The Bag Messenger BlogBag Design and Urban Living

Tucker & Bloom caught up with DJ Ayres at the September NY’s Finest, a party happening monthly in NYC’s Plan B.
If you don’t know about the man, make sure you do your homework. Check out www.djayres.com, and
The Rub.

Tucker & Bloom: What’s in your bag at all gigs?
DJ AYRES: Serato records, headphones, laptop, serato box, and allergy pills

T&B: What is one track you can pull out at any time, that is guaranteed to always rock it?
A: I do so many different gigs. Umm..Hot Music by Soho.

T&B: Bathroom break song?
A: We have these records that we made…rough edit records that are mega mixes. Each side is 15 minutes long but it changes songs like every minute and a half to two minutes. We just recorded ourselves djing really good sets and did a rough medley. So I put that on and it sounds like I’m still djing. So I can do whatever and come back.

T&B: Most influential DJ?
A: Jazzy Jeff. DJ Spinna. Guys that can play hip hop, R&B, house, classics, reggae, rock, or whatever and are really good at all of those things.  I like really versatile sets.

T&B: Strangest request?
A: Oh god! At Lotus about year and a half ago they would transition over from a being a restaurant to being a night club. When I would get there they would make me wait till everyone was done eating. So you would get there at 10:30, but it might not happen till 11o’clock depending on how much people were spending. So anyways that would bring really odd people into night club situations who wouldn’t normally be there, because you have a dinner crowd rubbing elbows with a nightclub crowd. There were these girls who must have been ether teenagers or college kids, they were very young with their mother and her friend. You know, two middle aged women, two younger women. So the girls come over and they bring me a napkin, and usually when you get a napkin its gonna be like “Can you play Chingy” “Can you play Black Eyed Peas” or Brittany. You know some pop shit or something like that, but she had written on the napkin “Can you play some old music? My grandmother just died and it would really mean a lot to my mom.” This is still in the warm up part of the night, so I did a Motown Set, which I would do anyway. Its not a stretch at all (for me) to play oldies. They loved it and came over afterwards.  They were really happy. It was so weird. You look at them and think Brittany Spears fans, or you know..“These cougars are gonna want to hear some bullshit”, but all they wanted to hear the Temptations. It was great and weird. That happens like one in a million.

T&B: Have you ever had anyone who didn’t know you were a professional DJ come up to you and emphatically demand that you switch the song or turn off what’s playing?
A: Yeah all types of shit. You know you will have people who are going to the club for themselves or with their little group of people, and a girl will come up and be like “Can you play Motley Crue? Everyone would really love it if you played Motley Crue right now.” No…I’m not gonna do that because the crowd here. It’s ten o’clock at night, so even if I were to play it, it’s the wrong time. These people want to here Total or 112, they don’t want to be banged in the head with bottle service rock. Than another girl comes over and is like “Can you play Motley Crue?” and you think, “Didn’t you just come up here?” Ooh…that was your friend. They send all their friends over . I get it. EVERYONE wants to hear Motley Crue right now, but I’m still not playing it. You can’t trick me.the demographics don’t work. A lot of times people just want to hear something and don’t understand that there is a room full of people your entertaining. And that you’re trying to hold on to 90%, not trying to please 10%. If I can get to the other 10% over the course of several hours I’ll be really happy, but you cant just shift gears just to make one person happy because its their birthday and loose everyone else. You have to make them feel like they are a part of something and not in exclusion to everyone else.. You have to explain to someone in so many words that it’s not all about you. It’s not all about me. I don’t love this song that I’m playing right now but look at the crowd. Other times at The Rub, its just like “Fuck No”,“We’ve been here for seven years, and there is a line around the block. Please leave so someone else can come in and I can make ten more dollars from someone who would love to get in and be very happy to be here.” Sometimes I’ll be doing a wedding or something and someone will come over and say “Can you play some metal?” and its like “hummmm.“That actually happened to me at a venue in when I played a wedding for this music executive guy who was very emphatic about wanting this song, and this song, and this song, and this song. “This is my second marriage and I just want to hear what I want to hear.” So you’re just gonna do what this guy wants and try to make it a good wedding. A woman comes over and asks, “can you play metal?” and its like…let me figure out who this person is. If it’s the bride, fuck yeah…I’m playing what ever you want.  If its just some drunk asshole cousin, than no…what are you doing? Your making a huge mistake. This guy wants world music. Metal is definitely not gonna get me tips.

T&B: Do you still dig for records?
A: yeah.

T&B: How has Serato changed the way you dig?
A: Oh hugely. Now getting the record is like a last resort because it used to be that you were judged for your selection, but now with Serato everybody has everything. Even with CDJs it was like this before Serato. You could play the stupid song that they did on Saturday Night Live the night before and get a reaction. So the digging from that perspective…nobody cares. Nobody is gonna come in the booth and be like “Eww, he’s playing that off an Ipod”, or mp3, or he’s using Ableton with a midi controller or whatever. Nobody gives a shit. If people here a hot song, they like it.  On the other hand, there is a ton of shit that you can get on record that you can’t get on amazon.com or itunes. Stuff you can’t find it on a blog, kids don’t know about it, that’s still really hot, that excites me and my peers. So for that reason I’m still buying records because that stuff just hasn’t made it to mp3 yet, or you’ve looked for it and a mp3 doesn’t really exist. Nobody has it and you just have to spend $100 on it because the ten other people who have that 45 aren’t trying to let that song get out. There is much less of that than there used to be. Every year it gets less and less. I think that now it’s less about getting really exclusive records and more about getting really exclusive edits, getting tracks from DJs before they come out. Not on some breaking a record shit, but just a cool version of something before everyone else has it.

Check out Ayres rocking the North to South dj bag in gray, get it here .