Nightlife – Page 5

How I got my DJ name

March 9, 2014March 9, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in A day in the Life

So short post today, just a quick story about how I got my DJ Name. Those who know me, know I’ve gone by many aliases over the years that have been attempted to be placed on me by others, some good, some ok, others just dumb but the one that has stuck is Blaze and that is also the one I have had the longest. But the thing that does confuse people when they first meet me is they assume being from NZ and having the name Blaze means I smoke weed etc, the whole Blaze it up thing but I actually don’t smoke weed and have never smoked it. The worst thing is the name is pretty popular and there are a lot of Blaze’s around, the most famous one being Just Blaze (who is the man) but the thing is I have been using my name (at least the origin of it) since the early 90’s when I first hit high school, Blaze is short for Blazing_187 which was my first gaming tag I used to always use when playing video games and it was also my first email address which I still have to this day!

So Blazing, kinda of self explanatory when it comes to video games, I love FPS games so blazing guns etc is where that comes from, now as for 187, remember this movie?

Well this is where the 187 part comes from, watched this and was like ah, 187 is the code for murder, so decided my gamer tag should be blazing murder shortened down to blazing_187. And of course when I started DJn it was easier to shorten it down again to Blaze and thus you have DJ Blaze!

Now as for the aka part that I have used in all of my social media, well given that DJ Blaze is a popular name I needed something easy to distinguish the name from other DJ Blazes out there. I settled on aka (also known as) because I did go thru a period trying to figure out a better alias and also having various others ones used on me by people from different areas in my life there was a lot to choose from, so in the end it would be what ever some one called me and aka DJ Blaze (Hey its Dragon aka DJ Blaze) so I decided to stick with akadjblaze since not only does it have some history to it, its also easy to remember and unique enough for me to have it as my user name across all social media sites I use

So there it is, the history of my name and how it came about. Chur!

Feb 2014 Review

March 2, 2014September 16, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in Monthly Reviews

God dam its March already?! What the hell… Anyways, time for a quick review of the last month….

Highlights/Points of note

– Finally got a website up and running

– Set up my home studio

– Watched ‘What difference does it make: A film about making music’ at the Beats by Dre Theatre thanks to Redbull

– Managed to successful revive ‘Selector Sessions’ for 2014

– Finally managed to check out Octagon

– New students arriving at Bar Fly

– Had a great night DJn at Dojo for an Old Skool night

So February is usually a very quiet month here in Korea except towards the last week when the students finally arrive back, the good thing this year is it has been a very mild winter but still word around is that a lot of clubs have had a struggling winter which isn’t surprising given the amount of new places that keep opening, Korea has a huge population but the number of people who actually frequent night clubs isn’t enough to sustain the amount of clubs there are now, however thats another story.

So the revival of selector sessions, I will post more about this in another post but in short it was a success given I had 2 DJs pull out on the day, but I managed to get the lifestream up and running and also go to have my first test of the new Reloop 8000 midi turntables (review also on its way) so it was a good start and will hopefully build more on it as the year goes on

So, finally managed to check out Octagon, one of the I guess elite VIP styled clubs in Gangnam (basically big ass club, bottom of a hotel, shit load of expensive ass VIP tables, rooms, expensive drinks centred around a DJ up on a stage and a dance floor) Now like the other clubs it is really nice, bit of a maze but the decor is usually really modern, the sound systems are awesome and in general they are awesome places. In a future post ill also talk more about how people act in clubs like this but for now it was just good to finally get there, see it and most importantly, listen and observe.

Bar Fly was slow most of this month but the last week saw a couple of big parties, lots of new students in town so the universities do their usual orientation etc, but of course students don’t tend to spend much money and parties start early which means they end early… again more about this in another post 🙂

So lastly I have to mention ‘Back in the Day’ 80’s and 90’s party at Dojo. Now normally I am against DJs only playing an hour etc but for parties like this, it works great, having 6 different DJ’s express their take on a couple of exciting decades of music is always something to see, unfortunately I couldn’t stay long but from what I understand, it was a great night and I am looking forward to doing it again! But it is also good because it is the start of a local initiative to strengthen the local DJ and local brand scene in the Dojo area. The article about not bitching about a scene and go out and create it yourself was really good and this will hopefully lead to good things and I’m very happy to be part of it and help build up not only the scene here but also in my own venture to build up a stronger DJ scene with DJ Korea

Right, thats it for now, there is a lot that I will expand on but for now, month over… on to the next one

Chur!

The Madness that is Bar Fly

February 23, 2014March 9, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in A day in the Life

So welcome to my residency, Bar Fly in Sinchon, a long time student favourite and one of the only clubs in the Sinchon area. Home of craziness, scandals, cheap drinks, helpful regulars, good bar staff and good people, can’t ask for much more from a local bar (well you can but thats another issue) So lets have a quick look around with what Im working with

So the DJ Booth, DJM 800 (in desperate need of new faders and a service, same with the CDJs…), CDJ 2000’s, SL4, my laptop, iPad (touchOSC) and dicers. Out putting video to a projector and 4 screens around the bar. Not a bad set up for a mid level club.

View looking next to the DJ Booth, there is space upstairs and this is looking down to the floor level tables and bar, screen and projector as well as your useless advertising sign board posted pointlessly in the corner lol oh yeah, and top stage with stripper poles!

Looking at the bar from up top, its a nicely enough set out bar with plenty of room, as you can see a lot of junk hanging from the ceiling…

Looking down at the dance floor, it is a decent size club, you wouldn’t think so from the outside but that is always the surprising things with clubs here, most are built in the basements of buildings and can be very deceiving from the outside

Looking out on the club…

And lastly a look at the crowd, this was a student party, as you can see a lot of foreign students that night, usually its mostly Koreans but still a lot of foreign students come here to party and there is a strong crowd of foreign regulars who come as well, not to mention that a lot of the Koreans there are Korean/Russians, Korean/Spanish etc, it really is a diverse range of people which adds to the place

Its open during the week but not many people come through, Friday nights are usually the one, also a good vibe with people hitting it hard after work or a week of studying, Saturday is hit and miss depending on the week, the crowd fluctuates depending on parties and University schedules. Being in a University area it really dictates the mood of the area as you would expect. So there it is, a quick run down on the place, I might post up more about it later on, introduce the staff and regulars, drinks etc but thats for later on.

(just a note, when I say crazy, I don’t mean it in a bad way, for some reason over here people associate the word crazy with meaning bad, but I mean it in a good way)

And just for good measure, here is some fun with fire