I just got done shoveling snow (again) and thought I would take a few minutes to update this blog. Even though “wedding season” has been over for a few months, I had a handful of weddings over the last couple of months.
At the end of January, I made the drive to Pierre, SD to DJ a Renaissance themed wedding reception at View 34. If you haven’t been to View 34 in Pierre, I highly recommend checking it out – it’s a beautiful building that has an amazing view. The reception that I DJ’ed was fairly small, and the bride and groom were a fantastic couple. To match the theme, I wore a costume that I rented from Dakota Costume here in Sioux Falls. If you need a costume for anything, I highly recommend visiting them. Their service was great, and I got just what I needed at a very fair cost.
Here’s a pic of my outfit:
On February 6th, I DJed a wedding reception at Chef Dominiques in downtown Sioux Falls. Another great venue, but it’s a little challenging for DJs. The dancefloor is in a separate room from the dinning area, so I had to make a few announcements on the “dining room” PA in order to move the guests out to the dance area for the first dances. Plus, the ceiling was rather low, and the DJ setup area is a little tight, but I altered my setup a bit and made it work. The bride and groom told me to not worry if nobody danced, since they didn’t expect a dancing crowd, but it ended up being a very lively crowd that danced the night away. They requested that I not play the typical wedding songs and also lay off of the hip-hop and country. So, the playlist consisted of a bunch of great danceable oldies and soul. It did have its challenges, but the night ended up going great!
Here’s a couple of pictures of the dancefloor before dancing began. I ended up using my Colorstrips as a “wall wash” and placed my moving heads on the floor behind the speakers to spotlight the disco ball.
Up next is a dance at SE Technical Institute with my good friend Jeff on Feb 24th. After that, I have a total of 6 Proms before the wedding season gets underway in May.
It’s hard to believe it’s already December. As I look out my kitchen window this morning, I see a thin layer of snow on the ground, with more to come soon. Since it’s been awhile since I my last post, I thought that this would be the perfect morning to sit down with a cup of coffee and update the ol’ blog.
My wedding season officially ended for the year in late October, but I’m still keeping busy with company parties, school dances, and nights at the Liebrary Bar in Sioux Falls. In early November, I DJed a birthday party in Wagner, SD which was my first gig on the reservation. The week after that, my wife and I got away for a week and recharged our batteries on a beach in Mexico.
Warming our tootsies in Mexico
After we got back, I had a weekend off, then traveled up to Huron, SD the next weekend for a smaller company Christmas party complete with Karaoke. Even though it was a relatively small crowd, the party was still a lot of fun – especially toward the end when I had the opportunity to break out a lot of my classic rock records for the “older” crowd (CCR, Boston, Eagles, etc.)
This Saturday, I’m heading down to Vermillion, SD once again to DJ the High School Winter Formal. This is actually the 5th year in a row that I am DJ’ing this particular dance. It should be a lot of fun – Vermillion is definitely one of my favorite schools to DJ at. After that – next Friday (the 11th) I’ll be DJing down at the Liebrary in Sioux Falls, followed by another school dance in Hartford, SD that Saturday, I’m really looking forward to both of these events.
Anyway, here is a video of the company party that I DJ’ed this past Saturday:
A lot of us “vinyl” DJs now use Serato (computer program) to manage all of our music. Although it may look like we are “cheating” since we have a laptop in our face, we actually are mixing the music with the vinyl on the turntables.
Just for fun, over the holiday weekend, I did a little mix using all real vinyl. Hope you like it.
On Saturday, Sept 19th, I DJ’ed a wedding reception in the Ice Cream Capital of the World – Le Mars, IA. It was a wonderfully emotional reception and an awesome time! I really did not want the night to end, and it was definitely one of my favorite receptions of the year!
Here are some kind words from the bride and groom:
“You are by far the best DJ we have ever heard!! Spinning with your head??? WOW, AMAZING!!”
Although I didn’t catch any footage of me “spinning with my head”, here is a video from the night:
A couple of weekends ago, I didn’t have a wedding reception on a Saturday night (had one Friday though) and had a chance to go down to the Liebrary Bar in Sioux Falls and spin some tunes.
As a result, I now have 4 hours of live DJ mixing for you and your ipod to enjoy! I do have to warn you, some of the lyrics are explicit – so don’t go cranking this up in your cubicle at work (use headphones instead!)
I also need to give a big shout-out to DJ Kor aka Jeff Meuzelaar for stopping by after his wedding and snapping the above TwitPic!
I recently DJed a wedding reception in Tea, SD at the American Legion. I did a video “gig-log” of the night, but knowing that there was going to be a relatively small “dancing crowd” in attendance, I decided to just record some mixing footage.
This video is a great example of how I take a playlist that is submitted to me by a bride and groom, and structure it so that the end result is a seamless mix of great dancing tunes.
Last Thursday, the 30th of April, Jeff Muezelaar (Musical Edge) and I DJ’ed a dance at SE Technical Institute. We combined some of our equipment and took turns mixing the music throughout the night.
The dance started off slow, but by the end of the night, there was a pretty decent crowd there. Jeff and I are complete DJ dorks, so naturally we had a great time DJ’ing together.
Anyway, here’s a video I put together from footage I recorded that night (mostly of Jeff, I’m only at the beginning and at the end.)
I had a great time DJ’ing the Menno High School Prom this last weekend. It was my first time DJ’ing in Menno, and everything went great……..except for the SNOW! Even though Menno is only 60 miles from Sioux Falls, I couldn’t make it home after the dance Saturday night. I had to drive 15 miles per hour to Freeman and stayed in a Motel there.
Anyway, here’s some footage of the snow and dance. Below the video are a couple of links. One is to view the playlist from the night, and the other is to listen to the audio from the entire night (recorded live.)
