Auditions

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Anyone ever done one for a job before?

Were you nervous?

Did you mix and use the mic?

What was it for?

[Corabar Steve]

Club job (rock night) Turned out it was for a night already up & running (on the night in question) I was expected to DJ the whole night for nowt as my audition & then they told me the money involved should I get the job, no where near what they had hinted at (£40, I said per hour? they said per night) .

I told them to poke it.

Club full of people, no DJ

This was a central London club & at the time I was already getting £80 an hour in Wood Green on 2 different nights (I was looking at working 3 nights a week, including the 2 existing ones)

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Funny this, I am actually in the stages of documenting various memorable events throughout my DJing career and this one in particular came up yesterday.

It was around 1993 I think...Can't remember exactly when to be honest (one of the main reasons I am documenting them!)...anyway, I was working on an industrial estate for a double glazing firm at the time. I was already DJing (my first ever DJ job) as resident at a monday night Alternative night which was quite popular and for a rival club in town.
On the industrial estate was a nightclub, it was quite a big one aswell and also a 24 hour snooker club. Sometimes we would go up in our dinner breaks and have a pint and a game of snooker. One day I was sitting on my bench at work reading the local paper when I saw that the club had an advert asking for DJ's. I thought I would have a go although I didn't like the idea of having an audition. It was to be my first one (I haven't been to another since).
I walked around the corner to the club dressed in my work gear and when I got to the reception I was met with the manager who said that I couldn't go in dressed as I was. I told him that I was there to see about the DJ auditions and he told me to wait a moment while he got me an application form. After about 10 minutes he came back and I got the form from him and went back to work. The auditions were a couple of days later and were to be held from 6pm - 7pm.
We were told to take 2 records and what we had to do was mix them and do a few words on the mic. I turned up on the day and was told to go to a room where all the other DJ's would be waiting their turn. It turned out that I was the last to be seen. When I entered the room it was like a doctors surgery and half the people in there were over 50 at the time (I was 25), it also stunk of B.O. and it wasn't nice at all. Just as I took my seat, the door opened and through it walked a skinny little bloke with a baseball cap on. He took one look at the rest of us, shook his head and smiled and then said "You lot may as well go home" - Cheeky little youknowwhat!

Anyway, the others had their turns and left and then it was just me. I was called through. Sat there was the manager and the 2 owners of the club. They asked me loads of questions and asked if I was working elsewhere. When I told them that I was DJing at the other club in town and playing alternative music I didn't know what to expect....they didn't say too much. So, my time had come. I had 2 x 12" vinyls with me...Primal Scream 'Loaded' and Happy Mondays 'Step On'... I got behind the decks, cued them up and then started.... I used the beginning talkover sample from 'Loaded' and just as it got to the bit where it says "We're gonna have a party", I spun the vinyl backwards and started 'Step on' with the piano intro...I let it play for about 2 minutes and added the 'loaded' talkover in it again and then just turned the decks off so they both slowed down togeather. The only time I used the mic was when I said "Was that Ok?" at the end.

They didn't say a lot apart from informing me that if I was successful I would hear from them in the next day or so. I didn't hear anything so I was uinder the impression that they thought I was rubbish but one dinnertime about a week later, the manager walked into our factory asking for me. He said that he hadn't been able to get in touch with me because my application form had been lost...yeh right!
Anyway, apparently I was the best they had seen and the fact that I was doing something totally different interested them. They told me to go and see them after work to go through ideas. I went to the club after work and they offered me a saturday night which was unheard of at the time in my area for an alternative night. I was there for about 3 years and we had 400/500 people every saturday. I didn't really like the management during my stay as they tried to tell me what to play when they didn't have a clue about it all.

Phew!! (Bit long that wasn't it!).