For those of you who don’t know DVJing it’s DJing but instead of using just Music you play DVD’s so the video’s of the tracks appear on screens & walls. The concept is incredible however it’s a lot more stressful than solely focusing on the music as if your playing commercial music the video’s are designed for MTV and can be as short as 2mins instead of the usuall 3/4. This is a major hassle with dance music where normally you’d have 6/8 mins of a track for the outro. The way you get around this is with lots of loops and using the “Hot Keys” – ocasionall in pre programmed forward direction to skip the middle of the song (the talky bit) rather than the way they are usually used to go back to a point in a track.

So why hasn’t DVJing taken off better than it has? Well there is several key points.

1. Buying the VJ tracks is expensive and a very niche market. You can’t get all the tracks you want… Some tracks will never had a video made so you’ll have to make your own graphics for it.

2. It’s an expensive set up for the Club 21 has Six decks in the DJ box. 2DVJ, 2CD and 2 Vinyl. Pionner players – DVJ-X1 RETOURE RRP at 3999Euro, really you can buy them ex vat for 2200Euro, Still pricy since you need at least two decks and three would be preferable. And then the Plasma’s and projectors you’ll need to surround the club. In this case 14 40” plasma’s and 3 projectors.

3. There’s no good skimping on DJ’s when you have the gear, an amature will definately go off like a fart in Mass! Why? Well some video’s have a break down where the music stops for the story line to take over. Remember video’s are mini movies designed primarily for MTV.

4. Do people in clubs really want to have to compete with the hot girls in music video’s for attention? Is it anti-social?

I had the pleasure of playing the launch of Club21 in 2005, Ireland’s only DVJ capable club and then was resident there for the first year of its existance. Since then i’ve moved on but occasionally do a guest slot i’d say about once every month or two.

Check out this Video of DJ Yoda made by Pioneer as a demo of the equipment.

Without a shadow of doubt my two favourite record labels. We had Mark Doyle over to play our office party for Star DJ’s anniversary and it was quite possibly one of the most enjoyable DJ sets i’ve every heard.

So what exactly is the story with Fierce Angels???

Mark Doyle, founder Hed Kandi, as well as several other key employees including illustrator Jason Brooks (some day Jason i’d love to buy an orignal piece of your art work… it’s incredible!) tore away from and set up Fierce Angels in Mid ‘05. A legal battle of Hed Kandi Vs Fierce Angels prevented the release of the first album for 2 months and nearly brought the label under before it began after incuring costs of £135,000 (sterling).

Recently the two went head to head again with a release of Fierce Angels – Fierce Disco and Hed Kandi’s – Twisted Disco. Both Albums are equally good. Hed Kandi (now under ministry of sound) being more commercial than it used to be and Fierce Angel being more like what got Hed Kandi to be the massive label it is today with great tracks that wouldn’t be found else where.

This wasn’t a marketing strategy, but in my opinion it should have been. Anyone who likes funky house knows Hed Kandi, It’s the first label that springs to mind to describe its genre. It’s so influential that people have started to like it just to be cool, therefore it had to become more commercial to appease the masses. Fierce Angels is more niche and doing it for the love of good music. Saying that I think it’ll grow fast. Either way I’ll be making sure I pick up every release by both labels. That’s how reliable these two labels are and I think the market can easily handle it.

On the subject Mark Doyle said “When I’m putting he tracks together It could be Snowpatrol or DanArborise
or James Blunt or Bonnie Bailey. Each track gets judged on whether it fits without worrying about fame,promotion or who is more important. I make compilations because I love putting them together it’s very personal and quite selfish but you hope someone else will like them. ”

I’d recommend anyone checking out Fierce Angels Es Vive Ibiza album, it’s my favorite album of 2006!

I recieved a fax this evening from a label trying to promote their new single “Urban Angel – Poison Love”. Now i understand that some labels have a tight budget but this one takes the biscuit. At the bottom of the press release it asked me to go to a site and PAY to download it. What are the PR department thinking?? Most record labels send out Promo’s, which can be pricey to post out – espically if its a double vinyl. Some even give you an address to download the tracks, i think that’s fair enough saves me space and mother earth cause not every track is a hit.

The idea behind Promo’s is that punters hear them out in the club, associate them with a fun night out and hopefully go looking for the track. Its rare a club gig goes by when punters don’t ask for the names of tracks played, to me its the ultimate compliment – i even carry a little tear away pad to write them down for them. But its its fair to say this track will never ever reach my ears, what counter productive marketing, the label set the track up to fail.