January 8, 2025 • 54 mins
Imagine stepping back into the vibrant 80s Bay Area music scene, where the pulsating rhythms of Crush Groove and Beat Street ignited passions and transformed lives. Our special guests, John Cota and Derek Bergersen, better known as Sick Mix, join us to share their riveting journeys through the world of music. John's entrepreneurial spirit shines through as he recounts his experiences with All Sound Music and ASM Dance Floors, while Derek takes us on a nostalgic tour of his early days DJing unforgettable house parties. Together, they shed light on the influences of radio legends like Michael Erickson and Cameron Paul, and how these experiences cultivated their passion for DJing.
The journey continues into the transformative year of 1993, a pivotal moment marked by joining Young Black Brother Records and collaborating with renowned artists like Mac Mall and Mac Dre. This period of creativity and exploration paved the way for launching a record label and eventually moving to Tucson, where new opportunities awaited. Diving into the world of radio, our guest became a cornerstone of Hot 98's Lowrider Oldie Show, weaving Chicano hip hop into the mix. As we navigate through transitioning from DJing to touring and music distribution, you'll discover the genesis of Southwest Bound Magazine and SickMix.com, emblematic of the mixtape boom and a testament to career evolution.
Unravel the complexities of DJing at weddings and the art of creating the perfect atmosphere. Our exploration of the music industry spans multifaceted roles—from orchestrating lively wedding experiences to launching a music distribution company and exploring the cinematic world. Experience the thrill of forming an all-dads DJ crew, blending community spirit with a profound love for music, and gain insights into choosing the ideal wedding DJ. This episode is a celebration of passion, community, and music's unifying power, leaving you inspired and eager for more.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Most Dope Podcast! We hope you enjoyed the ride and found some inspiration along the way. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your preferred platform. Stay in touch with us on social media for the latest updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and more dope content. Until next time, stay dope and keep the good vibes rolling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
We got the whole world panicking, matt.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Miller in the most love family.
What's up y'all?
We have two new guests today.
We have John Cota, all SoundMusic and ASM Dance Floors.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
ASM Dance Floors.
Thanks for the plug.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
All Sound Music and ASM Dancem dance floors.
You need a dj, you need a, agreat mc, right?
Hey, rich is always talkingabout your mc skills, man, so
I'm gonna go ahead and put thatout there, greatest, one of the
greatest mcs, and uh, dancefloors, what, what size?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
is brother, oh man you want to go from uh, you want
to go from a nine by nine, oryou want to go to a 39 by 39 you
got the big guns out there witha 39 man.
In fact, the last time wechecked was last year.
We rechecked but we have thebiggest dance for inventory in
current county oh, there you go,so we can take care of it all
right, we got also.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We have derrick beren .
Did I get that right, derek?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
That's it, derek Bergersen.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Derek Bergersen.
A lot of you guys may not knowthe name, derek Bergersen, but
I'll almost guarantee you knowthe name Sick Mix.
Everybody knows Sick Mix.
We all have his packs, we allhave his music, we all have his
edits, we have all of it.
How you doing over there,derrick?
Oh man I'm blessed.
Hey, hey, that's the positivityright there, man.
(01:51):
Well, we're gonna jump straightinto this thing.
Man, uh, we want to know alittle bit about you, brother.
Um, growing up in the bayduring the 80s, man, how did the
local hip-hop scene influenceyour decision to become a DJ?
You went into the military,right?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah, yeah, the local scene didn't really influence
me to be a DJ.
I would say it was Crush Grooveand Beat Street.
I think those are the two maininfluences.
That was like well, you know,crush Groove, you know, know,
I'm not just a dj, I'm also, youknow, I have a record label.
(02:27):
So crush groove kind of give mea lot of push um about the
whole industry and and a littlesneak peek into how how it works
how did um?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
michael erickson and cameron paul?
What about their, their, their,man?
What did you take from them?
What did you incorporate fromthem?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Well, the station was KSOL and at that time in 1985,
there was no DJs mixing music onthe radio that I knew of in the
Bay Area, but KSOL.
On Friday nights at midnightthey'd have a mix show and it
(03:11):
was Cameron, paul and MichaelErickson.
It was called the Midnight Beat12 o'clock beat, and they would
broadcast live from a club, anightclub.
It was crazy, but I would stayup to midnight and record the
mixes, and so I listened to themand, of course, tried to buy
(03:36):
the records that they wereplaying and try to copy them for
sure.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
All right, All right, how about those initial
memories of DJing man?
Your first house party, yourfirst club, your?
What were the fondest memoriesof your initial coming out as a
DJ.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It wasn't just me, right, it was.
You had a crew of DJs.
So, um, my crew happened to be,uh, a black guy, a Filipino guy
, a Mexican dude, uh, and thenme, the white dude.
So, um, it was fun to seepeople's reactions, like, when
(04:20):
we pull up to the party, theywould look at us like who's
actually going to DJ?
Which one of these guys is theparty?
They would look at us likewho's actually going to DJ?
Which one of these guys is theDJ, you know, and of course it
was all of us, and they would beinitially shocked when they saw
me play and but then, of course, pleasantly surprised that it
sounded good.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Why do you say that, brother?
So everybody that can't see youphysically on the screen right
now, why would they doubtwhether or not you would be a dj
?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
well, you know, I mean, um, back then I was doing
a lot of fraternity parties atcolleges and stuff and they were
mostly black, blackfraternities, all right, and so
they kind of figured like, oh,oh, I think this guy is going to
come in here playing Journey,right, but no, it was.
You know, oaktown 357, mcHammer Too Short.
(05:13):
All these groups were, you know, just getting started and the
independent world was startingto starting to begin at that
time.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
In 93,.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
You remember 93, remember 93, man, yeah vaguely.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I was 11, I was 13 man.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You joined uh young black brother records man under
rob nonis.
Uh you worked with mac mall,mac dray, ray love.
What were your experiences andhow did that enhance your skills
, your promotions, yourmarketing?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, that was my first experience with the real
record label.
You know, that was, you know, abig reason why I didn't just
stay a DJ.
I started my own label and putout tons of records.
But it was a great experience.
I mean, it definitely got me ina lot of nightclubs that I
(06:11):
wasn't going to get in.
I got to bypass securitybecause I'm coming in with
giveaways and cassettes andposters and things like that.
So it was fun it was fun, itwas fun, all right, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Let's jump forward a little bit.
What took you to Tucson man?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Um, I used to DJ for a group called into deep and um
they got a gig in uh Tucson atum hot 98, um hot 98 and um it
was.
It was called the lowrideroldie show and they needed a dj,
and um I was open to trying it.
(06:58):
So we, we all, moved to arizona.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
All right, all right, that's a big jump and you moved
from Vallejo to Arizona.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah and um.
We became the number one showin two within two months and it
was.
It was awesome.
Um, I was not just the DJ, Iwas a producer for shows.
All these um, all these show.
But we didn't just play oldies,we played like Chicano hip hop.
(07:27):
So we play like artists likeGemini from Texas and Nasty Boy.
You know a lot of the Chicanoartists we play on there as well
.
Of course, we play hella N2Deep songs on there.
Yeah right artists we play onthere as well.
Of course, we play hella intodeep songs on there.
Yeah right, um, but we justtook.
(07:47):
We took what we, we used tohear these type of shows in the
bay area, and so we just copiedstuff that we, we used to do you
knew the recipe and you took itsomewhere where they didn't
know the food yeah, so tucsonwas ready for us all right.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
What, um?
What happened to djing at thatpoint in time, man?
Did you slow down djing?
Did you quit?
Did you lose, like your, yourpassion, what?
What were you doing?
And then, how did you get backinto djing after that?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
um, I was putting out records.
I, I had, you know, a lot ofalbums out.
Uh, we were touring again withinto deep, with gemini, with
frost, um, latino velvet.
Uh, we were, we were doing, wewere doing shows all over the
place.
I was doing distribution forpeople.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Um, were those the good old days that you didn't
know were gonna be the good olddays?
I didn't know those were thegood old days.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah, for didn't know were going to be the good old
days.
I didn't know those were thegood old days.
Yeah for sure we were.
Just honestly, we were justtrying to make a dollar.
You know, when we would go ontour we would bring tons of
product with us, so cassettesand CDs.
And, being that we're friendswith tons of artists, we would
go on the road and we would goup to, like Mac Dre and get 200
(09:09):
CDs from him, and we would go to, uh, keep the sneak and get 200
CDs from him.
So when we went on the road wedidn't just have into deep CDs,
we had the whole we were like amobile distributor, so we're in
the bay area we pull into kansascity to seventh heaven and make
(09:30):
a few thousand dollars.
So we were just on the road fora few years and I didn't do
gigs outside of the radio showbecause I was on the road.
I could pre-record the radioshow and not even be there.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Sure and just send it in.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
And just send it in.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, the early days of the internet.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
How long did that take to send in man those files?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Well, we all still lived in Tucson, so we would go
back there, do the show and justturn it in.
So I didn't actually email ohnobody.
Yeah, um, but yeah, so after wewould be on the road for a week
or two.
If we were going to be gone formore than a week, we just
pre-record two shows and leavethem at the station all right,
(10:20):
all right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
All right, all right, 2002.
2002.
You founded two different itemsSouthwest Bound Magazine and
SickMixcom.
Yeah, what motivated you tostart those platforms?
Money.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Hey, I love the honesty man, there you go.
That was the time when mixtapeswere big, big and I just
explained to you how we did verywell selling albums.
We transitioned into sellingmixtapes as well so don't worry,
thank you um, we sold thousandsof snoop dogg mixtapes and we
(11:01):
sold thousands of lil waynemixtapes and anything we can get
our hands on.
Anyone who would work with us.
We would sell their productsthrough sick mix.
Um, and I, of course, wasmaking tons of mixtapes as well,
and not just uh, streetmixtapes.
We were making real albums thatwe sold.
So, um, I did one with mac drehe's the best of the rompilation
(11:26):
.
I did one within too deep.
It's called the menudo mix.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Um, I did one latino velvet's menudo mix.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Latino velvet's menudo mix.
Um, there's a group called thehieroglyphics.
I did a mixtape with them.
Casual of hieroglyphics casual.
These are all real albums thatare on Spotify.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
They were all cleared and you know real projects.
Hieroglyphics like connected toSouls of Mischief, souls of
Mischief, is part of it Souls ofMischief.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
93 to Infinity.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
The Bay Area was a crazy.
It was a crazy place in the 90sbecause everybody was rapping
and everybody was doing wellLike there were groups like
Eleven Five and RBL Posse, rblPosse, helski and 415.
And they all you know there'stheir cassettes were at Sam
Goody's and they were at thewarehouse and they were at Tower
Records and they were like thefirst rap albums were at Tower
Records and they were like thefirst rap albums we've ever seen
in these stores.
So it was.
(12:29):
It was a lot of actionhappening back then.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's cool tell me a little bit about the Breaking
Bread Foundation, brother.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Break Bread Foundation is.
It's not actually mine, it's my, my friend.
He has a restaurant and everySunday, out of his own pocket,
he will feed anybody who comesup to his restaurant.
And it's not just hot dogs andsandwiches, it's a barbecue
joint, so he will feed youanything you want.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I mean, you can go over there and you can be poor,
broke handed and you're going toyou can still get some tri tip
or something.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yes, you can get the tri tip, you could get the ribs,
you could get whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
How do, how does he, how does he fund that man and
what are you doing to help him?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
So when I first when he first told me about it he has
a food truck and the food truckis open on the weekends first
told me about it he has a foodtruck and the food truck is open
on the weekends.
Every dime he makes from thefood truck goes to the break
bread foundation.
So I said to myself man, Ithink I could help you out.
And so I said I'm going tostart a patreon and I'm going to
make it very limited.
(13:39):
I'm only having 20 spots andit's $40 a spot and I use, and
that's you know, around 800bucks.
And so, um, you know, patreonnumber one is is, uh, in the
room with us.
Number one right here, Bubba, Iwas number one and I'm very
(13:59):
proud of that so um, we, wespend, you know, about 15, 1600
a week and we feed people invallejo.
Is it every sunday?
Every single sunday, rain orshine?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
so we could possibly make a trip up there.
Hang out, see how you know, seehow you guys do things, try to
help out.
Do.
Can we cook.
What can we do up there?
Man does he.
Is he gonna let us behind thegrill?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
um, if you have your food handlers card he will yeah,
we don't, we don't.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Man, I can hand out drinks or or paper plates or
something right?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
we could dj okay hey, there we go, we play music
there sometimes and it's so.
He's he's.
You know he's found god.
He was a um, you know he was arough character growing up and
um, he found god and settleddown.
He's married, he has kids andso what he calls it is his food
ministry.
(14:59):
So if you show up on sunday,he's gonna talk to you a little
bit, yeah, and see if you needanything.
You want to just talk aboutlife.
He doesn't force God on anyone.
It's just a safe place that youcan come and talk if you need be
, and so I was moved.
(15:21):
You know, when I first wentthere, I was touched and I said
I have to get involved.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, that's amazing, man.
I'll head up there soon, man,I've been wanting to do that for
a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Well, man, we will head up there I'm in.
I know exactly what I'm in.
The Lord just spoke to me rightnow.
He says I have people to prayover for that ministry.
Absolutely yes.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
I over at that for that ministry?
Absolutely, yes, no, it it's um.
I always tried to help people,you know.
You guys know I'm a I'm fairlynice person but, um, when I
physically went there, you know,I teared up and I'm like
there's no way I can't help.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's cool yeah, that's a.
Uh, how many people you thinkyou guys are feeding on a on a
weekly?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
not I.
Vallejo's got a lot of peoplein need, so honestly, I think
we're probably doing between 100and 200 people.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
All right, that's a lot of people, a lot of meals,
that's just one side of Vallejo.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
There's a whole other side of Vallejo that needs help
, and so there's a restaurant onthe other side of town called
Sharky's and, if you don't mind,let me tell you about this
fundraiser For sure.
Yeah, it's Sharky's FamilyFoundation.
It's a chicken and fishrestaurant.
They're on the opposite side oftown and we are partnering with
a company called Beats for Hope.
(16:36):
That's headed by a veteran DJfrom the Bay Area, alex Mejia,
and what his company does isthey sell T-shirts and all the
proceeds go to a nonprofit.
So what we're doing is we'regetting.
I'm going around to rappers thatI know and I'm asking them if I
could use their album cover forthree months, and I'm going to
(16:57):
sell T-shirts.
So this first three monthswe're going to launch the first
one is, um, of course, into deepback to the hotel, awesome, and
then um, and then 11.5 um,fiending for the funk those two
albums.
So, um, we're going to sellthose t-shirts for three months.
Um, half of the money goes tobeats for hope and their
(17:19):
foundation.
Pretty much they do clothing,so they they give clothing and
jackets to people, and thensharkies, we're going to use
that money to feed people inVallejo.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Awesome man.
Are you going to be splittingtime at the locations or are you
still going to be at the mainspot, the break bread spot?
Speaker 4 (17:35):
I actually don't go to either one as much as I used
to Break bread.
Just needed a financial help, abacking, yeah.
So we set that up with yourhelp.
The Patreon's been going strongfor a while now, and then every
three months we're going toswap out.
The next two album covers areRBL, posse and Mac Mall.
(17:56):
So I'm just going to keep doingtwo every three months, two
different covers, for as long asthey'll let me.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah.
How are we going to get thoseshirts out there, brother?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
um, they'll be on.
Beats for hope, beats forhopecom.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
All right, and all of those proceeds are going right
up there to the valet.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Yes, yeah, all right.
Every shirt on that site has adifferent charity behind it, and
it'll tell you which charity itgoes which one you're?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
yeah, you get to pick which one you're investing into
yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
All right, yeah, yeah , so it's not just ours.
There's shirts from otherpeople.
All right, Other DJs it'smostly DJs.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Are raising money.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
How many Patreon subscribers are you guys up to
now?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Patreon we are capped at 20.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Okay, all right.
Yeah, all right, I might, Imight sit, uh, I might get you
on the side and try to pick upone of those.
If somebody falls off, man, Ican uh give it out to somebody.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
There's a spot open right now.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Okay, I'll take it.
Mark, mark me down for that,brother, and I'm going to.
I'm going to hook my one of myDJs up over here in Bakersfield.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right on and uh, we'll a month perfect.
Yeah, appreciate it, derek.
Hey, um 2015.
Last question for yourinterview process man, uh, 2015,
you kind of got back into thewedding industry.
Um bay mix bay mixes eventswith uh charlie days yeah uh,
well, over 300 weddings.
We were busy 300 weddings, man.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
That's when the controllers started popping up.
Okay, and I think I had avestex 300 um, I still have it,
or I have a 380, maybe all right, but those texts were the first
controllers I that I knew of,um, so it got easy.
So I I started DJing more.
(19:44):
That's really what happened.
Djing easier because I didn'treally, I didn't really
participate in the CD era, thatmuch Um.
But when the controllers showedup, I jumped back in full time.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
All right, all right and uh.
Ever since then, you've it'sall downhill from there with
weddings and photo booths.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Yeah, no, you know, that was my pretty much nine to
five, all right.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
All right, but nowadays you're doing a whole
lot of stuff.
You're doing production, you'redoing.
I mean, what all are you doing?
Now, man, recap it for us.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
I'm back in the music business.
I just started a newdistributor that I can you know
kind of work against companieslike TuneCore and DistroKid and
CD Baby.
It's kind of on the lines ofthat those platforms charge you
per album, per single, which youknow could get costly to some
independent artists if they havemultiple releases and they're
(20:40):
not seeing any returns.
Yeah, they're just shootingstuff out.
Yeah, I'm going to just do aflat rate, 80-20 split with the
artist.
They don't have to pay anything.
If they got money, let's use itto promote.
Awesome, yeah, we got thatgoing.
Next month I'm going to bedropping another magazine called
Addicted to Vinyl all DJmagazine.
(21:01):
I got DJ Shortcut on the frontcover.
Oh nice, I got DJ shortcut onthe front cover, DJ epic on the
back cover.
It's a full size, real printedmagazine.
We're going to print a thousandcopies and see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I'm going to need a copy of that too, brother.
Oh yeah yeah, I'll shoot yousome money.
You can do with it whatever youwant, man, but hook me up with
one of the first copies.
I want an autograph on it too,man.
You'll get it, you'll get it um.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
And then the last thing which is like my full-time
job right now is um.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I just wrote and I'm directing my first feature film
I didn't know if you were goingto comment on it, because I that
was going to be my nextquestion.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Man, I want to know what's going on with this this
friday film you got going on,man well, um, a friend of mine
who was a retired music industryexecutive got into making
movies a few years back and I'vebeen watching him, I've been
assisting him learning, and itturns out the movie industry is
very, very, very similar to themusic industry.
(21:56):
I would think so, yeah.
So it used to cost me fivethousand to ten thousand dollars
to make an album.
And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm atten thousand dollars, and I've
got a thousand dollars to makean album.
And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm atten thousand dollars and I've
got a movie now instead of analbum.
All right, the same expense.
But uh, you know, my royaltiesin streaming have slowly started
(22:16):
to slow down okay um and so toreplace that income you know,
offset it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.
When is that coming out?
When's that due man um?
Speaker 4 (22:28):
I should be done filming the entire, the entire.
I got three more days offilming, so by the end of
February to be done, and so Icould probably show you the
movie in March.
It'll be on.
Uh, I've already got adistribution deal, so it'd be on
to be an Amazon.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Oh, wow, nice.
And then, of course, youtube.
Oh yeah, you got to.
Yeah, yeah, all, eric man.
I really appreciate having you,man.
We are going to jump into thenext section of our podcast,
which is going to be the greatbig W weddings.
So we're going to jump rightinto weddings DJ
responsibilities of thoseweddings, curating your playlist
, reading the crowd, handlingaudio equipment, technical
(23:05):
issues and, of course, the MCresponsibilities on the side of
that keeping everything on time,being punctual, keeping the
actual festivities going androlling and it's a smooth
process.
So I'm going to start over herewith John man, because I think
he has just a wealth ofinformation and you know your
role as a DJ and MC man for awedding.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
You know what we are, the?
It's like a circus.
When you see the circus topright and you see the guy that's
conducting everything and justreally just controlling the flow
, and that's me, man.
I got the big black top hat onand I'm opening up the lion's
mouth, so to speak, and you knowyou're just taking care of the
time, watching the time,communicating with everybody.
(23:48):
I always say if it's a spoke onthe wheel of your wedding day
and it's moving, we'll becommunicating with them from
staff to.
I mean, we go, we go deeper too.
I'll talk to the caterer,because there's one thing I
always say you have no controlof as a dj, and that's when the
food's going to be done, sure,so obviously it goes before.
You hit them with a timeline sothat they have an expectation
(24:09):
of when dinner's supposed to beserved.
Okay, you got six o'clock orwhatever the case is, but still
you don't release tables.
In those cases you touch basewith the chef or the staff and
see what's going on, littlethings like that.
You talk to the bartender andnine times out of 10, the
bartender's never talked to.
If there's a photo booth orwhatever the case is, just
anything and everything.
If you need to communicate withthem that.
(24:32):
That's a big part of myresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
That's why we um, our philosophy is is the two-man
team, the mc and the dj.
How do you um?
For me personally, I have agreat amount of problems doing
both, and and the reason I saythat is is we're behind the dj
booth.
You can queue up the first song, you can queue up the special
song you can queue up, but then,if you're a good mc, you
actually go out into the dancefloor.
You go out there, you talk, youget everybody's attention,
(24:55):
everybody's, and then who hitsplay for you.
Next you gotta run back over toyour dj booth yeah, well, that
then you're by yourself.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, good luck.
Yeah, and because I've donebefore I've in fact, at that
spot, on the rock and roll spothere, that was the one time that
anthony's back gave out on himand I I had a DJ, a wedding by
myself and luckily I was reallyclosely connected to that's when
he went to dance.
For you, you can put yourselfwhere you want to be put, but I
was able to work that, but itwas.
I'm talking about five feet inback and yeah, yeah, exactly.
(25:24):
And that's why I just said rightnow, our philosophy is it's a
two man team, Cause we ask a lotof ourselves, all just just all
that communication stuff.
You need a separate person todo that.
You look at coordinators oreven photographers.
There's there's frequently, ifnot almost all the time, there's
a second shooter.
So Anthony, stationary, he'sgot microphones, he's got
volumes, he's got cues, he's got, he's got the program music,
he's taking requests and allthat other good stuff.
(25:45):
He'll let the old man on youknow to scratch that itch every
now and again, but for theforemost, especially during the
program that's, hisresponsibility is to be
stationary and take care of allthat, where I have the itinerary
in my hand, exact same one ashe has, but I'm flying around
and just communicating andorchestrating everything, making
sure they're they're lined up,reviewing names.
You know that, man, that's oneof the worst things you could do
is not review the name you know, especially a family name.
(26:07):
I've I've heard so many times afamily name gets badgered, or
you know, god forbid, you callhim ramirez when his last name
is smith.
Oh yeah, that's not a good look, yeah, but that's that's us.
Right there we're.
We're a two man team.
So you know, I I take my hatoff to anybody who does a
wedding by themselvesnonetheless does it successfully
I'm.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I'm lucky in the fact that I have marion with me.
Usually, um, she doesn't dj,really, she doesn't mc at all,
but she filters everythingthrough for me, like if there's
somebody that if the weddingcoordinator comes and I'm doing
something she can talk to Marion, then Marion can relay it to me
.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I had my wife do that a lot.
You know my wife and my son hashelped me out a lot because
I've always done it by myselfyeah majority of the time it's
hard, yeah, and then as I'veprogressed into bigger and
better weddings, you know I havea good team like Gus and Monks
over at am entertainment.
They help me out a lot yeahthat.
And then, when I started pairingup with jc, and yeah, you need
that, you know you have some,you know some big weddings, you
know.
So you need a, you need a bigteam sometimes.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So you know one thing that you, that you absolutely
need to do as a wedding pro isyou need to to get a liaison,
you need to make best friendswith that maid or matron of
honor or sister or a cousin oranybody, and it's got to be a
female.
You know why we can't get intothem rooms.
We can't get into the bridalroom and check to see if she's
dressed or whatever the case is,because you know the start of
the show.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
She's ready to come down that aisle then it's time
to go until then, we're waitingon her yeah, so that that's
that's my thing is get a liaisonman john, a lot of times people
don't understand that aswedding djs we also become
unofficially the day ofcoordination oh man, we're not
getting paid for it, man alongwith being a psychiatrist too.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Man come on family counselor, you know about that,
bro.
Oh, family counselor, we should, we should get it.
There should be a degree familycounselor, marriage, marriage
counselor, but on a dj and we'relike a, we're like a subsidiary
or something.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Man yeah, bartenders and djs can get it hey, you know
who.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It reminds me of barbers.
You go into the barbershop,there's barbershop talk.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Oh yeah, there is, this is what this is right here.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
This is dj talk among barbers.
Oh yeah, man, derrick, hey man,what do you?
Uh, what goes into yourplanning of a wedding soundtrack
?
You know, from ceremony toreception to must plays and do
not plays even.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
I got a form that I have on my website that anyone
could download.
Any DJ could download and sendit to your bride and it's pretty
much a breakdown of everythingthey want.
So it'll start at the ceremonyand there's a spot for, you know
, families family in their song,bridal party in their song,
bride in her song, exit song.
(28:36):
So I pretty much have them fillout the form.
They tell me what they want andyou know, as you know, they
honestly don't really know whatthey want.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, they don't know what they need or want until
you tell them what they need andwant.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Right.
So maybe they say we like 2000s, hip hop and disco, and so I
put a little small cratetogether with what they asked
for.
But nine times out of 10, youknow it's.
I just read the crowd and seewho shows up.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
And let me ask you what your,what your strategy is on reading
the crowd.
So obviously, initially we'regoing to gear towards the ladies
.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
You get the ladies on the dance floor first well, I
mean, the first thing I do is,uh, I look at the room and I I
kind of, I guess I prejudgeeveryone ageism, their age.
Yeah, that's part of it basedon their age is where I'll start
, so I'll.
If I see a you know, a oldergroup, I'll start with the, of
(29:33):
course, the 70s and 80s, firstsome oldies, some motown, you
know, yeah, they get tired easy,and then after that it's pretty
much whatever I want.
Normally, you know, um, you'lljust see what songs work, and if
justin bieber works, then youstay pop, and if it doesn't, you
switch it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I don't know yeah, all right, you know what I just
noticed right now?
D I'm the old crowd, becauseyou just said 70s and 80s, bro,
so I'm part of that old crowd.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
I'm 53.
I'm the old crowd too.
I got you by a year man.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
I'm 55 in March.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Yeah, okay.
Well, you know we're prettymuch the same crowd music
because obviously we grew up toit.
We have a special connection.
You always connect, you knowstrongly, with music from your
high school era.
You're the most emotionalyou've ever been.
You've gotten your heart brokenand you want to listen to brian
mcknight and boys to men backat, back at 10, what is that
(30:25):
song man back at?
One, back at one, back at one,one last cry.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh man, I'm like ready for the world and prince
and dream boy and people likethat man.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
So you know, I just read the crowd like that and you
know I mean, if I get luckyenough to play music, I fucking
enjoy.
I'm really pumped yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's a big difference when you play music for
yourself versus others oh yeah,yeah, people would hate my party
.
Yeah, mine too, yeah I'd havesome like reggae going and I'd
have some straight rap and hiphop.
I'd be all over the damn place.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
But now that you're, you know, because you guys have
all done tons of weddings,you've been introduced to new
music.
So you know, I could make alist of 100 country songs that I
like now, but I couldn't yearsago.
Absolutely.
I'm in the same boat withcountry, you know.
I know jazz music.
I'm in the same boat withcountry.
I know jazz music.
I know a lot more because ofthe diversity.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's always nice to have that grandpa or grandma
come up to you with some jewelof a song.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And then you were able to play it for them, and
you're like wow, I didn't knowthis was.
You either had it sitting inyour catalog or you streamed it
off a title and you made theirevening.
So it was nice.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Getting some of those jewels, and so it was nice
getting some of those jewels.
Man, I never heard that song.
Yeah, it was a banger.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
There was a wedding like four years ago and he's all
white, real classy dude, realold, I would say they're about
75, 80 or so.
Right, they come up and I readpeople for a living, everybody
knows what that means.
And he came up and he just hadthat glimmer of hope.
(31:54):
I hope this young man has heardof this song and maybe, maybe
for some miracle reason, he hasit.
He says, excuse me, young man,yes, sir, was.
I don't know if you've heard ofthis song, but it's me and my
wife's wedding song and if youcould play it sometime during
the evening, that would befantastic.
Sure, what do you got?
He goes it's pledging my loveby johnny ace from like the
1950s.
You probably don't have, and Isaid I know exactly what it is.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
boom, because that's what I was raised on.
My dad loved johnny ace man Iplayed that.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I played that the next song.
To anthony I said play that,the next song.
So anthony, my boy, my partner,on the wedding side of all
sound music, he, he played itand he knows it too.
And he got his wife's hand andthis was this is cocktail hour
and he takes the dance flooralone and they look like it's
the prom.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
It was their wedding.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, he came up to me and and he, just he shook my
hand like that old school manand I could tell how sincere you
know he was and when he told methat meant the world to me and
it meant the world to her, whichwas more important.
But that's what we get to do,man.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Absolutely, man, absolutely I.
I've had that song requestedand, to be honest with you, I
didn't have it.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Oh no, that's a classic.
It's a 50s classic, though.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Well, I hope I think I may have put it in my oldies,
crate now but back then johnnyace.
Yeah, I know about johnny ace.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
If you guys ever have oldies but goodies, like all
these but goodies questions, oryou need a list or you need, you
need a little, you know alittle.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
411 do you hesitate?
Do you have a do-op?
Uh a?
Do you have a doo-wop, crate?
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Do you have a doo-wop crate?
No, bro, I can get with you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
We can make a doo-wop crate.
If you want to do that, bro,just let me know.
I'm all in.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Yeah, let's give it a go.
I think I got Select Mix'sdoo-wop crate.
I like theirs there, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
They do a more production in there, right, and
it's select mix.
I like your intros better, man.
Your intros are are a lotcleaner.
It's that clean beat that wecan get in and get out.
Yeah, select mix is cool, butit's more of a not quite a
redrum.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
But is it?
Is it a quick mixer?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
select, no, they they , it's they do some real
production in their songs.
I mean um, someone over thereis a producer.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I'm just a.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
DJ remixer.
I guess Redrum remix intro,outro.
Yeah, I'm going to go with Richon this one man Couple
collaborations.
When you get that message, thattext message, that phone, call,
the Instagram, the social media, they say hey, I'm looking for
a dj and an mc.
Or actually I'm just gonna goahead and throw a little kink in
(34:18):
there to you they're justlooking for a quote-unquote dj.
They didn't say anything aboutan mc.
What's your process, man?
How do you fill them out?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
yeah, I mean we get first.
You got to figure out likewhat's I mean right away.
I'll just go through like alittle quick you know
questionnaire like okay, what'syour occasion, what's the date,
what's the venue, location,approximately how many guests.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Link you know, just real quick.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I mean, just those right there will get me, even if
I'm not available.
I mean, I have a great network.
You know DJs, that you knowawesome too.
What kind of genre of music doyou guys like?
What are you guys looking for?
You know what I mean.
And boom, just that right therecould let me.
Just guys, just you know I'mdoing a micro wedding next week,
50 people.
You know what I mean.
So it's a nice one yeah, so, umyeah, so I'll just go through
(35:00):
them with that a littlequestionnaire, see what they
need, you know so?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
and then, yeah, just go from there what kind of what
kind of traditions have you raninto at your weddings?
Any kind of family traditions,any kind of cultural traditions?
Yeah, I mean well the hispanicculture.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
I mean big time.
Obviously it's always.
It's always fun when you getlike the grooms super.
You know hispanic one, yeah, Imean and then you got you know
megan smith, you know coming onthe other end and you know they,
you know they're okies, youknow what I mean.
And so those are the, those arethe fun weddings, that where,
if you can knock those out,together with two different
genres of music so you're gonnaplay.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
They're both out there some elvis crispo and some
taylor swift.
You know what I?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
mean yeah you know a mashup, george stranier,
fernandez, in a lot of cases,yeah, man, but it's fun when you
see all of them out theretogether dancing to both of
those genres of music.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Because they're just out there having a good time,
because if you're mixing itright, you're giving them plenty
of both of them and the beat isstill on.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And the beat's on Exactly.
They don't have to stop movingtheir body, they just keep
moving.
Now, they might not be familiarwith that music.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
But and even the celebrations.
Sometimes you know they do thatwell, I forgot what it's called
, but they get the bright andgreen up on the on the chair.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
It's like the snake dance right and they try to
knock them off right yeah yeah,that one that always, that
always stresses me out it is.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
I've seen some chairs break and some guys get a
little crazy on those things,man, so but uh yeah, they start
tossing them up in the airhigher and higher and higher.
Yeah, yeah please don't drop it, john you, uh, have, have you.
I've seen him do that.
Yeah, mike, but at some some ofmy gigs, well, they're spinning
, running through the circle.
They stop the cut, they stopthe crowd and make you take a
(36:28):
shot.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Oh, I've seen that yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Oh, yeah, yeah, as soon as they go under that.
Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
I've seen a people start falling down oh man, it's
almost like.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
This is how many times you can run around in a
circle while you take a shot.
Then keep running around yeswho can stand?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
up, where's that bat spin?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
you spin your head on the bat yeah, I remember that
like this yeah, yeah, yeah andthey grabbed the groom.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
One time they picked him up and took him to the bar,
took off his shoe, poured theliquor in the shoe, made him
take the shot out of the shoe.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Hey what do you?
I don't know, it's crazy stuffpeople these guys do tell me
about the shoe game, the shoegame.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
You know what I've?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I've never experienced one personally I've
done it.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I've done it several times, but I've never pitched
them.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
How about you, derrick?
Speaker 4 (37:07):
you ever do the shoes , man yeah, um, sometimes I like
it because it kills.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It kills a good, good 10-15 minutes yeah, it's a good
transition between somethingyou think sometimes I don't have
enough time in my weddings.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
It just depends, like it just depends on the bridal
party, you know, because theyhave a lot to do with it.
But it's fun, I don't mind.
I don't mind it what do youguys?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
are you guys seeing any new trends in weddings
lately?
Speaker 4 (37:33):
the speed round where they take a picture.
I actually like that one.
A lot of people don't like.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I like that one because it gives me a chance to
get out there and be supervibrant and just be me and and
really just get them and andusher them this way, that way,
and you get to talk to everybodyand talk about the ultimate
icebreaker.
That's the ultimate icebreakerright there, because you're in
front of everybody.
Man.
They see all this personalityback there and you know we're
having fun tonight and it's likelet's go, man.
The rest of the night is ispretty smooth in most cases how
(38:00):
is that one?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
it's that one how's that one?
Speaker 2 (38:02):
yeah, how is it?
Speaker 1 (38:03):
okay.
So how do you do it?
Yeah, okay.
So how we do it is I get up andI'll tell them this is what
we're gonna do.
So you have, you have so manypeople that want to take
pictures with the bride andgroom, but we're gonna, we're
gonna take care of every tableright now.
So this is, this is the goal.
We're going to play one songand we're going to see if the
bride and groom and that's up toy'all see if they can be fast
enough to take a picture of thatone song with every table.
(38:24):
So then I tell them I said soif you have table one that
they're taking a picture oftable two and three needs to be
up and ready.
And you know you're preppingthem and you just keep doing it
the whole time and it's fun, man.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
It the bride and groom, and they're.
You know they're.
It's chaos.
It is, but it's organized chaos, organized chaos.
By the time they get halfway,though, like all the other
tables, are just like puttingprops, putting glasses on
sunglasses.
They're getting ready, theyhave things ready to go they're
trying to outdo the other tablebefore them yeah so by the time
you get to the last one, they'regoing so what do we have to do?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
do we have to play rapper's delight for this?
Like a seven minute song, like?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
play, play something extremely upbeat.
Okay, have you heard of a songcalled?
Maybe you heard, I know youheard this d.
It's uh, it's kind of afreestyle, kind of la disco
dance.
Um, it's called uh, wake up bystop.
I think that was our only hit.
It's a jam man, it's a jam wakeup by stop, we play something
super upbeat like that.
They don't even have to know it, it just has to be super upbeat
(39:14):
.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
It has to get them moving, get their blood flowing
get their heart racing.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, with us it emceeing also, and it don't have
to be one song, you can say allright, you got two songs to do
it.
Boom.
That way you have a little moreto say about how many guests
you have.
You know if you have 50 guestsor 250 guests.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
When you get up to the 400, I'm like I need
rapper's delight.
Yeah, we're gonna play thisgame with 250 guests.
Yeah, this is gonna take toolong.
A lot of the brides.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
They've seen it on instagram, right, so they they
know what song they want.
They usually tell you what songthey want to do.
Yeah, yeah, how about?
Um, what are your mostmemorable moments?
What are you guys's mostmemorable moments?
Your most memorable wedding?
That, your absolute favoriteway?
I'll tell you mine right now.
I had one in in Woody and it waslike 300 plus people in a
pasture in Woody.
You know Glenville, woody,right up towards there.
Okay, I know the area.
They had a whole ranch.
They drove pickup trucks ofpeople with hay bales all the
(40:09):
way.
It looked like a, it lookedlike a fair ride or something
Drove 300 people back up inthere.
They got married, came back outand we were under the barn or
whatever.
Now this is where I'm going tobecome racial, right, I didn't
think I was going to have agreat wedding because I'm not a
big white country.
What?
What I assumed and what Ithought about reading my clients
, right, no man turns out.
(40:31):
I was playing too short knee 40and mac dre and everything else
and these country folk weregoing crazy that was my absolute
favorite man.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yeah, it's always fun when you just got them like
that.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Yeah, you know what I mean yeah, you know, typically
people who want country music,they generally just want it for
cocktail music, but they theywant to dance to everything yeah
yeah
Speaker 2 (40:49):
yeah, I was.
I was very intrepid, if youwill.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I was very worried, I was very scared, but uh, it
came out to be my favoritewedding I've ever done yeah, and
then you go in there loadedwith all this classic rock and
country and I didn't use half ofit and you're like but, but now
you feel like you have enoughmusic now oh yeah, oh well, I
got all that I had to study andthen I still have I had to put
in my homework.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, I had to put in my homework.
I had to get all these tracks.
I had to gather these tracks,whether it was, whether it was
sick mixes, whether it was billbass's with somebody's.
I had to download and buy theirmusic packs and go through
every single song.
And that's just how I am.
I'm very, very ocd, verymeticulous.
My, my libraries are very clean.
Um, I walk up to some otherpeople's laptops.
(41:27):
Man, I don't.
I don't know what the hell'sgoing on.
I have some dirty room cratesin my I got a playlist for
everythingI got too many because sometimes
I'll make you make a playlistfor an event and you're like, oh
, I'm gonna save that playlist.
That was a good one yeah, andthey say the easiest way to do
it is to go to your history andthen highlight all of them and
drag them into a crate you cando that for your date, yeah yeah
, you can do that for the.
If you really liked the event,you did, go to your history,
(41:49):
copy all of it and put it into acrate I've done that before,
like oh, what was that?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
can see that I just did.
Oh, I went, I go to that datereal quick, boom, like oh yeah,
and I was kind of going thatlittle history and yep, I
remember these.
There's three songs.
I put cool little tools inthere man.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, you know something that you have to take
in consideration.
You got to be smart.
Now.
All of us this pertain to allof us is like derek just touched
on it.
Right now they say they wantcountry music.
Right, they're telling you theywant country music.
They even give you a niceplaylist on spotify or apple
music or whatever that youtransfer over and you make a
crate for them.
But that doesn't mean thatthat's what they want for the
entire night and I think a lotof the younger jocks will just
(42:21):
take that and they kind of getdictated to.
But you know, as older cats, wegot to maintain full creative
control of where we play, whenwe play it, how we play it, what
we play in almost every case.
And I'll tell you what eventhough it's a country crowd,
everybody got a little ghetto inthem, everybody got a little
dirty funk in them.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
So we can't forget that man.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I've played blow the whistle at every country gig
come on, hey, you know,especially if you throw it neon
moon.
Neon moon neon moon right intothat.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
All of us have done that one man to a predominantly
white crowd yeah, yeah, almostevery time I see I get the same
thing, that derrick, I get he'swhite.
I don't think he's going to bea good DJ, you know what Hold on
?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I did the sparklers and the dance for the one time.
I can't agree with you therebecause you were more than
comfortable and that was apretty black crowd.
Is what that?
Speaker 2 (43:12):
was right Kind of mixed up.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
She was white.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
She was white, he was black, he was black, he was
black.
So you were right there.
Oh, I'm comfortable because,like Derek, derek grew up in
Oakland, I grew up in Arvin, allright, 99% Hispanic population.
You grew up in Arvin, arvin,california, baby.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Oh, that's like when you grew up in a small town in
LA.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I grew up in Santa.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
Paula back home.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
So yeah, man Kind of Arvin-esque of arvin-esque.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
It is very.
Yeah, we're shafter-esque, yeah, yeah, hey, shafter's doing
pretty good man I'm, I'm, I'm,I'm proud of shafter.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Hey, bro, shafters, don't, don't sneeze and don't
don't be looking past.
Shafter.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Shafter's got a lot of spots now, yeah, and a lot of
beautiful private residencesshafter did amazing by bringing
in those companies, amazon andtarget and all those warehouses
and everything else.
Whoever was the mayor back thencity council, they knew what
the hell they were doing.
Yeah, they, they did well thatwas a win.
That was a definite win, derrickeverybody.
Uh, advice for couples, man.
What?
What tips would you give tocouples to choose the right dj
(44:08):
mc?
What kind of questions do youask and how do you make sure
that their wedding day runssmoothly?
Speaker 4 (44:15):
that's a lot of questions, but, um, I make sure
I mean so.
Obviously we've all doneweddings and so I mean I've.
You know, I've accepted thefact that you know I'm a wedding
dj and so I'm.
I take that very seriously.
Um, but on a lighter note,every wedding I do is about 90%
(44:39):
identical.
So I'm comfortable withweddings, I'm comfortable with
them.
Now, if I'm giving advice tosomeone on how to choose a DJ, I
think you have to go check themout, you have to go see them.
That's the only way.
I mean, a good DJ to yourfriend may not be a good DJ to
you, because each bride islooking for different things.
A thousand percent, so go seethem.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
That's what I would tell the brides.
Yeah, go see them if they're onsocial media.
In the mix.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
you know Well, social media is kind of like you only
post the pretty pictures, thehighlights.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, you're going to post the highlights.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
You can make 10 people look like there was 100
people in that dance floor,right?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
what.
I'll tell you one thing aboutthat that whole social media
thing is and I apologize becausewe've all done it, I've even
done it I almost refuse to postpictures and videos of fucking
line dancing.
The lane dances, like I mean,isn't that automatic?
Isn't that like, hey, you put aline dance on, you say, hey,
everybody, come out, have adance, get it.
You know, make some memories.
(45:34):
Everybody goes out there andyou, you have everybody tricked
into thinking you're a great DJ.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Only other DJs care.
Only other DJs care.
So keep posting it, because thebride doesn't know, she's not a
hater.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
She doesn't want that gig Because society they eat
with their eyes A packed dancefloor.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
So you know what I would say to that is there's so
many brides that will contactall of us on a daily basis in a
lot of cases.
Hey, and the first thing thatflies out of their mouth hey,
how much do you charge?
Not?
Hey, what kind of DJ are you?
What kind of music do you play?
Do you have more than onespeaker?
Do you?
You know, can you MC?
Can you do?
(46:16):
Because a lot of cats are justGive me your price sheets.
Yeah, just give set aconsultation.
I offer the zoom consultation,everything's zoom.
So it's super convenient forboth of us.
But it's a simple explanation.
You get to meet me face to face.
I share the experience and thepotential breakdown of how your
wedding could go from ceremonyto the end, including all your
extras dance, dance floor,sparklers, lighting, et cetera,
(46:38):
et cetera.
But you get to see a pictureform of it.
You know you get slides withstills and this is how it looks.
But if you don't take that timeto consult, you don't know me,
you don't know the value, youknow, you just know a number.
That's pretty much it.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
I actually give a price quote, and the reason why
I do is because I want topre-qualify these people and I
don't want to spend a whole.
I don't want to give a wholepresentation to someone who
wishes they could hire me, andso I tell them what it costs and
they could either afford me andwant to continue the
conversation or they're.
You know like, there's avariety of DJs, there's also a
variety of brides andunfortunately, a lot of brides
(47:15):
don't feel like the DJ is thatimportant, yeah, and so in those
cases're they're looking forsomething different.
That's also.
There's other people that willbe happy to take that gig, but I
I like to say, hey, this iswhat it costs.
If you want to get into thisclub, pay up.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, I kind of do this.
I kind of do the same.
I mean I have a price sheetwith my packages.
I have a one, two, three andholocart and um, they'll ask me,
you know, I'll give them thelittle quick, you know,
questionnaire of like when,stuff like that, what's the
occasion?
And stuff like that.
If it's a wedding, I have aprice sheet and send them off to
them.
I go, this is what I can offerIf you have any questions on the
(48:01):
prices are up there compared toa lot of other djs in town.
So it kind of just eliminatesthat clientele.
That really puts the dj on theback burner, you know, I mean of
their event.
You know they tell me oh, mywedding's next month, I got
everything else, but I just needa dj.
Those are the kind of clients Ireally don't really like
messing with, right, you know.
But the ones that are callingme a year in advance because
they've seen me play x, you knowwherever I played at, and they,
(48:23):
hey, man, you know, or I was ata wedding that you were at, I
really want you for my weddingor I went to the condors game
yeah, and I loved you as my dj.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Or I was at chewie's and I seen you throw down or
something you know.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Neither one of us is wrong.
We're both right, and it boilsdown to what works for you.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah what works for you.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
I do almost the exact same as rich man I think, john,
you are just you know, fromtalking to you and listening to
you speak, I think you'reprobably a really good salesman.
Yeah, so for that consultation,I'm sure you probably book a
lot based on you, based on yourspit yeah, it's a strength.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
it is, bro, it's, it's, and I I take that as a
compliment, I don't take that asa well, I'm not a salesperson.
I'm not selling anything, bro.
Give it a name.
Everybody's selling something,bro.
If you're seating somebody at arestaurant, guess what you're
selling?
You're selling them potentiallycoming back, so yeah, you're
selling them an experienceeverybody's selling so I'm a.
The difference between mypresentations, when I am going
(49:20):
through, quote, unquote, thesales pitch, so to speak, is
that passion, bro, and the loveof the game, and it's wedding
love also.
In my experience it just pouredout, and I'll be honest with
you, man, it's a whole lot ofJesus too, because you combine
all of those, bro, and I'm anunstoppable like presentation.
And it's a presentation is whatit is, because at the end of
(49:42):
the day, I'm going to quote thema price, I'll show them three
prices and, like Rich said, youcan customize or do whatever you
want, but it's up to them.
But my job, my ultimate job, isto make that very difficult to
walk away from because of mypresentation oh yeah, no, that's
, that's you being a goodsalesman.
Yeah, no, no doubt.
Speaker 4 (50:03):
No doubt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
I just I think that you're abetter salesman than me, and so
that's why I just say this iswhat it costs.
Here's what I can give you.
But I also offer a lot ofbrowsing on my website.
So there's a few gig logs,there's mixes they can listen to
, there's pictures they can see,and I let them make because,
(50:27):
ultimately, I'm going to dowhatever they want.
So I take the lead from thebride.
What do you want me to do?
And then, of course, if I couldslide in a photo booth or up
lighting or a monogram, I try todo that, but I can see that you
sell more packages than me.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
But what though?
I might be a better salespersonas far as the wedding game than
you, but I don't know in toodeep.
So you know, and that's that'sone of my favorite jams.
Every time rich plays it likewe're hanging at chewy's or
something, he kind of looks atme and I'm like that's my jam.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, oh, like, yeah, the back to the hotel and uh,
that drew down a pimp of theyear.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Oh yeah, Pimp of the year.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
That makes perfect.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
All right, gentlemen, we're going in on an hour long
now.
We're going to go ahead and I'mgoing to give you guys each
about a minute or two exit.
You can say what you want tosay, say what you've been up to,
where you're at your ads, yoursocial medias, anything.
So take it away.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
You got it Well JC Cota with all sound music and
ASM dance floors.
You can find us on IG at, uh,ASM DJ events or at ASM dance
floors.
Um, that Facebook is basicallythe same thing.
Our, our website is all soundmusic entertainmentcom.
Uh, I don't have any.
I don't have any residencies oranything.
I'm one of the older cats inthe business.
I've been in the business forabout four decades, so I've seen
the better part of the lastfour decades, from roughly 85 to
(51:46):
current date.
We play all types of music.
The difference between us alsois that we play nothing but
family friendly edited music.
But my library is strong, fromthe twenties up to current date
in every popular genre, and oneof the significant weapons that
I have is the ability to holdthat microphone really in the
(52:07):
most unique way that you'll seeanybody hold it here.
I just don't have a style likeeverybody else, but it's all
love man, A lot of Jesus and awhole lot of love for the game.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
I like that.
Hey, we had to give them around of applause, man, what's?
Speaker 3 (52:23):
that, what do you got rich?
No, um, residencies, yeah, I'mkind of all over here in
bakersfield so yeah, so ifpeople want to come see me, you
know you catch me at the biggestcondors, hockey games, um
in-game dj all season long, withChewy's do cruise night every
Thursday.
So JC kind of got someresidency because he's out there
guest DJing with me almostevery Thursday.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
It's all fun, man, so much fun.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
We call it the DJ gym because you know it's an
all-format spot.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
It's a workout.
We still need a name for ourcrew, so maybe somebody can help
us out.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah yeah, we're all dads, so I think that's where we
go somewhere down that route.
But uh, but yeah, you can catchme out there and also out, you
know, e-mountain casino.
You know at least once a month,twice a month maybe.
Sometimes you know doing outthere.
So but, yeah, catch me on, youknow instagram dj richie rich,
tiktok dj richie rich.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
So yeah, all right, derrick, we're gonna go ahead
and close it out with you.
Brother, man, what, what, whatall do you want to get out there
to the people that we haven'talready?
Even if we have already talkedabout it, man, if it's important
to say it again, I just want tothank you for having me on your
show.
Speaker 4 (53:27):
John and Rich appreciate you guys.
Everybody out there whosupports the Sick Mix edits and
the Sick Mix edit family.
Thank you guys for your supportand it was.
It's been a pleasure and I'dlove to do it again we
definitely will.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Man with that, we'll close it up.
Thank you guys for joining nicemeeting you, derek we'll get
together again in a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Welcome to the.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the,the, the, the, the, the the.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
(54:14):
the, the, the, the, the, the,the, the, the.
We got the whole.
We got the whole world panicking, matt.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Miller in the most love family.
What's up y'all?
We have two new guests today.
We have John Cota, all SoundMusic and ASM Dance Floors.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
ASM Dance Floors.
Thanks for the plug.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
All Sound Music and ASM Dancem dance floors.
You need a dj, you need a, agreat mc, right?
Hey, rich is always talkingabout your mc skills, man, so
I'm gonna go ahead and put thatout there, greatest, one of the
greatest mcs, and uh, dancefloors, what, what size?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
is brother, oh man you want to go from uh, you want
to go from a nine by nine, oryou want to go to a 39 by 39 you
got the big guns out there witha 39 man.
In fact, the last time wechecked was last year.
We rechecked but we have thebiggest dance for inventory in
current county oh, there you go,so we can take care of it all
right, we got also.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We have derrick beren .
Did I get that right, derek?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
That's it, derek Bergersen.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Derek Bergersen.
A lot of you guys may not knowthe name, derek Bergersen, but
I'll almost guarantee you knowthe name Sick Mix.
Everybody knows Sick Mix.
We all have his packs, we allhave his music, we all have his
edits, we have all of it.
How you doing over there,derrick?
Oh man I'm blessed.
Hey, hey, that's the positivityright there, man.
(01:51):
Well, we're gonna jump straightinto this thing.
Man, uh, we want to know alittle bit about you, brother.
Um, growing up in the bayduring the 80s, man, how did the
local hip-hop scene influenceyour decision to become a DJ?
You went into the military,right?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah, yeah, the local scene didn't really influence
me to be a DJ.
I would say it was Crush Grooveand Beat Street.
I think those are the two maininfluences.
That was like well, you know,crush Groove, you know, know,
I'm not just a dj, I'm also, youknow, I have a record label.
(02:27):
So crush groove kind of give mea lot of push um about the
whole industry and and a littlesneak peek into how how it works
how did um?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
michael erickson and cameron paul?
What about their, their, their,man?
What did you take from them?
What did you incorporate fromthem?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Well, the station was KSOL and at that time in 1985,
there was no DJs mixing music onthe radio that I knew of in the
Bay Area, but KSOL.
On Friday nights at midnightthey'd have a mix show and it
(03:11):
was Cameron, paul and MichaelErickson.
It was called the Midnight Beat12 o'clock beat, and they would
broadcast live from a club, anightclub.
It was crazy, but I would stayup to midnight and record the
mixes, and so I listened to themand, of course, tried to buy
(03:36):
the records that they wereplaying and try to copy them for
sure.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
All right, All right, how about those initial
memories of DJing man?
Your first house party, yourfirst club, your?
What were the fondest memoriesof your initial coming out as a
DJ.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It wasn't just me, right, it was.
You had a crew of DJs.
So, um, my crew happened to be,uh, a black guy, a Filipino guy
, a Mexican dude, uh, and thenme, the white dude.
So, um, it was fun to seepeople's reactions, like, when
(04:20):
we pull up to the party, theywould look at us like who's
actually going to DJ?
Which one of these guys is theparty?
They would look at us likewho's actually going to DJ?
Which one of these guys is theDJ, you know, and of course it
was all of us, and they would beinitially shocked when they saw
me play and but then, of course, pleasantly surprised that it
sounded good.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Why do you say that, brother?
So everybody that can't see youphysically on the screen right
now, why would they doubtwhether or not you would be a dj
?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
well, you know, I mean, um, back then I was doing
a lot of fraternity parties atcolleges and stuff and they were
mostly black, blackfraternities, all right, and so
they kind of figured like, oh,oh, I think this guy is going to
come in here playing Journey,right, but no, it was.
You know, oaktown 357, mcHammer Too Short.
(05:13):
All these groups were, you know, just getting started and the
independent world was startingto starting to begin at that
time.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
In 93,.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
You remember 93, remember 93, man, yeah vaguely.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I was 11, I was 13 man.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You joined uh young black brother records man under
rob nonis.
Uh you worked with mac mall,mac dray, ray love.
What were your experiences andhow did that enhance your skills
, your promotions, yourmarketing?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, that was my first experience with the real
record label.
You know, that was, you know, abig reason why I didn't just
stay a DJ.
I started my own label and putout tons of records.
But it was a great experience.
I mean, it definitely got me ina lot of nightclubs that I
(06:11):
wasn't going to get in.
I got to bypass securitybecause I'm coming in with
giveaways and cassettes andposters and things like that.
So it was fun it was fun, itwas fun, all right, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Let's jump forward a little bit.
What took you to Tucson man?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Um, I used to DJ for a group called into deep and um
they got a gig in uh Tucson atum hot 98, um hot 98 and um it
was.
It was called the lowrideroldie show and they needed a dj,
and um I was open to trying it.
(06:58):
So we, we all, moved to arizona.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
All right, all right, that's a big jump and you moved
from Vallejo to Arizona.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah and um.
We became the number one showin two within two months and it
was.
It was awesome.
Um, I was not just the DJ, Iwas a producer for shows.
All these um, all these show.
But we didn't just play oldies,we played like Chicano hip hop.
(07:27):
So we play like artists likeGemini from Texas and Nasty Boy.
You know a lot of the Chicanoartists we play on there as well
.
Of course, we play hella N2Deep songs on there.
Yeah right artists we play onthere as well.
Of course, we play hella intodeep songs on there.
Yeah right, um, but we justtook.
(07:47):
We took what we, we used tohear these type of shows in the
bay area, and so we just copiedstuff that we, we used to do you
knew the recipe and you took itsomewhere where they didn't
know the food yeah, so tucsonwas ready for us all right.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
What, um?
What happened to djing at thatpoint in time, man?
Did you slow down djing?
Did you quit?
Did you lose, like your, yourpassion, what?
What were you doing?
And then, how did you get backinto djing after that?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
um, I was putting out records.
I, I had, you know, a lot ofalbums out.
Uh, we were touring again withinto deep, with gemini, with
frost, um, latino velvet.
Uh, we were, we were doing, wewere doing shows all over the
place.
I was doing distribution forpeople.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Um, were those the good old days that you didn't
know were gonna be the good olddays?
I didn't know those were thegood old days.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah, for didn't know were going to be the good old
days.
I didn't know those were thegood old days.
Yeah for sure we were.
Just honestly, we were justtrying to make a dollar.
You know, when we would go ontour we would bring tons of
product with us, so cassettesand CDs.
And, being that we're friendswith tons of artists, we would
go on the road and we would goup to, like Mac Dre and get 200
(09:09):
CDs from him, and we would go to, uh, keep the sneak and get 200
CDs from him.
So when we went on the road wedidn't just have into deep CDs,
we had the whole we were like amobile distributor, so we're in
the bay area we pull into kansascity to seventh heaven and make
(09:30):
a few thousand dollars.
So we were just on the road fora few years and I didn't do
gigs outside of the radio showbecause I was on the road.
I could pre-record the radioshow and not even be there.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Sure and just send it in.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
And just send it in.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, the early days of the internet.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
How long did that take to send in man those files?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Well, we all still lived in Tucson, so we would go
back there, do the show and justturn it in.
So I didn't actually email ohnobody.
Yeah, um, but yeah, so after wewould be on the road for a week
or two.
If we were going to be gone formore than a week, we just
pre-record two shows and leavethem at the station all right,
(10:20):
all right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
All right, all right, 2002.
2002.
You founded two different itemsSouthwest Bound Magazine and
SickMixcom.
Yeah, what motivated you tostart those platforms?
Money.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Hey, I love the honesty man, there you go.
That was the time when mixtapeswere big, big and I just
explained to you how we did verywell selling albums.
We transitioned into sellingmixtapes as well so don't worry,
thank you um, we sold thousandsof snoop dogg mixtapes and we
(11:01):
sold thousands of lil waynemixtapes and anything we can get
our hands on.
Anyone who would work with us.
We would sell their productsthrough sick mix.
Um, and I, of course, wasmaking tons of mixtapes as well,
and not just uh, streetmixtapes.
We were making real albums thatwe sold.
So, um, I did one with mac drehe's the best of the rompilation
(11:26):
.
I did one within too deep.
It's called the menudo mix.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Um, I did one latino velvet's menudo mix.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Latino velvet's menudo mix.
Um, there's a group called thehieroglyphics.
I did a mixtape with them.
Casual of hieroglyphics casual.
These are all real albums thatare on Spotify.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
They were all cleared and you know real projects.
Hieroglyphics like connected toSouls of Mischief, souls of
Mischief, is part of it Souls ofMischief.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
93 to Infinity.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
The Bay Area was a crazy.
It was a crazy place in the 90sbecause everybody was rapping
and everybody was doing wellLike there were groups like
Eleven Five and RBL Posse, rblPosse, helski and 415.
And they all you know there'stheir cassettes were at Sam
Goody's and they were at thewarehouse and they were at Tower
Records and they were like thefirst rap albums were at Tower
Records and they were like thefirst rap albums we've ever seen
in these stores.
So it was.
(12:29):
It was a lot of actionhappening back then.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's cool tell me a little bit about the Breaking
Bread Foundation, brother.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Break Bread Foundation is.
It's not actually mine, it's my, my friend.
He has a restaurant and everySunday, out of his own pocket,
he will feed anybody who comesup to his restaurant.
And it's not just hot dogs andsandwiches, it's a barbecue
joint, so he will feed youanything you want.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I mean, you can go over there and you can be poor,
broke handed and you're going toyou can still get some tri tip
or something.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yes, you can get the tri tip, you could get the ribs,
you could get whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
How do, how does he, how does he fund that man and
what are you doing to help him?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
So when I first when he first told me about it he has
a food truck and the food truckis open on the weekends first
told me about it he has a foodtruck and the food truck is open
on the weekends.
Every dime he makes from thefood truck goes to the break
bread foundation.
So I said to myself man, Ithink I could help you out.
And so I said I'm going tostart a patreon and I'm going to
make it very limited.
(13:39):
I'm only having 20 spots andit's $40 a spot and I use, and
that's you know, around 800bucks.
And so, um, you know, patreonnumber one is is, uh, in the
room with us.
Number one right here, Bubba, Iwas number one and I'm very
(13:59):
proud of that so um, we, wespend, you know, about 15, 1600
a week and we feed people invallejo.
Is it every sunday?
Every single sunday, rain orshine?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
so we could possibly make a trip up there.
Hang out, see how you know, seehow you guys do things, try to
help out.
Do.
Can we cook.
What can we do up there?
Man does he.
Is he gonna let us behind thegrill?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
um, if you have your food handlers card he will yeah,
we don't, we don't.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Man, I can hand out drinks or or paper plates or
something right?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
we could dj okay hey, there we go, we play music
there sometimes and it's so.
He's he's.
You know he's found god.
He was a um, you know he was arough character growing up and
um, he found god and settleddown.
He's married, he has kids andso what he calls it is his food
ministry.
(14:59):
So if you show up on sunday,he's gonna talk to you a little
bit, yeah, and see if you needanything.
You want to just talk aboutlife.
He doesn't force God on anyone.
It's just a safe place that youcan come and talk if you need be
, and so I was moved.
(15:21):
You know, when I first wentthere, I was touched and I said
I have to get involved.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, that's amazing, man.
I'll head up there soon, man,I've been wanting to do that for
a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Well, man, we will head up there I'm in.
I know exactly what I'm in.
The Lord just spoke to me rightnow.
He says I have people to prayover for that ministry.
Absolutely yes.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
I over at that for that ministry?
Absolutely, yes, no, it it's um.
I always tried to help people,you know.
You guys know I'm a I'm fairlynice person but, um, when I
physically went there, you know,I teared up and I'm like
there's no way I can't help.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's cool yeah, that's a.
Uh, how many people you thinkyou guys are feeding on a on a
weekly?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
not I.
Vallejo's got a lot of peoplein need, so honestly, I think
we're probably doing between 100and 200 people.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
All right, that's a lot of people, a lot of meals,
that's just one side of Vallejo.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
There's a whole other side of Vallejo that needs help
, and so there's a restaurant onthe other side of town called
Sharky's and, if you don't mind,let me tell you about this
fundraiser For sure.
Yeah, it's Sharky's FamilyFoundation.
It's a chicken and fishrestaurant.
They're on the opposite side oftown and we are partnering with
a company called Beats for Hope.
(16:36):
That's headed by a veteran DJfrom the Bay Area, alex Mejia,
and what his company does isthey sell T-shirts and all the
proceeds go to a nonprofit.
So what we're doing is we'regetting.
I'm going around to rappers thatI know and I'm asking them if I
could use their album cover forthree months, and I'm going to
(16:57):
sell T-shirts.
So this first three monthswe're going to launch the first
one is, um, of course, into deepback to the hotel, awesome, and
then um, and then 11.5 um,fiending for the funk those two
albums.
So, um, we're going to sellthose t-shirts for three months.
Um, half of the money goes tobeats for hope and their
(17:19):
foundation.
Pretty much they do clothing,so they they give clothing and
jackets to people, and thensharkies, we're going to use
that money to feed people inVallejo.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Awesome man.
Are you going to be splittingtime at the locations or are you
still going to be at the mainspot, the break bread spot?
Speaker 4 (17:35):
I actually don't go to either one as much as I used
to Break bread.
Just needed a financial help, abacking, yeah.
So we set that up with yourhelp.
The Patreon's been going strongfor a while now, and then every
three months we're going toswap out.
The next two album covers areRBL, posse and Mac Mall.
(17:56):
So I'm just going to keep doingtwo every three months, two
different covers, for as long asthey'll let me.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah.
How are we going to get thoseshirts out there, brother?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
um, they'll be on.
Beats for hope, beats forhopecom.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
All right, and all of those proceeds are going right
up there to the valet.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Yes, yeah, all right.
Every shirt on that site has adifferent charity behind it, and
it'll tell you which charity itgoes which one you're?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
yeah, you get to pick which one you're investing into
yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
All right, yeah, yeah , so it's not just ours.
There's shirts from otherpeople.
All right, Other DJs it'smostly DJs.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Are raising money.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
How many Patreon subscribers are you guys up to
now?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Patreon we are capped at 20.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Okay, all right.
Yeah, all right, I might, Imight sit, uh, I might get you
on the side and try to pick upone of those.
If somebody falls off, man, Ican uh give it out to somebody.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
There's a spot open right now.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Okay, I'll take it.
Mark, mark me down for that,brother, and I'm going to.
I'm going to hook my one of myDJs up over here in Bakersfield.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right on and uh, we'll a month perfect.
Yeah, appreciate it, derek.
Hey, um 2015.
Last question for yourinterview process man, uh, 2015,
you kind of got back into thewedding industry.
Um bay mix bay mixes eventswith uh charlie days yeah uh,
well, over 300 weddings.
We were busy 300 weddings, man.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
That's when the controllers started popping up.
Okay, and I think I had avestex 300 um, I still have it,
or I have a 380, maybe all right, but those texts were the first
controllers I that I knew of,um, so it got easy.
So I I started DJing more.
(19:44):
That's really what happened.
Djing easier because I didn'treally, I didn't really
participate in the CD era, thatmuch Um.
But when the controllers showedup, I jumped back in full time.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
All right, all right and uh.
Ever since then, you've it'sall downhill from there with
weddings and photo booths.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Yeah, no, you know, that was my pretty much nine to
five, all right.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
All right, but nowadays you're doing a whole
lot of stuff.
You're doing production, you'redoing.
I mean, what all are you doing?
Now, man, recap it for us.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
I'm back in the music business.
I just started a newdistributor that I can you know
kind of work against companieslike TuneCore and DistroKid and
CD Baby.
It's kind of on the lines ofthat those platforms charge you
per album, per single, which youknow could get costly to some
independent artists if they havemultiple releases and they're
(20:40):
not seeing any returns.
Yeah, they're just shootingstuff out.
Yeah, I'm going to just do aflat rate, 80-20 split with the
artist.
They don't have to pay anything.
If they got money, let's use itto promote.
Awesome, yeah, we got thatgoing.
Next month I'm going to bedropping another magazine called
Addicted to Vinyl all DJmagazine.
(21:01):
I got DJ Shortcut on the frontcover.
Oh nice, I got DJ shortcut onthe front cover, DJ epic on the
back cover.
It's a full size, real printedmagazine.
We're going to print a thousandcopies and see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I'm going to need a copy of that too, brother.
Oh yeah yeah, I'll shoot yousome money.
You can do with it whatever youwant, man, but hook me up with
one of the first copies.
I want an autograph on it too,man.
You'll get it, you'll get it um.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
And then the last thing which is like my full-time
job right now is um.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I just wrote and I'm directing my first feature film
I didn't know if you were goingto comment on it, because I that
was going to be my nextquestion.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Man, I want to know what's going on with this this
friday film you got going on,man well, um, a friend of mine
who was a retired music industryexecutive got into making
movies a few years back and I'vebeen watching him, I've been
assisting him learning, and itturns out the movie industry is
very, very, very similar to themusic industry.
(21:56):
I would think so, yeah.
So it used to cost me fivethousand to ten thousand dollars
to make an album.
And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm atten thousand dollars, and I've
got a thousand dollars to makean album.
And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm atten thousand dollars and I've
got a movie now instead of analbum.
All right, the same expense.
But uh, you know, my royaltiesin streaming have slowly started
(22:16):
to slow down okay um and so toreplace that income you know,
offset it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.
When is that coming out?
When's that due man um?
Speaker 4 (22:28):
I should be done filming the entire, the entire.
I got three more days offilming, so by the end of
February to be done, and so Icould probably show you the
movie in March.
It'll be on.
Uh, I've already got adistribution deal, so it'd be on
to be an Amazon.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Oh, wow, nice.
And then, of course, youtube.
Oh yeah, you got to.
Yeah, yeah, all, eric man.
I really appreciate having you,man.
We are going to jump into thenext section of our podcast,
which is going to be the greatbig W weddings.
So we're going to jump rightinto weddings DJ
responsibilities of thoseweddings, curating your playlist
, reading the crowd, handlingaudio equipment, technical
(23:05):
issues and, of course, the MCresponsibilities on the side of
that keeping everything on time,being punctual, keeping the
actual festivities going androlling and it's a smooth
process.
So I'm going to start over herewith John man, because I think
he has just a wealth ofinformation and you know your
role as a DJ and MC man for awedding.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
You know what we are, the?
It's like a circus.
When you see the circus topright and you see the guy that's
conducting everything and justreally just controlling the flow
, and that's me, man.
I got the big black top hat onand I'm opening up the lion's
mouth, so to speak, and you knowyou're just taking care of the
time, watching the time,communicating with everybody.
(23:48):
I always say if it's a spoke onthe wheel of your wedding day
and it's moving, we'll becommunicating with them from
staff to.
I mean, we go, we go deeper too.
I'll talk to the caterer,because there's one thing I
always say you have no controlof as a dj, and that's when the
food's going to be done, sure,so obviously it goes before.
You hit them with a timeline sothat they have an expectation
(24:09):
of when dinner's supposed to beserved.
Okay, you got six o'clock orwhatever the case is, but still
you don't release tables.
In those cases you touch basewith the chef or the staff and
see what's going on, littlethings like that.
You talk to the bartender andnine times out of 10, the
bartender's never talked to.
If there's a photo booth orwhatever the case is, just
anything and everything.
If you need to communicate withthem that.
(24:32):
That's a big part of myresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
That's why we um, our philosophy is is the two-man
team, the mc and the dj.
How do you um?
For me personally, I have agreat amount of problems doing
both, and and the reason I saythat is is we're behind the dj
booth.
You can queue up the first song, you can queue up the special
song you can queue up, but then,if you're a good mc, you
actually go out into the dancefloor.
You go out there, you talk, youget everybody's attention,
(24:55):
everybody's, and then who hitsplay for you.
Next you gotta run back over toyour dj booth yeah, well, that
then you're by yourself.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, good luck.
Yeah, and because I've donebefore I've in fact, at that
spot, on the rock and roll spothere, that was the one time that
anthony's back gave out on himand I I had a DJ, a wedding by
myself and luckily I was reallyclosely connected to that's when
he went to dance.
For you, you can put yourselfwhere you want to be put, but I
was able to work that, but itwas.
I'm talking about five feet inback and yeah, yeah, exactly.
(25:24):
And that's why I just said rightnow, our philosophy is it's a
two man team, Cause we ask a lotof ourselves, all just just all
that communication stuff.
You need a separate person todo that.
You look at coordinators oreven photographers.
There's there's frequently, ifnot almost all the time, there's
a second shooter.
So Anthony, stationary, he'sgot microphones, he's got
volumes, he's got cues, he's got, he's got the program music,
he's taking requests and allthat other good stuff.
(25:45):
He'll let the old man on youknow to scratch that itch every
now and again, but for theforemost, especially during the
program that's, hisresponsibility is to be
stationary and take care of allthat, where I have the itinerary
in my hand, exact same one ashe has, but I'm flying around
and just communicating andorchestrating everything, making
sure they're they're lined up,reviewing names.
You know that, man, that's oneof the worst things you could do
is not review the name you know, especially a family name.
(26:07):
I've I've heard so many times afamily name gets badgered, or
you know, god forbid, you callhim ramirez when his last name
is smith.
Oh yeah, that's not a good look, yeah, but that's that's us.
Right there we're.
We're a two man team.
So you know, I I take my hatoff to anybody who does a
wedding by themselvesnonetheless does it successfully
I'm.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I'm lucky in the fact that I have marion with me.
Usually, um, she doesn't dj,really, she doesn't mc at all,
but she filters everythingthrough for me, like if there's
somebody that if the weddingcoordinator comes and I'm doing
something she can talk to Marion, then Marion can relay it to me
.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I had my wife do that a lot.
You know my wife and my son hashelped me out a lot because
I've always done it by myselfyeah majority of the time it's
hard, yeah, and then as I'veprogressed into bigger and
better weddings, you know I havea good team like Gus and Monks
over at am entertainment.
They help me out a lot yeahthat.
And then, when I started pairingup with jc, and yeah, you need
that, you know you have some,you know some big weddings, you
know.
So you need a, you need a bigteam sometimes.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So you know one thing that you, that you absolutely
need to do as a wedding pro isyou need to to get a liaison,
you need to make best friendswith that maid or matron of
honor or sister or a cousin oranybody, and it's got to be a
female.
You know why we can't get intothem rooms.
We can't get into the bridalroom and check to see if she's
dressed or whatever the case is,because you know the start of
the show.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
She's ready to come down that aisle then it's time
to go until then, we're waitingon her yeah, so that that's
that's my thing is get a liaisonman john, a lot of times people
don't understand that aswedding djs we also become
unofficially the day ofcoordination oh man, we're not
getting paid for it, man alongwith being a psychiatrist too.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Man come on family counselor, you know about that,
bro.
Oh, family counselor, we should, we should get it.
There should be a degree familycounselor, marriage, marriage
counselor, but on a dj and we'relike a, we're like a subsidiary
or something.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Man yeah, bartenders and djs can get it hey, you know
who.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It reminds me of barbers.
You go into the barbershop,there's barbershop talk.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Oh yeah, there is, this is what this is right here.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
This is dj talk among barbers.
Oh yeah, man, derrick, hey man,what do you?
Uh, what goes into yourplanning of a wedding soundtrack
?
You know, from ceremony toreception to must plays and do
not plays even.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
I got a form that I have on my website that anyone
could download.
Any DJ could download and sendit to your bride and it's pretty
much a breakdown of everythingthey want.
So it'll start at the ceremonyand there's a spot for, you know
, families family in their song,bridal party in their song,
bride in her song, exit song.
(28:36):
So I pretty much have them fillout the form.
They tell me what they want andyou know, as you know, they
honestly don't really know whatthey want.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, they don't know what they need or want until
you tell them what they need andwant.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Right.
So maybe they say we like 2000s, hip hop and disco, and so I
put a little small cratetogether with what they asked
for.
But nine times out of 10, youknow it's.
I just read the crowd and seewho shows up.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
And let me ask you what your,what your strategy is on reading
the crowd.
So obviously, initially we'regoing to gear towards the ladies
.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
You get the ladies on the dance floor first well, I
mean, the first thing I do is,uh, I look at the room and I I
kind of, I guess I prejudgeeveryone ageism, their age.
Yeah, that's part of it basedon their age is where I'll start
, so I'll.
If I see a you know, a oldergroup, I'll start with the, of
(29:33):
course, the 70s and 80s, firstsome oldies, some motown, you
know, yeah, they get tired easy,and then after that it's pretty
much whatever I want.
Normally, you know, um, you'lljust see what songs work, and if
justin bieber works, then youstay pop, and if it doesn't, you
switch it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I don't know yeah, all right, you know what I just
noticed right now?
D I'm the old crowd, becauseyou just said 70s and 80s, bro,
so I'm part of that old crowd.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
I'm 53.
I'm the old crowd too.
I got you by a year man.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
I'm 55 in March.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Yeah, okay.
Well, you know we're prettymuch the same crowd music
because obviously we grew up toit.
We have a special connection.
You always connect, you knowstrongly, with music from your
high school era.
You're the most emotionalyou've ever been.
You've gotten your heart brokenand you want to listen to brian
mcknight and boys to men backat, back at 10, what is that
(30:25):
song man back at?
One, back at one, back at one,one last cry.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh man, I'm like ready for the world and prince
and dream boy and people likethat man.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
So you know, I just read the crowd like that and you
know I mean, if I get luckyenough to play music, I fucking
enjoy.
I'm really pumped yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's a big difference when you play music for
yourself versus others oh yeah,yeah, people would hate my party
.
Yeah, mine too, yeah I'd havesome like reggae going and I'd
have some straight rap and hiphop.
I'd be all over the damn place.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
But now that you're, you know, because you guys have
all done tons of weddings,you've been introduced to new
music.
So you know, I could make alist of 100 country songs that I
like now, but I couldn't yearsago.
Absolutely.
I'm in the same boat withcountry, you know.
I know jazz music.
I'm in the same boat withcountry.
I know jazz music.
I know a lot more because ofthe diversity.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's always nice to have that grandpa or grandma
come up to you with some jewelof a song.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And then you were able to play it for them, and
you're like wow, I didn't knowthis was.
You either had it sitting inyour catalog or you streamed it
off a title and you made theirevening.
So it was nice.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Getting some of those jewels, and so it was nice
getting some of those jewels.
Man, I never heard that song.
Yeah, it was a banger.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
There was a wedding like four years ago and he's all
white, real classy dude, realold, I would say they're about
75, 80 or so.
Right, they come up and I readpeople for a living, everybody
knows what that means.
And he came up and he just hadthat glimmer of hope.
(31:54):
I hope this young man has heardof this song and maybe, maybe
for some miracle reason, he hasit.
He says, excuse me, young man,yes, sir, was.
I don't know if you've heard ofthis song, but it's me and my
wife's wedding song and if youcould play it sometime during
the evening, that would befantastic.
Sure, what do you got?
He goes it's pledging my loveby johnny ace from like the
1950s.
You probably don't have, and Isaid I know exactly what it is.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
boom, because that's what I was raised on.
My dad loved johnny ace man Iplayed that.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I played that the next song.
To anthony I said play that,the next song.
So anthony, my boy, my partner,on the wedding side of all
sound music, he, he played itand he knows it too.
And he got his wife's hand andthis was this is cocktail hour
and he takes the dance flooralone and they look like it's
the prom.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
It was their wedding.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, he came up to me and and he, just he shook my
hand like that old school manand I could tell how sincere you
know he was and when he told methat meant the world to me and
it meant the world to her, whichwas more important.
But that's what we get to do,man.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Absolutely, man, absolutely I.
I've had that song requestedand, to be honest with you, I
didn't have it.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Oh no, that's a classic.
It's a 50s classic, though.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Well, I hope I think I may have put it in my oldies,
crate now but back then johnnyace.
Yeah, I know about johnny ace.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
If you guys ever have oldies but goodies, like all
these but goodies questions, oryou need a list or you need, you
need a little, you know alittle.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
411 do you hesitate?
Do you have a do-op?
Uh a?
Do you have a doo-wop, crate?
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Do you have a doo-wop crate?
No, bro, I can get with you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
We can make a doo-wop crate.
If you want to do that, bro,just let me know.
I'm all in.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Yeah, let's give it a go.
I think I got Select Mix'sdoo-wop crate.
I like theirs there, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
They do a more production in there, right, and
it's select mix.
I like your intros better, man.
Your intros are are a lotcleaner.
It's that clean beat that wecan get in and get out.
Yeah, select mix is cool, butit's more of a not quite a
redrum.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
But is it?
Is it a quick mixer?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
select, no, they they , it's they do some real
production in their songs.
I mean um, someone over thereis a producer.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I'm just a.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
DJ remixer.
I guess Redrum remix intro,outro.
Yeah, I'm going to go with Richon this one man Couple
collaborations.
When you get that message, thattext message, that phone, call,
the Instagram, the social media, they say hey, I'm looking for
a dj and an mc.
Or actually I'm just gonna goahead and throw a little kink in
(34:18):
there to you they're justlooking for a quote-unquote dj.
They didn't say anything aboutan mc.
What's your process, man?
How do you fill them out?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
yeah, I mean we get first.
You got to figure out likewhat's I mean right away.
I'll just go through like alittle quick you know
questionnaire like okay, what'syour occasion, what's the date,
what's the venue, location,approximately how many guests.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Link you know, just real quick.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I mean, just those right there will get me, even if
I'm not available.
I mean, I have a great network.
You know DJs, that you knowawesome too.
What kind of genre of music doyou guys like?
What are you guys looking for?
You know what I mean.
And boom, just that right therecould let me.
Just guys, just you know I'mdoing a micro wedding next week,
50 people.
You know what I mean.
So it's a nice one yeah, so, umyeah, so I'll just go through
(35:00):
them with that a littlequestionnaire, see what they
need, you know so?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
and then, yeah, just go from there what kind of what
kind of traditions have you raninto at your weddings?
Any kind of family traditions,any kind of cultural traditions?
Yeah, I mean well the hispanicculture.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
I mean big time.
Obviously it's always.
It's always fun when you getlike the grooms super.
You know hispanic one, yeah, Imean and then you got you know
megan smith, you know coming onthe other end and you know they,
you know they're okies, youknow what I mean.
And so those are the, those arethe fun weddings, that where,
if you can knock those out,together with two different
genres of music so you're gonnaplay.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
They're both out there some elvis crispo and some
taylor swift.
You know what I?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
mean yeah you know a mashup, george stranier,
fernandez, in a lot of cases,yeah, man, but it's fun when you
see all of them out theretogether dancing to both of
those genres of music.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Because they're just out there having a good time,
because if you're mixing itright, you're giving them plenty
of both of them and the beat isstill on.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And the beat's on Exactly.
They don't have to stop movingtheir body, they just keep
moving.
Now, they might not be familiarwith that music.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
But and even the celebrations.
Sometimes you know they do thatwell, I forgot what it's called
, but they get the bright andgreen up on the on the chair.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
It's like the snake dance right and they try to
knock them off right yeah yeah,that one that always, that
always stresses me out it is.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
I've seen some chairs break and some guys get a
little crazy on those things,man, so but uh yeah, they start
tossing them up in the airhigher and higher and higher.
Yeah, yeah please don't drop it, john you, uh, have, have you.
I've seen him do that.
Yeah, mike, but at some some ofmy gigs, well, they're spinning
, running through the circle.
They stop the cut, they stopthe crowd and make you take a
(36:28):
shot.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Oh, I've seen that yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Oh, yeah, yeah, as soon as they go under that.
Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
I've seen a people start falling down oh man, it's
almost like.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
This is how many times you can run around in a
circle while you take a shot.
Then keep running around yeswho can stand?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
up, where's that bat spin?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
you spin your head on the bat yeah, I remember that
like this yeah, yeah, yeah andthey grabbed the groom.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
One time they picked him up and took him to the bar,
took off his shoe, poured theliquor in the shoe, made him
take the shot out of the shoe.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Hey what do you?
I don't know, it's crazy stuffpeople these guys do tell me
about the shoe game, the shoegame.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
You know what I've?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I've never experienced one personally I've
done it.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I've done it several times, but I've never pitched
them.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
How about you, derrick?
Speaker 4 (37:07):
you ever do the shoes , man yeah, um, sometimes I like
it because it kills.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It kills a good, good 10-15 minutes yeah, it's a good
transition between somethingyou think sometimes I don't have
enough time in my weddings.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
It just depends, like it just depends on the bridal
party, you know, because theyhave a lot to do with it.
But it's fun, I don't mind.
I don't mind it what do youguys?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
are you guys seeing any new trends in weddings
lately?
Speaker 4 (37:33):
the speed round where they take a picture.
I actually like that one.
A lot of people don't like.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I like that one because it gives me a chance to
get out there and be supervibrant and just be me and and
really just get them and andusher them this way, that way,
and you get to talk to everybodyand talk about the ultimate
icebreaker.
That's the ultimate icebreakerright there, because you're in
front of everybody.
Man.
They see all this personalityback there and you know we're
having fun tonight and it's likelet's go, man.
The rest of the night is ispretty smooth in most cases how
(38:00):
is that one?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
it's that one how's that one?
Speaker 2 (38:02):
yeah, how is it?
Speaker 1 (38:03):
okay.
So how do you do it?
Yeah, okay.
So how we do it is I get up andI'll tell them this is what
we're gonna do.
So you have, you have so manypeople that want to take
pictures with the bride andgroom, but we're gonna, we're
gonna take care of every tableright now.
So this is, this is the goal.
We're going to play one songand we're going to see if the
bride and groom and that's up toy'all see if they can be fast
enough to take a picture of thatone song with every table.
(38:24):
So then I tell them I said soif you have table one that
they're taking a picture oftable two and three needs to be
up and ready.
And you know you're preppingthem and you just keep doing it
the whole time and it's fun, man.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
It the bride and groom, and they're.
You know they're.
It's chaos.
It is, but it's organized chaos, organized chaos.
By the time they get halfway,though, like all the other
tables, are just like puttingprops, putting glasses on
sunglasses.
They're getting ready, theyhave things ready to go they're
trying to outdo the other tablebefore them yeah so by the time
you get to the last one, they'regoing so what do we have to do?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
do we have to play rapper's delight for this?
Like a seven minute song, like?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
play, play something extremely upbeat.
Okay, have you heard of a songcalled?
Maybe you heard, I know youheard this d.
It's uh, it's kind of afreestyle, kind of la disco
dance.
Um, it's called uh, wake up bystop.
I think that was our only hit.
It's a jam man, it's a jam wakeup by stop, we play something
super upbeat like that.
They don't even have to know it, it just has to be super upbeat
(39:14):
.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
It has to get them moving, get their blood flowing
get their heart racing.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, with us it emceeing also, and it don't have
to be one song, you can say allright, you got two songs to do
it.
Boom.
That way you have a little moreto say about how many guests
you have.
You know if you have 50 guestsor 250 guests.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
When you get up to the 400, I'm like I need
rapper's delight.
Yeah, we're gonna play thisgame with 250 guests.
Yeah, this is gonna take toolong.
A lot of the brides.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
They've seen it on instagram, right, so they they
know what song they want.
They usually tell you what songthey want to do.
Yeah, yeah, how about?
Um, what are your mostmemorable moments?
What are you guys's mostmemorable moments?
Your most memorable wedding?
That, your absolute favoriteway?
I'll tell you mine right now.
I had one in in Woody and it waslike 300 plus people in a
pasture in Woody.
You know Glenville, woody,right up towards there.
Okay, I know the area.
They had a whole ranch.
They drove pickup trucks ofpeople with hay bales all the
(40:09):
way.
It looked like a, it lookedlike a fair ride or something
Drove 300 people back up inthere.
They got married, came back outand we were under the barn or
whatever.
Now this is where I'm going tobecome racial, right, I didn't
think I was going to have agreat wedding because I'm not a
big white country.
What?
What I assumed and what Ithought about reading my clients
, right, no man turns out.
(40:31):
I was playing too short knee 40and mac dre and everything else
and these country folk weregoing crazy that was my absolute
favorite man.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yeah, it's always fun when you just got them like
that.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Yeah, you know what I mean yeah, you know, typically
people who want country music,they generally just want it for
cocktail music, but they theywant to dance to everything yeah
yeah
Speaker 2 (40:49):
yeah, I was.
I was very intrepid, if youwill.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I was very worried, I was very scared, but uh, it
came out to be my favoritewedding I've ever done yeah, and
then you go in there loadedwith all this classic rock and
country and I didn't use half ofit and you're like but, but now
you feel like you have enoughmusic now oh yeah, oh well, I
got all that I had to study andthen I still have I had to put
in my homework.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, I had to put in my homework.
I had to get all these tracks.
I had to gather these tracks,whether it was, whether it was
sick mixes, whether it was billbass's with somebody's.
I had to download and buy theirmusic packs and go through
every single song.
And that's just how I am.
I'm very, very ocd, verymeticulous.
My, my libraries are very clean.
Um, I walk up to some otherpeople's laptops.
(41:27):
Man, I don't.
I don't know what the hell'sgoing on.
I have some dirty room cratesin my I got a playlist for
everythingI got too many because sometimes
I'll make you make a playlistfor an event and you're like, oh
, I'm gonna save that playlist.
That was a good one yeah, andthey say the easiest way to do
it is to go to your history andthen highlight all of them and
drag them into a crate you cando that for your date, yeah yeah
, you can do that for the.
If you really liked the event,you did, go to your history,
(41:49):
copy all of it and put it into acrate I've done that before,
like oh, what was that?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
can see that I just did.
Oh, I went, I go to that datereal quick, boom, like oh yeah,
and I was kind of going thatlittle history and yep, I
remember these.
There's three songs.
I put cool little tools inthere man.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, you know something that you have to take
in consideration.
You got to be smart.
Now.
All of us this pertain to allof us is like derek just touched
on it.
Right now they say they wantcountry music.
Right, they're telling you theywant country music.
They even give you a niceplaylist on spotify or apple
music or whatever that youtransfer over and you make a
crate for them.
But that doesn't mean thatthat's what they want for the
entire night and I think a lotof the younger jocks will just
(42:21):
take that and they kind of getdictated to.
But you know, as older cats, wegot to maintain full creative
control of where we play, whenwe play it, how we play it, what
we play in almost every case.
And I'll tell you what eventhough it's a country crowd,
everybody got a little ghetto inthem, everybody got a little
dirty funk in them.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
So we can't forget that man.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I've played blow the whistle at every country gig
come on, hey, you know,especially if you throw it neon
moon.
Neon moon neon moon right intothat.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
All of us have done that one man to a predominantly
white crowd yeah, yeah, almostevery time I see I get the same
thing, that derrick, I get he'swhite.
I don't think he's going to bea good DJ, you know what Hold on
?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I did the sparklers and the dance for the one time.
I can't agree with you therebecause you were more than
comfortable and that was apretty black crowd.
Is what that?
Speaker 2 (43:12):
was right Kind of mixed up.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
She was white.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
She was white, he was black, he was black, he was
black.
So you were right there.
Oh, I'm comfortable because,like Derek, derek grew up in
Oakland, I grew up in Arvin, allright, 99% Hispanic population.
You grew up in Arvin, arvin,california, baby.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Oh, that's like when you grew up in a small town in
LA.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I grew up in Santa.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
Paula back home.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
So yeah, man Kind of Arvin-esque of arvin-esque.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
It is very.
Yeah, we're shafter-esque, yeah, yeah, hey, shafter's doing
pretty good man I'm, I'm, I'm,I'm proud of shafter.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Hey, bro, shafters, don't, don't sneeze and don't
don't be looking past.
Shafter.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Shafter's got a lot of spots now, yeah, and a lot of
beautiful private residencesshafter did amazing by bringing
in those companies, amazon andtarget and all those warehouses
and everything else.
Whoever was the mayor back thencity council, they knew what
the hell they were doing.
Yeah, they, they did well thatwas a win.
That was a definite win, derrickeverybody.
Uh, advice for couples, man.
What?
What tips would you give tocouples to choose the right dj
(44:08):
mc?
What kind of questions do youask and how do you make sure
that their wedding day runssmoothly?
Speaker 4 (44:15):
that's a lot of questions, but, um, I make sure
I mean so.
Obviously we've all doneweddings and so I mean I've.
You know, I've accepted thefact that you know I'm a wedding
dj and so I'm.
I take that very seriously.
Um, but on a lighter note,every wedding I do is about 90%
(44:39):
identical.
So I'm comfortable withweddings, I'm comfortable with
them.
Now, if I'm giving advice tosomeone on how to choose a DJ, I
think you have to go check themout, you have to go see them.
That's the only way.
I mean, a good DJ to yourfriend may not be a good DJ to
you, because each bride islooking for different things.
A thousand percent, so go seethem.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
That's what I would tell the brides.
Yeah, go see them if they're onsocial media.
In the mix.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
you know Well, social media is kind of like you only
post the pretty pictures, thehighlights.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, you're going to post the highlights.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
You can make 10 people look like there was 100
people in that dance floor,right?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
what.
I'll tell you one thing aboutthat that whole social media
thing is and I apologize becausewe've all done it, I've even
done it I almost refuse to postpictures and videos of fucking
line dancing.
The lane dances, like I mean,isn't that automatic?
Isn't that like, hey, you put aline dance on, you say, hey,
everybody, come out, have adance, get it.
You know, make some memories.
(45:34):
Everybody goes out there andyou, you have everybody tricked
into thinking you're a great DJ.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Only other DJs care.
Only other DJs care.
So keep posting it, because thebride doesn't know, she's not a
hater.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
She doesn't want that gig Because society they eat
with their eyes A packed dancefloor.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
So you know what I would say to that is there's so
many brides that will contactall of us on a daily basis in a
lot of cases.
Hey, and the first thing thatflies out of their mouth hey,
how much do you charge?
Not?
Hey, what kind of DJ are you?
What kind of music do you play?
Do you have more than onespeaker?
Do you?
You know, can you MC?
Can you do?
(46:16):
Because a lot of cats are justGive me your price sheets.
Yeah, just give set aconsultation.
I offer the zoom consultation,everything's zoom.
So it's super convenient forboth of us.
But it's a simple explanation.
You get to meet me face to face.
I share the experience and thepotential breakdown of how your
wedding could go from ceremonyto the end, including all your
extras dance, dance floor,sparklers, lighting, et cetera,
(46:38):
et cetera.
But you get to see a pictureform of it.
You know you get slides withstills and this is how it looks.
But if you don't take that timeto consult, you don't know me,
you don't know the value, youknow, you just know a number.
That's pretty much it.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
I actually give a price quote, and the reason why
I do is because I want topre-qualify these people and I
don't want to spend a whole.
I don't want to give a wholepresentation to someone who
wishes they could hire me, andso I tell them what it costs and
they could either afford me andwant to continue the
conversation or they're.
You know like, there's avariety of DJs, there's also a
variety of brides andunfortunately, a lot of brides
(47:15):
don't feel like the DJ is thatimportant, yeah, and so in those
cases're they're looking forsomething different.
That's also.
There's other people that willbe happy to take that gig, but I
I like to say, hey, this iswhat it costs.
If you want to get into thisclub, pay up.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, I kind of do this.
I kind of do the same.
I mean I have a price sheetwith my packages.
I have a one, two, three andholocart and um, they'll ask me,
you know, I'll give them thelittle quick, you know,
questionnaire of like when,stuff like that, what's the
occasion?
And stuff like that.
If it's a wedding, I have aprice sheet and send them off to
them.
I go, this is what I can offerIf you have any questions on the
(48:01):
prices are up there compared toa lot of other djs in town.
So it kind of just eliminatesthat clientele.
That really puts the dj on theback burner, you know, I mean of
their event.
You know they tell me oh, mywedding's next month, I got
everything else, but I just needa dj.
Those are the kind of clients Ireally don't really like
messing with, right, you know.
But the ones that are callingme a year in advance because
they've seen me play x, you knowwherever I played at, and they,
(48:23):
hey, man, you know, or I was ata wedding that you were at, I
really want you for my weddingor I went to the condors game
yeah, and I loved you as my dj.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Or I was at chewie's and I seen you throw down or
something you know.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Neither one of us is wrong.
We're both right, and it boilsdown to what works for you.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah what works for you.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
I do almost the exact same as rich man I think, john,
you are just you know, fromtalking to you and listening to
you speak, I think you'reprobably a really good salesman.
Yeah, so for that consultation,I'm sure you probably book a
lot based on you, based on yourspit yeah, it's a strength.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
it is, bro, it's, it's, and I I take that as a
compliment, I don't take that asa well, I'm not a salesperson.
I'm not selling anything, bro.
Give it a name.
Everybody's selling something,bro.
If you're seating somebody at arestaurant, guess what you're
selling?
You're selling them potentiallycoming back, so yeah, you're
selling them an experienceeverybody's selling so I'm a.
The difference between mypresentations, when I am going
(49:20):
through, quote, unquote, thesales pitch, so to speak, is
that passion, bro, and the loveof the game, and it's wedding
love also.
In my experience it just pouredout, and I'll be honest with
you, man, it's a whole lot ofJesus too, because you combine
all of those, bro, and I'm anunstoppable like presentation.
And it's a presentation is whatit is, because at the end of
(49:42):
the day, I'm going to quote thema price, I'll show them three
prices and, like Rich said, youcan customize or do whatever you
want, but it's up to them.
But my job, my ultimate job, isto make that very difficult to
walk away from because of mypresentation oh yeah, no, that's
, that's you being a goodsalesman.
Yeah, no, no doubt.
Speaker 4 (50:03):
No doubt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
I just I think that you're abetter salesman than me, and so
that's why I just say this iswhat it costs.
Here's what I can give you.
But I also offer a lot ofbrowsing on my website.
So there's a few gig logs,there's mixes they can listen to
, there's pictures they can see,and I let them make because,
(50:27):
ultimately, I'm going to dowhatever they want.
So I take the lead from thebride.
What do you want me to do?
And then, of course, if I couldslide in a photo booth or up
lighting or a monogram, I try todo that, but I can see that you
sell more packages than me.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
But what though?
I might be a better salespersonas far as the wedding game than
you, but I don't know in toodeep.
So you know, and that's that'sone of my favorite jams.
Every time rich plays it likewe're hanging at chewy's or
something, he kind of looks atme and I'm like that's my jam.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, oh, like, yeah, the back to the hotel and uh,
that drew down a pimp of theyear.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Oh yeah, Pimp of the year.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
That makes perfect.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
All right, gentlemen, we're going in on an hour long
now.
We're going to go ahead and I'mgoing to give you guys each
about a minute or two exit.
You can say what you want tosay, say what you've been up to,
where you're at your ads, yoursocial medias, anything.
So take it away.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
You got it Well JC Cota with all sound music and
ASM dance floors.
You can find us on IG at, uh,ASM DJ events or at ASM dance
floors.
Um, that Facebook is basicallythe same thing.
Our, our website is all soundmusic entertainmentcom.
Uh, I don't have any.
I don't have any residencies oranything.
I'm one of the older cats inthe business.
I've been in the business forabout four decades, so I've seen
the better part of the lastfour decades, from roughly 85 to
(51:46):
current date.
We play all types of music.
The difference between us alsois that we play nothing but
family friendly edited music.
But my library is strong, fromthe twenties up to current date
in every popular genre, and oneof the significant weapons that
I have is the ability to holdthat microphone really in the
(52:07):
most unique way that you'll seeanybody hold it here.
I just don't have a style likeeverybody else, but it's all
love man, A lot of Jesus and awhole lot of love for the game.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
I like that.
Hey, we had to give them around of applause, man, what's?
Speaker 3 (52:23):
that, what do you got rich?
No, um, residencies, yeah, I'mkind of all over here in
bakersfield so yeah, so ifpeople want to come see me, you
know you catch me at the biggestcondors, hockey games, um
in-game dj all season long, withChewy's do cruise night every
Thursday.
So JC kind of got someresidency because he's out there
guest DJing with me almostevery Thursday.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
It's all fun, man, so much fun.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
We call it the DJ gym because you know it's an
all-format spot.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
It's a workout.
We still need a name for ourcrew, so maybe somebody can help
us out.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah yeah, we're all dads, so I think that's where we
go somewhere down that route.
But uh, but yeah, you can catchme out there and also out, you
know, e-mountain casino.
You know at least once a month,twice a month maybe.
Sometimes you know doing outthere.
So but, yeah, catch me on, youknow instagram dj richie rich,
tiktok dj richie rich.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
So yeah, all right, derrick, we're gonna go ahead
and close it out with you.
Brother, man, what, what, whatall do you want to get out there
to the people that we haven'talready?
Even if we have already talkedabout it, man, if it's important
to say it again, I just want tothank you for having me on your
show.
Speaker 4 (53:27):
John and Rich appreciate you guys.
Everybody out there whosupports the Sick Mix edits and
the Sick Mix edit family.
Thank you guys for your supportand it was.
It's been a pleasure and I'dlove to do it again we
definitely will.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Man with that, we'll close it up.
Thank you guys for joining nicemeeting you, derek we'll get
together again in a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Welcome to the.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the,the, the, the, the, the the.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
(54:14):
the, the, the, the, the, the,the, the, the.
We got the whole.
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