Back into the DJing scene after a few years gap.

[Centre Stage Discos]

Once a DJ, always a DJ! I've been away from the scene since 2012, selling all my gear back then so I could look after my disabled wife. Then she promptly left me after meeting up with an ex-boyfriend. Oh well, these things happen.

Moving on to the present day and I had thought that my DJing days were well and truly over, but not so! My 'new' girlfriend (of two+ years) has actively encouraged me to get back into mobile DJ work and even went as far as buying a 4kW rig for me last summer! I have since added about 16 lighting effects, including some nice retro Roboscans (my old favourites!) and we should complete the setup this weekend when I buy some bi-lite trussing, oh, not to mention soldering up a stack of cables. At 60 years of age I felt that my disco days were behind me, but she is keen for us to start this business together and get out on the road, a certain virus permitting of course. Things do seem to be opening up a little now though.

I've been DJing since the age of 18, with a few short gaps here and there. This has been my main line of work, with music production for a record label between 1999 and 2010. I also build websites and produce audio-visual presentations, jingles and mixes/remixes.

Getting back into the music, which I am totally out of touch with, is going to be challenging, but I have thrown myself back into this as much as I can and I feel quite confident that I am back where I need to be. My work will chiefly be for weddings and similar parties so I won't need too much in the way of specialist music. My clubbing days are probably over but I still absolutely love many dance and club styles, keeping up to date with things like techno, house and tech-house. I am still a raver at heart. I loved that scene.

I am based in Skegness in south Lincolnshire but my main studio is now near Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, so our coverage area will probably be far and wide. I used to do a lot of agency work up to 2012 and this took me all over the country, so I don't mind travelling large distances.

As for my musical interests, I am a compulsive mixer/producer. If I can't find a remix of a song I need/want then I will produce one myself if I can. This has been my life and I am lucky enough to have worked in the music industry producing remixes and mix albums for a living. It all started when I used to work clubs back in the late 90s where I would often play my own remixes of songs in the club where I worked.

I have also worked as a presenter on FM community radio in Nottingham and on internet radio here in Lincolnshire.

Hopefully this introduction is not too long, but in the interests of following the guidelines in the "Please read this first" post, this is a little bit about me and what I do. Now I just need to get my mind back into gear for the road and for the crowds. Hopefully we will be ready for this in the next week or two once the PAT testing and PLI is sorted.

Cheers all!

John.

[Excalibur]

Hello John. Great introduction.

Sixty years old, eh? More children to look after! ( From time to time, jests and japes about my advanced years may appear, from all and sundry). Hard to retire, isn't it? I've tried twice and failed.

Skegness is on the borders of my territory heading South, and without looking at the map, Wisbech is in young Wayne's territory ( when he isn't being a supermarket delivery driver. Another running gag) He runs a retro show, with great success.

I may contact you when I'm out with one of my regular customers, who are an education! They work all over Lincolnshire, as far down as Boston.

Good to have you here, anything you want to know, just ask. Someone usually has the answer.

[Imagine]

Hello John. Great introduction.

Sixty years old, eh? More children to look after! ( From time to time, jests and japes about my advanced years may appear, from all and sundry). Hard to retire, isn't it? I've tried twice and failed.

Skegness is on the borders of my territory heading South, and without looking at the map, Wisbech is in young Wayne's territory ( when he isn't being a supermarket delivery driver. Another running gag) He runs a retro show, with great success.

I may contact you when I'm out with one of my regular customers, who are an education! They work all over Lincolnshire, as far down as Boston.

Good to have you here, anything you want to know, just ask. Someone usually has the answer.

Oi! I don't go to Wisbekhistan unless I can help it! (those with local knowledge will understand the mis-spelling before rules 12,21 and 23 are quoted at me )
Actually, that's a bit of a porky....I do quite a marquee weddings in back gardens in the villages around Wisbech (I'm just down the road in Ely). Generally good payers to

As for the Retro Show.....ohhhhhh I can't wait to be lifting that thing around again

Welcome to the mad house John.

Just excuse the resident curmudegeon from t'North and never, EVER offer him a pint of anything stronger than a very mild IPA if you meet him

[Marc J]

Hi John, and

[Shaun]

Welcome to the MDD Forum.

[Centre Stage Discos]

Well, my sincere apologies for taking ages to reply. It really has been a challenging week in so many ways and I never seem to find time to relax. No excuse though.

Thank you Excalibur, Imagine, Marc J and Shaun for your warm welcomes. You have really made me feel at home.

I've been having a nosey at your websites, Excalibur and Imagine. Great sites and some superb photos. I am really lacking photos for my new site so I hope to get some in the coming weeks. I have some very old images but they were taken with a very cheap old camera. I've never been one for taking photos of the gear at one of my own discos but I realise now that I should have done a lot more of this. The few photos I have are quite blurred so I have kept them small on the website, which I may reveal once it's finished.

A child at sixty? Well, if you knew me you'd see that I never fully grew up. Where's the fun in that? I'm somewhere around 20-30 years behind my real age. My missus says I look younger. I did a few gigs in Skegness but I sold up not long after moving to this area (from Nottinghamshire).

I am still very fond of the older lighting effects and I recently bought 3 x Martin Roboscans (including a controller - which I need to post about) and 4 x Acme Dynascans - which I used to have before. I love the retro stuff, but the modern LED lighting is so much better in many ways. I am 50/50 on deciding whether to sell the Roboscans at the moment but I'd like to give them a try out first. I may well decide to hang on to them, the only real problem I have with them is their weight. Not hugely heavy I know but then I compare them to modern LED lighting effects and see how far they have come along, etc.

There are questions I'd like to ask about the Roboscans and equipment repairs, so I will dip into the forum elsewhere and I'll make a post or two if the subjects haven't already been covered.

I do tend to ramble a lot, Excalibur. A problem with being a quick typist. Looks like I am sandwiched between you and Imagine! Wisbeckistan? Can we say that? I'm quite new to that area and I'm still finding my way around the delights of the town. My other half knows it well. (One of my Rottweilers came from Wisbech! Sadly no longer with us.)

Thanks also to Marc J (That poor donkey!) and Shaun for your greetings. Donkeys are cool - we have them in Skegness y'know!

[Centre Stage Discos]

Ooops - meant to add, I think we know Wayne. He's delivered to us a few times over the last year and we have chatted about retro discos. I'm sure he said he does them. Must be the same guy.

Yes, please DO keep in touch. Good to meet you all here.

Cheers!

[Imagine]

I've been having a nosey at your websites, Excalibur and Imagine. Great sites and some superb photos. I am really lacking photos for my new site so I hope to get some in the coming weeks. I have some very old images but they were taken with a very cheap old camera. I've never been one for taking photos of the gear at one of my own discos but I realise now that I should have done a lot more of this. The few photos I have are quite blurred so I have kept them small on the website, which I may reveal once it's finished.

Thanks for the compliment (all my own work and now ranking very highly in the Cambridgeshire area ).

Photos will come with time. My first website was made of stock photos which did the job initially, but were replaced as I managed to get some real ones. Top tip for this (if you're going to do anything with weddings)....make friends with the official 'tog. Some of them will send you something if you ask nicely and work with them. It also helps to credit their work on your website and link to their site (networking as it were).

As for rig shots - it's a double edged sword that one (much like publishing your prices). Most will tell you NOT to publish photos of the rig....it's not about the rig it's about what you do with it....and to an extent that's true. However, wedding couples are tending to look for very specific things these days and I've found that most of mine have viewed that page before getting in contact and even specify which setup they'd like (normally rustic at the moment).

[Imagine]

Ooops - meant to add, I think we know Wayne. He's delivered to us a few times over the last year and we have chatted about retro discos. I'm sure he said he does them. Must be the same guy.

Really?

It's a small world (I was actually over Wisbech way tonight going up and down horrible little droves in a 3.5 tonne hippo decorated with carrots!).

Your name rings a bell....but given that I can barely remember what day of the week it is at the moment that might not mean much (I see around 250 customers a week, each for around 8 minutes at a time). As much as I've enjoyed the job and it's kept me out of mischief for the past year or so...hopefully that particular chapter will come to a close shortly. It's nice being able to chat to people when time allows (and oh boy are we timed!), but being out in the wind, rain, snow, heatwaves (and no we DON'T have air-con in the cab!) gets very....well....tiring after about the first week of doing the job (if it's ME you've seen....you'll have already heard me moaning about all of that though )

By the way - I sort of "cheat" on my retro show (if you look for long enough in here you'll see the discussion about it). It's ALL LED these days with the exception of the PAR cans (it's a long and complicated story about the way electricity works)

With most venues now having RCD breakers installed and the old style pygmy bulbs having a habit of going pop - it got a bit embarrassing for everything to suddenly shut down. It cost an absolute fortune to convert everything, but trust me when you're standing behind what used to chuck out 2kW of heat in the middle of summer....it was well worth the investment

[Centre Stage Discos]

It seems you are the driver we know and love. Well, what a small world! We may see you again in the near future, although we are actually being very brave and are starting to go out into the big world and visit shops now. We'll keep having deliveries for now but that will change soon. I can't remember which company you deliver for as we have used several. We'd make sure we ordered again if we thought we might bump into you again.

The droves ... the droves ... what a tale their terror tells! There seem to be quite a lot of those around here, and all with very deep ditches at the sides.

I remember the old screens and pygmy arches. Citronic Thames II and fixed speed Garrard turntables. I believe there is still a place for those screens in today's discos but well done for replacing the bulbs for LEDs. That's quite a task. I used to make my own screens out of old ropelight bulbs, arranging them into four channels on a piece of plywood and putting them in a large box with frosted perspex screens from the hardware store. Those were the days, burnt out triacs in the light controllers, the stylus jumping when there were too many people dancing on a wooden dance floor. Try and make an mp3 jump! Ah ... "Windows will now update your computer... " I've got that covered but computers can easily cause the same amount of damage as those bouncy old turntables if they're not set up correctly.

Interesting what you say about website photos. Of course the rig is only half the disco, the DJ is the rest. It's weird how these things work though. Some people prefer a minimum of chat on the mic, others more. Over the years I've had criticism for speaking too much or for not speaking enough. That's all covered in the booking form these days, quite a detailed form with lots of info for the prospective customers to digest, trying to find out what style of presentation they might be looking for. You can never please everybody but I am a firm believer in letting the music do the talking. I can ad-lib on the mic as good as the best of them if it's a good crowd. Most people don't seem to care what the DJ is saying. Double-edged swords abound with discos.

Better make a start on those cables!

Cheers Wayne/all.