[DJing/Setlist] The 80s Night (Substitute Edition), The Bandstand, Whitby, Sun 24th Apr 2022

Last week, due to April's Whitby weekend being a peculiar one (no bands at the Spa, rather fewer folk in town), the main, in-club version of The 80s Night was postponed to October.

However, I pre-recorded a three-hour set, so that those who weren't coming to Whitby could join in, and those in Whitby could listen wherever they ended up being. As it turned out, many of them came to one large holiday apartment - with the furniture pushed back, the living room was almost as large a dancefloor as we'd had at some venues. The music was streamed through a phone to a battery-powered speaker, and after the sun went down, we briefly relocated to the bandstand by the pier for a some outdoor dancing (including an impromptu unscheduled Locomotion conga and Nellie, both inserted into the set by our designated speaker-minder), confusing the cruising youth on their endless circuit around town, before returning indoors for shelter from the wind - it did make me regret including some of the slower tracks.

If you want to stream or download the set, you can do so from here.

( The setlist )

[DJing/Setlist] Vix's Birthday, Vout-O-Reenee's, London, Fri 29th Apr 2022

Last night I ventured to a private club in a crypt beneath a functioning Roman Catholic church to DJ a birthday party among surreal surroundings, assisting DJ Skintight SJ (who you may see DJing at any of a wide number of events around London). We split the night between us, doing a couple of sets each through the night, and playing music from 7pm to just before 2am as guests arrived, chatted, danced, ate (rather good) cake, drank cocktails, and danced. The surroundings are uniquely (and surreally) decorated, and the club has its own art gallery.

Vix had provided a short list of requests (and an even shorter list of songs to avoid), along with some stars to steer our ship by. This may have influenced the inclusion of a few tracks that I've not played before (or owned before Thursday). They seemed to go down well, but I'll leave identifying which they were as an exercise to the reader, as well as the name of the online club which I suspect prompted several of those requests. (And, to prove that it wasn't The 80s Night, I even played at least one request by one of the guests.)

( Here are the sets we played... )

(One advantage of the demise of my previous car and its replacement by something rather newer and more efficient - being able to DJ events in London without the added expense of the ULEZ.)