Karaoke Forums

This is a DJ complaint, as I have posted b4 we DJ as much as we KJ. Last night the bar was pretty empty for the first hour or better. A group of metal heads/urban loving boys were pretty much the majority. They came up and requested some death metal which we declined to play (the owner would shoot me as this bar is in a hotel). So he settled on his 2nd song choice N**grs in Paris....our music is radio edit, clean etc. As stated this is what they wanted to hear. No one else really in the bar, I played it, volume reasonable. Owner happens to come in 45 seconds into song and rips me a new one. I told him I was doing the job he hired me to do, keep those that are here happy, drinking, spending money and not leaving to the bar down the street. I was told pretty much all Urban is off limits. REally??? Most of the younger groups that come in want to dance, and dance they do....
Honestly, I cant play classic Rock like he wants me too and keep his bar full of young, drinking, money spending customers....UGH

I feel your pain. Let me tell you what happened to me tonight (at a wedding)...

I always tell potential clients that they are free to make any changes they wish to my proposed play list. They can add in any song they want and take out anything they do not want to hear. I got my play list back and she had literally taken 80% of the songs out. She replaced them with ho-hum rock songs and fairly obscure Motown songs. Knowing that this was a potential disaster, I gave her my normal speech - "You know your family & friend's taste in music better than I do. I am looking at this list and I am afraid that I won't be able to provide you with with a typical fun & festive atmosphere that is typical at most weddings. Once again, you know your family & friends better than I do, and if you think that they will react positively to this music, then we'll go with this. But, if you want that typical dance party to be hoppin' all night long, we might look at making some changes..."

Of course, she thought she knew what she was doing. She insisted that I stick to the play list.

Her family & friends were a wonderful crowd. Young and old, they were all eager participants. (I threw out some of the better hits early on to get folks dancing).

THEN, I started to play HER songs. The party DIED. As folks started coming up and requesting songs, I told them that unfortunately, I had a play list that I must stick to. I even said it on the mic (sort of - when the worst of those songs came on, I said "here's another request from the bride..." The bride spent much of her night as the only one dancing, occasionally attempting to pull people onto the dance floor.

I was told "I sucked" (to my face) twice tonight. As far as they were concerned, I was the one behind that play list. They could not comprehend that the bride chose all of the music that I was playing tonight. The music flat out sucked, and I was to blame.

Embarrassment, by the way, turned to total humiliation when I realized that I was playing "Band On The Run" at 10:30PM and was set to follow that up with "You Can Call Me Al".

For every wedding that I do, I get at least 2 requests for business cards. For every two cards that I hand out, usually one turns into another gig. For the first time, I got no requests for cards tonight. People were so turned off by the music that those who stuck around for clean up wouldn't talk to me, or even look me in the eye. That's how f'ing bad it was.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

I discourage brides from providing me with a dance list, and I don't provide them with one. On my contract I have a list of all the genres and only ask that they circle the ones they like. Then there's a line or two where they can put in a couple of songs they absolutely DO NOT want to hear. From there my contract tells them that the "DJ will custom create a fun and exciting dance list". on the fly, not in advance. I also have a question on the contract that "Do you want the DJ to take requests from guests? Yes No" circle one. Any bride that hands me a list of 'only play these' songs, gets a warning from me... something to the effect of: "you hired a DJ to DJ your wedding reception... if you hold me to playing only from this list, you have effectively tied my hands on weather your guests have a good time or not.... yada yada.... I can't be held responsible if this doesn't turn out the way you'd like... some more yada yada" I also will point out songs on her list that I know won't go over well... and say "This is a great song... and I really do mean it, I love this song.. but it's not a dance/party song, it's better for listening (etc)" I may then tell her that it would be a good song for dinner etc. IF I still can't get them to agree to let me do my job.... well... we're hired help and have to let them ruin their own wedding.
As for bar owners that do the same thing.. they should stay out of their own bar!!! They hire a professional and then won't let him to his job??? BS I say! But it happens alllllll the time... frustrating. In the case of being in trouble for playing a request.. I would have told the owner that I had 'no idea' that song sounded like that.. I was just playing a request.. but I sure wouldn't play that one again." (all smoke up whosits you-know-what, but gets me out of trouble most of the time!! )

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

I did a wedding once where the bride not only picked every song that was to be played, she supplied all of her CDs and insisted that I use them. She would not allow any requests. The music she picked was downright strange. Nothing truly danceable. I gave her the same caveat...and then did what she wanted. When people came up to ask for requests, I told them that the bride had chosen the music for the evening, and that I could not deviate from her requests. I apologized. It was an incredibly uncomfortable night, but the bride was happy, and it was, after all, her wedding. She got exactly what she paid for, and it was her night to remember. I just think it was unfortunate that she didn't care anything about what her guests might want.

I was grateful that the wedding was about an hour from my general area, so nobody knew me.

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Birdofsong

In that case,nothing else to do but what the owner says...He's the payin' man,you are the playin'man. Don't worry about trying to make things better.He probably will not want to listen to you. The owner will feel the pain when he's got no customers and no money coming in,and unfortunately,no money coming in,means no future gigs for you. But from what I'm hearing,it's TIME to find other gigs,it's not worth your time here,DO NOT mess around with this disaster. It's going to blow up soon,and you wanna be far away from the bomb when it does.

The issue I have is we play whats on the Top 30 AC, CHR, Urban charts. Nothing that isn't broadcast out over the radio. UGh, I understand his frustration with not liking some of the music personally. Hell, there is a ton of it I can't stand either, but It's not about what we like. OH well, had to vent this out there, moving on

[quote="birdofsong"]I did a wedding once where the bride not only picked every song that was to be played, she supplied all of her CDs and insisted that I use them. She would not allow any requests. The music she picked was downright strange. Nothing truly danceable. I gave her the same caveat...and then did what she wanted. When people came up to ask for requests, I told them that the bride had chosen the music for the evening, and that I could not deviate from her requests. I apologized. It was an incredibly uncomfortable night, but the bride was happy, and it was, after all, her wedding. She got exactly what she paid for, and it was her night to remember. I just think it was unfortunate that she didn't care anything about what her guests might want.

Been two years since my last wedding, but I had that situation many, many times. The first time I felt bad, but after that I told myself, it was my main job to make the Bride and/or Groom happy. Many times I was told not to play songs that were very popular with wedding dancing...Cupid Shuffle, Electric Slide, Casper Slide.....you name it.... ....I tell them to check with the Bride & Groom, and I always required the B or G to personally ok it to my face, because people would lie and say they got the ok, when hey didn't.....once I actually had a guy cry....wtf....just one of the many hassles with dj/kjing, which eventually caused me to say...F-it......lot easier/lucrative to let drug companies try their new drugs on me.....

I would personally find another gig. I got into this biz for one thing, to have fun! Yeah, I know, what about the money and all that jazz. Same as a regular job, if I don't enjoy it, what kind of life am I going to have? I'd cut the ties or at least find another gig first and then give a two week/gig notice.

Weddings, on my timeline doc, I allow them to tell me what genres to play, what genres not to play, any no no songs, can anyone or selected persons make requests and I allow them a must play up to 30 songs list. So far it's been received positively. I did have one groom that wanted to select some death metals songs but his grandma talked him out of it.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

I no longer do weddings, but I've done well over 600 in 35-plus years of DJing, almost exclusively through personal references and word-of-mouth. Over all those years, both my policy and attitude was...

"You're hiring me to provide the entertainment, and I will not compromise my reputation in order to facilitate a client's well-intentioned, but screw-ball music requests." (Not exactly in those words of course.)

I've routinely turned down prospective clients who insisted on lengthy "must play" or "do not play" lists in pre-event consultation meetings.

Having said that... the DJ business was never my primary source of income, so I was never in a position that I had-to-have a certain gig... and that gave me the confidence to turn down those where I saw potential red flags.

I'm now keeping my hand in by doing two Karaoke nights a week... In both cases the venue operators are happy with how I run my shows and what I allow to be played/sung. I can't imagine either of them ever interferring with how I do my job.

This "stick to your guns", "don't compromise" attitude may not work for everyone (even though I think it should), but it has served me well over the years.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

Simpmech,

I feel your pain. I've had the same gig for about 8 years now, and it has ALWAYS been a 21-30 crowd that loves to dance, and thus my show has always been one of the hybrid karaoke DJ shows. I play pretty much anything top 40, past or present, that is dancable, but have ALWAYS stayed away from the heavier rap, even though it is often requested.

The bar used to be apes**t packed for every one of my shows, but business has been down a bit the last couple of years. I still definitely have one of the busier karaoke shows in my metro area of about 3,000,000 people.

Anyway, about three months ago, my boss decides that my karaoke show is the reason there were occational fights in the bar, and asked me to completely overhaul my format to cater to an older crowd. He got in my face a few times after that initial request, basically telling me that I was ignoring him, and he literally wanted me to stop the dance music and play mostly country and oldies. I told him he would lose a good bit of his crowd, as it wasn't ME setting the tone of the bar, it was the patrons that came into the bar that set the tone of the music I play. The owner indicated that he would rather have 1/2 the patrons that bought top shelf liquor and didn't fight than have a full bar of beer drinkers.

After he made it clear that I would be fired if I couldn't do as he wanted, I have been playing about 75% country/oldies/classic rock filler the last 6 weeks or so. Sure enough, the bar owner's plan has worked, and the younger crowd thinks my music sucks and the demographics of the bar have shifted to more like 26-45 year olds.

Now, the bar owner comes up to me last weekend and says there are not enough patrons in the bar on my karaoke nights, and that if I can't get more people to come, I'm going to lose my job. AHHHRG!

Also, I brought him about 20 ideas for promotions and advertisements that cost under $30.00 a month to run, and he dimissed each and every idea I had, stating that I should be paying for those promotions.

I know...I should probably look for a new gig too, but it is TOUGH to give up a gig you've had for 8 years!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Control freak. Sounds like one I used to work for, I won't anymore. Didn't know what he wanted played from week to week, expected me to do the advertising and didn't want me working anywhere else. Goodbye!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

we had problems with some venues not wanting us to work anywhere close....we solved it by offering a "2 mile exclusivity clause" at a cost to each venue...those who want it pay for it those who don't pay are advised we will work wherever we can find a regular gig. Problem solved. We have had 2 venues add the option at our annual renewal (if we could accommodate them...if we are already booked for another night within the radius we agree not to accept new shows). No more "control freak" issues since we started this

KjAthena

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey