mixing genres on the same stage

Down here in sunny melbourne, this hard nrg/ hard trance crew have put on a few events and have mixed up dj's ranging from techno to hard nrg to hard trance and so on on the same stage.

This crew put on this party and had Dave the Drummer as the main act.
I couldn't wait to see another Drummer set but i gotta say, id rather chew my left arm off than listen to nrg/ trance. Anyway i hung around and left after Dave's set.

On one side of the coin u got people sayin "aah who cares about all this genre crap it's all dance music" but on the other side of the coin u got people lookin for a specific sound like myself.
I don't mind mixin genres but i think hard nrg/ hard trance followed by an acid techno dj is not a good formula (not for me anyway and judging by the crowd at that party i went too, not for them either)

Just wonderin what people's thoughts were on this topic.

:shock:

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Originally Posted by sash

Down here in sunny melbourne, this hard nrg/ hard trance crew have put on a few events and have mixed up dj's ranging from techno to hard nrg to hard trance and so on on the same stage.

This crew put on this party and had Dave the Drummer as the main act.
I couldn't wait to see another Drummer set but i gotta say, id rather chew my left arm off than listen to nrg/ trance. Anyway i hung around and left after Dave's set.

On one side of the coin u got people sayin "aah who cares about all this genre crap it's all dance music" but on the other side of the coin u got people lookin for a specific sound like myself.
I don't mind mixin genres but i think hard nrg/ hard trance followed by an acid techno dj is not a good formula (not for me anyway and judging by the crowd at that party i went too, not for them either)

Just wonderin what people's thoughts were on this topic.

:shock:

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p.s. Dave rocked the room that night though unfortunately most of the Melbourne techno community wern't there.

My favourite DJs are the ones that play a bit of everything ie. Laurent Garnier. When you see one of his extended sets you can expect to hear anything from house, techno, funk, rock, rave, electro, drum & bass and even prog on the rare occasion but it's all usually decent quality music.

It's sad but true that a lot of DJs and Punters are so closed-minded that they stick to a narrow genre or even sub-genre of music.

well put it this way...i wouldnt attend an event that hosted various genres (although i suppose that would depend on what genres were on show) all within one room.

everybody has preferences.

I think style-mixing is totally positive, but I guess you can't really mix EVERYthing now, can you? ;) I guess mixing electro and techno or progressive and house probably sounds better than mixing DJ Sammy and DJ Premier (no disrespect to Primo :lol: )... Anyway, mixing genres is good as long as the crowd is open-minded, I guess. I'd personally love to play to an audience which wouldn't mind electro or breaks mixed with techno and/or tech-house, a crowd that would dance to anything you threw at them... That way you can take them on a different kind of trip and it allows you to be more spontaneous in the choice of your music and more unpredictable and dynamic as far as the dancefloor is concerned...

i like a varied blend of music over an eve - so i say its good! not sure about the hard nrg... jsut give us some acidic trance from the day!! ;)

I like to chuck breaks into a techno set. :cool:

There is a difference between playing different styles of music as an individual DJ and putting on DJs with different specific styles as a promoter. I was slightly shocked when I first played in the USA, to see fliers for parties and down the line up they'd give each DJ's style under their name.

DJ ONE (D&B)
DJ TWO (TECHNO)
DJ THREE (TRANCE)
DJ FOUR (HI NRG)

etc..all in the same space.

Great for people who either have no specific tastes or like everything or just want something to take drugs to, but personally this would not work for me. That is totally different to me or another DJ coming on and playing techno, house, electro, jungle, ambient etc. in a single set. That can work very well indeed if the DJ knows what they are doing. That doesn't mean I'd feel happy about turning up to a gig to find my set was being flanked by a trance set and an acid tekno set....although it would at least make my set seem artificially great in comparison.

There's a difference between being eclectic and being unfocussed.

i would love people to be more open minded to be honest. Am playing at this big garden party on sunday and am to play my paul damage mulero wunsch shit but last time i started playing that the guy came over and asked if i could play more commercial stuff. Once i did they all loved it. Its funny cos the guy after me was shit as **** and just played all the ususal sunshine murder was the bass poorly mixed and they were all well buzzin off it. Just goes to show eh.
I know the thread was about different genres but to these guys it was as if i was playing a different genre.

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There's a difference between being eclectic and being unfocussed.

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Well yeah. and that means DJs of different genres cooperating towards a single goal, and seeing eye-to-eye without prejudice, which doesn't happen given that so many of them have egos, prejudices and blind spots the size of planets... :lol:

To be more clear, it just doesn't seem to figure into DJ culture the idea of perhaps sitting down as a team with the promoter and working out how best to deliver an event, playing a few tracks and floating ideas.

Maybe the pros do it, I don't know, but I get the feeling that getting DJs from different genres to cooperate on getting an event good rather than individual glory would be like herding cats.

(I'm probably being a cynical bastard though, there must be pros who are just that, professional, and do this sort of thing...) :oops:

right well if it came to it and i had to do a night where there is something for everyone i would do it this way
1st dj - prog house
2nd dj - prog trance
3rd dj - fuinky techno
4th dj - hard techno
5th dj hard trance
6th dj - hard nrg

obviously if its a smaller night not on for aslong you conbine 1+2 3+4 and 5+6 but keep the progression the same. I think the above is ideal.

That schedule looks like my worst nightmare.

well that is if you had to have something of everything. I would obviously have techno on all night but if you had to have something of everything then i can't see how you can improve on the above.

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something for everyone

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I reckon that'd make a good name for an event.

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That schedule looks like my worst nightmare.

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Worse than getting your skin ripped off hellraiser stylee with hundreds of hooks? :lol:

C'mon man, looks like a hoot. It'd draw the chicks I'm sure, they're less hung up about this sort of genre purity stuff than us guys from what I gather... :cool:

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Originally Posted by Tiptoe

well that is if you had to have something of everything. I would obviously have techno on all night but if you had to have something of everything then i can't see how you can improve on the above.

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How about ragga, breakbeat, jungle, house, electro :D thassanot everything you've detaled above, unless there is an unspoken assumption that the music MUST stay above 140bpm all night.

I'd have

9:00 - 9:05 Trance
9:05 - 9:20 Hoax Power Failure and surreptious DJ kicking by bouncer squad
9:20 - 10:00 Electro
10:00 - 11:00 Breakbeat
11:00 - 12:00 House Music
12:00 - 01:00 Tech House
01:00 - 02:30 Hard Techno
02:30 - 04:00 On the wonk / hard techno / hard electro / mash up
04:00 - 05:00 House Music
05:00 - 05:55 Old School House / Techno / Electro Classics
05:55 - 06:00 Hard House
Close

:lol:

I'd just have DJs that weren't idiots and weren't purists. The rest would sort itself out.

over here, it is almost unheard of to have strickly one genre at a party.

our scene isnt segregated by music styles whatso ever.

just this past weekend i opened for Black Sun Empire, a fairly big name in the Drum and Bass scene. I share a stage with Tony Faline next week, a rather big american breaks producer...its really weird, but the crowd here always seems to freak out to hard techno the most....

i threw an all techno party a few months back, the turnout was ok, but i had to have other music in the second room, like breaks and funk to keep people happy, cause people here just into having the same music all night. well, they seem to be able to handle straight up trance parties thats for sure....

in the end, i just have to represent with techno as best i can, being one of the few that play this genre in the city, its growing, but it will be a while before massives have all techno in the main room thats for sure.

But i absolutly hate having to go to a party and pay a huge fee just to hear one dj i am interested in. but i'll do it ;)

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Originally Posted by death on a stick

I'd just have DJs that weren't idiots and weren't purists. The rest would sort itself out.

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Word.

Hey Sash,

Greta topic for a thread! ;)

In Ny the raves have always tried to represent as many styles as possible, be it all in their own seperate rooms or 4x4 in the main and Breaks D&B (or hardcore) in the side rooms.

This forulma seemed to work and brings kids together that wouldn't normally go to see the acts in the dreaded "other room"! And it also gives people the chance to get a taste of something new that they might actually like but wouldn't normally have been exposed to.

On the other hand I think DJ's themselves should be a little more experimental and LEARN how to take chances and make certain gene crossings during their sets. If done right you won't clear the dancefloor (at least not all of it!) if the new gere isn't drastically different. If everything stays within the right mood, you'rs usually safe - hard w/ hard, dark w/ dark, cheese w/ cheese etc.

Have some balls and take a chance, if it sux you'll just switch back and recover from it, if it rocks your the muddafukkin man, and welcome to 2004! :rambo:

Are you referring to the days of storm raves, nasa, and column of knowledge parties?

I have found difficulty with certain crowds, when I play Deep, Pounding Minimal Techno with Country and Western.
It`s a shame because Dolly Partons` "There ain`t no real men left" go`s so well with pounding grooves 23.

Also I have had heckles when I have wacked on some Burt Bacharach Classics over the top of a broken beat techno set I was doing.


Philistines.

i don't want to hear 8 hours of the same type of music, no matter what it is, so for the most part, i'm all for having different styles represented through the night.

i did have a terrible outing one time though due to lack of planning by the promoter. i was booked to play techno at prime time, but all the other dj's booked were local hard house dj's, and they were all competing with each other to be the hardest and fastest. so there was 4 hours of hard house, then me playing techno for an hour, then 3 more hours of hard house. nobody in the croud liked techno. i ended up playing acid techno pitched up to +8 and the dancefloor looked bored out of their minds the whole time.

i'm not trying to dis hard house specifically. it's just that when dj's play off each other too much, they all get in "the zone" and then anybody who plays anything different sounds "off". i've seen it happen with deep house, drum & bass, etc, etc.

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Originally Posted by SummerOfSam

Are you referring to the days of storm raves, nasa, and column of knowledge parties?

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Columns yes, nasa was mostly breaks and storm were mostly techno.
But ya your on the right track, northeast raves...

Think "Whisle"

Pennsauken Nj, No doubt, first time I ever jumped the rafters and pumped my fists for T-1000 and Carola.

T-1000 played City music by Samuel L Sessions and I couldnt contain myself, and Carola played the Technasia remix to The Start It Up by Joey Beltram. Be as it may I know some members of the board may find those tracks sucky, but back then it was an energy missing in the Northeastern techno scene for so long that I went apeshit.

When we started subsonica we only had one room. Me and dave had many talks about what line up/who to put on and at what time. In my opinion although you can mix the styles, and it can seem to work as a promoter it is best keeping them apart if possible.

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Originally Posted by romelpotter

When we started subsonica we only had one room. Me and dave had many talks about what line up/who to put on and at what time. In my opinion although you can mix the styles, and it can seem to work as a promoter it is best keeping them apart if possible.

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i have to agree here, iv'e been to a few night's that have had a really varied line up music, and on each occasion, one group of people would be on the floor for one style, then most of them would leave the floor when the next set started and another group of people would come on the dance floor.
On a few occasions, when the drum n bass dj came on, the floor emptied :shock: (although 1 of those times, it was the mc's fault).

as a result, the atmosphere never stayed

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Originally Posted by death on a stick

There's a difference between being eclectic and being unfocussed.

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Well said.

Maybe it's all got to do with the dreaded hoover sound. It seems to divide the dance world.
Yeah for sure i love nights that r mixed with tek, tek house, electro, house, deep house, acid techno, psychadelic trance, but once the dance floor starts soundin like a swarm of mosquitos are attackin....i'm out.

well i played a set last week on my birthday upstairs @ the zanzibar in liverpool with my friend dj venom and our special guest dj dolphin....
the night was a dnb night downstairs and we hosted the upstairs room....
the night went on from 11pm - 3am and the upstairs room held about 80-100 people....
it was rammed.....
me,venom and dolphin had 1 hour 20 minutes each.....
i swear this is no lie....in those 4 hours me,venom and dolphin managed to play all these artists between us...


2 unlimited, technotronic, grandmaster flash, eric b & rakim, barrington levy, nirvana, cypress hill, MOP, a guy called gerald, orbital, underworld, peaches, dee-lite,
a tribe called quest, the rebel mc, SL2, kicks like a mule, the ratpack, quadrophonia,
avalon, glenn wilson, chris noise, surgeon, matt m maddox, marco zaffarano, mauro picotto, amok, arkus p, pounding grooves, total science, baron, splash, dred bass, azzido da bass, hellfish, producer, joshua, knifehandchop, venetian snares, squarepusher, aphex twin & loaaaaaaaddddddss more dance tunes....

we even found time to fit in tutti frutti by little richard which sent the whole room beserk....
the atmosphere in that room was awe inspiring....everyone jivin to 1950s rock n roll 1 minute....then goin mad when we'd put hard techno on....
then everyone brockin to dnb.....**** mixing up the djs at a night so its like...

9-10- trance
10-11- techno
11-12 - nu hardstyle nrg acid (or whatever pigeon hole it is this week)

just get djs that can mix it up all in one....that way....instead of people havin to wait an hour for their preferred style to come on they can just wait a few tunes....
at a night like that...even if u dont like one tune...your bound to like one of the next ones!

The best bet is to group styles according to the vibe and feel and most of all to have some sort of quality control. Also some tempo pacing is good. As in, start of slower and build it up.

Its when you start mixing cheesy type stuff with quality music that you get problems.

For example:

techno and hard trance = wrong

minimal house and techno = right

and so on.

But thats just my own oppinion...

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Originally Posted by Komplex

The best bet is to group styles according to the vibe and feel and most of all to have some sort of quality control. Also some tempo pacing is good. As in, start of slower and build it up.

Its when you start mixing cheesy type stuff with quality music that you get problems.

For example:

techno and hard trance = wrong

minimal house and techno = right

and so on.

But thats just my own oppinion...

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totally agree with you.
that said there are good hard trance records out there just as there are crap minimal house.

imo the difference between a good DJ and a baoring DJ is the ability to listen to EVERYTHING and only play what works well (regardless or genre)

Shit in California, almost all events mix genres of music and it’s hardly ever any good “TECHNO”.

I prefer genre specific events i.e. all “TECHNO”. Who wants to go out and hear a type of music they don’t like [nu nrg] just to see one act or dj. To reach an elevated state of mind through dancing or just burying your head in a speaker, you need to be able to sink into the music longer then 1 to 2 hours of one dj set. Maybe I am a freak but if I go out to an event I want to go inside my mind and get down.

I not much of a hugger or a socialite but I do like to speaker freak.
:twisted:

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Originally Posted by sash

Down here in sunny melbourne, this hard nrg/ hard trance crew have put on a few events and have mixed up dj's ranging from techno to hard nrg to hard trance and so on on the same stage.

This crew put on this party and had Dave the Drummer as the main act.
I couldn't wait to see another Drummer set but i gotta say, id rather chew my left arm off than listen to nrg/ trance. Anyway i hung around and left after Dave's set.

On one side of the coin u got people sayin "aah who cares about all this genre crap it's all dance music" but on the other side of the coin u got people lookin for a specific sound like myself.
I don't mind mixin genres but i think hard nrg/ hard trance followed by an acid techno dj is not a good formula (not for me anyway and judging by the crowd at that party i went too, not for them either)

Just wonderin what people's thoughts were on this topic.

:shock:

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loads of uk techno and london acid techno is not far from trance/nrg tho :neutral:

i often mix genres, if they go well and u can beat match them fine etc its all good.

no rules.

I'd love to mix hard techno with underground hiphop and dark drum'n'bass... but I just don't see how, or maybe I don't posses the skills yet.. hehe

I think events like Antiworld are successful because they mix genres.

I know that isn’t mixing genres on the same stage which was the original post, but these events are very popular and I enjoy walking around the different genres (usually 5) depending on how im feeling.

its all dance music at the end of the day. most of me fav tunes arnt steriotypical techno/house/break/whatever tracks. they combine lots of elements from other styles so could work well in a variety if different sets

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Originally Posted by MangaFish

its all dance music at the end of the day. most of me fav tunes arnt steriotypical techno/house/break/whatever tracks. they combine lots of elements from other styles so could work well in a variety if different sets

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totally mate, i think music is coming closer together, with all this cross genre n stuff, but hey its cool with me.

don't do it if it unless its only 1 set in amongst 6-8 different DJ - hip-hop, funk, techno etc...

I went to a great party in East London a few weeks back in a semi-squatted social centre. Started with a band, mixed up funk and d&B and ended with a banging techno set. mix it up but not 90% one genre and 10% another. equal weighting and a complete mix-up is the way, imo

To hear how all genres of music can work on same night get your funky booties down to 'The End' for one of Laurent Garniers 8 hour sets. He drops Rock, Hip Hop, House, Funk, , Breaks, Techno etc...... AND IT WORKS.

my humble opinion: it depends on what kind of night you want as a punter...
Sometimes go out to listen to dj sets, am pretty open to what am gonna listen to
Sometimes just want a massive night out, jumping around and then am happier if can have the music I like
And let's be honest, it also depends on what chemicals (if any) you've ingested...

I like a mix of styles. Sometimes it doesn't work I agree, but it can do so well.

I guess it's a case of the promoters and the djs communicating so that the people running the club can organise a good running order and the Djs can think about the progression of the night when planning their sets.

I love to hear a night that progresses throughout the whole night with on dj sort of building up to wards where the next one starts - and if their individual sets have plenty of variety to keep me on my toes even better...

...being able to mix loads of styles into one coherent set always gets my admiration!

a guideline of
what a good varied night of music should be like:

11-12:30 minimal/electro
12:30-2 electro/minimal/detroit
2-3:30 techno (detroit/tribal/
3:30-5 techno bangin (shranz like, hard trax, brokenbeat, bassline heavy
5-6:30 (funky, heavybass, back into minimal, electro, acid
6:30-8 (Acid house, detroit, funky, minimal deep house

keep the trance and NRG separate, you can Maybe get away with a little in the bangn section, anyway most important, keep it good....no?

but if its a house party hell anything can go and sometimes those are somer Fun times :lol:

a guideline of
what a good varied night of music should be like:

11-12:30 minimal/electro
12:30-2 electro/minimal/detroit
2-3:30 techno (detroit/tribal/
3:30-5 techno bangin (shranz like, hard trax, brokenbeat, bassline heavy
5-6:30 (funky, heavybass, back into minimal, electro, acid
6:30-8 (Acid house, detroit, funky, minimal deep house

keep the trance and NRG separate, you can Maybe get away with a little in the bangn section, anyway most important, keep it good....no?

but if its a house party hell anything can go and sometimes those are the best times :lol: