DJ Help

I'm supposed to DJ a party at my church in a couple weeks. I can post my collection of songs if you think it'll help. I'm looking for a list of songs to play, 30-45 minutes of good dance songs. Nothing ear-splitting, must be clean, this is an all-ages event, but I'd like suggestions on how to keep people dancing once I get them there. I tend to be able to at most, string 3 songs together and get about 10 minutes out of the crowd before I loose it.

:rave:

Any ideas? Keep in mind, I'm self-taught if that means anything. I do have some fancy software (PCDJ) and can get more songs if you suggest something I don't already have.

Budget? $0.00 -- I have to do this myself, can't just hire an outsider.

Korn - Freak on a Leash :fly:

Well here's a suggestion: (in the 120-134 BPM range, totally mixable together)

IIO - is it love (Chris ortega remix)
Bob Sinclair - Rock this party
Tribal king - Façon sex
Pakito - Moving on stereo
Madona - get together

This should give you about 20~23 mins. My mix style is generally focused on electronic dance music (trance/house), But if something else hits my mind I'll post it...

Edit: PCDJ is great but if you want an easier app with some more features like a bpm counter, automatic beatmatching, realtime beat spectrum visualiser, and some great effects, get virtual DJ. You can even do some fancy scratching but I don't encourage you to if you don't have an external contoler.

I dj in nightclubs and stuff... if you don't know how to beatmatch then don't worry... (unfortunately for those who can) most people don't even notice. Just try to blend tracks together, what works best is near the same tempo and/or in the same key. Some tracks have nice lead in/out parts on them too... you can mix stuff with the same sorta feel to them. Any talking or intros help too, especially if you're switching up genres.

There is also cut mixing... you can try to cut out one song on the 4th beat in the measure and drop in the next track right on it's first beat.

Either way I doubt anyone at a church function is going to notice or care how you mix as long as you play good music.

A good dj trick is sorta take people on a "ride" like a roller coaster... you build up the tempo and feel of the music hyping things up as you go... then bring it down a little for a bit and build it back up again even higher.

As far as what to play... I dunno much about music to play at church... I suppose the 70s would have some good funk and soul. Maybe songs like:
(All links are to videos for no particular reason but the fact I wanted to see if I could find some for these songs.)

James Brown - "Get on the Good Foot", "Get Up Offa That Thing" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L9YkIvJj0I),
Sly and the Family Stone "I Wanna Take You Higher",
Stevie Wonder - "All I Do", "You are the Sunshine of my Life", "Higher Ground" (or even the Red Hot Chilipeppers cover?)
Sam and Dave - "Soul Man"
Chambers Brothers - "Funky" (not exactly sure if the lyrics are entirely clean)
The Meters - anything by these guys
There is a goldmine of popular and obscure "northern soul" out there too.

Hiphop:
Beastie Boys - "Shadrach" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPuKrf_aOow) (Yes, it's about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego... you can fit in a bible lesson at the same time. From the album "Paul's Boutique.. probably one of the best hiphop albums ever), "Intergalactic" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhEaYZoPBb8)
Del La Soul - "A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zpyTZ2CN7s), "The Magic Number" (nothing to do with the occult, they're talking about how the 3 of them make a great team.. get the album version from 3 feet high and rising... the other version kind of sucks)
A Tribe Called Quest - "Award Tour" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtwaRG5edY), "Check the Rhyme" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7bWBMjub6Q)
Jurassic 5 - Anything off the self titled album
Kanye West - "Jesus Walks" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp-71WY9B68) (Are there clean versions of "Two Words" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaUxdB-GQFE) or "Touch the Sky" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYptxYEEa4w)? Actually 2 Words isn't so danceable... it should just be required listening.)
Matisyahu... He's that Hasidic Jew rapper w/ the dancehall touch to his music. Not necessarily religious music, but it is clean and rather good.
The only Christian rap I ever thought was decent enough to even hear a few songs was GRiTS... I don't know the name of any of thier songs. I hear dc talk is OK (TobyMac came out of that crew)

Dance/Electronic:
Freestyle - "Don't Stop the Rock"
Afrika Bambaata & Soul Sonic Force - "Planet Rock" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_vLzsG2TCU)
Debbie Deb - "When I Hear Music" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4w-e9ZBQHM), "Lookout Weekend" (the last 4 are 80s tracks that still rule and were popular breakdancing songs, as a bonus if you could find The Incredible Bongo Band - "Apache" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNXarXVYSMM) any b-boy in the house would worship at your feet.. but then God would have to smite you.)
Chemical Brothers - "Star Guitar" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_JD9ncoOE8) (awesome music video)
Daft Punk - "Aerodynamic" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwonT4HPEkk) (great to switch genres with because of the guitar break and bells during beginning and end), "Around the World" (kinda played out though but probably not for church people), "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"


Uhh, yeah that's off the top of my head right now... and I tried to keep it somewhat mainstream.


P.S. if you want the kids to look at you funny but make the parents happy with some nastolgic cheesiness play Marcia Griffiths - "Electric Boogie" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx0K2NZ5dsU) (the famous electric slide) or Huey Lewis and the News - "The Power of Love"

My friend uses Mixxx, it seems pretty cool. I've never used it though since I stick to vinyl + ipod. http://mixxx.sourceforge.net/

Open souce DJ software?? You're kidding, right?

Crap, this ROCKS! So glad I asked this here, didn't get much response or help last time I asked "over there" -- lots of good information, and I appreciate all the help.

Last year the overall response was "Get a REAL DJ" -- our budget for the year is $250, and to get a DJ as long as we'd need one (6-8 hours, about half of that backround "house music" stuff") is just insane to try to fit into the budget.

I offered to DJ since I used to be in the Napster scene in college and generally am additiced to music (got HBO on watching the 2004 version of Phantom of the Opera right now -- I forgot how much my surrond system kicks ass until I cranked it to 70 and started rattling things off the shelves) -- I have a couple hard drives dedicaded to suff from my pile of CDs in the closet, my parents CD's, indie stuff I found online, and *ahem* other stuff. In all, if I leave the "new age" cattegory out, I can go about 4 days continous with no repeats and I'm still building the collection.

When it comes to either the haloween event or the valentines day dance at the church, the only question is what to play. After the request list from last year and reseaching the to 200 from 2005 and 2006, as well as asking around places like here, I have a lot of ideas about what didn't work last year and what I'd like to do this year.

Again, I deeply appreciate the responses I've gotten here, including the leads on easier-to-use software.:thanks:

My suggestion would be go and find a nice little DJ set mix on mp3 and then just hit play and stand around fiddling with things like you know what you're doing, pretend you're tweaking your trebles just at the right times... it'll work like a charm. :)

My suggestion would be go and find a nice little DJ set mix on mp3 and then just hit play and stand around fiddling with things like you know what you're doing, pretend you're tweaking your trebles just at the right times... it'll work like a charm. :)


Bwahahahahahahaha :lol:

i like some of the older club anthems, but avalon (juliet) is pretty good, and sanctuary (oriegene i think, cant remember) is a good song to start with.

God is dead by NIN. That'll get em jumpin in the club.

My suggestion would be go and find a nice little DJ set mix on mp3 and then just hit play and stand around fiddling with things like you know what you're doing, pretend you're tweaking your trebles just at the right times... it'll work like a charm. :)

Repeat after me "if you can't dance, DJ"

:icon_oyes: