be the end. I was asked by several people to keep playing and was able to keep things going for another 3 songs. In fact, I would have kept going until they pulled the plug but the sound guy was well, pardon the pun but really sound! We were having the chats all night and when he turned to me and said "look mate, I really, really have to get home" I actually believed him and said that I would wrap it up.

So, the following is the complete list of what I played during the night. Many, many thanks to the girls (Zoe, Lisa & Cathy) for having me and supplying me with endless bottles of Heineken all evening. It was an absolute pleasure to be able to help them and contribute to the night.

Lounge Set
-----------------
01. Breakfast Club Di Milano - Giacomo Bondi
02. Let's Stay Together - Boris Gardiner
03. Nem Vem Que Nao Tem - Wilson Simonal
04. Bossa Per Due - Nicola Conte
05. Daytripper - Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66
06. Batucada - Walter Wanderley
07. Rama Lama Lama (Bossa Mix) - Paul Derrick
08. Lady (Acoustique Version) - Modjo
09. Just Can't Get Enough - Nouvelle Vague
10. Pass The Dutchie - Musical Youth
11. Crik Crak - The Lovers
12. House Of Bamboo - Earl Grant
13. Sway - Perez Prado ft Rosemary Clooney
14. Hound Dog - Betty Everett
15. No Puede Darte Nada Mas Que Amor - Jaime Delgado Aparicio
16. Funk da Virada - Antonio Pinto / Ed Cortes
17. Gypsy Woman - Joe Bataan
18. Sonado - Poncho Sanchez
19. Spanish Grease - Willie Bobo
20. Spill The Wine - War
21. Why Don't You Do Right - Mark Murphy
22. Mas Que Nada (Leave It) - Jorge Ben
23. Hit The Road Jack (Pena Estrada) - Mo' Horizons
24. Vida de Otario - Antonio Pinto / Ed Cortes
25. Musica Del Alma - The TnT Boys
26. Never Learned To Dance - Harvey Averne
27. Peckings - Ballistic Brothers
28. The Mambo Craze (Radio Edit) - De-Phazz ft Pat Appleton
29. See-Line Woman - Nina Simone
30. Soul Drummer (Tim 'Love' Lee Re-edit) - Ray Barretto
31. Got Myself A Good Man - Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers
32. Theme From "The Apartment" - Tito Rodriquez
33. Cuchy Frito Man - Cal Tjader
34. I Can't Get No Satisfaction - Jose Feliciano

Disco Set
--------------
35. The Bottle - Gil Scott-Heron
36. Get On The Good Foot - James Brown
37. Theme From Shaft - Isaac Hayes
38. Hot Stuff - Donna Summer
39. Hey Ya! - Outkast
40. Crazy - Gnarles Barkley
41. Kiss - Prince
42. Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
43. Holiday - Madonna
44. Shame - Evelyn King
45. U Can't Touch This - MC Hammer
46. Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) - C+C Music Factory
47. Crazy In Love - Beyonce
48. Gold Digger - Kanye West
49. Romeo - Basement Jaxx
50. Gett Off - Prince
51. Groove Is In The Heart (12" Version) - Dee-Lite
52. Loaded - Primal Scream
53. Step On (Stuff It In Mix) - Happy Mondays
54. Blister In The Sun - Violent Femmes
55. The Lovecats - The Cure
56. There She Goes - The La's
57. Waterfall (12" Remix) - Stone Roses
58. Billie Jean (Original 12" Edit) - Michael Jackson
59. Superstition - Stevie Wonder
60. Thriller - Michael Jackson

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't care? Don't read.

Great setlists, except for the Cure. Sounds like it was a blast.

9:43 pm  
Blogger Lucio said...

your lounge set is very good, congratulations.
do you have MSN? mine is lucio_files@hotmail.com im a dj from Rio de janeiro, if you wanna make contact will be a pleasure.

2:46 pm  

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