www.loopzorbital.com

Thought rather than start a new thread i would change the title of the old one i started about meeting up before fabric on the 3rd...hope this is ok folks?

Hey guys! Yes it was great to see Phil, it was like a mini Orbital gig, especially with him pointing at us whenever he played Orbital tunes, and all of us grinning & waving back. lol

Watched Infusion from the back with Dogs, Nick, Dave Mac, Johnny Embryo & his mate. Sorry to disappear quite early tho, I wasn't feeling too good either during Infusion, which I enjoyed tho.
So I left with Dogs & Nick and paid a cabbie ridiculous money to take me home

Phil has been DJing out for a little while now and on the two seperate occasions that I saw him, he definitely showed improvement in his technical ability. However it would be interesting to here from the crowd that went on Friday what they thought of his Djing ability in comparison to others playing that night (not Lol Hammond!!!) - i am getting mixed messages from the posts already made.

Obviously I love it when Phil plays Orbital tunes, but I wonder whether he is using these to mask a deficiency in his overall Djing ability? Does he really have any medium term propects as a serious Dj, or will eventually the novelty wear off for promotors (and fellow DJs on the bill) and the number of bookings he gets reduce? Thoughts please???

although i enjoyed it from my little bubble of bliss, someone else commented about his saturday set (nottingham): "great tunes, no flow". i didn't notice any trainwrecks so i'm guessing he meant either the order of the tunes, or how they were mixed together, rather than the beatmatching which has been complained about enough before.

i guess the answer is that he's improved, but time will tell if he continues improving to greatness or stays reasonable... no complaints about his choice of tunes tho...

Well, I though he was the biz. But then, I'm a dance slut. Plus - It's not all about technical mixing skills surely? Bottom line is what he plays. His new tunes sounded great, so maybe he's just earning a crust before he starts performing live again? As long as he can still pull the crowds, good luck to him.

Apart from anything else - when did a lack of technical ability become a major hurdle in becoming a superstar DJ anyway??

Well it never stopped Fatboy Slim!!!

I agree that beat matching isn't the be all and end all. However, people will only put up with so much clashing beats.

Furthermore, Phil will always be able to rely on the Orbital stuff so his tune selection shouldn't be a problem for many people. However much i love the Orbital tunes it would be nice to hear Phil move on and really pull a good breaks set together where Orbital tunes were a nice surprise rather than the staple component of the set. He obviously has the talent and hopefully as he develops more of his own material this is the direction he will move in.

At the end of the day I believe Dave is right - if he pulls the crowds in - then promotors or punters won't be worried that he isn't a technically accomplished mixer.

Anyone wanting to see a DJ doing his job properly should go see Danny Howells(minus tequila)@The End,20 August.....the guy just know what he's doing!

davemacfrombath wrote: Apart from anything else - when did a lack of technical ability become a major hurdle in becoming a superstar DJ anyway??

lol...yeah anyone who has ever seen James Lavelle DJ will agree with this!!

By the way, for those excited about the new Plump DJs album, I've got it and it's just a mix of a bunch of tunes that all sound like all the tunes Plump DJs have been making for seven years. Shame. Prefer the variety of Eargasm, or any of a million other breaks mix CDs that feature something other than 15 identikit Plump DJs remixes.

Funky Dung

Funky Dung wrote:By the way, for those excited about the new Plump DJs album, I've got it and it's just a mix of a bunch of tunes that all sound like all the tunes Plump DJs have been making for seven years. Shame. Prefer the variety of Eargasm, or any of a million other breaks mix CDs that feature something other than 15 identikit Plump DJs remixes.

Funky Dung

Still excited
Eargasm was OK in my opinion but I cant get enough of Soul Vibrates and Get Kinky. Not the most intricate of tunes I've ever heard but they certainly have something that I like... I think its balls.

From a personal point of view, it's the tunes that a DJ plays rather than the mixing ability that I'm ever interested in...

Phil played some damn fine tunes (including an absolutely blinding new Long Range track - mentioned earlier on in the thread)...

Only heard one obvious mixing fault, but that was, what, ten seconds out of an hour and a half's DJ slot... Not bad, IMHO!

Oh, and with regards to the Orbital tracks, well no other bugger plays Orbital in clubs, so it's extremely nice when somebody (even if it is Phil) plays them!

usernick wrote:From a personal point of view, it's the tunes that a DJ plays rather than the mixing ability that I'm ever interested in...

Well we're all incredibly biased on this forum.
I think to achieve critical and commercial success as a DJ you need to be able to beat match.
I cant mix to save my life so I'm not qualified enough to analyse Phils performance from a technical point of view, but I was surprised by his lack of confidence in what he was doing. So many of the tracks he chose just stopped, and then the next one started... gap and all. No qualms about his choice of tunes though.
I really feel bad for saying this, as this is a guy I have worshiped throughout my teens/20's. But it is also my opinion too.
I would still go and see him DJ, but if I was an innocent member of the rat race who stumbled upon that set at Fabric without knowing who he was... I think I would have walked off laughing.

For me DJs such as Krafty Kuts/ Andy Smith/ Scratch Perverts and such ilk display real turntable genius and add layers upon layers of sound and fx to create a flowing set which brings the crowd upto a euphoric climax...brings em down a bit... then its back up again.

This is a level that very few DJs can achieve and be consistently accurate with their playlists, I want DJs to "take me on a journey" (god that sounded really corny) and a continuous flow of music helps.

I was so surprised when Dog mentioned that his mixing had improved!

Hopefully he will continue to DJ and become a competent mixmaster

I dont think he's quite there yet though...

the tunes have to be good. that's enough to make me want to see someone (again and again).
but the mixing style/talent can add a lot, no question. possibly a seamless "journey" (bleh) over several hours, possibly technical shit like the scratch perverts or sheer eclectic entertainment like yoda, possibly just a classy double drop or the right choice of tunes following each other to make you grin and hug your mate.
no point if you can mix like a god but you're playing toss tunes tho...

I can listen to a bunch of good tunes at home. I like to hear a DJ put a bunch of good tunes together in an inventive, impressive and ass-shaking way. I'm not a huge fan of great producers who go around getting DJ gigs on the back of their production work when they have no DJing talent whatsoever. It's a rip-off. There's a lot of them around, too.

It's like someone designing the graphics on a skateboard, then being paid loads of money to appear at a skateboard demo where they just trundle along in a straight line and fall off when they try and tic-tac.

Funky Dung

there's been discussion of this on http://www.nuskoolbreaks.co.uk - opinion seems to be that especially in a relatively small genre like breaks, to make it as a producer it really helps if you play out, and vice versa. so people who are mainly talented at one will be doing the other, just to help get their name known, and scrape together a few more pennies - still very few people can earn a living from breaks tho.
which then always leads back to the fun old debate of would it be good if breaks got bigger/more commercially successful etc - cue 19 pages of the same arguments as two months ago