Episode notes
Transcript
Download .txt692 timestamped passages
good morning good evening good night good afternoon sometimes it's easier for me to keep
going than to quit life is real you know what i mean you have to go out there and put the work in
and if you've never been in the pit at a nascar race do it the time you put in while no one is
around will be what sets you apart when everyone is watching because a lot of times you'd be like
oh yeah that's a cool little idea but once they really understand where you're coming from um
the meaning behind it all in your heart what you really want to accomplish that's when people dive
in they really get on board with it good morning good evening good night good afternoon whatever
time you're listening in wherever you're listening from i still think it's so cool that somebody in
another country can be right here in the room with us and stuff like that um just want to apologize
for a little bit in advance we're breaking the nut we have two audio geniuses here with a fan
running in the room and it's just it's just hot so you guys are going to get conversation with a
little bit of backend noise. Oh, with the help of technology, we'll cut that out. You won't even
hear it. We'll find an AI that takes care of that. But we do have Lou Minor, DJ extraordinaire. And
when I say extraordinaire, Lou's story, I've watched him for 10, 15 years. He's hired me to
do flyers at his events and publications and things that he has. And as a DJ, especially with
everything trending in music genres every three to five years. Like you can't be known. I don't
know if you can really niche down. So just to survive that for 15 years, um, we're both
business owners outside of podcast guests and podcasters and lose on a call with one of his
clients. And I said, you can come to my studio just so that we don't have any, you know, rather
than you take it. And I don't want to record till after that's off your mind, but man, I got an idea
And I'm like, OK, that's that's what it is.
They're not buying a guy with some equipment that can play some music.
They don't want to have to worry about audio at all.
So you solve the problem of, you know, we'll start with what you do
and we can get into the story.
But one thing that you said, you said you had wireless speakers,
battery operated in case they wanted music in this.
Oh, well, we didn't even we haven't even thought of that.
Yeah, it comes with experience.
And well said, Tony, with the change of music trends over the years, especially the last even the last five years, let alone 10, 15 years, known you for a while.
And and you will definitely not be in the business if you stay stagnant.
You almost have to be a chameleon when you're a DJ because you always have to keep up with what's hot as far as music goes in the wedding scenes.
There's always wedding trends that people are doing.
um for example the newest one is like this really fast rapid photo op that uh couples want um
usually the photographer will take pictures with the friends and family on the side they'll go to
each table uh very like low key but it takes a long process of a long process but now uh it's
a tiktok trend one of my couples saw it on tiktok said oh we want to do like really rapid really
fast get it done in like a song or two um so in that case i play she's a maniac maniac the 80s
song is really fast pace so so i get them going they all they'll go around the room and uh and
do the photo op and uh and just keep it up with the music that's hot now and the uh and i've
always been changing um the uh the way i perform too especially with um djs with musicians now we
we're we're now integrating djs i was gonna i was gonna bring that i was gonna bring that in
that's so that's one of the things we'll kind of quentin tarantino this one now you're doing
fusions of the last project that you hired me to market was uh saxophone slash dj so kind of a live
production yeah and i heard you talk through with a potential client about that before we go there
i want to take a step back and just ask how many times did you just say i don't want i just want
pack my gear up like is it a love of the music or what keeps you going is it just okay you're good
at it and clients keep showing up yeah that actually sparked a new fire in me when we started
doing fusions with musicians um djing alone is fine um and it's great but adding a musician
just adds a different element of energy into the uh the atmosphere uh into the event and then thank
you for helping me do the flyer and marketing for the event that we did at the diamond allentown
we had a couple musicians come through and uh it's nothing like it in the lehigh valley where
you had a dj play music alongside a violinist or saxophone player and a guitarist we had all
three that day because we wanted to give the people a taste of what it's like um and if they
like seeing that kind of entertainment um they could hire us for like their wedding their um
sweet 16 a corporate event um and um thank you for putting that together on the flyer you you
captured the essence of uh the live music i remember it like it was yesterday there was like
a pink guitar i think like a teal saxophone and it was almost like a retro 70s not quite hippie
almost like an upscale hippie vibe but it looked different it had colors that you don't see a lot
out here it was on a black background so it was enough to pick up and say what's that and our
brains know what the shape of instruments are since we're kids so i think it was super effective
and now when you look back to say you did a prestigious event at the dime i mean almost
every event you do now is a big deal it's it is it is um and just to add on to that design on the
the flyer i love the simplicity of it because you could tell what it is from afar and so we
um distributed that flyer on like um barbershops all the local businesses in the area and people
who were just walking by they could see on the window like oh okay from afar this is what it is
and if they're interested they will go up to it scan a qr code and whatnot um but yeah the live
music and the events uh especially in the night life is not um a common thing is not you ubiquitous
or around the area so we want to try to make it um like that and the start was there at the dime
um unfortunately it didn't take off um so there is a a um a sad story there because the management
um wasn't really uh actively trying to promote it um and i tried to follow up with them and it
wasn't they didn't really follow up or had any interest in an event like that
it was a success the manager was happy with the numbers we did bring in a crowd
and and the bar did well it was a good attendance but uh but I think that it
really they had other things in mind that's fine really listen happens all
the time I build my whole business around it sometimes it's only three
months six months a year sometimes for two months i join a team do some great work go from there cut
a check and go from there it's a it's a it's it's i don't call it gig work because i've been blessed
to have some some nice size projects but for the most part you proved it could happen like i'll
tell you um i was just bringing him up one of my clients who's putting together a reality tv show
for dominoes he hired a few professionals got it filmed kind of ran out of budget to edit and
taught himself to edit i follow up with him i've been in touch with him over the year but you fast
forward he's got as much gear as me if not more and he's getting into live streaming it not even
cutting it so he's learning how to do the whole broadcast it's the sort of thing i feel that
you build something and you prove it out once and then everything else comes yeah everything
um doesn't always go according to plan the way you want to i got video content from it yeah you
got content you got a flyer it was yeah it was good it was it happened and that way we have
something to show for and maybe we could pursue it later down the road um but for those uh who
are listening who try something it is not successful or doesn't lead into the trajectory
that you want it to lead to um don't get discouraged um use it as a opportunity to
learn from it and maybe pivot and go in a different direction or try a different area
that could have been um the the factor that uh that didn't uh make it a complete success for
the future it was success that day but it didn't continue um maybe it was because the the area
maybe we need to try that in easton or yeah listen if it was a successful event by the numbers but
didn't catch on it probably had nothing to do with anything in your control would have been
any reason why it didn't kick off but that's what people don't realize with success how much
luck is involved with it you know what i mean like i think of how many lucky breaks i've had
or something where it's like you can't put it down to anything other than i was just in the
right place in the right time and uh you know if if bringing music is a hard like music was gig
work before there were designers everywhere i mean great talented musicians might make 150 bucks a
night you know entertaining for a while and it's like it's not that it's not valued but now i'm
sure you get this all the time well why don't we just put a spotify playlist on and let it rock
like there's a couple do you get that there was a couple who came up to me and like i'm doing a
wedding i'm just gonna put a spotify playlist and that's it and uh and it was actually uh one
of my friends um is uh one of my friend's uh sisters getting married and um it's gonna be
small wedding um but uh my friend was like don't do that hire a dj hire a dj i know guys names dj
links um and so i got with uh with a couple and i asked them uh why they wanted to do a playlist of
just music from a spotify or apple music and like oh we didn't we didn't we're not like party people
we're not uh trying to make it into a big extravagant event and uh and i convinced them to
to hire me uh and they also were low budget um and they didn't have a lot on their budget
um so i worked with their budget as a family uh friend and i decided to um help them out and do
the event um at a at a good cost and because i wanted to make sure that their event their wedding
uh was a success it was memorable for the guests and um and just having a spotify playlist
oh man it just puts a lot of stress on you especially if you try to do the free one and
then you have ads playing during your wedding i couldn't imagine oh yeah that's imagine that
would have been a disaster and and uh they're low-key people so i don't and i i reassured him
that it wouldn't uh be like um like something that's uh like a coachella festival fest kind
of thing or i'll keep it low key play the music that they want uh but also make the announcements
um and and and keep it formal as a as a as a good wedding good event for them and um and i even had
that for like sweet 16s too um especially um uh if they don't have the money uh or they they they
went through the numbers and after paying the food the venue the photographer they don't have
any leftover for the dj like oh we're gonna put on a playlist no and then once they pay the dj
the guy who designed the invitation that did its job a year ago there's nobody's thinking of paying
the the designer but no i did uh i learned that that quick i i don't do weddings for design wise
um video when i just i i don't do it i will people have asked me i have but i don't all right all
right it's uh it's it's a lot of stress it's a big thing and i think that you kind of have to
have a reputation for doing that if i'm gonna make two to four thousand dollars and be booked
out every weekend and edit with that pressure all throughout the week there's just so much that can
go wrong that you know these are people's like wedding pictures like they it might be less now
that everybody has hd video in their pocket like capturing the memories might be less valued but
you know i'd love to edit i don't feel i'm the greatest photographer i'm into video i like video
somebody tells me hey show up and make a video of our wedding we're gonna have a consultation
like everything else there's a family friend with a low budget that's like look we don't got six
thousand dollars for a wedding video but it's something we really want okay well can we not do
three extra people and like not have a five angle kiss to edit up on 4k footage like there's always
ways you can go back these cameras we're recording on now are like they were the shit when they came
out but they're like 50 bucks you can get them off ebay they shoot 1080 60 you know a little bit
about video it looks fine shout out to everybody looking at us on a tv screen bigger than uh 36
inches you got like a 42 or 52 inch go in the comments and just go nuts tell me what size your
screen your screen is i want to see something and most people view it on the phone so these cameras
will go great on the phone but if you're watching on a 65 inch tv it might be uh a little choppy
no do you know what it's bad when you think of uh i was uh watching i needed something to fall
asleep on i'm going through and i was like okay carrie bradshaw i remember like i was way too
young to be watching sex in the city but it was a show i watched and i asked chat gbt yo
why is sex in the city so grainy like back then it was like 480 but not just that they said that
was the style having grain added texture to your video so you go back you look friends all that
stuff they had good cameras back then you know they had good lighting they could make it crisper
but then when i thought that was intentional i'm like dude i'm gonna do it and i've shown up to
video classes with those cameras i've made whole home movies on the cell phones um it's not it's
not the tool it's it's the user i know a lot of photographers um and videographers that i've
spoken to they said uh that is it's not the tool i mean it does help but the person behind the
camera behind the turntables behind the bar whatever the wherever whatever position you're in
yeah uh if you have to pick one or the other the expertise or the skill yeah you're gonna go with
the expertise the expertise is the experience behind it on using that tool and you could i
mean there's people out there making movies with iphones uh with just a camera phone and uh and
and if you're using uh whatever tool you're using make it work um and just to backtrack
No, it's limitations.
Yeah, no limitations.
See, what I think I get.
No, I'm not going to cut you off.
You're going to backtrack.
Don't lose it.
Oh, no.
The original point was the whatever you're using, always provide the quality of service, no matter what tool you're using.
Just like the person that didn't have a budget for the wedding.
Just like someone who hired you for their event to design and market their event, but didn't have the budget in there.
It doesn't mean that you're going to provide a less quality product at the end of the day because because you're I never put myself in a position where I have a big head and I don't get, you know, I don't get to that point where, no, I'm not going to do it because, you know, this is not in that league anymore or my ego is in the way.
i'll still do small events i'll do events where uh it's uh the the cost is less than what i would
charge um but it's um but i'll still put out the same amount of um quality out there um because
some people are not fortunate enough uh to pay for a hundred thousand dollar wedding or event
and um dj costs get up to a hundred thousand they could uh yeah easily yeah they could go up to
well well i should say overall so like you get lighting lighting oh yeah yeah overall that that
would be that would be within uh then the food and cater uh that would be within that yeah it's
not going to be like a coachella side it's just going to be about a hundred thousand we're going
to have links we're going to have dancing mascots maybe maybe jeff basil's wedding uh the dj was
paid around you know a hundred thousand dollars but uh but now in this um but yeah we we i personally
put out the same amount of work and effort into smaller events as i do with bigger events um so i
got one interesting to go on on that um i was at a convention in florida about selling video and
the guy goes and he shows two videos one of them was just your basic flat kind of still told the
story the other one the guy looks at you with the camera lights come out of his lens he's smiling
it's like not the craziest special effects but you know like the template stuff we see where
people's eyes turn terminator and uh he's like you know this budget on the right is like let's
just say he said three thousand dollars he's like this one over here is 700 but we're not gonna
color we're gonna shoot it in automatic and it's like well why would you give them less why would
you devalue he's like we're targeting clients that don't know the difference or don't care
i sit there on uh sometimes like these cameras actually have less grain sometimes than the
cell phone and when i go and i put it up onto uh i'll watch it with my mom and she'll have like a
she has a nice tv upscaling it to 4k and it literally looks fine you could see it feels
like you're here with us you don't want it to be like too crisp and then the light on her face is
also like it's it's i i prefer to do an audio experience anyway but uh the client doesn't know
or care so if all somebody wants is music you know if all somebody wants is hey i want music
to play i would ask the person with the spotify playlist like is it because they want control over
the type of music like i'd kind of look down their genre of what they like and sell them the value of
them not having to think about it yeah the um the clients um they usually want to be involved
as minimal as possible when they provide like a spotify playlist they just um they just want a
spotify playlist for their for their event no dj no band no musician um but they i we educate them
on what it would look like with a dj with a musician if they were actively looking for
um a dj for their event they may not know hey we do fusion as well with a musician uh we do
all these kinds of um lighting effects uh enhancements we call them uh for the event
because a lot of them they haven't thrown an event in their lives before they haven't had a wedding
they haven't had a suite 16 before so they don't know what's out there and nobody that has has a
wedding is going to go crazy on the uh i love that word you used the extremities or the enhancements
the enhancements yeah because that's that's such a like i can tell the level of client you work with
i mean we both came we know what the 2005 to 2010 club scene looked like out here and just
everywhere in general you know and even like trying to enforce dress codes or you know we
we're the only place with sports bars where you can't wear sports cats or jerseys yeah that's
wild man that's wild the uh they try to push the dress code at a dive bar
that's that's uh yeah that's not gonna fly with too many people well it's like look you can create
the experience of something pristine you really can you can do the white box of purple bow people
are going to pay fifteen hundred dollars more for the same piece of computer just because it's an
apple and jobs knew that and knew how to sell that but when i'm buying something that solves
a problem somebody comes to me and says hey i just need a logo i treat them way different if
they come to me and say hey i need a brand all right so you've done some research you're not
using that word logo most people think they need a logo but really need a brand and they're going
to say logo but you just start to pick up things about clients like okay so are you the owner are
you in charge i'm in charge okay that's who i want to talk to because if you're the owner
i can tell you i'm i'm too busy to listen to anyone's sales pitch at least till august september
i don't have the time to add things on to what we already have going on so so as soon as you're
talking about you you saw serato come along you saw the push play come along you saw the industry
change oh yeah let me tell you something about technology it is amazing how fast it's changed
over the last six years ten years when i first started i was started with cds um so i remember
i got a pair of cdjs because at the time i was around 17 18 i wanted to get a pair of decks
and at the time the cdjs just came out and this is early 2000s around 2002 2003 and so i decided
do i want to go the old school route and get a vinyl techniques or do i want to get these
brand new cdjs so i got brand new cdjs all cds they had the cd drive in there
um and that's why if you see me scratching i scratch kind of like backwards um against the
needle because traditional turntable lists and djs would scratch on the other side because i
never had to worry about the needle um so fast forward into the software then um serato came out
I think around 2003 or four.
And so before that, I had a mix by year.
Everything was the CDs beat matching and how to figure out all this beat.
This song is around the same BPM as the song.
So when I first started,
it was all beat matching by year.
And then Serato came out and you could see the waveforms
and then you could sync and do all that.
And I don't use the sync button.
There's nothing wrong with it.
but that's just how i learn i just ride the tempo yeah you gotta get in the field the tempo pitch
pitch blend i've had a few masters on different topics we had alany on the podcast he's uh alany
jay's the most viral character artist in the world i think he just passed like 12 million he's got
like close to 700 some million views on one of his most popular episodes and he came in and spoke
about the art of speed charactering and how it was very much practicing strokes and he still puts
this stuff out on his social but it's practice drawing a circle you have to do it a thousand
times and it's like he's taken principles of martial arts and applied them to characters so
when you see people like um you know there's actually it's funny my coach will bring up djs
i trained jujitsu i don't know if you knew but shout out to exalt jujitsu evan robinson
decided he was going to be a dj um now when heaven decides something within a year and a half later
it's fully incorporated it's exists there's a commercial building attached to it but you know
he had a gym in a jujitsu gym and says you know i'm going to get some dj stuff now he has djs in
the area reaching out to him saying do not charge less than 100 150 an hour you'll ruin the game
you take somebody who's paid their dues and knows people i think part of a lot of the
arts like uh you know how tied in with hip-hop djing is and things like that it's like
you're in a group of mercenaries like i love all the club owners i still work with and i'll tell
them like you guys are mercenaries 35 instead of 45 for an event that says 15 at the door
i'm not in that like we can't we can't fight over ten dollars you couldn't you can now these djs
back then were like guns for hire um they would just pick up any event any gig um no matter what
the cost was and a lot of it sometimes was even for free just for exposure um the club owner would
tell them um so and promoters would also um pay them very little because they have to get their
cut to um but yeah going back to the technology of the early days i'm glad the software came out
especially now they have stems where you can separate the bass line with the vocals and
instrumental you could have an instant instrumental right off the bat uh before you had to actually
purchase it separately for sure acapella instrumental no you could do with any mp3
file now that's awesome now these dj softwares are so advanced um that you could take any mp3
file as long as it's a good quality mp3 file uh put it on your deck and instantly just grab the
acapella from it or take it out leave the bass line and the drums um there's four parts melody
drums uh bass line and uh vocals um some softwares can only do three but uh but yeah technology has
gone to that extent uh that that advance um and back in the day it was so hard uh just to even
beat match a song without the waveform software i think that barrier of entry stopped people from
even doing it oh yeah do you think serato or sync button or any of this stuff kind of made it too
easy for people to get into the game or oh yeah it made it more accessible for the average person to
get into djing and uh beat match and and learn the uh and learn just how to uh mix the song
uh with the technology is so much easier and um and it's just a tool um those guys who have been
i call them classically trained um they no matter what the software doing to get the laptop can
crash they'll still be able to uh keep the party going with uh with maybe a vinyl record or a cd
if they have cdj's it's popping a cd uh until the laptop reboots um or beat match i remember in this
one situation where i was switching with another dj i was at the club and uh the for some reason
his um his usb wasn't connecting to the controller that we were using so i had my laptop facing the
audience so the screen was like facing the audience um i had to like set it a certain way
and his laptop was on the other side and so we're like okay ready let's uh switch over no no it's
not connected like oh great so i had to go around choose the next song come back around no waveforms
i'm not seeing the laptop and i had a beat match by ear and uh and so if i didn't grow up in that
era where i had to learn how to beat match by ear sure i would have been screwed i would have been
train wrecking like crazy and we did that for like 10 minutes and it couldn't he couldn't get
it working for like 10 minutes i had to do that three or four times and people in the audience
like looking at me all crazy like what's he doing running around now you gotta look super calm so
we we made it work and uh and that's one of those things where technology has has made it easier
but it also handicapped uh some of the djs because if they're put in a situation where
uh it fails um they don't have anything to they don't have the skills to rely on to um
to beat match by year or keep it going if you don't got like a couple of these
just in your pocket that disappears really quickly yeah it's funny i did a i did a reel
the other day i got some action on it i said don't never lend loan one of these out it's like
hanging out later you never get it back yeah yeah they started making whole lighter lighter
leashes based off that sort of thing but it's insane i mean even if you think back then i don't
know i don't i haven't been in a club nightlife but i can't imagine people smoke cigarettes like
that not like they used to i've seen like cigar lounges they they've been coming up they've been
popular i know there's some in writing i just i'd have to i'm sure if i would go to a lounge with
40 50 there'd be plenty of cigarette smokers i just i don't know if that's a generational thing
like i can see people vaping at clubs but i'm not even going to talk about nightlife i've only been
to like people my age uh my kids don't talk about wanting to do it like that was all there was to do
when we when we came up with it but you know you have a new barrier of entry people have always
said that design i think any creative industry is similar um i just i think that with djs the
fact that there is like you said jeff bezos wedding picking songs very specific that probably
that guy was probably on research for three to four months or some yeah you got to do due diligence
man especially with those big bigger events you have to do your research uh especially with
multicultural events too i do a lot of those um um family came from dominican republic i'm first
generation here in the u.s so i know a lot of latin music so uh the company i work for they
usually have me on these multicultural events um not only with um couples who are from latin america
puerto rico um or dominican republic uh couples from they have family from russia from italy
from uh from haiti too i know a lot of soca music in uh in bollywood uh play bollywood music uh had
many events where um half the family were hindu um so i play a lot of like music typically that
has heard from uh india um and uh so i love doing that with like uh you remind me i was in an uber
the other day and it was a gentleman i believe he was from morocco he's moroccan and you know i
asked him what kind of music does he listen to and he's like you familiar and i said well i bartended
for years at a arab establishment we had a lot of middle eastern weddings persian things like that
of like persian percussion yeah um it doesn't sound anything like that or what could we and
just the fact that he's talking with someone about music he loves that's like if i went to like i
don't know germany's a bad example is hip-hop's big out there but you know like i go somewhere
and they're like oh you know and they name like an american rapper like you know naz we're like
really into not and i'm like this would be i think that's like just an our area thing that's where
the research comes in for uh for musicians or djs or anyone involved in that kind of event
uh couples who are from morocco or from the arab nations um the last event i've done i helped out
with like sound system because not only do i do dj i do like production work lighting sound systems
for events for bands and uh they wanted for for that couple um half the family was from
a nation over by iran i think is iranian and uh and a lot of their music is acoustic
um so they had a some musicians there a lot of percussion acoustic a violin
like finger drums percussion or with a stick yeah mostly finger drumming um like congas or
okay and um a lot of his background music uh no no like drums per se no like typical like 808 beat
yeah no that's what i'm talking about that's what i'm talking about it's more it's it's uh some of
these younger guys do throw some some uh 808s to them and stuff i'm trying to think we're gonna
shot you know you know dj teal teal haddad no i don't know dj oh man i'm not sure he's really
into premiere like he's an actual dj but he also plays traditional syrian music like in in a band
uh for some of the weddings and stuff that i did but you know when i see him on social he's
scratching the premiere and i'm like oh like you just love that it's like a modern take on
on that kind of music and that's that's great the couple i worked with they wanted more of a
traditional uh music from that area and uh and very little vocals maybe some chanting here and
there um but uh nobody thinks that at eight nine when the older folk go that you have to have a
backup for the 20 to 23 year olds that are still hanging around the yeah the wedding we we uh that
that's what we would say we'd say once we switch to american music start cleaning up
it's when the older generations leave the grandma start packing up her her belongings and stays says
bye to everybody and leaves but um yeah you got to keep you got to play something for the younger
generation too and that's another thing about um about the music and our event space is you
have to really know the crowd you have to work the room and and uh almost almost being like
stereotypical so so as a dj you would like look at the room and you would see look at the age look
at the race look at like a lot of factors and variables involved in like what kind of music
and uh and you kind of like play to the crowd and see what works what doesn't pivot where you need
too and uh that's why i love doing these uh multicultural events because i try to find a
little pocket of of music that people get into and i like i like to do blends and remixes of
some songs like i have a michael jackson song that's like a salsa so it bridges the gap between
uh between the the americans and um your latinos uh so that's a good song to kind of like coast
into and then go from and go into your like classic sasas uh and i love part of what i
love doing is to uh make everybody have a good time even if they don't understand the music
they may not understand the lyrics they may not understand um uh anything about it except for the
fact that it has high energy they could feel it they feel the energy they they know it's if it's
a good if it's like a high dance song or if it's a sad song um the energy is there so that's kind
of universal with music right um so you don't think no matter what the tools are you think a
thousand years from where there's still going to be people in charge with picking the music and
being responsible for the energy with ai i i was at uh applebee's like a couple years ago and i saw
like this little kiosk thing on the table says you know your your mobile dj pick your pick your
choose your dj and i'm looking at them like yeah we're gonna be out of business
so and i imagine with ai it's gonna be uh there's way to the point where where djs uh will be
obsolete but there's i believe that you think a computer could read a room that's where i was
gonna get to i believe that a computer won't be able to pivot the way uh a human dj uh musician
our band leader uh is able to to pivot and uh engage what the crowd is feeling and uh the ai
may be able to pick songs it'd be great at mixing and blending um but improvising it can drive
it could read it could be hard for them for ai to like improvise on the spot like dj gpt read the
room just scanning temperatures biometric scans okay i think i'm gonna play and then if it would
hit we'd be like oh shit we thought there was some sort of soul in humans that connected and
brought people together so that's it's interesting i always like to say
guests i bring on we're not searching for the whole success just the fact that you're still
doing it is a success but there's so many cross things and people can have a good experience
listening to one episode you know and i'll steal this from diary of a ceo you get one free man i
better not see percentage of non-subscribed that came back like they can tell if people are watching
your content and not subscribing so definitely subscribe but the one thing everybody has in
common is like they've learned a set of skills or experience that can move them from one thing to
the next that improvising i got into live streaming now i only have a few under my belt but i'm paid
as a consultant in this area to set all this up for people and do stuff it's like i didn't just
decide i if i would get into dancing i wouldn't be able to six months later unless it was some
very specific niche dance i just haven't danced my whole life but solving problems not having the
tools that you always need not panicking we were streaming live from reggae fest yeah you think
it's hard to control the dog and the fact that we had to pause the episode for footsteps you think
that's hard to control you got people drinking there's fights breaking out like yeah i mean with
ai is very linear um so being dynamic and and switching um your direction of where you need
to switch it's going to be hard either in podcasts uh you know um ai could be in podcasts ai could be
in djing um could be in many things but i use a i use a i dj on my spotify but it knows me though
it knows me okay so it plays like the only time i do it is if i need to lock in for half an hour
yeah and i look and i see four songs in a row i'll play them in my head and sometimes i just
hit play and let those rock oh it's great for that situation yeah yeah if i if i have no time
to think about what i want to hear i just want to know i want to hear something good yeah you can
hit dj and it'll be like it talks to you which is kind of weird they'll say this is stuff you
were listening to in 2023 that couldn't hit at a wedding with mass people but i think on a small
scale maybe that'll be something they seek out as people's dj like if you go to an event let's say
i'm going to a concert or here's one and i've been a futurist on there so since we're live we'll post
this up and we'll put it out there 10 years from now five years from now if entertainment and
music is still a thing companies pay crazy money for what music you listen to i know it's happening
now but the dj ai is a new within the last year if i can have five years of what people listen to
and didn't hit skip on like spotify has always been a numbers business not a music distribution
the artist i mean even dj software now has ai included even the uh the one i use by um dj
algorithm dj pro by uh algorithm um it has an auto auto mix feature in there and it's amazing
um i utilize that for like ceremony or during dinner um when i have to step away and i use that
to auto mix but when dance floor opens up all manual and uh for for ai in that kind of
circumstances is amazing and um and but there's always going to be a demand for the nostalgic the
classic you know people uh would want to see a dj spin vinyl records matter of fact um i did an
event and the after party there was a dj spining spinning vinyl records because the client wanted
a dj not to use a laptop not to use anything but yeah vinyl and to get that uh that distinctive
sound that only vinyl can can produce uh same thing 10 years 15 years down the road where maybe
ai has taken over the industry but there's also going to be a couple that'd be like you know what
i like how they did it 50 years ago uh with an actual person and they used uh i think 90s early
2010s was the best era of recording i think that we got great i think the art of recording
50s 60s to be because the artist like in order for you to be somebody they were even getting
you in the studio for you had to be so damn good and when you're that damn good i've been an audio
engineer for somebody that damn good you gotta let them be comfortable and they can't tell them
get closer to the mic it's like look you pay me here to do your thing you push the buttons like
just like earlier when we were talking about technology and how accessible it is for someone
new to be a dj now same thing with artists um singers rap artists hip-hop uh even musicians
who play instrument only it's easier for them to do it now than back then i read an article where
david bowie back then he'd do a take just do it one take a lot of his songs that you hear
on the radio especially his hits were done in one take um now artists is i'll be surprised if they
could do that now uh in one there's there are some there are some that's not a lost art doing
stuff in one take you know what gets you good at one take when you got to pay for studio time
yourself yeah i remember the one time in fact we got one hour let's do let's cram as many songs as
possible yeah no no i think i paid for i was like you said it's what hour uh fifty dollars an hour
all right here's 75 set a timer hour and a half late boom move through that cut it boom i'll take
the edits i'll edit myself i just need to record it and i pretty much one take to my second album
i mean obviously we could stop and do stuff i didn't one take the whole thing but every song
i had every verse memorized it was already an album i had put out i wanted to re-record it
with new energy oh you're an artist you're a rap artist back then yeah oh i didn't know that
now i put a video out with my buddy about like uh mental health and just like a little story
thing we put together like i did it and i was like well if i do it it's not going to be corny
yeah but some might think it's cringe or whatever i don't care i was wearing this
i literally am rapping with a hoodie with this logo in arts walk about for me it was uh sobriety
the verse the verse was about sobriety but i when i write i don't do like uh like i'll speak to a
demon like for me alcoholism but i won't call it thing i won't say it has to have a drink i won't
do like i think that if you keep it general somebody who maybe struggles with something
else can be like oh i overcame somebody struggles with depression oh it's about depression
can you try to do it as many songs as possible within that time frame in the studio no this was
this was 10 15 years ago when i did it all and look at this now and i'm not paying anybody for
studio time no no no this was before i had a studio this was in college this was in the dorm
room there was a producer shout out to b lee he actually produced a few people that are going on
to be actors shout out to mdc matt chua he was there that day when uh we did reggae fest he was
working something and he stopped by on the mic but can you imagine having open mics people stopping
by starting it and you got cameras going trying to record it you're working hourly you gotta
reason why i didn't do it this year like it was a great experience but then you had stuff and not
just that you got friends texting you hey it sounds like shit over here and i'm like oh shit
okay redo the thing so i would never again like i would run one and make sure everybody else stays
comfortable but i wouldn't you had like the same work ethic as um as like tupac uh one of the
videos i've seen where he's like trying to cram in as many songs as possible because he knew for
that especially on that level i think it was uh interscope records i think he was at or universal
one of those big records if you weren't adding to the energy he kicked you out yeah he's he crammed
out like three or four songs an hour maybe more um and uh you had that same work ethic when you
didn't have your own studio and that's uh and uh yeah that's with technology now artists could be
in different states now in different time zones and they'll uh they'll put their verses together
back then that's right around when i dropped out you had to be all in the same room to make a song
especially if it's a collaborative uh song we were doing our jam sessions back when uh before corona
before zoom google hangouts came out in like 2009 10 and i was like this is the future this is video
chat and it was like you had to download a client and had somewhat of a decent computer wasn't as
accessible but if you did if four musicians did that it was the only thing that had music in sync
so we had a keyboardist over here and we literally would do jams i'm sure it sounded better now in my
memory than it actually did back then but i've always been kind of a futurist looking at what's
coming up with this next they're they're going to be talking about the the vibe coding um it's
connected with a guy i want to get one of the first vibe coders on not i want to get all i
got to do is figure out when and he'll be sitting right on that screen over there from san francisco
but uh can you explain what vibe coding is yeah coding without knowing code using special new ai
tools oh so so you're asking like gpt or ai hey i want to code um i want to make this program and
it codes for you yeah oh nice i want to make this program here's the bare minimum boom does this
work before you even connect stuff so you still have to use code logic you still have to have the
tenacity of a coder okay and a lot of traditional coding like like and i feel you if i have a
doctorate or an engineering degree you know in code or computer science i don't want some kid
that doesn't know code to be able to oh man watch out anybody who's getting to it your job is going
be taken over by by uh by a vibe by a vibe code no no you you still need human input okay they're
gonna make apps that build apps but to make the wild stuff this stuff is very left or right like
it can't figure things out like if i'm standing here and i say change the background it may not
know this is the background or it'll change all of this because this is here rather than just this
and the background okay so you have to tell it like the space outside the green line you have
to think in a way that is finite that can't be and that's counterintuitive to the way that we
speak on a podcast the way we speak as humans so ai won't be able to replicate uh the creativity
and uh the direction that you want the project to look it just does the work um and yeah that is
that is great that's great but um but it will never replace uh the the creativity part i mean
once again no it'll never have a soul it won't yeah people people don't know what creativity is
creativity is not i made a cool logo with a crown or anything like that creativity is oh i've
troubleshot this long enough that if i tried this battery and this is a true story anyone listening
And before we got this going on, I'm recording on my cell phone connected to an AC adapter.
I wasn't sure if it was the camera or the battery.
And I've concluded that one of my batteries just didn't charge.
Had three of them on the charger.
Didn't charge.
I got nothing to do.
We got cameras laying all over the place.
Don't give up.
We're already running late on time.
We'll not lose.
You don't give up on anything.
As long as the battery dies, the camera is at a down.
It just fell off the tripod.
no doesn't matter you keep going that's happened and that mentality will take you far i remember
many many instances where uh i would be in a situation where i would think man this is uh
it's very discouraging and uh it's unsuccessful or i fell down and i thought i couldn't get up but
if you have that mentality like you know what i'm gonna learn from this i won't lose next time it's
just a learn and move forward so i love i love that uh that you bring that kind of energy to
anything that you do um you've been on jamal knight's show no no i haven't been on that one
i've followed him jamal's great and i've been i saw a couple of his episodes and um and yeah he's
uh i've seen some of the guys local here that's been on and uh i always always enjoyed uh hearing
jamal that that energy that he brings i've seen him at the dj cafe i don't know have you been to
like the dj cafe no my buddy evan's telling me about checking it out i've seen you at the dj
cafe that's where they set up the little battles anyone can come in that's right it's like uh it's
like my my buddy johnny quest he organized it with uh mike nice mike nice is also hosting uh
the dj cafe the international dj cafe i should say because it's in multiple states multiple
um towns and the uh i love the premise of it it's pretty much like karaoke but for dj word
it's like spoken word exactly djs yeah man you gotta and i think it's important to have that
sort of community because like like you said barrier entry's so low i just started i mean
i've been doing videos for years people don't realize you could find stuff 10 years ago that
has my tag in the director i just didn't say i was the video guy started doing videos commercially
out here and it's like i can't make money on branding and digital marketing than offer video
at a hundred dollars a video like you just can't you can't you gotta work on your value you gotta
respect the market that already exists because who's going to not pay a hundred dollars for the
guy with talent versus the guy, like, especially if you're going to, like you said, even with low
budget clients, we give them the best. I don't always give them the best. I give them what they
need. I'll talk them out of like, uh, and you get that from sign companies. Somebody comes into a
sign company says, how much is it going to cost to make a sign without thinking? I tell them a
million dollars million. What? You can't be serious. You joke with me. Yeah. I'm thinking
we're going to go with diamond Ruby encrusted. We're going to use real emeralds for this. No,
no, I don't need all that. Okay. So what's your budget? Like always started a million dollars and
bring it down. If somebody says, well, I don't know, I don't have a budget. What does it cost?
Let's diamond. I'll show up with the drones. I'll scratch on drones. My, my, I'll be on a cloud like
Kirby and my drones will scratch from here, but that's going to cost you, you know, the, the
training, this stuff. And I think when you educate clients and let them know they can make the
decisions is they'll go and talk to their spouse on what's in the budget what's not but now they're
not gonna go be like you know what we didn't really need that uh green foam you know we paid
we're honest with them they we we try to really understand their vision on uh on what their
expectations are and look at the venue too because some of the lighting may not work at a venue so
So we're not trying to upsell them to get intelligent lighting and this kind of lighting, cold sparks, because they want that rustic feel, especially if they're at a bar and venue.
It's going to take away from that.
So we look at the color.
Yeah, we try to look at the venue, see what their expectations are, what kind of vibe they want to go for for their reception, and go from there.
and make decisions on what to suggest that will complement their vision
and make it a success because we don't want to give them all this stuff,
make a ton of money, but we're not in it for the money.
We're in it to make sure that their vision is what they expect
and to get the most out of their event for their guests and family.
um so so i really try to get to know them ask them questions see what their um what their
background is like what what what kind of events they've been to before um to gauge uh to ask what
what worked uh what what they've seen uh in the past events that they want their their new their
event and um and go from there and and that's where we get to the point where we suggest this
will work this will look good this won't look good yeah once they trust you as the expert and
the value and and and and money and that's secondary um first is is giving them exactly
what they want um and going back to um given give building up value and um and going back to like
the dj cafe is a great community where we could help people who are just starting uh to mix and
uh and perform to kind of cultivate that kind of skill in them and to help nurture that skill
and to help them build value so down the road they could charge two three four thousand dollars
an event uh for bigger events um if they want to um but you got to start off like at five hundred
dollars eight hundred dollars an event i think there's a there i think what's been able to allow
me to move in a couple different like a respecting the game but like you said if you got no reviews
no case studies but you got the same dj mixer and you think that gets you the four thousand dollars
that that guy gets that guy's probably could be charging seven thousand but he's still trying to
work with people it's just sometimes it's like guys i'm so busy when i tell you that right now
doing this podcast i missed at least three client interactions for whatever reason that's how it's
been lately uh working on fixing that problem whether it be through ai or hiring somebody but
everybody deserves the time when it's their time to do it so i always what my clients tell me
nowadays is charge enough that you're going to feel comfortable doing this yeah i get mad at
the cheap time you know time is something that is everybody knows it can't be replaced
uh it's the most valuable thing that's why the government when they try to punish you they use
time because time is something that uh you is invaluable in many instances uh so take that
seriously and put your energy and efforts into um using your time wisely either either to educate
yourself um calls with clients educating others investing in others um in the dj community that's
why i love what johnny and mike nice is doing because they're using their time to make sure
that these up-and-coming djs have a place to shine and learn from each other and network
and uh it's great what they're doing in lehigh valley uh much respect and shout out to to mike
nice and johnny quests um and uh it's even jamal was there he uh and got to veterans not just not
just like new djs but veterans too they'll they'll come through drop a set and i mean i'm not a dj
and that's not something i plan on learning sometimes i'm like man my mind like this would
be a crazy mashup i'd love to learn the tools i love listening to just dj mixes sometimes more
than listening to produce songs because that's the way my mind works i like to blend things i
like to see symmetry between stuff so like you get like uh some of these newer djs taking an old
michael jackson and throwing it in with phil jackson and chopping up the i can feel it feel
it i'm like yeah that's that's dope like that's that's dope and at least they created like i can
tell when that person's in their flow and they're moving their stuff they're transferring energy
it's not just pushing a play it's not just pushing a button the dj the dj brings the people brings
everything and i just uh i wanted to take a look i thought it was great what they were doing down
there if you want to shout out some information on the the dj yeah i believe as well as like your
socials and stuff we're going to start landing the plane yeah i believe they do it like the last
sunday of every month um at the uh the democratic uh club in in bethlehem um and uh they also have
done it at uh what was that place uh the wooden wooden match that's what i heard so they they've
on an event there uh but yeah follow them on things like international dj cafe on their
instagram or facebook um johnny johnny quest um dj mike nice if you look him up um follow them
they'll they'll give you the schedule of their their dj cafe and um it's great it's great for
for someone who's uh just started or someone because there's no judgment zone as far as i
no no judgment no judge they'll give you uh i don't know 15 20 minutes uninterrupted you do you
if you mess up that's fine continue mixing afterwards other djs will help you uh kind of
give you tips and tricks on on how to uh mix better and it's all about bringing us up um we
need that in the community and especially in a uh and nowadays where a lot of guys are more
closed in um and they're no they don't share as often as they used to uh and i'm talking about
knowledge i'm talking about even music too i'll swap music with someone if they like what i played
oh i love that mix um or that that uh that edit can you share it i'll gladly share the edit no
you don't have to give me anything i'll love to share it and uh we're like exploring human
connection through djing man yeah yeah the music the music is the glue that that uh brings us
together then uh afterwards we kind of network talk and uh and and just uh talk about everything
you know it could be just uh personal struggles uh with with the music industry and djing or
um it could be uh equipment too like we talk gear we're really we're really like uh i'm i'm
especially a nerd when it comes to like sound and lighting so we talk about that as well podcasters
uh for what do you mean like uh five mics like because i've actually done groups like this for
public speaking it's called toastmasters is there something for podcasters where
that remind me of like drink champs uh i love what they do and it's a bunch of people
um some of them are more like host and uh and and some of them are like the artists with their
friends but it's hard to like yeah it's the way you envision it um similar to uh the uh dj cafe
bringing it uh together as a community i i think that's something that would work maybe live uh
maybe that'll be that work have you ever seen like um artists or the show like kill tony as
it's like a comedy i'm familiar with the format i don't watch it so i follow a lot of comedians
so i know what kill tony is but yeah that that might work for podcasts as far as the format
because they'll have like a host and then they'll have random people just come in
even early kill tony that was well produced and that was yeah they'll give those comedians
uninterrupted minute to do their their uh now you got a whole show and stuff i'm just yeah let me
let me not let my brain go down that way that may be a a new endeavor for you man next season you
have a open podcast with a random guest come through do like a 10 minute 15 minute interview
boom next one next one like rapid fire or even just like i like the focus group aspect yo dude
pull the mic a little bit closer stay in that warmth i'm not telling you my bad okay if i can
command the voice like that that's great now i'm here tickling the faders it's going to be a good
interview it'll close out are there any other like socials or closing thoughts like if you could go
back to when you decided to go analog or you know with the whole social media that that's been that's
been very um very instrumental uh and it's in in a success of of what i do and and as far as like
other people too and in our industry it just it's a great gateway for us to show our talent to
clients and um and a lot of times when we do on consultation calls they say oh we saw your
instagram we saw your video on youtube that um you do this kind of work i love the setup because
not only do they hear us they see us but they also will know what the presentation looks like
the setup the lighting um and and we'll showcase like moments at these events um they'll look at
the video oh i like how they how they did that or it will generate ideas for them for their own
events um i love how social media does especially with stories to the stories and reels um uh and
that's another uh great thing about technology is the the social media aspect of it it helps so
many people out um in our industry uh to to showcase what we're about uh i know earlier
in the days like djs would do mixes and they would like showcase and do like short reels
transitions uh do wordplay now wordplay tone play um and have the 360 cam so they'll they'll change
the angle for on them and then change it for the reaction of the crowd um that's pretty that's
pretty uh a nice uh nice story or format that they do on on social media um but back then early
2000 we didn't have none of that a lot of it was like word of mouth um and and i love the fact that
we could now download reliable mp3s i could tell you a story back then when i first started uh djing
and one of my first weddings i was like maybe 20 21 years old and this is a time where napster and
limewire was out we could download music uh on those um p2p those yeah p2p those those kind of
software um to download music and it was always um something where it was they would do a soldier
bore you yeah because it was like oh am i gonna get a virus or am i actually gonna get the song
and i remember the one writing where i downloaded the first dance song and i downloaded it off the
limewire and i listened to like the first couple seconds i'm like okay this is a song got it uh
But the thing is, when I played it, only the first minute of the song was audible.
The last two minutes was just mute.
But on the file, it says it was like a three-minute song.
No, you've got to listen to it all.
So that's the thing with downloading music from that time, that era, it's unreliable.
It could be a completely different song, or it could be just like the first couple seconds of the song,
and then the rest is just mute.
So that was the learning curve.
I will never do that again.
And now all the music I get is from Apple Music, from reliable DJ record pools.
Yeah.
I mean, for the people that stuck with it, it makes the world easier to do stuff.
But it doesn't, like I was just with a, you know, client wants to use ChatGBT for a logo.
That's great.
We can get really specific, but it doesn't make less work or less time.
Anybody out there that knows how to show me how to just put a prompt in.
And if you send me anything that looks janky, isn't vector, can't be used for actual commercial application, then save your time.
But if AI is to the point that you could just get a good print ready vector logo, cool.
When we get to that time, it's going to be so difficult to use that I don't know, figure it out.
I can't predict the future.
I started talking about AI earlier on the podcast when ChatGPT first came out.
I said this is going to scale stuff.
i'm using it for podcast things the whole world's going to be using this it's going to be just like
how we talk about microsoft excel we're going to talk about chad gbt and it like when semi-viral
i think that one had like 17 something thousand and then one of them had like
like a hundred thousand with like 30 some thousand likes talking about ai but i'm like
that'll be a different podcast like there's the the mystical of what ai can potentially do and
all the propaganda is selling those like we got this thing in a box that can just read the room
and make a dj stuff and you buy it and it's like it might be close it's seeping ar seeping into
every industry that i know of um except maybe the farm industry and i mean even that i don't know
if that's it is it's super in the farm industry and it was 10 years ago because i know farm is
like heavy heavy and labor but i'm sure they'll just call it machine learning no robots that will
do the the heavy lifting of the hay and even even simpler even simpler let's get a reading of how
much water the plants need before we put how much water sprays out so yeah it's just sensors from
here there's literally a we got to end on this because i was baffled and this is the thing like
how you connect through people through music i've connected to an entire life outside of people who
normally are where i come from by having the design conversation that client we were talking
to before i've tasted some of the best steak in the world working on an account with them so it's
like i um you gotta stay with the human factor you gotta stay with like what is it that that
takes me and puts me out there why am i getting better at this you know i just think it's
important to remember it's that music it's the connection it keeps you grounded keeps you
humbled you stay with the game you you grow from there but they called machine learning machine
learning 2015-16 like they've been training this stuff for a while but hey do you have any socials
or anything like that that you want to drop um yes find me on instagram dj links um on uh instagram
and i'm usually on there and same thing with facebook i try to keep all the platforms the
same so it's easy to find me so dj linx and um yeah add me and see what i'm about and uh yeah
reach out if you need a dj for your event cool thanks you so much thank you talking second off
mike but i'm gonna kill it man thanks so much thank you for listening to another episode of
i will not lose podcast to support the show visit i will not lose podcast.com you can subscribe to
your favorite podcast player. Share the episode link, leave a comment. Your contribution is
greatly appreciated. And if you're listening in and can't see the QR code for donation,
go to tothedesigner.com slash links, and there's instructions to donate up there. Thanks so much.