Play My CD, Play My CD - WWYD?

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Well.... we've got no issue with guest-provided CDs as long as the client authorizes it first.

Did a wedding last year where a group of guests were from another country. I don't recall where but they wanted to do some sort of native dance turn and gave us a CD to play. One of 'em could speak English (barely). The B&G were fine with it, we asked 'em before doing this.

Before the night was finished they'd done two dances and the guests seemed to enjoy it. :)
 
Thanks for your input which I've read and reread several times.

In reviewing my business policy, procedure, and contract, there was only one line in any of it that discussed Client and/or guest provided media; the when, who, how, and where.

Speaking strictly from my business model and experience, 99 times out of 100, the guest giving me the device or media is doing so without the full knowledge or permission of the contracting client. While it's always wise to try and keep everyone happy, the risk to the client relationship far outweighs the benefit to one guest, in my mind. It also means, in my mind, the requester is being rude, arrogant, a budding wannabe, or at minimum, presumptuous.

Again, as my contract is the outgrowth and total compilation of the Greatest Hits of People and Facilities who tried to f me, it was worth another look at it's language to give me the contractual power to say no, thus the latitude to be a really good guy (the above and beyond expectation thing) should I decide it's okay just this once, just this time, just for this one person.

We've taken care of it and thanks again for this wonderful discussion.
 
A few other thoughts came up separate from the contract concern.

1) The legality of the media itself (not only a copy but a bootleg too);

2) The quality of the media itself (downloaded 96kbs mono);

3) The security of the device and media (virus, trojan, and other clever time bombs);

4) If ethnic and vocal, lyrical appropriateness;

5) The requested song would've been on the client's Do Not Play list, but as they didn't see it in your music library, there was no need to specify it.

6) Too much event time and positive energy is targeted and wasted on those presumptuous types and really deserve only a simple straight forward "No" without having to justify why. Even having a half a brain, they should already know why!
 
Cap Capello said:
A few other thoughts came up separate from the contract concern.

3) The security of the device and media (virus, trojan, and other clever time bombs.
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Cap brings an important consideration for those who are PC based. If I'm not mistaken, the OS looks for data on a CD before anything else. If it finds data, it will try to run it. If there's a baddie on that CDR, ut-ohhhh. :eek:
 
Thanks to the efforts presented in this thread creating a deeper look into policy and procedure, an existing contract clause was modified and received approval yesterday.

It used to say:

XVI. Connection of client, guest, vendor, or facility provided internal or external input or output devices into or out of the HOST’S equipment is strictly prohibited unless agreed to in a separate agreement from this contract.
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It has been revised to read:
XVI. Connection or use of client, guest, vendor, or facility provided internal or external input or output devices, or any media, into or out of the HOST’S equipment is strictly prohibited. CLIENT required or provided media must be received 45 days in advance of the event date.
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The 45 day corresponds with when the Event Plan, Form, and Documents are due.
 
I try and honor any request for a store bought cd, if the song is a dance tune, and I always ask, are you going to dance to this?. As far as Ipods go, my standard response is, since I cannot confirm that the music on there is legal music and contains no virus, I have to decline playing it, if they persist, I explain to them that I cannot in any sense, risk my 2000 dollar system to play a single .99 cent song, however if I have that song in my library, I'd be happy to play it for them, if not, they are welcome to pick another song, and of course, the same question, are you going to dance to this? In today's hard times, I feel fortunate that I am working (side job for me) as a dj and getting payed while many less fortunate are out of work, loosing homes, so on. So I try to be accommodating when I can, however, a few weeks ago, I had a guy come up, numerous times, asking me to play an apocalyptica song, of course I refused, he said dude, its an awesome song just listen to it, I explained that I knew the song as it WAS in my library, but it clearly is NOT dance tunes music, and that's what I was hired to provide. I appeased him by telling him IF he wanted to hear it so bad, I'd be happy to play it as an exit song as we packed up, he agreed and even he left happy.
 
I agree that it opens a huge can of worms. Also I will not put anything into my cd drive that I don't own or have recieved from the clients.

Younger guests seem to be the worst for this.

They are usually the ones that are hanging out with the "Hey...play something that we can dance to" when the floor is already full.
 
I think if you (as the client) want a song the DJ doesn't have (which unless we go with a specialty DJ for our wedding will happen to Sarah and I) then you need to get it to him in the requested format ahead of time.

I agree with some of the above posters in that I don't see what makes a request coming from a CD any different than any other request.

I will say I have had this situation in reverse, where a DJs hard drive crashed AND his CD player quit turning, so he borrowed my iPOD (for a small charge of course) and access to my iTunes.

Mike
 
NOBODY caught my error (on Page 1 of this thread):

I guess Cam must be sleeping -- LOL he would have corrected me.

After looking at the current Pop charts, I realized that the CD that I played was from T.I., NOT Li'l Wayne as I had mentioned.

The song was called "Whatever You Like"...

I guess my hip hop knowledge has really atrophied since the Club gig evaporated in '06.

Li'l Wayne, T.I., and all the gang banging rappers all look and sound the same to me!
(the only one who looks different is Kanye West).
 
DJMC said:
NOBODY caught my error (on Page 1 of this thread):

I guess Cam must be sleeping -- LOL he would have corrected me.

After looking at the current Pop charts, I realized that the CD that I played was from T.I., NOT Li'l Wayne as I had mentioned.

The song was called "Whatever You Like"...

I guess my hip hop knowledge has really atrophied since the Club gig evaporated in '06.

Li'l Wayne, T.I., and all the gang banging rappers all look and sound the same to me!
(the only one who looks different is Kanye West).
Click to expand...

I don't know Lil' Wayne from $.50 so there is no way I would catch it.

Mike
 
I don't know why people are so into not playing other guests CD. I would ask him to bring it to me and at least hear it on my headphones before rushing into any decision. If it sounds good and it is clean I do not see a problem with me playing it as long as it is ok with my client!
 
Cap Capello said:
Kirby :
That probably killed any chances having sex with them, didn't it?
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have sex with them before you play their song, I mean, how bad do they want to hear it? Should be worth something extra in it for you, right? :sqbiggrin: :rofl:
 
Chuck:
have sex with them before you play their song, I mean, how bad do they want to hear it?
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That's why you live in Hawaii and I live in the over-taxed ice box called Neu Yawk.

Some day I'll measure up to your skills.
 
eldjdelcaribe said:
I don't know why people are so into not playing other guests CD. I would ask him to bring it to me and at least hear it on my headphones before rushing into any decision. If it sounds good and it is clean I do not see a problem with me playing it as long as it is ok with my client!
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You are also right, but let me tell you what happened to me one day, as most of you know I'm not in the DJ business and for me it's a great hobby with some great friends found here at ODJT, but, at one of my parties at my place one night another doctor asked me if I could play a CD for him and I said sure I listened to part of the song and it sounded ok.

So I mix it in and it's playing, the Vegas and Yammies are thumping and all of a sudden one hell of a shriek comes out of the horns and my limiters cut everything hard for a second. Well you guessed it he had downloaded the song from a P2P and it was a junk mp3. He hadn't noticed it as a bad track but when you're pumping everything through amps delivering 10000 watts RMS you're bound to notice it, so now if any of my friends wants me to play a >CD it has to be a store bought CD and no mp3's from dubious sources.

And ever since going digital, no USB memories, etc. since I have uninstalled every anti virus piece of software from DJ lap tops.
 
eldjdelcaribe said:
I don't know why people are so into not playing other guests CD. I would ask him to bring it to me and at least hear it on my headphones before rushing into any decision. If it sounds good and it is clean I do not see a problem with me playing it as long as it is ok with my client!
Click to expand...

I understand and respect your point of view and used to subscribe to that train of thought.

Personally I don't want to spend the night having guests hammer me all night with their cds and listen to them complaining about why I played so and so's CD and not theirs. For me it's just not worth the hassle.
 
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