Tales From The Dancefloor

Latest Episodes:

#015: Olga Heijns - Laidback Luke's Manager shares some of the secrets of her success May 24, 2019

Show notes

Olga Heijns drifted into the music industry just by virtue of going out and getting to know people, at a time when there was no real career path in dance music. Yet even before her current role (which includes managing Laidback Luke), she held positions at Sony Music, SoSoDef and Mushroom Records, forging a unique path for herself.

For the past 17 year, she's been super-successful as the founder and CEO of Mixmash Records, Syndicate The Agency, and Unmanageable Artists. Her career has taken her halfway around the word (she did a stint in Australia), and through many highs and lows, including a public business falling out with Roger Sanchez. She talks frankly about all of this in this revealing and valuable episode of Tales from the Dancefloor.

#014: Paul Dakeyne - My life as a Top 10 producer, remixer, podcaster, photographer... May 17, 2019

Show notes

Paul Dakeyne has been in this business for a third of a century. Cutting his teeth as a DJ and remixer way before Acid House and the Summer Of Love took the UK by storm at the end of the 80s, he went on to score one of the biggest dance hits of the 90s, Tinman's "18 Strings", that just so happened to have been based around Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" guitar riff.

In this episode of Tales From The Dancefloor, Paul talks about his early days having left home to move to London as a remixer, how "that" tune changed his life, and his life since as a podcaster, photographer, DJ tech ambassador, educator... and now full circle back to producing.

Link to the Tinman track on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fPl9xjlYtMk

Link to Paul's Yu2opia project on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-270249528

#013: Judge Jules - Legendary UK/Ibiza DJ - but also A&R man, producer, band leader... oh, and music industry lawyer! May 10, 2019

Show notes

Judge Jules is often mentioned in the same breath as Carl Cox, Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong and many other "first wave" UK DJs. But as well as having had a decades-long career as a DJ and producer, Jules has also always had his eye on a second career - as a music industry lawyer.

In this episode of Tales From The Dancefloor, Jules talks about his early days as an illegal rave promoter and pirate radio DJ, some of the many OTHER roles he's had in the industry (yes, there have been more...), and how he manages to square doing basically two full-time jobs with family life. He also tells us how his current "Judge Jules Live" project is going - touring with a ten-piece band and playing club music live in venues up and down the country.

#012: Dan Bewick: An amazing journey from London rave DJ, to hit music producer, film & TV scoring in LA May 03, 2019

Show notes

Dan Bewick was one half of prolific dance production outfit Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - but before that, he was an illegal rave promoter and DJ in London. Since them, he's gone on to have a successful career scoring films and TV adverts, based out of LA.

Dan's journey has seen him touring the world playing some of the biggest gigs imaginable - but also holding residencies where he honed the DJ craft, enduring the hardships of trying to move permanently from London to LA - and coming into work one Monday morning to face seven lawsuits for a bootleg he'd put out that was blowing up BIG across the dance world.

In this wide-ranging and at times hilarious episode of Tales From The Dancefloor, Dan shares how he's coped with all the ups and downs, how he completely lost the plot in a field in the 90s (which shaped what was to come)... and what it felt like to arrive at work to face all those lawsuits!

#011: Jason Jani - America's leading wedding and event DJ reveals his formula for success - and how he nearly ended up as a pro wrestler Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

Jason Jani is one of America's top wedding and event DJs. He's DJed at celebrity parties galore, including the Superbowl afterparty. When Wedding Wire (the international wedding services directory that has 8,500 DJs on its books) wants a DJ for its own events, Jason is who they book. Through a mixture of club-standard music and mixing, high quality production, social media savvy, and sheer force of personality, Jason has almost singlehandedly dragged the "mobile DJ" stateside into the 21st century.

But for Jason, it wasn't always like this. His journey has taken him through many highs but also several notable lows. In this episode of "Tales From The Dancefloor", he speaks frankly about getting himself through college, the heartbreak of an injury that cut short a promising sporting career... and risking it all on setting up his event DJ company, the SCE Event Group.

It's a must-hear for ambitious wedding and event DJs - not least because he explains his approach to social media, and especially Instagram - something that he admits has been a huge driving force for his business.

#010: Ferry Corsten - Revealing stories from his 25 years as a superstar trance DJ & producer Apr 19, 2019

Show notes

Ferry Corsten is a trance superstar. In the late 90s and early 2000s he produced worldwide hits as System F, Moonman, Pulp Victim and Gouryella, working with Armin van Buuren, Tïesto and many other big names from the Dutch DJ scene. For many people his "Trance Nation" mix albums for Ministry of Sound were a huge touchpoint, but nowadays he plays a broader electronic music style - everything from progressive house to uplifting trance.

As well as hosting his own weekly radio show, Corsten's Countdown, he regularly plays at events and festivals all over the world including Electric Daisy Carnival, Tomorrowland and many others, and has been consistently ranked in DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs poll. Meanwhile Unity project, in which he's collaborated with Paul Oakenfold among others, is a campaign to try to unite the disparate thread of the trance scene.

In this episode, Ferry talks frankly about his decades as a trance DJ and producer, the state of music today, and where he sees it going. He also talks about juggling touring with having a family... and reveals an exciting new direction to his life away from DJing.

Ferry's website: https://www.ferrycorsten.com/

#009: DJ Dan - From student promoter to running one of the biggest nightclub events companies in the UK... Apr 12, 2019

Show notes

When DJ Dan started promoting indie club nights at university, he was doing everything himself (including the DJing), and working as hard as he could to fill one 200-person venue. Now, 17 years later, he sees 25,000 people through the doors of his club nights every weekend in the UK... and he still loves to DJ at his own events.

Nowadays, Dan's organisation, Propaganda, runs events in 17 cities, and has thrown parties all over the world. His work has led him to DJing for Oasis, and he has a Glastonbury residency to boot. And all from someone who took a long time to really feel he was a "proper" DJ at all!

Learn what it's like to be a DJ/promoter who focuses on guitar music rather than dance, how it feels to DJ at an event where members of many of the bands whose records you usually spin are actually on the dancefloor themselves, and what it's like to be in charge of large-scale club nights running simultaneously in cities all over the UK... while still DJing at one of them yourself!

Check out Dan's events at the Propaganda website:

https://www.thepropaganda.com/

#008: Lohan Presencer - Ministry of Sound's Chairman talks about his unique journey through the music industry Apr 05, 2019

Show notes

When he left university, Lohan Presencer didn't want to join the world of work. He didn't really want to grow up and leave the student life at all. So he applied for a job in the very university he'd been studying at, as their entertainment booker.

So started an incredible and unlikely journey that took Lohan through promoting raves on the south coast of England, to plugging (often decidedly average) music in his first job in the record industry... to his current position heading up Ministry of Sound, one of the most famous club brand in the world.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Lohan shares some of his biggest successes, talks about the difference between good DJs and bad ones... and explains why he's now so excited to share with the next generation of music entrepreneurs some of the lessons he learned on his own way to the top.

#007: DJ Rasp - UK-based scratch champion talks touring China and working with an orchestra... Mar 29, 2019

Show notes

Just how do you go from teaching yourself to make mixtapes with a cassette player, to being a two-times DMC UK Supremacy Champion, five-times IDA UK Champion, and Red Bull 3style UK finalist... as well as becoming a world-touring DJ, scratch tutor and competition judge?

Well, in DJ Rasp's case, he did it via a long-term stint as the DJ in a band, and working with a world-famous orchestra! Still DJing several times a week to this day, nowadays Rasp also teaches, not least for us here at Digital DJ Tips, where he produces Skill Session videos and helps out inside our scratch training courses. This conversation gives some deep insight into the scratch world, Rasp shares what it was like to tour China recently... and he reminisces about when mixtapes actually were, you know, tapes...

You can find Rasp online at:

https://www.facebook.com/deejayrasp/

https://www.instagram.com/djrasp/

#006: Adam Dutch - Renowned mashup artist who still finds time to play 150+ gigs a year... Mar 22, 2019

Show notes

Ever wondered what it's like being a world-renowned mashup artist? US-based DJ Adam Dutch knows, having had huge success with a succession of mashups, that tend to be (but aren't always!) in his beloved style, basically where rock and hip hop meet.

I was intrigued as to how he got into it, and what his motivations are - and it turned out that he's much more than just a "mashup guy". A Berklee Music Business MBA graduate, he's established himself as a producer, as a radio DJ, as a podcaster and wedding DJ - and over and above all that, as a working DJing, playing 150+ shows a year to crowds up to 30,000. It's a fascinating and motivating conversation, with a lot about entrepreneurship in it.

You can find Adam online at:

http://adamdutch.com

https://facebook.com/djadamdutch

https://instagram.com/djadamdutch

https://mixcloud.com/djadamdutch

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