Briggsy

I booked Fabio directly because we used to speak quite often anyway from my days when I used to run an old Trance website. He used to do us a monthly mix, plus an interview and also sent tunes over to review years ago. We stayed in contact after that. He was one of the scenes good guys and I was sad to see him retire. He played for me for free - just wanted his train fare and a hotel covering. Legend. It helped that he had friends living in the town where I ran my night, so he killed two birds with one stone - and even brought one of his mates (a magician/illusionist) along to the night to do some tricks too. Genuinely one of the nicest guys i've ever met. He wouldn't even let me buy him a drink - he was buying me (and all of the other DJs) drinks all night instead. I was amazed when he retired because i've never seen anyone so enthusiastic when DJ'ing. He was there from start to finish and clearly loved his music - the complete opposite of another well-known DJ that I booked that turned up 2 minutes before his set, with a real arsey attitude, and left immediately after his set. I think the only words he said all night were "you've got my money haven't you" and "cheers". Try contacting Mat directly via Facebook/Twitter first. 95% of DJ's will send you straight back to their agent and ask you to do things via them - but if you're lucky, some will deal with you directly (and charge a hell of a lot less as a result - agents take quite a big chunk and insist on other add-ons to bump up the price!). I was quite fortunate with the DJ's I booked (John Kelly, Ben Nicky and Fabio Stein) - I managed to deal with all of those directly. I know little about Mat - but from what I do know, he's supposed to be quite decent and very approachable, so he may deal with you directly (unless his agent made him sign a clause that specifically says that everything has to go through them). Be prepared though - DJ's don't come cheap - even those lower down the scale. I reckon you'd be looking at around £500-£700 based on experience from past quotes for DJ's of similar calibre/status. If you have to go through an agent, then allow for an extra 15% on top of that - plus there may be other contractual add-ons too - 4/5 star hotel plus a "reasonable" meal before the gig, etc. Some DJ's/agents are better than others. Some try to help new nights and will lower their fee to help you out. Some won't touch new nights at all. Some are just greedy and try to milk every penny whether you're a new starter or an established night. Some are away with the fairies and think they're bigger than they actually are and price themselves out of gigs. I was given some ridiculously low quotes for DJs once (Lange was an absolute bargain - although I never booked him because the venue went bust just as the night was taking off and the line-ups were being stepped up a level) - and some DJs were ridiculously high considering some of them weren't particularly big. Good luck! It's fun - but also a little draining too at times.

It's hard to shift in bulk now because it either has little re-sale value to shops now that CDJs have taken over or it sits in their stock for months/years - and they don't want their money tied up in stock that doesn't shift easily. If you're in no rush to sell it, you're better off listing it on Discogs or privately on forums and seeing who comes in to buy in small quantity from you. You'll make more money that way - but it'll take ages to shift. If you're in a rush to sell it, then i'm afraid you'll end up disappointed because you'll get rock bottom prices for it if you sell it altogether in bulk. I sold a lot of mine individually when I quit DJ'ing - but it took ages and it got to the point that I just had to sell the rest off in bulk because i'd moved to a smaller property and needed the space. I got about £30 for 800 records on Ebay. I even ended up chucking some of the more mass-pressed, better known, records in the bin because I couldn't shift them. I kept some of my rarer records, or tunes that I couldn't replace on MP3 because I knew i'd regret parting with them until I could replace them digitally. The rest, I managed to replace digitally so I wasn't too bothered to see them go. Your rarer or more obscure tunes will always sell. Keep those and sell them individually. Flog the more common ones as a job lot on Ebay.

Jules really does play some absolute dire music now doesn't he

He's still around. Quoted from Jules's latest blog from the March entry of his website: I’ll get to the gig-orientated portion of this instalment in a moment, but there’s one more key bit of news from my solar system. Around a year ago we decided to set the wheels in motion for a new record label. I’d always wanted to start a label, but, owing to complicated politics whilst I was at the BBC, it seemed wise to hold back. However, it’s happening now in the shape of “Junkster”, and our first release is from Irish producer “Dashka”, which will be hitting the download stores in late April. If you’ve got any unsigned material that you’d like to put forward for consideration, please email Tristan D at Tristan@judgejules.net or of course jules@judgejules.net

He did indeed - and if I remember rightly, he also sent me the track too as it was never released - so yeah, never give up hope. I remember this tune well - it was on my wants list for years. I may be wrong, but I think I asked the artist about this tune quite a few years ago, and I vaguely remember him saying there was no interest shown by any labels so it was never released. I dare say that with the track being so old, and still unsigned, that if you contacted him, he might just let you have a copy.

Used to love a bit of Speed Garage! Here's some of my old favourites! Azzido Da Bass is pushing it a bit. Its one of those tracks that could be classed as many genres, but who cares, this thread seems a nice excuse to post it

Merry Christmas everyone. Have a good one!

haha so true! Jools Holland is always 10 years behind on his new year show. He'll no doubt have a "massive" big budget guest list of Macy Gray, Mel C, Chas & Dave and some unknown band from Rugby (that nobody has heard of) as his prediction for the next big thing in 2013. They'll never be seen again after that...... lol. Can't stand Jools Holland. Fantastic musician - but he has the personality of a bog roll. Boring personality. Boring show. Boring guests. What a way to bring in the New Year :oddcake: :eek:

I could tolerate Guetta - his sound remained "his" sound and wasn't copied by the masses. Even though his music was pop-dance chart music, some of it was quite listenable. The SHM sound just really irritates me. Its cheesy pop music that has crept into the Trance scene - and now you've got the likes of Halliwell and Emery filling their sets with that, and the hundreds of SHM soundalikes by other artists, in their sets. Its awful. I'd been slowly going off Trance for a few years anyway - but when the SHM "Trouse" rubbish started taking over, that was the final nail in the coffin for me.

Mine too. It isn't played enough on the radio at Christmas. They always go for the obvious Christmas tunes by The Pogues, Shakin' Stevens and Mariah Scary

I saw them live a couple of years ago - and they were great. They sound as good live as they do on a CD (unlike many artists these days that sound awful unless they've had the help of Auto Tune and editing). I like allsorts across all styles - REM, UB40, Phil Collins, The Shadows, Pet Shop Boys, Aswad, Prefer the older stuff over current chart music though. Its all crap these days.

For a bit of easy listening, I don't mind a bit of these two from The Shadows "Its a Sin" by The Pet Shop Boys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRHetRTOD1Q And "You Win Again" by The Bee Gees Am I allowed to claim this as its Christmas too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJKJUMCItf4 Sorry Jules, but they were shite! Almost as annoying as the A&B tunes I posted on the first page - but not quite.

I think a lot of people that wanted to post on it though never really bothered because 5-6 years or so ago, it was full of absolute idiots. At times, it could easily be mistake for a forum of a Psychiatric hospital rather than one for a DJ.

This is will inevitably be Jules's reasoning behind his fall outside the top 100. He'll refuse to accept that its his music, dodgy looping/scratching and shit jingles at respectable brands (he was playing these at a Gatecrasher classics night ffs!) - and blame it on no longer being on Radio 1. Its frustrating that Jules just fails to see (or chooses to ignore) where things are going wrong. Its like when a number of us on here have commented on a bad club set that has resulted in a half empty dance floor - and then Jules has responsed with "the crowd were well up for it" - even when we know that they certainly weren't. I really do wish he'd hang up the headphones now. He's becoming a laughing stock within the scene - and those of us that remembered his once legendary club sets are quickly having those good memories being replaced with bad ones where his sets ruined a night. I predicated a few years ago that Jules would be outside the top 100 within three years due to the direction he was taking - and voila! Here we are. Even if he had still been on Radio 1, I still think he'd be outside the top 100.

A tenner says that if someone mentions all of this to Jules, he'll reply with "The crowd were really up for it". Time for Jules to hang up the headphones (already 5 years too late in my opinion) - he's a shadow of his old self, and its just embarrassing watching who was once a superb DJ, struggle on like this. And as for those "Somebody screeeeeeeeeam" jingles at a Gatecrasher Classics event - that should be an arrestable offence for crimes against music.

Tim Westwood had a good face for radio :mrgreen:

Radio in general, from local to national, has deteriorated in quality over the years - mainly due to drops in listening figures because of other options available to people that werent around 10 years ago. iPods, DAB radio with far more stations to choose from, phones that store music, Podcasts, Youtube, etc. Local radio used to be fantastic - especially the little one-off stations that were independant. There were loads of good presenters that all had their own personalities and were allowed to venture outside of the usual playlist to add their own touch to the show. These days, most of, what were, independant local stations have been taken over by big radio groups such as Heart FM or Capital (formerly Galaxy) - and most of the shows are now networked. Your local Oxford or Coventry Radio station could now be broadcast from Reading or Birmingham, with the same identikit output and presenters as their other stations within the group 50 miles away. They just drop a few pre-recorded local references in now and again so that your average punter still thinks that his local station is still local - when actually, it isn't. Now and again, my local station occasionally plays the the wrong "local" news - and we get Worcester news and travel instead. A town 40 miles away! Stations now have a repetitive playlist of around 30 tunes on continual repetition. The presenters have to stick to a scripted station format and can't add their own style to a show. Its become very tedious and boring. In Radio 1's case, in my opinion, their mistake is employing celebrities instead of natural radio presenters. There are some fantastic presenters out there on local radio that are 10x better than the likes of Fern Cotton, Sara Cox and even Moyles - but they rarely get discovered. Radio 1 have had some truly awful presenters, such as Fern Cotton, who have no radio personality or charisma, no natural radio ability or anything about them that makes you want to tune in. They had Kelly Osbourne at one point? Seriously? They're also on ridiculous celebrity wages - not radio presenter wages. Whilst the BBC keep getting lots of TV licensing money thrown at them, they'll continue to have that policy. They get the same amount of income regardless of how many listeners they get - whereas in Commercial radio, listening figures are crucial. If you have a presenter that people don't like, people will switch off - and if people switch off, their advertising appeal reduces and then they lose income. If a presenter loses listeners in commercial radio, the station will soon get rid of them or move them to a "graveyard" slot. Radio 1 keep them - they just try them in another time slot. Yeah, because that makes a difference..... If the government suddenly decided that BBC Radio was to no longer be funded by TV license money, you could almost guarantee that within a few months, there would be a massive overhaul of the presenters and music format, because their current format is outdated, expensive and run with a policy of "carry on regardless". The expensive celebrity presenters would be soon out of the door, and replaced with cheaper, but far better, specialist presenters that have worked their way up from impressing in local radio.

I can't think of one Trance DJ that hasn't changed their sound over the past three years. The majority have either gone down the cheesey SHM route, they've slowed right down in style, or started incorporating bits of electro and Dubstep tunes into their set to try to "be cool". I hate the Trance scene now. It's a shadow of its former self and it makes me cringe. From the music in general to the majority of DJs themselves.

"Judgement Sundays - I Can't heeeeeeeeeear you". Yeah, there's probably a good reason for that Jules! Those voice-overs are gayer than a room containing Julian Clary, Dale Winton and Alan Carr! I think they make Judgement Sundays (and any other brand/venue they're played at) come across as really tacky.

People can call me whatever they like if i'm earning £120,000+ per week

Somebody Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeam!

I think we should send all these burglars, fraudsters and sex offenders that get fairly light sentences in the courts to the FA instead.

Can't find any pics, but here's an interview: http://www.youtube.com/user/GatecrasherBham

I don't think Jules's new hair style suits him - but I suspect he's gone for that look with his law career in mind. The shaven headed look tends to be unfairly associated with 'rough and ready' type characters, so Jules is probably trying to go for a more "professional" image. For his age though, he's still got a good head of hair i'll give him that. No signs of any thinning out or greyness.