Scoville Units Unite

After seeing a couple of funny things DJs have been asked style posts I thought I would compile a list of a few belters. No apologies for forgetting exact quotes or munging quotes from Tired and emotional people to make it more coherent or compressing multiple very similar incidents into one. I was originally intending to do a list containing cool things which happened too but those are nowhere near as interesting or funny.

1. At a night playing funk/soul/hip hop etc.

Punter: “Can you play some Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Scooby Snacks”.
Me: “Yeah sure, was gonna be putting on in a few songs anyway.”
*whilst Scooby Snacks is playing*
Punter: “When are you playing my request?”
Me: “It’s on right now”
Punter: “What’s this?”

2. At a night playing funk/soul/hip hop etc.

*playing some song with funk in the title*

Punter: “Why are you playing this?”
Me: “Because it was a request and it’s a funk night”
Punter: “But this is a metal club”
Me: “No, this is an alternative club”
Punter: “No, it’s a metal club and has always been a metal club and only plays metal. I used to come 10 years ago when it was only metal”
Me: “You mean back when it had Industrial, Dance and Punk nights too? It was never just a metal night”.
Punter: “Well I came all the way from Arbroath and you should play only metal”
Me: “That will be tomorrow, when it’s the metal night”.
Punter: “But it’s always the metal night here” Loop to start.

3. At a night playing funk/soul/hip hop etc.

Punter: *usual whining about it only ever being metal in this club*
Me: “Sorry, this is the 4 times a year soul night. All the metal you want tomorrow, or we can chuck on something from _wide variety list of genres_”
Punter: “well I came for metal, so what are you going to do for me”
Me: “Well if listen to probably any music in the world which isn’t metal it will probably fit in somewhere. What else do you like?”
Punter: “You should do something for me, I only want to hear metal”
Me: “What I can do is recommend the metal night tomorrow, or alternatively request something not metal…”

4. Punter: “Can you play X song?”
Me: “sorry I don’t have it, I have these 3 other albums by them?”
Punter: “You played it last week”
Me: “I wasn’t DJing last week, someone else may have had it and played it but I don’t”
Punter: “But you played it last week”

5. Punter: “Can you play X song”
Me: “sure, in about 20 minutes we have similar stuff queued so will play alongside songs Y and Z”.
*plays song at time estimated after Y and Z*
*10 minutes afterwards
Punter: “Can you play X song”
Me: “I already did”
Punter: “Well I’ve been outside for the last half hour crying so can you play it again?”
Me: “no…”

6A. *plays new song by X band*
Punter: “can you play X band?”
Me: “I already did – the last song”
Punter: “No not the new stuff, I don’t know that, _the old overplayed song_”
Me: “….”

6B. The next weekend, someone else.
*plays old song by X band as requested the week before”
Punter: “why are you playing this song, you always play it, play the new song”
Me: *daggers*

6C.
Week 1 *play popular song 1 by band X to a full dance-floor*
Week 4 *play popular song 2 by band X to a full dance-floor”
Week 8 *play popular song 1 by band X to a full dance-floor”
Punter: “Why are you playing this, you play this every week”
Me: “I didn’t play it last time I was on as I’d played it the last time I was on before then which was 2 months ago”
Punter: “But you play this every week so you should play song 2 to mix it up”
Me: *daggers*

7a:
Finish night with huge pile of request slips after leaving loads out on tables etc. Managed to play at least 1 song from every list.
Facebook notification at end of weekend: “Review of club: 1/5 no one ever plays any requests”

7b:
Punter1 who is friendly and dances all night: every other week for months: “Can you play some industrial”
Me: “sorry it’s a bit late, if you’d asked earlier I would, also if you give me a couple of tracks and I can put those one”
Punter1 then has injury so can’t dance but still comes out every other night for weeks.
Punter1 returns, early and asks for industrial
Me: “of course” *throws on 2 songs* then continue with punk for rest of the night.
Facebook notification at end of night from Punter2: “Review of club: 1/5 all I heard was Drum and Bass, if I wanted to hear that I’d go to local pop club”

8. At punk night:
Punter: “Can you play Metallica*”
Me: “No sorry, I don’t have any”
Punter: “but you have to play them, they are great”
Me: “I neither like them or their music, so don’t have any. I prefer Napster”.
Punter: “but you should listen to them they are the best band in the world ever”.

*see also fanboys, and it’s always boys, of any band.

9. At punk night.
*week after Pantera singer shouts “white power” on stage and gives Nazi salutes*
Punter in Pantera shirt: “Can you play Pantera”
Me: “Not gonna be happening at a punk night, especially this week”
Punter: “why not?”

10a. Punter: “please play X song so that this girl will have sex with me”
Me: “not seeing any reason to convince _me_”…

10b. After a long week at work, with co-DJ who has had a long stressful work too. Both of whom were up at around 7, working til 5, then will be working from 10:30ish to about 3. So each getting home 21 hours after waking up after working about 13 hours.

Punter from 10a: “Can you play *big list of stuff*”
Me: “We’ll try and play some of that, but not X and Y which we played already”
Punter: “But I have a very stressful, important, well paid job so you should do it for me”
Us: “…”
Punter: “But my work is really important which is why I’m paid so well for it so now is the time I get to have fun”
Us: “…”
Punter: “I’ll buy you a drink”
Me: “I’m cool man” *points to drink* “that will do me til we close”
Punter: “please play X song so my girlfriend will have sex with me”.
Me: *clicks that this is the same guy from before but unsurprisingly different girl*
I tell story of 10a to other DJ and we laugh, he then repeatedly comes up and requests stuff and generally being a pain in the ass.
It’s the end of the night so we start playing some of the more popular songs, floor fillers etc
Punter then keeps coming to the booth to pester us over various stuff, verging between complaining we suck to offering us money and alcohol to play music so his girlfriend will have sex with him. He also returns with cans of energy drinks for us just as we are winding down to the end of the night…
Punter: “Can you not play some real punk”
Me: “That’s not a discussion that makes anyone come out looking good”
Punter: “Ah see you don’t like real proper punk, only pop music, like this”
Me: *glancing down at the Kaospilot (Norwegian hardcore band) t-shirt I’m wearing, whose music I played as first song*
Me: “er, so what do you think is the real punk music we should be playing as the last 5 songs before we close”
Punter: *names totally niche punk bands whose requests being played are normally met with an empty dance-floor*
Me: “whilst we have a full dance-floor?”
Punter: “of course, if they like real punk music they will love it”
Us: *waves of loathing emanating*
Me: “Tell you what, at the end of this punk night we will play the most punk song we can find”
Punter: “awesome”
Punter: *continues to pester us*
Final song: Something by Taylor Swift
Punter: “wtf!!”
Everyone else in the club: *dancing and over-spilling the floor onto the surrounding area*
Punters Girlfriend: *going nuts on the dance-floor*
Us: “what’s more punk than playing this at a punk night”
Punters Girlfriend: *drags him onto floor*

11. Punter: “Hey man, know where I can get some drugs?”
Me: “sorry man, not the kinda club for that”
Punter: “But do you know anyone I can go speak to?”
Me: “That guy can maybe sort you out then”
Me: *points to barman having a night off who is quite near a member of security*

12a. Punter: “pestering for Korn”
Me to DJ2: “I like Korn but we just played some heavier stuff like 10 minutes ago and don’t wanna play more now that we are playing _ska or something_”
DJ2: *queues up Korn vs Skrillex mashup.

12b. Same except Korn: Shoots and Ladders

13. Punter: “Can you play Nickelback?”
Me: “never”

14. Punter: “Can you play Halo by Soil?
Me: “I don’t have it. Deliberately”
Punter: “But it’s always on”
Me: “Yes, I’ve heard it every metal night I’ve ever been at for 15 years”

See also the “why don’t you play something new?” punters.

15. Someone has just face-planted on the not-huge dance-floor whilst holding a glass. Looks like they have lost some teeth and possibly broken their nose. Throw the lights on and call for security to get first aid. Once they are helped by paramedics someone starts clearing the dance-floor of the glass, alcohol and blood now on it etc. When they hurt themselves we were due to close in 20minutes. There is now about 7minutes before close.

Punter: “So are you starting again?”
Me: “Someone is still cleaning the blood on the dance-floor up from where that lass fell”
Punter: “yeah but we can dance around it”