Another set-list – this time (on request) from yesterday’s hugely enjoyable post-workshop dance at the wonderful T C R Hub in Barnard Castle.
Category: <span>DJing</span>
This post is a follow-on from At The Chase 2018: Competition DJing Pt 1 (Mix & Match) – where I started to chronicle my decisions behind choosing music for the Chase Festival competitions. The Strictly Lindy prelims had the same format as the Mix & Match – which is to say three heats, each with three songs, each song for 60 – 70 seconds, two medium and one fast. Nice and simple.
As before, my key criteria were to have songs that were fun, swung hard, and that maintained a good energy for the time I’d be playing them. If I were playing the whole song it’d be a different matter – but a one phrase section of quiet can eat a large chunk out of a sixty second running time, and I wanted people to really have a chance to go to town.
So here we go…
I was actually just looking for some recordings from the wonderfully named Club Hangover, and Google brought me here. Started in 1998, and run by the gentleman above – Dave Radlauer – there’s an incredible wealth of information to be found here about Jazz, Swing, and many of the great artists.
If you’re thinking of DJing, and you’re anything like me, it can all seem a bit overwhelming. What equipment should you use? How does everything plug together? What music should…
Some Preamble… Here’s the long awaited (by me, anyway) part two for my last post: Finding those Perfect Swing Tunes (Part 1, honest) with the extra things that I plain forgot about…
Oh – the dream of the perfect swing tune. Those gold-dust tracks – those beautiful, amazing tracks which everyone is going to fall in love with, and which cannot fail to set the dance floor ablaze every time they’re used. All you need is a collection filled with nothing but those, and you have it made as a DJ.
It’s nice to dream. Sadly, there’s no such thing – sure there are plenty of amazing tracks out there, but no single track can possibly fit every mood, every moment that you’re going to have to fill as a DJ. The best tracks in your collection can fall completely flat if you play them at the wrong moment. On the flipside, some of the most unlikely ones can work really well if you play them at just the right moment…
Remember – not every song is Lindy Hopper’s Delight. And even Lindy Hopper’s Delight can become Lindy Hopper’s Oh Dear God Not Again if you’re not careful.
On of Bing Crosby’s brothers, Bob Crosby was singer for the big band, the Bob Crosby Orchestra, and the smaller trad version – Bob Crosby’s Bob-Cats, whose lineups at various times included Yank Lawson, Billy Butterfield, Charlie Spivak, Muggsy Spanier, Irving Fazola, Nappy Lamare, Ward Silloway, Warren Smith, Joe Sullivan, Bob Zurke, Jess Stacy, Bob Haggart, Walt Yoder, Jack Sperling and Ray Bauduc. These bands were founded as a cooperative, but Bob Crosby was chosen as front-man for his movie-star looks, his personality, and, of course, his name.
Their music was, in a word, spectacular.
Swing Summit this year was, for me, the best Swing Summit yet. Given that Swing Summit is never anything less than inspirational, that’s a pretty big thing. If you’re focussed on learning and improving your dance, this is the one to go to – if could spend all summer there, I probably would.
Anyway – I promised I’d publish a setlist from the Sunday night, so here it is.