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 events.
Beyond the DJ Booth
Immigrant Ingenuity and DJ Dilemmas: Navigating Long Toasts
Handshakes, heritage stories, and handling awkward reception moments take center stage as Joe Bunn and Brian B share valuable insights for DJs navigating the professional and personal side of event entertainment.
The conversation kicks off with a discussion about making strong first impressions. Joe shares his father's wisdom about proper handshakes—never the dreaded "dead fish"—and the importance of introducing yourself with both first and last names in professional settings. This segues naturally into when DJs should use their stage names versus their legal names depending on the context and audience.
The hosts then dive into nostalgic territory, sharing stories about paper routes and work ethic from their younger days. Brian reveals a fascinating tidbit about his Italian immigrant grandfather who, unable to afford an alarm clock, had a friend wake him for his paper route by pulling a string tied to his toe from outside the building. These stories of determination and resourcefulness connect beautifully to the perseverance required in professional DJ careers.
Perhaps most valuable is their candid discussion about handling difficult situations at events, specifically addressing the delicate matter of overly long wedding toasts. When a father of the bride launches into a 30-minute (or even hour-long) speech while dinner gets cold and the dance floor sits empty, what's the ethical approach? The hosts provide practical strategies for managing timing while respecting family dynamics, including getting advance permission to intervene and tactful ways to conclude speeches without embarrassment.
Between personal anecdotes and practical advice, Joe and Brian also cover equipment maintenance tips, sharing specific products for properly cleaning screens and electronics without damaging expensive gear. Their recommendations could save DJs hundreds or thousands in preventable equipment damage.
Have you faced similar challenges at your events? Connect with us online and share your own approaches to handling these delicate situations. And don't forget to subscribe for more insider tips and entertaining stories from behind the DJ booth!
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, and welcome back to another episode of Beyond the DJ Booth. I'm Joe Bunn, brian B. What's up, dude? What's up, dude? How you feeling? How you feeling you? Alright, then you alright then you alright, then how are you, man?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:When you introduce yourself. One of my dad's big things was when you introduce yourself and you shake number one, shake their hand, and not that dead fish shit. Somebody gave me a dead fish the other day. I hate it. I remember who it was. Don't say it. Don't say it, don't say it. He dead fished me, but a proper handshake. And then you always say your last name, so I and then, um, you always say your last name, so I always say hey, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:I'm joe bunn yeah, do you say I'm brian b or do you say I'm brian? Bonus depends on, like brian depends on the on the audience I feel like it's djs you can do that because you have two it's only one syllable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two syllables.
Speaker 2:Joe bunn, you wouldn't pull a brian bonus cc if it's a formal setting, I'm going to see a CEO of some major corporation who's going to spend a lot of money on me or whatever. I would do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what about a high-end wedding planner?
Speaker 2:No, because it's kind of in the DJ world. So the only time I ever say Brian B is in the DJ space, just because what about an American born Italian?
Speaker 1:Is that an Italian name?
Speaker 2:Maybe Is that an Italian name? Maybe, maybe, maybe, jesus.
Speaker 1:Speaking of, I just had to go through and delete all of my data out of 23andMe because they went bankrupt. Did you see this, 23andMe? I don't even know what. That is the genetic thing where you send in your where you swab yourself and send it in.
Speaker 2:I did do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they went bankrupt, so now your data is corrupted.
Speaker 2:You need to Google how to like wow, your stuff, okay, Cause they're going to sell it. They're going to sell it?
Speaker 1:How did you delete? It you have to go in the settings and like, like, tell them to burn it and like, delete all your data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this just happened, yeah.
Speaker 1:It just reminded me of that when you said like cause I was like. You know, I wanted like a european, like hodgepodge of irish and english, just yeah, anybody with no top lip, like all those countries you want to tell you a funny story, though this is.
Speaker 2:This is pretty good kind of ties in. So my grandfather is actually first generation italian that was born in america basically actually no, he was born in italy. They brought him over okay right, he was one of nine kids, so they didn't have a lot of money. I mean, they were immigrants, right, so like they were, came here just trying to make a life, the whole family, the whole family came over All nine, all nine Plus the parents, and he was number nine, oh wow.
Speaker 2:So what was crazy was he had to do work, he had to work as a kid and back then they a paper route. Did you ever do a paper?
Speaker 1:route. Yeah, I did a paper route, okay, but I think I made my mom carry me and just whipped him out the back window and out of a viewing.
Speaker 2:I mean I did both, I did one, I did the bike and the car. Yeah, and the car. I always hated the sunday ones, right, because those sundays ones were full all the ads 3 000 pounds and then you get those people who are like, hey, can you porch it?
Speaker 1:and you'd have to like you know, out of the car.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, I would throw, throw it as hard as I could at that door and be like you want your porch to paper. Here it is Smash the door.
Speaker 2:But my grandfather did a paper route as a kid, okay, and he couldn't afford an alarm clock, and where he was was on the second or third floor of the house. So what he did was he pushed his bed towards the window, okay, and he tied a string around his big toe Is this made up Totally? And he tied a string around his big toe Is this made up Totally serious? Okay, and it went down to the literally as long as it would go to the ground outside, okay, and so his buddy, who was a little bit better off, had an alarm clock. Once he would wake up, he would wake up my grandfather by pulling his toe.
Speaker 2:Stop it bro, that was how he woke up to go do the paper route in the morning.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's crazy ingenuity, right like back then, that is a great story. If it's true that's a great immigrant story, I love it. This is in new york.
Speaker 2:This was in, uh, california somewhere. Yeah, that's wild, is that crazy. I was like I would never have thought of that.
Speaker 1:But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do you gotta do what you gotta do right paper route wow the thing about the paper route too is you don't get days off.
Speaker 2:The news comes every day.
Speaker 2:That's a great point you know yeah and so, and it's raining some days yeah we did do that, I think we lived in colorado for a little while and, uh, my dad, we did this part-time, yeah, and but we would do the mornings, yeah, because they also had the afternoon papers that you could do. Remember that they used to do an afternoon cycle of papers and then they had the mornings yeah so the mornings sometimes the news would take a while because they were like last minute stories yeah printing would take longer, sure.
Speaker 2:So we're sitting there, like you know, 4, 30, 5 o'clock in the morning. We gotta be out of there by 5 30, but they haven't brought the papers in because they're still printing it printing at that point. Yeah, the machine, yeah and then they bring it and you gotta, you got your own little cubicle and you're folding them all putting the rubber band.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the rain, I forgot about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or in Colorado it snowed yeah, so you always had to bag it.
Speaker 1:I'm like I hate the bags, yeah, oh, dude.
Speaker 2:And now kids don't have no idea what this is.
Speaker 1:No concept of even the paper. Right Isn't that crazy.
Speaker 2:Wow, yes, interrupting yet another stellar podcast episode. But don't worry, this is a value add, not just me rambling. Have you enjoyed the music finds I share on here? You know the ones that Joe pretends he discovered first. Well, if you didn't know, I've got a Patreon where you can grab not only song lists but also exclusive edits of mine Yep, custom tracks. That'll set you apart from every DJ still rinsing the same tired wedding set. Want fresh music suggestions every month? Go to patreoncom forward. Slash DJ Brian B official. Again, that's patreoncom forward. Slash DJ Brian B official. You'll be the DJ. Everyone's trying to figure out how you keep your sets so fire and planners will start nudging their couples your way. And if that's not a hard enough sell, I don't know what is All right. Back to the episode before. Joe tries to convince us that sweet Caroline is actually a banger. So I got a gear segment for you. Okay. So I get asked us a lot about cleaning our equipment and I think I shared that pink stuff with you before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the pink stuff is gold. By the way, the pink stuff is in Publix and Harris Teeter and stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh it is, you don't have to get it at Amazon necessarily.
Speaker 1:I did see it in the grocery store the other day.
Speaker 2:Okay, the other question I get now is with Macs, with computers, what do you use to wipe your screen?
Speaker 1:And then the juice, if you will, the spray. At one point it was called apple juice and I guess they got sued.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I don't know exactly what it's called now I could probably go get it. But if you probably still Google apple juice and it was a little spray bottle, kind of like you clean your glasses with, and I would just hit the rag again a microfiber a couple of times and then wipe down the screen of microfiber a couple times and then wipe down the screen.
Speaker 2:What are you doing now? You're still doing that apple juice. This is actually, I gotta shout out, drew pierce. This is his recommendation, so this is called miracle wipes or electronics for electronics. That's the clutch move. You don't get the. They have some general stuff that juice does have a little bit, but it just is a pop-off and then it's got like the little white. Yeah, would have a mini wipe.
Speaker 1:Speaking of Saquon, did we ever clean this screen up here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, feel free.
Speaker 1:We might, because at some point Saquon does a lot of recording here at night.
Speaker 2:It was a late night.
Speaker 1:They make records and I was like I don't know if somebody got super excited about this screen and thought it was like a giant touchscreen. But, I walked in one morning. It was like a child had had their hands all over it.
Speaker 2:Wow, I was like bro, what happened in here last night?
Speaker 1:I think somebody thought it was a touchscreen and I just they got too excited about the beat I was making or something, and we're trying to fix it or point to something, and you know when it's all blacked out right, and you just see every fingerprint so these are going to come in handy for this, let's say, 9.99 16 bucks yeah, 16 bucks 15.97.
Speaker 2:But this lasts you all season. Yeah, so I I don't travel with this I just take have one in different spots, right and um but wait, the juice would dry out if you pulled one out, though oh yeah, if you kept it out, yeah, but like I mean, they're all juiced up a little bit, right, and this lasts me, you know, a couple months, right, I think it's important, though, because, oh, I've tried do you use windex? No dude I ruined.
Speaker 1:I ruined a giant tv. I didn't do it. A housekeeper, somebody came in and sprayed something, some chemical a harsh chemical on my tv ruined it right. I had to take it off the wall like not salvageable yeah. So be very careful. These are good things, shout out. Drew pierce for miracle wipes for electronics get them, they're great okay, I love it.
Speaker 1:To the question. Okay, let's hit one. Oh, your boy, justin the dj. Justin the dj down in dallas, texas, shout out la force entertainment. How do you deal with a father of the bride who gives a super long toast? Bride is looking at you giving the cutoff sign. Do you just cut off his mic? Seems kind of rude and might cause problems. This is tough dude. This is like an am I the asshole question. Totally. This just happened to Randy An hour, oh, an hour.
Speaker 2:One hour.
Speaker 1:Wow, he was texting me during it going yo, your boy just went. 30 then he. Then he texted me again 45, then he texted me again one hour. Food hadn't come out. Catering's just back there with did he have a script.
Speaker 2:What is he off the dome?
Speaker 1:it was nuts. Randy said it had musical drops no, it was crazy full-on script. Yeah, wow, not off the dome. Yeah, and like what did he do? He said that he even saw the planner walk over to the bride and kind of whisper something and she basically shoot her away. Like how dare you try and cut off my dad?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, if he's paying for it, I mean he may or may not have.
Speaker 1:But what are you doing in this?
Speaker 2:I do try to get a sense of, like, who the toasters are. And when I arrive, like before we start the reception like this is when people are walking in Sure I go, hey, who are the toasters I need to be aware of? Nowadays I actually get the photo ahead of time. Okay, so I know who to look for. I don't even it anymore. And I go up to him and I say, hey, how long is your toast? Let's talk about, like mic etiquette, different things like that I'm gonna repeat to him later, but I want to get a sense of how long is this thing?
Speaker 2:that's a good, that's a good thing. A lot of people would be like oh yeah, it's the worst and I say it to him again because they'll never remember it. You have to say it to him literally when you hand them the mic.
Speaker 2:I do that and they still hold it down right, they do, they do yeah and then I also asked this in my planning call too with the client of like hey, if your dad's speaking, how does he normally talk at events? Or if he's done events, if he's a public speaker. I try to find out all that information as much as I can.
Speaker 2:I actually have used an example like this. I'm like, let's just say he goes long. How do you want me to handle that? Is he funny? Could I play Oscar walk-off music and it would go over, or do you think that would be rude? So I kind of ask these questions in the planning call so that that way, if I've ever presented with this like day of and I didn't see it coming, I can kind of figure it out If I didn't ask that question. I just was presented with this. I'm letting them talk, dude.
Speaker 1:I'm not cutting them off.
Speaker 2:I had one time where a bride goes my grandfather he may go along and his opening line was well, I was born in 1949, on a Tuesday, and I'm like we're starting with when you were born, like we got to go all the way through the generations and about 30, 40 minutes in they're like you can cut them. I'm like I'm not cutting them off. This is a grandfather. There's no way.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You can go up to him and get the mic.
Speaker 1:I am not touching it. There's absolutely to answer the question. I'm with you, man. There's no way to cut somebody off properly unless you've gotten that permission in advance, and the only way that I would do is do some sort of oscar walk.
Speaker 1:I actually have a playlist with that yeah, oscar, walk off music, just like they do in the oscars when they play off and they don't care if you're jack nicholson or leonardo dicaprio, like they'll play you off and then just kind of almost like, fade out the mic or either take your second mic and be like let's give Bob, the father of the bride, a round of applause. That's a great other call.
Speaker 2:If I see a lull where I can insert that, I will, yeah, Like great job. I mean, yeah, be careful, because I mean if he's like only halfway into his speech and you're greeting it, you don't want to do that because then you look like a douchebag, but if you can, if you see, it's kind of like he's kind of just doing off the dome and it's nice way to get him out of the situation he's stumbling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know the other thing I try to do, too, is I try to encourage people to do these toasts early, because I had an event where I was just telling Saquon this, we have 30 minutes and we still gotta do a toast something in five minutes. This thing went 25 minutes and it's a hard cut off. You can't go a minute after this. So you never even got to dancing. I played one dance song, that was it. That's never happened in my career. This was like 10 years ago yeah, but that's embarrassing.
Speaker 1:I'm like you just hired me yeah, and I basically set up gear for the toast.
Speaker 2:And played dinner music and played dinner music. Wow, and that was like ever since then. That's when I started approaching these differently. Yeah, and the bride actually, she understood, she's like, I get it. You know he went long and it was her dad and you know we didn't get to dance.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing, man, a proper toast, or like a resolution. He didn't say raise a glass, right he just stopped talking and like I'm looking across the room at it, you know cause, I had given him the mic and then I I literally had to go like, are you done? Like I actually verbally said out loud are you done? And he goes, yeah, or whatever, and I walked over and grabbed the mic.
Speaker 2:And cause mic the mic. The toast mic is the mc mic. But what happens if that goes bad or something happens, I don't know, just random stops working, cuts out, you don't even have a wired backup I have a wired backup.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, 100, plug in.
Speaker 1:No, but I'm, I'm usually like behind the booth okay controlling the volume so let's say that all the way over there, where saquon is, is the dj booth and then you're the toaster and I'm the DJ slash MC Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ladies and gentlemen, father of the Bride, brian B, I hand you the mic and I just kind of step out of the frame. So I'm standing beside the guy, but for whatever reason, I think I was across from him and he just stopped talking all of a sudden and I was like yeah, I'm done.
Speaker 1:I was like okay, and then I run over there and get the mic and blah, blah, blah. And then my other point was I think that there is a weird thing in your brain, or like it's genetic disposition, to like some people have no self-awareness, like most people I know that get up there to give a toast, especially if it's after dinner, they go. I realize I'm the only thing between y'all and the dance floor so I'm going to rip through this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:We hear that every weekend those people get it. These people that are pontificating if that's even a word, are going on and on, are really, at that point, making it about themselves. Yeah, you can tell. I cannot imagine doing that at somebody's wedding.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Even if it was my own daughter, I mean, I still think in five minutes, if I had a daughter, 10 tops I could say everything I wanted to say about her Right and her new husband or bride or whatever you want, under 10 minutes Right, and still be meaningful and poignant and emotional. And I'm out and we're on to Brian B ripping up the dance floor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I may be wrong but, one day that will come, when my sons get married. You know, I guess I may do a toast, you'll definitely do it at the rehearsal dinner.
Speaker 2:That's on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the rehearsal dinner is different, man. I feel like you can do.
Speaker 2:There's no rules that's why I try to push as many people towards that, as absolutely can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I've I've been at a rehearsal dinner before and and enough people got up to where I was like, oh shit, man, like all the wedding party got up and I'm in this and I'm. I had not planned on speaking, but I I gotta rip something here and I'll just come up with a story off the top of the dome and again I'm five minutes. I get a laugh, ha.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:At my sister's wedding. I had something prepared. I got a couple of chuckles, a couple of emotional moments. I'm out. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, want to make more money at every event. Meet S-Start, the ultimate event platform built by a DJ for DJs, with apps like photo sharing, real-time slideshows, song requests and even seating charts. S-start helps you create a better guest experience and upsell your clients with ease. Everything simple to set up, fun to use and designed to boost your bookings and your bottom line. Join their membership to unlock the best pricing and start stacking value at every gig. Go to S-Startcom right now and book your free demo. You do the outro.
Speaker 2:Well, we got to thank our sponsor. Okay, dj event planner shout out. So if you're looking for a crm, check them out dj event plannercom. We also want to thank s-start for sponsoring this podcast yeah and with that we'll see you guys on the next episode. Check us out every wednesday. See you, see you, thank you.
