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Beyond the DJ Booth
Brian B and Joe Bunn tackle questions about the private event DJ industry, share music, gear/gadgets, and stories from their gigs.
Beyond the DJ Booth
Ep. 11: Chili Mix-Ups and Wedding Hits: DJ Adventures from Cincinnati to Raleigh
Join us as we share the comical saga of Joe's initial botched attempt at cooking Skyline Chili, thanks to a listener's care package. Hilarity ensues as we recount the culinary rescue mission by locals Brian and Fuse, leading to my eventual taste of authentic Cincinnati chili. Our culinary adventures segue into a lively recount of a memorable wedding gig at the Angus Farm Pavilion in Raleigh, where the venue's unique charm and an unforgettable menu featuring filet mignon and chicken stole the spotlight. Expect a hearty blend of laughter, personal stories, and a sprinkle of our listeners' food suggestions from across the regions.
On a more serious note, we dive into the trials and triumphs of managing a team of DJs. We discuss the critical importance of setting clear expectations and the necessity for versatility among our DJs. With a dash of humor, we tackle the red flags of DJ compatibility and share strategies for navigating potential challenges, like DJs insisting on specific names or struggling to adapt. Wrapping up the episode, we invite you to explore the first 10 episodes of our podcast for your next road trip adventure and catch us on Joe Bunn's YouTube channel for even more behind-the-scenes camaraderie. Join us for a mix of humor, insight, and engaging stories that promise both entertainment and enlightenment!
RESOURCES & LINKS
Our website. Please leave a review! - https://www.beyondthedjbooth.com/
To book Joe Bunn: https://bunndjcompany.com/
To book Brian B: https://djbrianbofficial.com/
Joe’s Gear Finds on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/djjoebunn
Brian’s Gear Finds on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/djbrianbofficial
DJ Event Planner free demo: https://www.djeventplanner.com/signup.php
Brian B's Coaching Options: Https://www.thdjscreativeedge.com
what's up everybody? Welcome back to beyond the doth Podcast. If it's your first time joining us, welcome, welcome. Welcome. My name is Joe Bunn, brian B. That's Brian B, and so we are private event DJs ourselves. That's what this podcast kind of focuses around. We talk a little bit about music, we talk about stories from previous weekends, shows, gear. What else do we talk about? All?
Speaker 2:kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what we do here. So welcome to Beyond the DJ Booth podcast. Let's get into it. Man, it's been a while since we recorded Full transparency. We do kind of batch record these. We try and do about three at a time.
Speaker 2:So we're recording this mid-November, probably come out December, so let's do a callback. Okay, episode one, I believe when I just like at the tail end mentioned skyline chili.
Speaker 1:No, I said I'm going to Cincinnati, right and you go, they got good chili and I was like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:yeah, and I just it was like literally the last five seconds of the episode yeah but what's amazing is one of our listeners, jk yeah, who lives there? Yeah, he does heard me say this about the chili. And you get home, send me a care package. You get a care package. He sends me this text with this at his door, saying dude, look what jk just sent me. Right, it's like a gift bag.
Speaker 1:I don't know, did you just get hype and like I'm cooking this tonight because I feel like, yeah, man, because I think I was solo and I was like it was getting a little cool, a little fall, brisk air and I was like, man, chili sounds good.
Speaker 2:So then this dude cooks up a batch of chili, sends me this sorry ass picture let's show it real quick and gives me the comment crushed it and me having known about skyline chili, I'm like what is this sorry sack of, whatever you want to call that? So uh, then you sent that to me and jk, that's right, he actually wrote back and sent us this picture of like what it's really supposed to look like which is this right, right, right, right.
Speaker 2:This is the way they serve it at scala go to the next picture, like side by side comparison here. Like you tell me, right, did this guy crush it or no? That that is no crush, right no? So then somehow to your point, another Cincinnatian. Fuse, fuse, fuse gets dragged into it. He hears the episode or whatever, and sends us a picture with him and his lady saying that you know that they're there.
Speaker 2:I send him this picture. What does he say? He's like dude, we are dying over here. He's like dude, we are dying over here.
Speaker 1:He's laughing at me Now. I've been ostracized by multiple people from Cincinnati. So then you make your way to Cincinnati, I go. Our friend JK, jonathan Klein, is having like a rebranding party. I hang out with Fuse, I hang out with JK and during the daytime before the party, fuse is like let's go to Skylineline, like let's make up for this atrocity, so show this picture.
Speaker 2:This is what it ends up being yes, the picture yes, you send this to me. I'm like finally, you finally get a proper cincy chili, is it all that? Was it completely different?
Speaker 1:I'm not yeah, I failed horribly, to be fair. I was texting jk and he wasn't answering about how do I prepare this, so I didn't know about the noodles, the copious amounts of cheese and shit on top. Then also they have a hot dog like the equal amounts of chili and cheese on top.
Speaker 2:Did you try all of that.
Speaker 1:I did, yeah, and I don't even like hot dogs. Glizzies, I don't even like glizzies. Do you like hot dogs?
Speaker 2:No yeah.
Speaker 1:Me neither, yeah me neither. Not really a dog fan, yeah, I don't know, but this was like proper, so and that's how you had to order it. Like fuse was like no, you have to get both, both, yeah, okay, yeah okay, anyway, you gotta go back shout out jk for sending us this unasked.
Speaker 2:I mean this is yeah, super kind, super kind but if anyone wants to send us any other products, food services any kinds, of anything from your region we'll be glad to try it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't send like nasty stuff though, like fried roaches or some shit from like wherever they're they're big so you had a gig this last weekend?
Speaker 2:tell me. Yeah, I was off you were off.
Speaker 1:I was huge wedding for me 300 people that's rare in raleigh, right it's rare, for yes, it is rare in Raleigh. We're good for like 150, huge wedding Angus Farm Pavilion here in Raleigh.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's where the restaurant is.
Speaker 1:No, behind it they have a pavilion down there just for weddings.
Speaker 2:No clear tent please.
Speaker 1:No, clear tent? Absolutely not. The pavilion is built like super cool I. The pavilion is built like super cool, I need to take you down there. Super cool Like the floor is the old cobblestone road from downtown. Like all the beams are some kind of timber from somewhere in North Carolina. Like it is gorgeous.
Speaker 2:Good meal right, Great food. We had great food. Shout out to Angus Bar. It was awesome. What did we have?
Speaker 1:We had a little bit of quail.
Speaker 2:Quail.
Speaker 1:That's not true. It's not true. It's not true.
Speaker 2:Whenever they give us those little chicken breasts.
Speaker 1:Small chickens, man, it was not quail, but we did have a filet mignon and a chicken breast and, like all-gratin potatoes, fresh stream beans, good-ass food.
Speaker 1:So this is one of those ones where you're like, if they offer you the meal're taking, I'm eating it 100% At the Angus Barn, yes, but, dude, then it turns out I, somebody, before everybody walks in like yo, these are your people. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're like these are Wilson people. And then all of a sudden people start showing up and I'm like, oh shit, like some of my old, like high school friends, wow, oh gee, wilson people. So this, this was the hold on. Let me think of who.
Speaker 1:Don't say grandkid, no, no, no, no, this would have been. My friend's niece Got it, so she had an older brother. So they were a young couple, 25, 26. And majority people from Wilson no, it was the groom's side was majority from Raleigh, that seemed like the majority of the crowd and then a smaller crowd from Wilson. But it was so good to see some of these people, like just people I don't ever get to see. Really, one girl I had literally not seen since 1990 when I graduated from high school.
Speaker 2:Do you get nervous with, like that big guest count or do you? Feel like I can't really do any wrong because there's so many people, you really can't screw up.
Speaker 1:Well, me and you always talk about that law of numbers, right, Like if you have to do we were talking about micro weddings last night on a different thing, and we're like if you have 30 people and 10 leave, you're already in a deficit With 300, I do like that fact right. Even if only half dance, you still got a pack dance floor. I definitely got nervous. I think I got nervous because of the Wilson factor. When was the last time those people even saw me play? You know what I mean? And I got nervous because it was a huge crowd and we had a ton of gear.
Speaker 1:We had to run a lot of stuff, wireless, which I never liked to do but it wasn't something we could run a bunch of XLR, because we were kind of on an outdoor patio and then beyond that was the giant dining room, so we had to have three E-verse in there just to cover that. It's just scary. I thought it went great, though they were super happy.
Speaker 2:Moment. Song of the night. Anything stand out.
Speaker 1:I don't remember anything really over the top standing out. What I told her during dinner I just went and checked in like I always do. What I loved about it was they had a huge wedding party as you can imagine. Just them Like just the introduction of the bride and groom, and I love that now.
Speaker 1:Straight into the first dance 90 seconds choreographed straight into her dance with her dad One minute she told me to play, and then him and his mom again choreographed, maybe 90 seconds as well. Welcome by the father of the bride. Boom right into seated dinner so they didn't eat up a bunch of time. You know what I mean? I really like the way they did that. I don't remember one song that really went crazy, though, but you were off, I was off, you were just doing the kid things.
Speaker 2:So I thought I had for once no birthday kids party, nothing. I'm thinking this is first weekend off in a long time when I've got nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the neighbor comes over and says, hey, the trees. Yeah, the neighbor comes over and says, hey, um, trees are looking a little like they're coming over on, you know, both of our sides. Um, you know, I've got a chainsaw if you ever want to borrow it, in a sense just kind of like floating. Like hey, get on it and start doing it. So, yeah, it's no big deal. Like this is no big deal. Like all right, I'll do this, if you know me.
Speaker 1:Manual labor is not really my forte, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah I go in there and thinking it's going to be a half hour project.
Speaker 1:No, dude Burned a half a day.
Speaker 2:More Like it's a massive project, because you got to basically cut these trees down, these limbs, which are not small, these are massive. And then you got to cut those down even more to move them, because you got to move them.
Speaker 1:They're too heavy.
Speaker 2:They're too heavy trees possibly, you don't know. Yeah, that took up pretty much the entire day and I'm like yeah, so much for a day. Who dragged them off like I mean, I didn't know, but how well I cut them down enough where, like a whole section of a tree, I cut it like five or six but would you put it in and then take it to the dump? No, I just grabbed it and it's like a preserve, so you can just kind of throw it out there and then eventually but you don't want to put it in one big pile right, right right
Speaker 1:spread it out so this whole section of our backyard was burned.
Speaker 2:His day it was toast wow, I can't wait to get back to the gig life which is this weekend.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about this question now, this was anonymous.
Speaker 2:So, uh, we have a dear abby sign off here. You want to read it?
Speaker 1:yeah, too many of my brand new djs coming out of training, having never done an event on their own, are saying things like do not book me on an event unless the client wants insert genres here because that's the DJ's taste. It's frustrating because while they're making this demand, they're also saying I can't pay my bills. How would you guys handle this? Signed the flustered boss of the fussy freshmen. Did you make that up? I did Like I can feel myself getting hot right now just thinking about this.
Speaker 1:I'm going to let you speak on it first, because I may go crazy.
Speaker 2:I don't train this way anymore. Like all the people we bring on are established.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know what I mean, I agree.
Speaker 2:I don't really have that kind of attitude from any of the people we bring on.
Speaker 1:Well, just take yourself out of it and look at it as if this did happen to you?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't, because I would set the expectations in the front end Like listen, as you're starting, you can't be picky and choosy. This is going to be cutting your teeth, and what this does, though, is prepare you for any type of event you eventually get on, that you won't get flustered, because you're going to have the experience to deal with just about any kind of genre, and you want that experience.
Speaker 2:You're basically cutting off a significant amount of events, probably from your gig list Because I mean, if I walked into an event, the ones that actually like the stuff I like, those are like one in every 50, maybe.
Speaker 1:Now that I've heard you say it, I think I would have nipped this in the bud at the beginning. I would have snipped out this person in the interview process, especially if they were coming out of the club life or they were saying, like you know, I only want to do this type of event. I would have just said right off the bat, man, you're not going to work out here. Like, we play every type of music, every type of event. It is truly open format.
Speaker 1:There are going to be some events where you might play six line dances you know what I mean In a two hour dance set. There might be weddings where you play a ton of country, you know. There might be weddings where you play a lot of hip hop and you might not like hip hop. Like, if you want to be a private event DJ especially in the age of Serato, virtual DJ, whatever you truly have to be able to play everything. You might not like everything, but you're going to like it, you're going to fucking play it. You know what I mean. Like I can't even imagine being a DJ or a private event DJ at least, let me just specify that and going to your boss, man, I only want to do stuff that's, you know, 90% hip hop or whatever. Or I only want to do these kinds of couples that only like EDM or house music, like you're never going to work. You're never going to work for me and I have a feeling for most multi-op DJ company company owners.
Speaker 2:They're going to tell them the same thing so to your point of sniffing this out early. You know what a good tell is what or at least this was for me. One of our guys who interviewed was like I want to be known as dj wizard and I'm like, bro, that's not gonna work here. He's like, well, that's what I go by. I'm like, yeah, a bride doesn't want you to be dj wizard, no like you gotta be first name, last name that's how we roll here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you want to go last initial I'm cool with it. I was about to say you shorten it up, yeah but not dj wizard absolutely it's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:No, literally that was a stumbling block for him and he quit.
Speaker 1:If that's the hang up, I just got myself out of a huge headache, absolutely you dodged a huge bullet and all he had to say is be like well, okay, when I play at the clubs or the bars in destin, florida, florida, can I be on the Flyers? Dj Wizard, knock yourself out, but you're not going to go to the Four Seasons and do a wedding for Cindy and Bob Smith. You know that. Just spent $250,000 and call yourself DJ freaking Wizard.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine on the first initial announcement Welcome everybody, I'm DJ Wizard, like that, just hey quick question Do you ever say your name at a wedding?
Speaker 1:yeah, like where, where? Where would you insert that initial bit?
Speaker 2:and I don't actually always do it. Now, like now, it's kind of been cut down. I used to get out there in the middle of the dance floor yeah like give a welcome yeah and I feel like now it's not as needed, because that welcome. I just say it from the booth now it's become so shortened but it could go either way.
Speaker 2:It could go either way I'll say it just out of I don't know, just it felt right at the moment I think actually where I tend to notice myself saying it is the smaller guest counts, like if we're in like 40, 50 people, which is super intimate, they're gonna get to know me anyways really quickly. The larger ones 150, 200 people I don't feel it's as necessary that's interesting what about you? I don't think. I hardly ever say my name, and now my name's on my laptop Right. Mine is too, so I don't really have people.
Speaker 1:I still have a lot of people come up and ask for cards. We still get a lot of that. I don't really put them out, but I mean they're right there in my bag behind me. I was just kind of curious about that no-transcript. Or get your card or, you know, scan your Instagram or whatever they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back to Flustered Boss. Yeah, let's say it's too late. You didn't sniff this out.
Speaker 1:What do you do at shows that they they're just fall off the roster. You know, you just basically weed them out that way or just straight up fire them. I'd be like man, this ain't gonna work out. I don't know of any other way to help this guy other than to just stop booking them and they're gonna quit, or just tell them you can't work here if they have that kind of attitude, they're already barking up the wrong tree. They ain't gonna work here, and they really shouldn't be working for flustered boss either.
Speaker 2:We had a younger DJ, just an age, and loved a lot of the remixes and the blends. Yeah, and he was notorious for trying to push the envelope and playing that at these events where, like, they just wanted to hear the original.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had kind of had just have a conversation like it's okay to like push it here and there but not the entire.
Speaker 1:No seasoning, little seasoning.
Speaker 2:Having that conversation with him actually made him a better DJ. Of course, because he was able to like adjust and he still wanted to do it. He hadn't gotten to this level of got to have it my way or the highway, and that can work. And, who knows, maybe this person has a little bit of teachability, who knows?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think that's why I love our system of booking DJs so much. I make the DJ that is potentially going to do the show meet with this couple and that way there's some onus on the couple because they're truly picking the DJ Right. I've had people come back and go like Brian was awesome, nice guy, but I don't think he's right for us. Who else do you have? I got you know Steve, or I got Randy or whatever, and I was telling you before we went on air I haven't given a refund in years.
Speaker 1:but I had to give back money because somehow the wrong DJ got matched with the wrong couple To your point. How come the couple didn't sniff it out? It's a great question, you know. They definitely had the consultation. I think, to be honest with you, he oversold himself as a Jason Janai party rocker, new Jersey, fist pumper, bottle girl signs type DJ. And he wasn't Great DJ, great guy. And she said all that Great guy, great customer service, great DJ. Just missed the mark completely for what we were looking for.
Speaker 1:I had to give money back, and that's the first time in a long time.
Speaker 1:And I had to have a talk with him. I was like, hey, man, listen, nothing for nothing. But you probably could have caught this in that initial consultation. I think you probably told him you're somebody, you're not. You know what I mean. And if they started mentioning all these things, I would have said hold up a second. I don't think I'm the guy I'm the first person to walk away from whatever. If I got a call and it was like hey, we've got to have you. We heard you're the best.
Speaker 1:And I go halfway through the call and they go. By the way, it's a mitzvah, absolutely great at kid music. I'm not going to do games, I'm not hyper interactive, I'm just not going to do it. That's when you call in Jamie Perez. That's when you call him Perez, shout out.
Speaker 2:Jamie Perez.
Speaker 1:Oh man, good stuff, dude, let's wrap this one.
Speaker 2:Where can they find us?
Speaker 1:Beyondthedjboothcom is our website. We would love for you to leave a review. Tell us what you think about these. First, I don't know 10 episodes or so. If you haven't listened to them all, go back binge listen on your next road trip. But we appreciate you guys listening. Uh, and again, if you're listening to this on whatever podcast, you can also watch it on joe bunn, my youtube channel. So go check it out if you want to see how handsome brian is. All right, thanks y'all. Later Bye.