Yacht Rock Marathon
Had a DJ gig yesterday at a country club outside of town, and it was a yacht rock party.
Number one, I really, really enjoyed putting together the set list. As a kid, I grew up half in the ’70s, half in the ’80s. All that music is imprinted down there somewhere. So that was really fun to go through and pick eight hours of music for a four-hour gig.
I brought everything I own, basically, because I was going with a whole new rig: an iPad-based setup, a Reloop MixTour Pro, and a little Zoom L-6 mixer. Typically, I would just bring my Denon Prime Go+, but it just doesn’t stream that well. I think if you’re a mobile DJ, meaning playing in a bunch of different spots with made-to-order sets, streaming is your thing now.
I’ll say there were no real glitches. At one point, the MixTour Pro started to get pretty hot, and the iPad got really hot. I had a fan on me. I think when you’re in 90+ degree weather on a pool deck—undercover, but still outside—heat is a factor. It’s something you’ve got to look out for and be really mindful of, but it’s nothing that a fan won’t take care of. At some point, maybe cooling pads are the answer for this summer. I do have a few July things and some June stuff, so I probably will look at one.
Anyway.
Also, the difference between a three-hour and a four-hour gig is completely substantial. That extra hour will make a man out of you.
I was prepared for it, drank lots of water, blah, blah, blah. I will say, going to a place where they have somebody checking on you, getting you water, and basically forcing you to eat something is pretty incredible. So I was really thankful for that. People were really nice.
It was a pool mainly filled with parents-who-take-their-kids-to-the-pool age people. So that was fun to watch. I’m a little far away from that, but very sweet people. I know all these kids, you know? It seems at that age there’s only a few personality types, so that was really entertaining to watch.
I was never at a point where I was done with the thing.
So, all in all, great show. A sharpened-up playlist is linked here but I really enjoyed the discovery aspect of it.
I will say that the Algoriddim djay-based rig performed pretty flawlessly. There was one dropout, and I think it was heat-related. The MixTour Pro is very tight. It’s a very small controller, but it also forces you not to do too much, which is really great. I brought a drum machine and didn’t even turn it on.
So for today’s show, I’ve got just the small rig with a little bit of backup, but not much.
All in all, super good show. Love the yacht rock playlist.
I will say that the good thing about using Spotify for streaming, as opposed to Apple Music—and I’m a big Apple Music guy for day-to-day listening—is that it nails the key, and about 80% of the time it nails the tempo. It does double up tempos on a lot of stuff, though. So at the end of the day, you get to the end of your set and you’ve got a lot of songs that should have been played much, much earlier because I started with slow tempos and ended with faster ones.
So if you’re doing this, I would say check your tempos before the set.
I did that for today’s show, which is ’90s alternative.
Which is a whole other thing.