Image courtesy of Miniature Tigers/Facebook
The denizens of the upcoming Modern Art Tour– Miniature Tigers, Geographer, The Chain Gang of 1974 and Speak, and Pretty & Nice — are on the hunt for a passel of DJs to open for them on the road, and instead of putting out a digital Want Ad for qualified spinners, they’re taking to Spotify to fill those turntables.
Twenty-four DJs (one in each tour city) will be chosen based on the 10-plus-songs Spotify playlist they submit via Modern Art Records’ website. The tour kicks off on March 1, so if you’re hankering to bust out some deep cuts at a real, live show, you better getting compiling.
To help you with your task, Hive reached out to Miniature Tigers frontman Charlie Brand and asked him to share his top four tips for DJing. Spoiler: You should probably form some kind of opinion about the Fray.
1. Get The Crowd Pumped Up — While Staying True To Yourself
“Consider the environment: you’re at a club or a concert. My experience is that if there’s soft music playing it’s going to create a soft atmosphere, which is fine, but sometimes it gets lost in the crowd. So stuff that gets people pumped up. But our music in taste is so varied — we love anything from Top 40 hip-hop and pop to ’60s pop and rock and punk. I don’t think anyone should try to appease us. What would you say about yourself making a playlist?”
2. Have Swag
“If you’re a DJ, you might as well get fancied up. Look nice, I guess, I don’t know. You don’t have to.”
3. Have a Good DJ Name
“You definitely need a DJ name, that’s a huge factor. You can’t be a DJ like ‘DJ Courtney’ or something. You have to have some kind of cool DJ name. I do not have a DJ name. That’s really bad. I feel like a hypocrite.”
Note: Brand is currently seeking a DJ name. A play on “Brand” suggested.
4. Don’t Play The Fray
“Obviously, if somebody’s putting out, like, a whole playlist of the Fray songs or something like that I’d be a little bummed out if that was the only person who submitted. [But] I don’t want to get into a beef with the Fray by any means.”
Note: Brand and the reporter in question were confused about the identity of the Fray for quite a while. That discussion, in its entirety, has been excluded. Brand, at first, attributed a hated Snow Patrol song to the band. The writer confused the band with the Faint. Finally, however, Brand remembered the Fray song that he disdained, “How To Save a Life,” and the above tip was finalized.
