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The esoteric art of the opening DJ

Great article.

Nice piece and it's true - residents play a vital roll. Ralph Lawson is/was a class example at Back to Basics.

the best places are clubs which have rules, before 1pm not over 122bpm's period ! it's club's/promoter responsibility to have a vibe... also, warming up is an art to me, good warmup means 99% of the time a superb night behind !

amen.

the resident dj is absolutely vital in the progression of the night .
they can make or kill the night i strongly believe .
the warm up slot is very difficult to do properly .
unfortunately though most people play for themselves and do not care for the rest of the night . a good warm dj will ultimately have to leave the ego at home .

nice and useful article

Really good feature, enjoyed reading it and completely agree with everything said, for me there is no greater embodiment of this than Richards

great article, thanks

excellent article, i agree 100% with all the points he makes. I love warming up just as much as playing out. It gives you a chance to create a groove and set the tone for the night and imo take a much better dj to warm up than play a headline slot.

Thanks for posting this article. Having played predominantly as a warm-up DJ I have often bemoaned the lack of appreciation given to warm-up DJs. It is a much harder time to play, not only do you have to know your records inside out in order to get that perfect build and coax people onto the floor, you are under greater scrutiny from those who are there and any imperfect mixes are more noticeable in a quiet club early doors than at peak time in a sweat-soaked crowd.

"The promoter has been known to come into the booth and tell the warm-up to pick it up." I know that one only too well! One of the most infuriating things to get as a warm-up DJ. Successful promoters generally know their crowd, plus it is difficult to argue against the person paying your wages, but telling a warm-up to 'pick it up' displays a lack of respect for the DJ and the 'art' of the warm-up set, as well as a fairly narrow view of what constitutes a good club night IMO.

But it's the clubbers at the end of the day who are partially responsible for the success of warm-up sets too. I believe that most successful sets/nights rely on an effort from both the DJ and the crowd. Personally, I have always loved hearing people play warm-up sets and when I was younger, would ALWAYS try and get to the club early in order to hear those tracks and experience the atmosphere building within the club. Nowadays, I struggle to get my friends down to a club at all, and if so, they're not in the least interested in getting there early to see out the whole night develop (this probably has something to do with club drinks prices too!), and every time I walk into a club after midnight and am bombarded straight away with peak-time music, I struggle to get involved in the music.

So thanks again for raising the profile of the warm-up through this article. One slight criticism though... Burridge, Yousef, Lawler - hardly warm-up DJs of great renown (these days at least), how often do those guys either warm-up or turn up early to check out the DJs warming up for them beyond the statutory 15 mins before their set - fair enough for the headliner's angle on it, but would have preferred to hear views from more DJs in Dean Muhsin's position.

nice article

definitely the hardest set to play and something you get better at with each one you do. There such a fine line between playing dull, pretentious records and playing deep yet danceable tracks.

Plus its even harder these days with the current vibe of music being a lot lower key (and alot slower) than it has been in the past.

Best warm up dj ive seen this year was Telford @ Sub Club...pretty much perfect

Really good article and something I notice a lot.

One of the best articles I have read on RA all year and I 100% agree. I've worked behind the bar in a pretty well know club for a while and it really fucks me off when DJ's come in at 10PM and simply lamp it out straight from the off. I think I may blow up this article to A1 size and stick it in the DJ booth!

Great read .... thanks for the article

Great article. I'm reminded of Tobias Thomas, who's known for the way he sets the vibe at Kompakt's parties - a strategy that carried over into his mix CDs for them.

so true and well writen

this one shoudl be send to all promoters over the world =

Excellent article. Thanks!

"I'm absolutely certain that the music lovers, not the DJs, are fit for the job—the people who can forget themselves for a moment and deliver a groove, a beginning and a sense of belief." The best openers are in many ways the people who are true music lovers, the ones who obsessively collect obscure and eclectic music for the simple joy of it. These DJs know their music so well they intuitively know there is a right track to play in each moment for any audience."

damn... yeah.

great article. philip is on the button - the kompakt total confusion night that tobias thomas runs in cologne pretty much has a no-4/4 rule for the first hour. i think this is a good template for all club nights - if you hear techno all night it gets stale, and there is nothing worse than arriving at a club to be beaten over the head with a bass drum

great article. thx for this one.

correct to mundo!

Very important article. One that every promoter, and disc jockey should read CAREFULLY and take to heart.

really enjoyed reading this

i've been to many a night where the warm up is better than the headline act!

many thanks for saying it out loud.

i dont think there has to be a warm up sound. here is Paris , clubs open at midnight , so you dont want a long intro , you want to go straight into the action.
the only thing is that the line up has to be coherent , no drum'n'bass before a deep house set , it wont do ;-)

Great article, thanks!

most practical piece of writing here for a long time. really good enjoyed it.
all arguments are made very well and clear, as this is such a pivot point in a night out.
personally, i would rather play warm up slots than peak time. the challenge of setting vibes and paying attention to the flow of the night is more stimulating than dropping bomb after bomb. sewing chill beats from all sorts of groovy sounds together, w/ the headliner's vibe in the back of the head, is a buzz, a challange and obviously when done right, a win for everyone.
thanks RA and here's to the opener.

i agree with most of you people here, but why do we always have to think in the rules of what a club night is supposed to be? who dictates what a good clubnight is?
i am a dj for over 10 years now and most of the times i ended up playing back to back sets with the guest dj for at least an hour before he played alone
it's the way you bring people together in the dj booth...
if you have to think about what the "headliner" is gonna play...that's bullshit
it's also the headliner that has to addapt to the way the warmup opened for him
and thats the problem with most djs these days, they just come, play their stuff and they're out...if i get booked to a night and have to play the peak slot i'm already there when the club opens it's doors and enjoy what somebody else has to offer

this article is exactly explaining what needs to happen at these superclubs, with superstar-djs and local superstar-warmups...
on a night where it's all music lovers from beginning to the end, thats where the real magic happens

be it an warmup-dj or a dj that takes over after the "headliner"...
both is a challenge...the first ne sets the mood and the other needs to keep the energy-level and then slowly bring people down from their heights
but it all comes down to whether you are a good dj, or not

and good djs are rare these days

Craig Richards takes it one step further: "I'm absolutely certain that the music lovers, not the DJs, are fit for the job—the people who can forget themselves for a moment and deliver a groove, a beginning and a sense of belief." The best openers are in many ways the people who are true music lovers, the ones who obsessively collect obscure and eclectic music for the simple joy of it. These DJs know their music so well they intuitively know there is a right track to play in each moment for any audience.

- That is 100% right. It took me years to be able to convey that sentiment to others and Craig did it in a sentence!

What an excellent article, thank you.

see, to me this lack of attention paid by deejays who are in "warmup" slots just reeks of inexperience. i don't think one can be considered to be a "real deejay" until they have played entire nights on their own. and i dont think a deejay should be getting gigs until s/he can do that. also, the person responsible for doing the night should be aware of the way a night should progress. if s/he isn't, they have no business having a night.

this is really all nightlife 101. if you don't get it, you should stay away.

for me personally? i like to plan my own nights, and deejay the whole time either myself or with one of my close friends. we are at the point where we have been playing together long enough through every type of point in the night that we don't even have to think about it. but i love taking care of all three phases of the night: warmup, peak, comedown (rinse and repeat the last two if you have long enough!). i love different aspects of playing each part, and each part makes me exercise different skills and records from my repertoire.

great article! more of those please...

That's a perfect description of 'warm ups'. I usualy do it in Brazil.

At last, the warm up DJ gets some recognition....perhaps the promoters reading this will now realise that booking DJ's who sell tickets is NOT the answer to a successful night....booking the right DJ to do the job is more important than how many mates they bring!
I would like to see the headliner take some responsibility for this - particularly if they aren't happy with what they are currently getting!

The bright side of RA, this was good.

Thats the whole point

Such an amazing article. Amazing how intricate the vibe of a club scene really is.

As well as the importance of the warm up dj is keeping the volume down during the early part. Nothing worse than walkinginto a club, enjoying the warm up but having to leave the room because your ears n´t take it. I´ve experienced this in lots of places...

Superb reading!

Programming of an event and warm up sets are so vitally important to the success of an event. This is the essence and recipe for what makes a great night!! When planning a night, careful attention has to be paid to the programming of the sound for the evening, being sure that each individual DJ's slot makes sense in the overall structure of the evening -- to me, when I plan my nights, I like to plan the night as a musical journey, much like I am putting together a 6+ hour set - each DJ should compliment the next, with a logical progression in sound and energy taking place throughout.

If I could count how many promoters and DJs I have known through the years that have absolutely NO understanding of this concept, well let's just say I'd be counting for quite some time.

great article. touches on all the salient points...

So true, excellent article.

divine !!!!!

I concur with the majority a truly excellent article.

here in the states, the popularity of "hipster-electro" has all but eliminated any traces of proper opening DJs under the age of 25. I truly believe "the art of the opening DJ" is something that is lost and gone forever with the newest generation of American EDM enthusiasts. they live in a world where steve aoki, and even deadmaus, slam the crowds over the head from the first needle drop. these kids also make different choices when it comes to how they party, and more often than not couldn't be any less interested in the deeper sounds that you and I might fancy.

is this true elsewhere around the world?

No it is not true for a big part of Europe I guess. And this, as you said, "hipster-electro" is not so popular, at least not at the parties that i go to in Berlin. It may sound weird, but I have never even heard about Steve Aoki until now. I am checking his myspace at the moment and he has more than 4 milon views, haha, and he is collaborating with K. West.. I guess that I am totally out of this scene, fortunately.

On topic, really nice article!

" Theo Parrish was Magda's opening DJ"

hilarious

Great read. My best nights out have always started with a great warmup DJ!

I'm a huge advocate of the opening DJ set, it's by far one of my favorite things to do and I pride myself on being an excellent opener. That being said, I need to ask...how many times have articles like this popped up? More than once I'm sure, especially here on RA. Am I wrong? I really remember reading similar articles here

How many people still don't get it? What's wrong with "up and coming" djs (not "young", up and coming!), what gets lost in translation to the promoters that keep booking the hacks that warrant articles like this to get written every 6 months?