Happy New Year!

Well hello everyone! Happy New Year to you all. As you may know I've not been around for a few days so I'll update you on the goings on.

I was booked to DJ at a private party in a hotel not far from Heathrow Airport on New Year's Eve, and I looked forward to it as I knew that there were going to be a lot of my friends there. However going inside the M25 these days is a pain in the bum for me, as my van is not allowed inside the Low Emission Zone that the bods in the London Councils put in place a little over a year ago. Well let me correct that. I can go inside the LEZ if I pay them £100 per day!!! So going past midnight means that it counts as 2 days , so they would want £200.

Luckily for me my cousin lives at Chertsey which wasn't too far away, and he loaned me his van, which being newer, is allowed inside the LEZ. However he was going away for NYE so I needed to go down a day early to see him and arrange when I could pick it up. As well as that my sister lives in Farnborough, Hants, which is only about 25 minutes away from Chertsey, so it meant that I could do some visiting.

New Years Eve, worked like this. I went from Farnborough to Chertsey, emptied my van and put it into my cousin's van. The I drove to the hotel and loaded the disco in, set it up and tried it out. This was finished by around 4pm. I was also working with a swing singer during the evening who goes by the name of Joe Swing. He was going to run his backing music and microphone through my mixer, so when he arrived we set his equipment up, wired it into my system, and did a sound check.

After that I had chance to sit down and get ready for the evening, along with Joe Swing and I have to say he's a really nice guy and even though he was suffering with a cold, his singing voice was really good. If you're ever looking for a 'Rat Pack' style singer for an event, I can thoroughly recommend him. Please check out his web site by clicking on the link above.

So when it came to the night's festivities Joe Swing started the evening with a 45 minute set, I followed him for a short while playing music that followed his style, and then he came back and did his second 45 minute slot. After that I played for the rest of the evening.

My brief was to play requests and anthems that everyone would know and to go across lots of different genres, so as to play something for everyone. Well there were around 250 guests, aged between 16 - 75, so there was a wide range of people, but the majority were in their late 30s to mid 50s, so that gave me an idea of what to play.

Knowing a  lot of the guests also made it easier as I knew a lot of the types of music they would like. And with requests coming in, that also helped. The great thing about New Year's Eve is that people are always up for a boogie, and this year was no exception. There were people on the floor for the whole time I played and I'm pleased to say that I had some lovely comments.

Funnily enough, I find that doing events for people you know is a two edged sword, as although it's really friendly, you sure do get some stick from them.

Anyway, here's the playlist:
Set 1
1 Bobby Darin - Lazy River
2 Dinah Washington - September In The Rain
3 Ella Fitzgerald - Desafinado
4 Nat 'King' Cole - Let's Face The Music & Dance
5 Tony Bennett - Rags To Riches
6 Robbie Williams - Have You Met Miss Jones
7 Frank Sinatra - Come Dance With Me
8 Dean Martin - Volare
9 Louis Prima & Keely Smith - On The Sunny Side Of The Street
10 Sarah Vaughan & Billy Eckstine - Cheek To Cheek
11 Louis Prima - Just a Gigolo - I Ain't Got Nobody
Set 2
12 Tymes - Ms Grace
13 Hues Corporation - Rock The Boat
14 George McCrae - Rock Your Baby
15 Trammps - Hold Back The Night
16 Amy Winehouse & Mark Ronson - Valerie
17 Duffy - Mercy
18 Martha Reeves & the Vandellas - Dancing In The Street
19 Supremes - Baby Love
20 Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
21 Freda Payne - Band Of Gold
22 Chairman Of The Board - Give Me Just A Little More Time
23 Lionel Richie - All Night Long (All Night)
24 Michael Jackson - Beat It
25 Luther Vandross - Never Too Much
26 Shalamar - A Night To Remember
27 Temptations - Treat Her Like A Lady
28 Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
29 Barry White - You're The First The Last My Everything
30 Candi Staton - Young Hearts Run Free
31 Tavares - Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel
32 Alexander O'Neal - Criticize
33 Drifters - Saturday Night At The Movies
34 Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs - Wooly Bully
35 Millie - My Boy Lollipop
36 Little Eva - Locomotion
37 Elgins - Heaven Must Have Sent You
38 Isley Brothers - This Old Heart Of Mine
39 Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Tears Of A Clown
40 James Brown - Sex Machine
41 Fatback Band - Do The Bus Stop
42 Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
43 Cheryl Lynn - Got To Be Real
44 Sharon Redd - Can You Handle It
45 Robin S - Show Me Love
46 Mousse T vs Hot N Juicy - Horny
47 Ultra Nate - Free
48 Dan Hartman - Instant Replay
49 O'Jays - I Love Music
50 Taste Of Honey (A) - Boogie Oogie Oogie
51 Shalamar - Take That To The Bank
52 Rose Royce - Car Wash
53 Earth Wind & Fire - September
54 Michael Jackson - PYT (Pretty Young Thing)
55 Various ft Queen - New Year Chimes - Auld Lang Syne - Don't Stop Me Now
56 David Essex - Gonna Make You A Star
57 Jeff Beck - Hi Ho Silver Lining
58 Roy Orbison - Oh Pretty Woman
59 Elvis Presley - Return To Sender
60 Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There
61 Chris Montez - Let's Dance
62 Chubby Checker - The Twist
63 Elvis Presley - His Latest Flame
64 Chuck Berry - You Never Can Tell
65 Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack
66 Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
67 Bobby Thurston - Checkout The Groove
68 Fatback Band - I Found Lovin'
69 UB40 - Red Red Wine
70 Bob & Marcia - Young Gifted & Black
71 Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
72 Temptations - Get Ready
73 Supremes - The Happening
74 Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself
75 Edwin Starr - SOS  (Stop Her On Sight)
76 Stevie Wonder - Uptight (Everything's Alright)
77 Bill Haley & The Comets - Rock Around The Clock
78 Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode
79 Fats Domino - Be My Guest
80 Buddy Holly - Rave On
81 Eddie Cochran - C'mon Everybody
82 M People - Movin' On Up
83 Ce Ce Peniston - Finally
84 Incognito - Always There
85 Pussycat Dolls ft Busta Rhymes - Don't Cha
86 Rihanna - Rude Boy
87 Jocelyn Brown - Somebody Else's Guy
88 Michael Jackson - Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
89 Carl Carlton - She's A Bad Mama Jama
90 Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
91 Marvin Gaye - Come Get To This
92 Al Green - Let's Stay Together
93 Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire
94 Stevie Wonder - My Cherie Amour
95 Temptations - My Girl
96 Barry White - Just The Way You Are


Anyway, I finished DJing at 2.15am and was chatting to friends until about 3.15 when I packed the disco up. I left it in the hotel overnight and went up to bed around 4am.

After a few hours sleep, I got up at 7.30am, loaded the disco into the van, and headed for Chertsey, where I reloaded it all into my van again. I then headed down to Weymouth.

I arrived at Weymouth at around 11.15am, to find my two sons in bed, one of them with a girly cuddled up to him. They eventually got up around 4pm, and my youngest son and I went to get something to eat. After coming back I chilled for the rest of the evening watching Morcambe and Wise on TV.

One of the things with moving to Cambridge was that I left a van in Weymouth full of equipment, and I also have a portakabin there. The van hasn't moved for around 2 years and had gradually deteriorated and during that time I've been paying rent for the van and portakabin. So this morning, I went and unloaded everything from the van into the portakabin. No big deal until you realise it was a big van with a luton body on it and it was packed. It took me from around 9.30am to 1.15 to unload it with the help of one of my sons. The van is being scrapped so that meant I don't have to worry about selling it and it will be picked up and taken away. It also means less expense.

I left Weymouth just before 2pm and arrived back home just after 6pm. I came in packed my clothes and stuff away and put my disco computer away, made a cup of tea, some honey and lemon for my dodgy throat, and sat down to do this blog.

That brings us up to date, so now I'm gonna put my feet up and chill. It's been a hectic few days and I have to say I'm glad they're over and I'm now home.

Speak soon