» Listings for 2011

1. Book, thanks, reality and a laugh

   Posted on 7:36pm Monday 17th Oct 2011

   Hi all. My god, it's so long since I wrote a blog, they've changed the layout here on the site software! Well looking forward to those cold winter nights as it's getting dark earlier and earlier. Isn't that day coming soon when they change the clock around again and throw everything into confusion? Can't be far off. My apologies for not writing in a while but it's been my busiest summer to date and I haven't really had any time. Moving flat didn't help, as there are about 50 different companies to email after changing address even after you've sorted the furnature out and hung all the pictures..
   

   Reading Ben Elton's "Dead Famous" at the moment. I feel slightly ambivalent about it. The story centres around a group of weirdos and dullards in a "big brother" style show called "house arrest". It goes into how one of them is murdered and the mystery of how it was done with so many cameras in the house.

   The production company is not called "Endemol" but "Peeping tom productions" which is a fair joke on the part of Ben. Only trouble so far with this book is that I hate shows like that and so reading about how bad and false they are is sort of old news to me. But to be fair the book was written quite a few years ago and I only bought it to read whilst waiting to play at Saturday nights gig. On the up side though, I am studying philosophy right now, so It stops me getting distracted I suppose and provides some relief when I don't feel like reading about the meaning of life etc. any more.

   Just want to say hello to Mike and Arabella who I played for on Saturday and Little Izzie and family who I played for on Sunday. You all were lovely and thanks for looking after me. As I type this you can read Izzie's mum's (Sally's) review here (Opens in new window)

   I'm just having to copy my entire catalogue of mp3's from one of my hard drives to another so I can change the first hard drive to a "fat" system format, so it will work with my new decks. I started at 5pm. it's nearly 8pm and it's still copying. Try copying eleven thousand songs from one drive to another and see how long it takes! Another "Frankenstiens lab" evening.

   Well thats all for now, but please check out this brilliant sketch from legends Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield. A brilliant take on modern technology! Watch them trying to keep a straight face towards the end..
   

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0o-afuVzTw

2. Let's end that long song list forever!

   Posted on 11:13am Sunday 31st Jul 2011

   Hi. Just  a quicky this week as I'm off to another gig this Sunday afternoon. Just want to say thanks to James and Donna for looking after me last night. Great gig. They set the room up like a night club and I used the uplighters around the room to enhance the pink theme.

    

   I started out by smacking my head on the door frame as I manhandled a bass bin in. I only realised I was bleeding after I went to wipe the sweat from my head. "Things can only get better" I thought. Which was one of Donna's song choices and went down a storm. (sorry, tedious links are for Dave only) The great thing about the night though is that there was no song list. Only three songs were asked for and one of them got canned due to a change of direction at the request of the host. All that was asked for were certain musical directions at various points in the night ie: start out with swing/big band/rat pack, after the singer guitarist had done his hour go into a motown/soul set, then disco 80's, then 90's piano house etc moving up to modern Mr. Saxo beat type funky house and finally some trance/house right at the end (one of which was a special remix by yours truly for Donna). This is so much better than a mile long song list, as you get to choose the classic tracks that sound great and work well on the floor. Any requests on the night just get fitted in with the plan and the BPM so no gaping holes in the dance floor. As I've said before. I will do a song list if you want, but having a long list is like having sex with your self. It may be reliable in your eyes, but it's never as good and there are rarely any nice surprises.

   Anyway, Donna and James were over the moon at my set and told me so several times (Donna had to come up and kiss me to say how "amazing" I was - read latest feedback here) and this is the point! Request a few in advance of course if you like, but you're shooting yourself in the foot (and "locking me in a cage of no creativity") with a long song list!

    

   Take care, have a great week and feel free to re-post this blog if you're another DJ or have some related site. (please credit me Mike Stryk: cloudandsun.com) Let's put that monster (song list) back in it's cage and go back to the days of real fun on the floor!!!

3. New features, panic and salvation

   Posted on 5:48pm Thursday 19th May 2011

   Hey there! That sounded very American didn't it? Well I felt like exclaiming as it's been a while since I've blogged here. Well I've been working on myorganic health foods site as well as other things.

   We've been to Germany to see Becky's mum and she's still there in hospital. (Becky, not her mum) Nothing stopping me from saying that now, as she's had the operation and all went well.Thank god, it was a worrying time! One funny thing to come out of it was that I had to take the hire car back to Hamburg from Bremen without Becky and all was going well until I hit a traffic jam. I waited and waited not worried about the time as I was way too early in order to get the paperwork sorted with the car before closing time in Hamburg at 18:00 when the actual flight didn't leave until about 21:00. Well as the jam cleared I looked at the sat-nav and noticed to my horror that it had crashed and only had about four vertical lines of grey on the screen! Oh crap. No map. No idea of location. Try as I might I couldn't turn the damn thing off to re-boot! So I'm in a queu of traffic and I decide to head for Bremen and see if I can pull over somewhere. This I did and through sheer rebeliousness, I'd smuggled my tiny (can't do without it) swiss army knife in the hand luggage (which is all I had). I pulled out the tooth pick and whittled it down to a point, so I could access the hole in which the reset button resided. And thank god it worked! About 6 frantic minutes were passed while I waited for it to come back online and then it was as good as new for me to proceed along the worst autobahn in Germany today, with more roadworks, treacherous narrow overtaking lanes and contraflows than any M6 nightmare. I guess that was my S.A.S. moment this lifetime...
   

   Anyway, I just want to announce that I finally got my shit together and got an availability checker for all you lovely customers out there to see if I can do your gig straight from the home page, contact page and booking page . If I can't do it on your chosen date, Drop me an email anyway and I'll recommend some good reliable Deejays that I know who won't let you down like some out there. It's a free service designed to help you steer clear of the cowboys in this business (I don't get commission) of which there are a few.

   I've said this before and I'll say it again, if the DJ is more important to you then try to find one BEFORE securing the venue, as you stand much more chance of having a great party with the right DJ than you do with any particular venue. Not only that, I have a page that gives you a little info about some of the more popular venues and their possible pitfalls like noise limiters etc.

   Well that's quite enough work for one day. Time for tea and telly.

    

   Have a great weekend and see you soon,

    

   Mike