iPOD/MP3 night, $3 cocktails
The Tonic Room
2447 N. Halsted St.

Bring in your Apple iPOD or MP3 player and be the DJ for a portion of the evening.

I'm going to give this a whirl tomorrow night. To me, it sounds pretty cool because I NEVER hear the music I'd like to hear when I'm out at bars, especially around those parts. The fact that I only have one Ipod and you can't queue up certain parts in songs it will be a train wreck if I've ever heard one, but shit, this will rock! I hear you only get 15 minutes though..

yeah, there's a bunch of bars in the city doing this now. I like the idea. only 15 minutes though? i swear i read one bar doing it where people get at least like 30 minutes each or something

i've heard of this in DC. it's like having a dj night and everyone brings three records. i don't really get it, but it might be cool to hear what people bring out. i can imagine it getting really old really quickly. maybe i'll give it a chance and see how it plays out, though.

what time's this start tomorrow? i'm thinking of going to the tim booth show at martyrs early.

What other bars are doing this? I'd like to check out a few places.

The Trib had an article about this place on Friday and they mentioned only 15 minutes.

Shit kicks off at 8 till I believe 2?

That is basically out plan for our wedding reception - dont't want some cheesy DJ to play awful music.....should be interesting..

man, i swear that I read a story on metromix or in the actual trib and it listed a handful of 5 or 6 places, but here is a link on metromix for a few
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/sear ... Query=ipod

I use to live pretty much directly behind The Tonic Room. It's one of my old haunts. Shit, I'm actually kinda interested in doing this. What night is it on?

This sounds like a fucking classic idea. Must find bar to do it.

Pretty cool idea but I have a couple of issues with it.

If you're talking about a group of people from Obner playing the music it could be cool but inevitably you're going to have joe schmo getting up there playing some 3 Doors Down or something. Quality control is an issue. I tend to go back to bars here in town that play good music or have a good jukebox. It would have to be in a good bar with cool clientele.

Another is the time issue. If you did 30 minutes you're talking about 12 people controlling the music from 8-2am in one night. 15 minutes could work but I would feel cheated if that's all I get. I usually pony up for at least 7 songs on a jukebox.

But that's just me and me = gar.

i use my ipod every time i dj [every week]. i sometimes bring my wifes along as well.

it's much easier to just play a tune off ipod then to burn new tunes to cd. if i'm mixing drum and bass, i usually burn cd's though [due to pitch changing].

maybe you should set up general themes per hour... like Soul/Funk/Regaee/hip Hop hour... Lost classics only you know, three songs that best describe you, old school/new school, indie universe, best of the mainstream... whatever... It'd give some guidelines without being too Nazi tune cop.

15 minutes is short, but allows more people to play along. Instruct the crowd to be nice but to also let the guest DJ know some love for sweet choices AND distain when they play their "You Don't Send Me Flowers" Sentimental pap too much.

AHHHH! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO VINYL?!

geez. technology these days. i'm sorry as much as i love new tunes and i understand the convienence of cd-r's & i-pod's, i'm partial to seeing dj's spin vinyl. *sigh*

i am a DJ who was 100% vinyl for a long time.
here is why i stopped buying it.

1. they don't pay me enought to keep up with all the music i need to buy
2. the truntables whre i work are terrible and if people dance the records skip. and they don't pay me enough to bring my own equipment.
3. new records are 50/50 with pressing. some press well and you can scratch them and they sound great. some press terrible and you can barely play them.
4. my back. it's easier to bring cd's with all the songs i need instead of three crates of records. i spin for 4 hours. i need lots of records and most of them have one song per record.


ideally, i'd be sitting with my whole collection, a cold beer and two techniques on a shock absorbing platform hanging from the ceiling. but as long as i play at a bar, i'm spinning CD's.

yeah i understand all of the above, but i just like vinyl. when i go to see dj's (specifically electronic dj's) spin, i really do not like watching them play cd-r's all night. i did not pay $ to see that, know what i'm saying? or maybe not.

i do hear what you are saying, but in the long run . . . as long as it sounds good i don't really care.

yeah, i can imagine i'll have back problems soon. i still carry serious weight whenever i do a night. it's not that i dislike cds, but it doesn't feel authentic. like dri was saying, she wants to see someone spin records. and i think i try to deliver that whenever i'm behind the decks. i used to buy everything on vinyl and now i've scaled back to just the classics.

josh davis said something in a kcrw interview about cd-js being good because sometimes you just really need a song to drop big-time and don't want to worry about a scratch or something, but i've not the had problem enough to need to go that route. i also don't dj out enough to worry about cds yet.

exactly!
</rant>

ok i'll shut up now. i've just been getting disappointed because lately i noticed that when i go out, most dj's aren't spinning vinyl anymore... a good number of vinyl stores have closed down because everyone's going digital, etc.

and that's why you get a dj groupie to carry your records for you so you don't have to worry about back problems! haha.

I bet you 50% of the shitty college radio shows you hear are already done with ipods/burnt cds/mp3s already, so why not fuck up other stuff too.

"holy shite. what... the fuck... is that?"

"it's the new belle & sebastian."

"it's a record we've been listenting to and enjoying, barry."

"well, that's unfortunate, because it sucks ay-ass."

I'm going to record fifteen minutes of me scratching a chalk board with broken glass and put it on my ipod to play next week. Now I just need a chalk board....

vinyl is great, but i get a lot of brand new tunes from producers [sometimes the day of the event], and pressing dubplates just isn't efficient anymore.

i use vinyl still, but there are many instances when i need to play something brand new, and that's where the ipod/cd's come in handy.

plus a 320 mp3 sounds a hell of a lot better than vinyl.

sadly it's true, the burnt CD's from MP3's sound far better than the records played off my shitty set up where I DJ.

now if the club had sprung for some real turntables . . . sigh.

i still bring some records for early in the night when no one is dancing, for my dignity and because it's fun to scratch.

i like the sound of the crackle when a record is put on... i still stick by vinyl!!!!!

I don't mean to come off like I'm playing devil's advocate, but I'm going to side with Driduculous on this one. First of all, thanks for revealing your source for new music. I was wondering if you'd ever divulge that info.

Sure, every DJ wants to play the hotttest track available privy to no one else, but isn't half the skill of djing incorporating the sounds of your library to the mix? 'Mix' being the keyword. Seems like the underpaid DJs at the dives I go to play the entire track versus the mixing & mashing of ... anything.

[/quote]
For clarity, sure. But nothing really beats the needle-on-plastic resonance.

For clarity, sure. But nothing really beats the needle-on-plastic resonance.[/quote]

when i'm dj'ing drum and bass/idm on a club system, clarity is incredibly important. yeah, the needle scratch is great and "authentic", but at that point that's the last thing i'm looking for.

as far as mixing goes, that's what the dj is there for...to create an atmosphere. if you don't mix and blend, what are you doing up there?

i can tell you're not a dj.