Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Step by Step Guide to More Wiggle

Thought I'd give you all some insight behind the curtain.

Throwing a half-assed event is pretty easy; but really managing it properly can take quite a bit of work. While we're still a month out, our management infrastructure already consists of the following shared artifacts:

  • Master Project Plan
    • Prioritized, categorized task list. For reference, this will easily have over 100 tasks before we even set foot in the venue on the first night.
    • Promotion Plan - a calendar with broad-stroke promotional tasks, and a weekly 'theme' that sets the tone for that week - are we doing heavy promotions, are we investigating talent, etc.
  • Promotional Guidelines
    • Scripts, talking points, and strategies for promoting to every avenue we're pursuing. This enables every promoter involved to have a common voice and understand both the short term business goals, and the longer term vision and direction  for the events. Also should have a Messaging section, to track what has been sent out in the past - useful to mine for future wording, but also to make sure you're not over-using key phrases, etc.
  • Intelligence
    • The intel database contains investigation listings of every entity that may have an effect on the night. We collect information on other nights, relevant talent, local businesses, online presences, and any location on-or-offline where we might generate more interest in the event.
  • Promotions
    • Guest Lists - Tracking document for all promoters to curate the guest lists for the night.
    • Targets - Track and manage targets for promotion; wouldn't want to under-flyer a site, or over-flyer it.
  • Internal
    • A document to store sensitive or trusted information. Budget and expenses, attendance, business contacts, brainstorming, etc. This is kept in a separate document so any of the above could be shared without compromising the operational data.
It's all basic management, but it's often overlooked.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

It should be obvious to many of you that I love sharing music with people.

However, there's a vicious dichotomy that DJs run up against; share the awesome music you spend most of your life discovering - at the risk of feeding your competition the best, juciest tracks that make up *your* sound.

I struggle with this quite frequently - and as music is my only spirituality... I might that this limitation on proselytization weighs on my soul, and heavily.

Anyone who's had the luxury of a roadtrip in my car or been present when I've taken over a party's sound system knows that the tracks I post here and elsewhere - while awesome - do not represent even a tiny scratch of the surface of the amazing depth of music I discover.

I don't enjoy - whatsoever - having to protect my discoveries, but when I was rebuilding my sound for a return to DJing, the last thing I could afford was to expose my unique sound to area DJs who already have established themselves in other venues. The fact is that many DJs do not source their own sounds, many even directly and blatantly rip off other DJs' playlists. To make matters even worse, some of those DJs don't understand the freshness dating inherent in the dance scene. The result is... DJs can and will find good tracks from their friends who source tracks like I do ... and then overplay them to death. This means that my hard work discovering tracks can be utterly ruined by other DJs who found those tracks solely on the basis of knowing *me*.
But now... I have a venue once again, and as such, I can expose new music on a regular basis with people knowing where they heard it first. Quite frankly, I love sharing music with you all. I absolutely hate having to protect my sound in this way. But now, now I have a dancefloor to call my home... and as such, I can finally loosen these cruel restraints.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

[Like] Jive on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jiveboston ... I'll be posting lots of electroswing to whet people's appetite for the sounds of Jive.

Lots to do between now and then. Lots. But we should have quite the showing for our first night... I'm very excited to push this forward.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Glitchy Jazz?

Considering Bonobo's coming to town in just a few days, thought I'd point out some of his lesser known work.

Here's his project Barakas... glitchy jazz? Hell yes.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Confirmed. Get ready for JIVE

It's confirmed... and I am officially out of retirement.

Electroswing / swing house / swing hop / nujazz / deep funk / retro...

Dance like your momma said your daddy could.

First Fridays, starting April 6th: JIVE

Lineup announced soon.

DJs - mixes and bios to booking@jiveboston.com

Talent/Performers/Teachers - Bio to booking@jiveboston.com

Promoters - promotions@jiveboston.com



...and if you're following this blog, you're on the guest list.

We're in.

Gotta have a meet-and-greet tonight, after which I'll post the location here, but there's a date on the calendar.

So cancel your plans for Friday, April 6th... because we're going dancing!

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Now we got the whole world locked...

Break Science's new EP 'MONOLITH CODE' just dropped today.

It's pretty straight-up electro house but just like last January's 'Further Than Our Eyes Can See', it's straight dope. Here's Whole World Locked:

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Audio Genesis Device

We've had many discussions about how best to found and promote a night... but let's take the conversation up a notch:

How does one go about intentionally creating a scene?

It doesn't happen often - usually it requires a new genre of dance music, a DJ willing and able to spin it, and a promoter that is in-touch with enough of an audience.

I am considering embarking on such a task, so I figured here is as good a place as any to vet my plan. One of the genres I have been focusing on is gaining traction in the area, and I think it's time to consider founding not just a night, but fostering a scene.

To do so, I think I'm going to have to do the following:

  1. Identify the audience
    • As this is a fairly new style of music, but one rooted in familiarity, there is a lot of crossover from a variety of scenes - without being a direct competition or threat to any. Find and document all events held by all crossover scenes. Estimate potential audience.
  2. Discover and assist willing DJs
    • There are definitely DJs interested in this genre, but no one is spinning exclusively in it.
  3. Research and approach appropriate venues
    • As with any dance night, venue is critical
  4. Promote the music
    • People need familiarity. If I learned one thing from the nights I've been loosely involved with, it's that mixes help A LOT towards building a scene.
  5. Promote the event(s)
    • Find promoters who you trust and want to work with, and saturate the new potential audience with teaser mixes and eventually, promotions for the first night.
It sounds like a lot of work... I think I'm capable of it though, and now I have a list started.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Internet Censorship

It should be clear that me linking you to tracks you might like is blatantly against copyright restrictions.

It should also be clear that without people (such as your humble narrator) free to spread the word about otherwise copyrighted content... music would not spread and flourish the way it has in the internet era.

Instead of blacking out my blog... I'm going to link you to some more awesome music, noting that this action would result in all of Blogger being blocked from the internet.



Without others' sharing copyrighted music, I would never have been able to spread music to each of you. I would never have been able to buy the music I enjoy - because I would never have found it. The sites I use to research new music will be shut down, without question.

But where this really gets hairy, is this:

Flevans - Easy Go (feat Kylie Auldist) by Flevans

Even the perfectly legal - and encouraged - act of embedding an artist's track from soundcloud is enough to have not just this blog, but Blogger.com shut down for POTENTIAL copyright violations without due process. Even though the artist asked us to share his work, this site could be shut down. And even though your own blog might have nothing copyrighted on it... you would be shut down too.

Call your congressmen. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and that enabling mass censorship is not the answer.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Sup Peeps Start Collecting

This nujazz? compilation is hot hot HOT:

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

BigGigantic.net - grab a free download of their new album, released about an hour ago.

You're welcome.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Dancing Makes You Smarter

http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/smarter.htm

Excerpts from the study:

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia.  There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind.  There was one important exception:  the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

            Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia

            Bicycling and swimming - 0%

            Doing crossword puzzles at least four days a week - 47%

            Playing golf - 0%

            Dancing frequently - 76%.
That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.