To Paradise and back

It’s amazing how much can happen in the space of one week; to the point where in some ways some of the things seem like they happened ages ago and others a few hours ago!

As usual we had quite a few events happening in various locations. Myself, well on Friday I was doing an event at Paradise by way of Kensal Green for Groovers Korner. Groovers Korner is a monthly soul night I’ve been running around North-West London for the past 11 years or so, but have had a break from it since April due to a venue change. Previously I had been holding events at a venue in Harrow called Freddy’s but attendance had been dropping off at the last few events and one of the main complaints from regulars was the extremely high price of the drinks. So after a lengthy search I negotiated a deal with The Paradise but was unable to actually hold an event there for a few months because of their busy schedule which was frustrating but in another way was encouraging.

Prior to last Fridays event I had tried a few new methods in promoting the event and getting news of the event to many more people than I’d previously managed, and in the weeks leading up to the event it seemed that the work that I’d put into it was bearing fruit as there was a much higher interest about the night than most of the previous ones, and I was receiving a lot of emails, calls and texts. At previous events although the doors always opened from 9pm we generally didn’t get busy until around 11.30pm, but last week it was very busy before 10pm! and not long after 10pm it was absolutely packed and stayed that way until the very last song at 2am. It was definitely the busiest night yet and I’ve received lots of appreciative comments ever since from people who really enjoyed it, so all in all a great night.

The following night was a wedding for Liz & Ed at a new venue for me, Cripps Barn in Bibury, Gloucestershire. It was a very impressive venue, that had paid a lot of attention to very small details. This photo gives an indication of how it looks, but the website certainly doesn’t do justice to how good the place really looks and in my opinion the website really sells themselves short compared to what they have.

As usual with most weddings the night ran very late and this seems to happen with about 90% of weddings these days, but it’s usually a good sign. The weddings that run exactly to time are rarely as much fun, because people are paying too much attention to a schedule rather than just enjoying themselves!

The first dance was Nick Drake – From the morning and after that they wanted to go straight into the dance music with Dizzee Rascal – Bonkers. Liz and Ed had given me quite a lengthy request list, which although quite varied wasn’t hugely succesful, especially because there were so few guests in quite a big room.

Wednesday morning was my weekly breakfast meeting at BNI Walpole in Ealing. Fitzroy Williams visited the chapter and mentioned sponsorship opportunities at the Ealing Winter Wonderland this Christmas.

Thursday night I did an event at the Honorable Artillery Company in the city, which was a corporate event for Deutsche Bank, which as with many corporate events meant a lot of sitting around while they were having their meal. The actual dancing section of the evening was less than 2 hours and thus went very quickly.

8 Days a week

Well have finally gotten around to making another blog entry. It’s been a little hectic over the past few weeks with many different events going on for many of our DJs and bands.

Since the last blog entry I did a wedding at Stock Brook manor in Billericay two weeks ago and the following night did a joint leaving party for two couples; one couple were returning to California and the other couple returning to Dublin. The event was held at The Botanist in Kew and the crowd were certainly in the mood to party; so much so that they completely forgot about the karaoke equipment that had also been booked!

The following few days I did two more school proms at Stock Brook manor. The range of requests asked for at school proms can be pretty surprising to say the least, for example it’s not unusual to be asked for the following on the same night:

KIG – Head Shoulders Knees & Toes, Tiny Tempah – Frisky, Usher – OMG, Katy Perry – California Gurlz, DJ Casper – Cha Cha Slide, Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now, Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’, Michael Jackson – Billie Jean, Los Del Mar – Macarena! and lots more pretty diverse tracks/genres.

In between the two proms was a BNI visitors day @ BNI Walpole bright and early at 6.30am on Wednesday morning. Many of the members had invited businesses to visit the Walpole chapter and there were a number of building companies represented as well as some law firms and other professions and it was quite a vibrant meeting.

Next was a wedding in Eltham in SE London, so a journey from one corner of London to the opposite side. My Satnav recommended to head east around the North Circular road and then through the Blackwall tunnel and south through Greenwich. The alternatives were to drive through central london which is often a nightmare or to drive the other way around the North Circular and round the South Circular road. It all seemed pretty much 6 of one and half a dozen of the other as there were gonna be jams whichever route was taken.

It was a very hot day so I set off much earlier than necessary so that I could take my time setting the gear up as it was too hot to be rushing around with the gear. I took the route suggested by the Satnav and as I got past Golders Green on the North Circular the traffic was extremely heavy and what I didn’t realise was that major road works had started on a big section of the North Circular for the next 5 months or so and was causing chaos all around Bounds Green, New Southgate and Tottenham, and then as I was sitting in this jam I heard on the radio that the Blackwall tunnel was closed for the weekend for repairs!! Immediately I knew this really would cause problems and sure enough it meant I had to go via the M25 and the Dartford Crossing which was moving at about 10mph, so all in all a journey that has previously taken 90 minutes took almost 4 hours! and meant I arrived at the venue just as the guests were congregating outside and so I had to run around like an absolute lunatic to get all of my equipment into the venue before the guests started to enter, which was just what I needed on the hottest day of the year!? I eventually managed to get all of the equipment setup within minutes of everyone taking their seats and it looked like someone had just thrown a few buckets of water over me! but luckily I had a change of clothes with me as I always change into a suit after setting up.

After the meal and speeches had finished and the couple (Lee & Kayliegh) had cut the cake they were ready for the first dance which was Otis Redding – These Arms of Mine. The rest of the night was mainly very cheesy musicwise which is what Lee had requested and most of the guests requests were along the same lines.

The day before that wedding my laptop had gone to an IT specialist to upgrade it to Windows 7 as well as some other changes and I didn’t get it back as planned until midweek which was another reason for not making a blog entry that week and by the time it did come back there was a lot of work to catch up on and then 4 straight days of events, starting on Thursday with a wedding for Helen & Simon at Great Fosters in Egham, Surrey.

Great Fosters is a very nice venue that I’ve done many times before and is very DJ friendly, i.e. it has very easy access to take equipment in and out. Helen & Simon had chosen Nat King Cole – L.O.V.E. as their 1st dance. The requests for the rest of the night were mainly Indie and dance with a few oldies thrown in here and there and the night was going well until about an hour from the end when suddenly %&!? all the power cut! It was another dreaded sound limiter, yet this one was supposedly not in operation according to the manager of the venue, as the venue was undergoing some work by electrical contractors which meant the limiter had been bypassed… well that was what I was told anyway, but at around 11pm I found to my cost it was completely untrue and so once again I then spent the rest of the night having to be extremely careful with the volume and watching the limiter rather than watching the guests!… I really detest sound limiters!!!

The following days event was a wedding for Nika & Wayne at The Fulham Palace in west London, but first I had to drive over to Wickford in Essex to collect some lighting equipment for some architectural lighting of this old venue. The 1st dance for this wedding was Michael Buble – Everything, but from there on in the rest of the night had a much more international flavour to it as the bride was originally from Russia and the groom Australian and guests from many countries around the world. There was also a 4 piece band performing including a fiddle player… and yep, you guessed it, they performed The Devil Went Down To Georgia! What with the meal finishing far later than expected and the band performing two sets it meant a lot of standing around for me.

At The Funky Penguin we have many excellent bands and I have also worked with many great bands and so I know very well how to recognise an experienced function band that aims to give a totally professional performance to their client and the clients guests, but also there is the other type of bands that are either not as experienced or just a little(lot) egotistical and not quite so dedicated to what the client wants and more about “their great act”! Bands that treat the DJ as being beneath them are often of the second variety, which is often out of insecurity and it’s not unusual that the act doesn’t live up to their ego and a good DJ will have far more people dancing. This band, I hasten to add, did not treat me badly and were not unfriendly, but they did however display another sign of inexperience which was both times that they took over from me, as they came onto the stage, some of them would try to play along with the music that was playing. More often than not this doesn’t sound very good and on some occasions it can sound awful, this was the case here. Two of the guitarists and the fiddler were playing along to the song that I was playing and it sounded pretty bad, but they were totally oblivious to it and didn’t notice the looks they received from some of the guests that had been dancing to the song that they practically destroyed. As I said this happened both times they took over (to a full dance floor), however although it was annoying I remained professional and both times gave them a rousing introduction. Both times I took over from them the dancefloor was virtually empty and they didn’t give me an introduction at all. Usually when I work with a very good band I always take their contact details and discuss with them the possibilities of them doing events for The Funky Penguin, suffice to say no such conversation was had with this band.

The next event was on Saturday at Shendish Manor in Apsley near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. This was a corporate event for a company called Excel Care, it was their summer ball . Once again I was working with a band, “Grand Avenue Music”, but these guys were totally professional and did a great job for the client. Once again the meal finished very late which was partly due to some of the coaches arriving late at the venue due to severe traffic jams on the M25. After the meal there was an awards ceremony which went on for over an hour and then they had an auction which also went on for a very long time. To give an indication of just how long this all went on for, there were two girls dressed up as Bunny girls that were standing on stage throughout the awards and auction. Midway through the auction one of the girls fainted partly due to not having eaten or drank for a long time!

Eventually the auction finished and then the band started and then I took over at 11.15pm and played for the last 75 minutes but had to finish at 12.30am sharp due to the coach drivers not being willing to wait around for a bit longer!

On the Sunday night I was back at Stock Brook manor doing another corporate event this time for Waitrose, although it was quite poorly attended and most of the guests seemed to be mainly interested in chatting and so was quite a subdued night. At the end of that event and when I eventually reached home I was just glad to not have to get up early for anything the following day for the first time in around 10 days!

The Heat Is On

It’s been pretty manic over the past week and a lot less sleep than usual with many meetings and events .

Started last Thursday when I was “subbing” at another BNI chapter. I haven’t mentioned on this blog previously that I’m a BNI member and thus attend an early morning breakfast meeting every Wednesday morning @BNI Walpole in Ealing. But on Thursday a guy I know at the BNI Hogarth chapter in Chiswick was unable to make it to his regular meeting so I substituted for him at 6.30am which is an unheard of time of day for most DJs! The meeting finished at 9am and I then attended a workshop on improving business communications which was also in Chiswick. This took me to mid-day and then after a quick runaround to the bank and attending to some other bits and pieces I was driving over to Essex for a wedding at Stock Brook Manor golf club for the wedding of Sara & Darryl. This remarkably was the first wedding in 4 where they had a first dance; the song being Take That-A Million Love Songs.

Before playing the first dance track I always have a chat with the bride and/or groom and as I was chatting with the groom, Darryl- he seemed quite nervous, which was a little unusual at this stage of the proceedings as most grooms that are nervous during the actual ceremony or speeches have usually relaxed by the evening as there isn’t much they have to do as such, although some grooms do get quite nervous about the actual dance aspect of the first dance. His nerves really became apparent when I joked with him about the first dance being Motorhead and he replied OK! I often joke with the bride or groom that they still want Motorhead as their first dance track and they usually laugh and then reply with the actual track they’re having, but Darryl just said OK and clearly hadn’t realised I was joking. So I then said to him “are you really sure that you want Motorhead as your first dance?” and he said that whatever Sara had asked for was fine with him! and that he’d had no input into the request list whatsoever!

Most of the music on that request list was very commercial and the dancing continued through to midnight. Then managed 4 hours sleep before another early rise for the BNI annual members day at The Metropole Hotel in central London which was an all day event with some superb inspirational speakers including Dr Ivan Misner, Rob Brown, Dinah Liversidge, Phil Berg and Iain Whyte. It was a great day of networking also and lined up many meetings over the next few weeks.

No time for sitting around, after the end of the BNI event then it was back over to Essex for another event at Stock Brook, this time a dinner dance for the Dr’s, nurses and staff of the Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford. They were all very much up for it and a busy dancefloor this time through to 2am.

The following day there was a bit of a lie-in before heading over to Stoke Newington for a 50th birthday party for Lucy at The West Reservoir Sailing Centre which was basically an old boiler room with a very high ceiling. I’d been asked to setup some uplighting around the room to give some warmth to what otherwise has a very sterile atmosphere.

An excellent night with a pretty varied request list ranging from the 40′s the latest hits and genres such as Jazz, Salsa, Samba, Dance, Reggae, Pop, Soul and Rock.

The events were starting to merge into one and the next was a 40th birthday for Nick at The HAC in central London, but the event couldn’t really have been easier as the meal didn’t finish until 10.45 and the event had to finish at 12.15 so music for 90 minutes, and no extra time!