Author: Omar Shishani

The 4th of July party DJ was a huge success. I showed up around 8pm to play from the manager’s bluetooth speaker. I didn’t even know that it was possible to DJ from a bluetooth speaker like that, but I guess it makes sense if you have the right adapter. For my mixer (which has RCA output), all I needed was RCA to AUX.

The people at the party loved the music. I was playing techno and some people started dancing after I showed up and started playing. I feel that when there’s a DJ playing, people just want to dance. It’s different than when someone is just playing music from a playlist. Although, later on the roof, they were playing from the playlist, and people were dancing even more, but I think bringing the DJ vibe can still get the party started.

I made a small announcement to the party that I was going to DJ some music. I could have made a longer announcement but it was good that I said something.

Me and Zac went to pick up a speaker because he got the idea that we should go all out and have a PA. He wanted to rent one initially, and then later he bought one. I was going to split the rental cost with him, $50 each.

There was a guy from Berlin who liked the music. He said that starting out as a DJ, it’s a good idea to go and play at some clubs for free. Then once you’ve done that, at the next ones ask for $50, since you’ve played at these other places. That way you can build up.

Notes from people at the party of things to check out:

band camp 

tim green artist 

mandy buka shade 

booka shade 

solomoon 

solomun h

DJ practicing in hostel. Zac let me borrow his speaker. He gave me his instagram, zac_the_builder. I recorded a set at the commons table in the hostel. Practicing for the party tomorrow. He had an Ultimate Ears battery speaker that gets pretty loud. I want to get something like this to street DJ in New York. Maybe I can get something that’s not as expensive

Was thinking about back when I started DJing. I don’t really remember how I initially got into it, but I remember DJing with Eric Heimer at Green’s Villa in Stockholm University. We even threw a little faction party one or two nights. It was fun. We took turns working the door, the bar, and DJing. There weren’t many people there, but it was still a great time. It’s really fun to have an audience.

Was also thinking about when I was sharing music with Tommy Goonan a while back. He was saying how cool DJing was, and he was excited that I was going to keep going with it, and he said there were lots of fun things ahead.

Some guy I was sharing a room with in my NYC hostel saw my mixer in the closet. We got to talking about DJing, and he said I should ask the hostel staff if I could DJ for the 4th of July party this weekend. I asked, and they said yes! They have one of those handheld bluetooth speakers, but I should be able to connect to it with my AUX chord.

It goes to show that when you touch the key, you make the act of faith, then the universe opens up to you. Like Rowdy said, everything explodes into blossoms. It’s beautiful to see, and I thank God for that. ?

I’m going to spend the rest of today downloading music and preparing practice sets for tomorrow. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be a big party with lots of people from the hostel. And what better way to start off my DJ career than with DJing right here.

I also met another guy at this hostel who’s in a tech startup, and he was also a DJ. It’s fun to make connections like this, and I’m looking forward to meeting and talking to more people. This truly is a great city ?

I just got to NYC yesterday. It’s electric here. Was here last month, and so glad to be back. Decided that I’m going to go all in on my DJing career, and work to get gigs and clubs and bars. I’ve been listening to Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzeneggers autobiography. In there, he talks about his burning passion and tunnel vision that he had when getting into bodybuilding, and movies. He always had a goal, and this is what allowed him to push forward. When you have something you want so badly, everything else is just a way for you to move forward with that. Working at a boring job can be something with new desire and motivation, because you know it’s a step towards your dream.

I’ve spent a long time not working on my DJing passion, and this is going to change now. I’m ready to go all in for it. I will do everything it takes to become a DJ, to DJ at events and venues, and etc. I will become tunnel vision just like Arnold Did. I feel I’ve touched the key, and I’m on the speed track now to going towards my goal.

I will start with doing some things that I feel I should be doing to get into DJing:

• Go and talk to bar and club managers and promoters
• Go out to places, and make friends with the bartenders, regulars, DJs, people at the bars, etc
• Put out a ton of content, and get a following on social media.
• Listen to new music, and get a big library going of songs that you want to DJ

It’s exciting to have this list. I will also get index cards and write my goals on them, like Arnold did. It’s important to have goals, because it makes life worth living. Like Jordan Peterson said, do what you love to do, until you’re thrilled to be alive.

Just talked to Percy and his roommate Hudson about dreams. Was exciting to talk about what we want to do in life, and it made me think more and more about DJing.

It feels like the time to start working on this more, and that’s what I’m going to do. Hudson said that he has lots of friends who do it, and he said that many are nimrods, so that it would be easy for me.

Went outside Lafittes on Bourbon and DJed a bit. It went pretty well. Had a cool crowd dancing for a bit. I’ve started putting the speaker up on the speaker stand, which is alot better I think. I got a bunch of people dancing for the first 15 minutes, but then most bailed out. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe my music was not what people really like? Maybe The location was not the best (lots of cars passing through the street).

Other people’s setups

The most successful street parties have been on Frenchman, and they were both by the same person, and they were there last night too. It’s the group who comes out with the big red box. They have a huge speaker and a 105Ah battery in there. They told me they can basically run indefinitely on that thing. They also said they got it at Walmart. I’m going to go to Walmart.com and see if I can order one of those…. Yeah, just checked. They’re still $200. I’m going to stay with my two batteries and just connect them with alligator clips. They’re 18Ah each.

It’s fun talking with other people busking about their setups. I met a guy named Eric last night – he is the guy who is always killing it with the guitar. He said that he was out on Bourbon starting a few months ago, in October. He has a kickass little Bose speaker that sells new for $650 on Amazon. He told me that it can run forever on it’s battery, (I think he said for several hours – 8 hours maybe) and he got it for $350 or something on FB marketplace.

I’ve been thinking about adding some subwoofers to my setup. It’s a little early for me to do that now. I still want to keep working with what I got, to show myself that I will continue to do it. But it would be nice to have some extra bass. I dont know if a home subwoofer like this on on FB would cut it:

Eric told me that he used to be lucky to get $75 a night because his old speaker was shitty, and because of some other factors. Now he says he makes around $300 a night when he’s out (he said he made $380 the other night).

I have said before that I don’t do DJing for the tips, but tips would be cool too, and I’m mostly concerned with if the music sounds good. I want the quality to be good so that people want to dance. I wonder if I got one of those speakers like the one that Eric has, that the quality would be better. But I would have to spend around $500 for that. I’m down to do that, but it’s going to have to wait a bit first.

I hope to get out to Frenchman one night where the party is still going on like it was last night. That was still pretty early. I probably got there around 11. I could have caught another part of that street crowd and set up there. That would have been cool.

Getting different music

I’ve been wondering if I should play some other music than house and techno. I’ve started to compile a list of music that they play at the clubs here. That would be good too, because I can start trying to get gigs at clubs if I have some of their music to play.

Try R Bar

I could have gone and started DJing outside of R Bar too. They would appreciate house and techno there, and the street was packed. They were playing house and techno inside the club too.

Sound quality

I do think that sound quality does matter alot. I wonder how much I have to spend to make it sound good. Maybe around $1,000 to get a nice speaker and subwoofer that make it sounds good. I would have to go down to the speaker store or something and test some different ones out. I’ll have to go and talk to different DJs and street performers as well. Additionally, I need to spend more time standing in front of my own speaker when I’m playing shows.

Just tested my speaker out again in my living room. Sound quality is good! Nothing wrong there I think. Maybe on more bassy songs it is not as bassy as it could be. I don’t remember there being any crackling specifically.

Need to remember to turn master volume to 75% or more when djing.

It’s February 11th, and this is the second real weekend of Mardi Gras, where there is going to be alot of people out. I’m going to bring the DJ cart out again. I haven’t done this in a while, it’s been a month or two. Going to be alot of fun. I’ve been actually waiting for Mardi Gras to take the cart out. I knew it was going to be lots of fun and a crazy party when lots of people are out.

I’m looking forward to going and having people dance for hours and hours. I just got a new battery for my DJ Cart, and I’m going to be able to play for around 3 hours straight now. I’ve been practicing a little and downloading some new music. I like to listen to Tech House sets while I’m working, and I will Shazam songs (the dash shortcut on the iphone makes this really easy) that I compile into a playlist. I’ve been just going to a YouTube downloader to find the songs.

I’m going to record some video. My plan is to record the whole set, and match it up to the video on my iphone. This will make a really cool YouTube video for a full set, that I can put on Facebook. People will be able to listen to this and it will be cool.

I’m just getting started with my DJ social media accounts, and I’m excited about it. I’m going to do facebook fan page, youtube, twitter, and tiktok. Maybe starting out with only a couple of those.

Looking forward to killing it tonight and throwing a banger party in the French Quarter. Will take some pictures that I can use as the featured image for my next blog posts.