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It's rare that I do this, but it turns out that I ended up liking this artist and wanted to share as well.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4354860/

A lot of this is inspired by the journal which Croc posted http://crocodile.livejournal.com/374602.html I felt that the issues he raised needed to be addressed, but it wasn't enough for just a comment so I decided to write a journal.

I was raised in the old school way of DJing, you bought turntables, you bought a mixer and you just sat down and practiced until your ears were bleeding. It was just the way it was, and that has changed. We have moved into a digital age, things can be pre-recorded, preset and the age of DJ press play has started. Even Deadmau5 has said, all we do is get up there and press play, its all staged and who cares cause we rock your socks off!

I think that with everything there is a balance to be had. I've worked on both sides of the coin, playing 100% freestyle off the cuff (the majority of my club gigs) and playing preprogramed sets. Wanna know the secret? No one knows either way. Should you be able to read a crowd and adjust? Yes. Should you know your crowd before going in (has the promoter prepared you for what you are going to do)? Yes. Both those things will allow you to make a fantastic night for those on the floor. The more prepared you are going in the less you need to rely on reading the floor. Heck in the days of Vinyl you could bring at most 50 records to your gig, and you can bet it wasn't all multigenre just in case no one liked DnB. If you go see deadmau5, you know what you are gonna hear, so unless he does a pre-redorded set of improv jazz it is a know quantity. It should be like that for the DJs you see at the dance, and I'm working to help make it more known as to what is going on with each DJ.

A DJ I respect at youmacon said to me, I couldn't do a pre-programed set because I'm just not comfortable with my set building and it made me think. Its not a cop out, it is just a different way of going about what you do.

I'm going to call out Croc here because he tends to come under fire given his playing style, I will book him and defend what he does because he has always been upfront about what he is about and he puts time into his sets and being on stage in suit. I respect that a lot. He doesn't posture or claim to be something he isn't, he just puts on a good show and he puts together a good set. I was pleased with the set he played at MFF, and the crowd that was there for it was dancing their tails off to what he had put together. I feel that if the crowd likes it, who cares how the DJ does what he does, so long as the footpaws are movin.

The second half deals with the whole 45 minute set thing. When I was in the dance scene as a young suction cup footed fox (raver pants) set times were often longer. Seeing headliners with 3 hours was not uncommon. Now, pretty much everyone has an hour across the board because it is easy to schedule and an hour is a decent length of time to do what you need to do. I can cram quite a few tracks into an hour, 30+ at MFF, but even still I would love to have longer to really do what I feel needs to be done. The 45 minute set thing mimics what was done in clubs. For promoters to make money you need heads, DJs have friends so you book more DJs the more friends they bring (ignoring friend overlap). Since most local DJs play for free it is only an upside for the promoter. Thus the B2B started, or the Vs. I loved doing Vs battles with my local friends when we had back to back slots and could share a 2 hours time slot, but trying to cram 2 people into a one hour slot was purely a game to get more people in the door.

The same thing is happening in the fandom, but I'm not sure if it is for the same reasons or we just have decided that we don't like to tell people no I'm sorry you don't have a slot this year. I know how much it sucks to be told no, believe me I've heard no a lot. No one likes to be told they didn't make the cut, especially when it can seem arbitrary. For me, I feel that cutting down furs sets to 45 mins is unfair to the performers who spent time practicing and preparing. It marginalizes their abilities and we should be showcasing the DJs which are good enough to play at cons, giving them the time to play the tracks they want to share with everyone out there. It is hard enough to keep things on time and we run thin margins as it is, trying to cram as many people into a night isn't the way I like to do things. I hate having to tell qualified people no as well, it sucks because there is a lot of talent. I'm sure its the same with the dancer furs, a lot of those cut are damn good, it is just the way the chips fall sometimes. In the future I am going to strive to be more transparent and I think that will go a long way to smooth things out.

I'm not saying I know best, but those are my feelings on it given my tenure in the club scene.

Now that the dust as had time to settle and everyone has had time to settle back into their regular lives its time to see what people thought of the dances and get feedback from all you fuzzies out there.

Feel free to write any and all comments or experiences, both good and bad regarding the dances. If you have suggestions as to what you would like to see next year please post those up too as we are always looking for new ideas and ways to get everyone more engaged in the dances!

I'll start things out by letting you know what we did this year.

1) Starting on time. We did much better this time around, and it is always tough, but I think at worst we were 10 minutes late the first night and less the second, which isn't too bad. Next year we will try and do better

2) Lighting was kicked up several notches and I loved what we got and were able to do with it. Hopefully that trend will continue into next year.

3) Sound was improved and was top notch this time around.


With that, here is what I'm looking for if you need some direction.

1) Did you go to the dance? If so, why not and what would make you want to attend? If you did, did you just go to see your friend DJ, if so what would compel you to stick around longer?

2) Did you like the selection of music? We strive to have a mix of different dance oriented music (as it is a dance) with some 80s/90s/pop as well as current trending popular genres. We also had a Hip-hop hour for non electronic dance music.

3) What did you think of the lighting, sound and room layout? Did you feel that it was too crowded, loud or bright/dark?

4) Was there enough water? Did the headless lounge function as needed?

What that, here is what I would like to look at for the next time around. Please feel free to let me know if you think these would enhance the experience at all.

1) More sound/lighting and effects.
2) Get to know your DJs (profiles and samples posted before the con, and fliers during the con)
3) Starting on time (redux)

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone that went to the dances had a good time! I want to do everything I can to make them better!

I was sitting at work, doing my thing and checking twitter every now and then when I noticed a tweet from one of my favorite bands, beats antique. They announced that they were doing a contest to get people up on stage for their halloween shows and one of the stipulations was that they wanted you to be dressed as animals. About 10 minutes after seeing the announcement my cell started to ring as text flooded in from Dire and Wolphy saying we should do this as we have a super legit shot at it. The contest was short, and we only had two days to get things done so we got to work quickly.

The rules were simple, animal costumes, clapping, ninja punches and jumping. All we had to do was get some footage of us dancing and rocking out to their song catskillz, put it together and submit it. Easy right? We all gathered at Triggurs house, myself, Dire, Wolphy and a local Cheetah who had just got a new fursuit. We spent the remainder of the night shooting us dancing from various angles with instruments, without, smooking hookah and just being silly. After a night of shooting I took the hours of footage and trimmed it down to make this video. It took me a good 4 hours of editing and shooting to get it all put together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgLz.....ure=plpp_video

I posted the video up on their facebook and waited. The feeling that we may actually win made me nervous, especially since there are so many other good dancer furs out there that could easily upstage us. Later in the day I got emails from the band as well as their manager. You guys were awesome, we want you on stage with is and bring your hookah!

The excitement leading up to the show was intense, I couldn't think about anything else as the hours ticked by slowly. Finally the moment had arrived, we had our tickets in paw and we were at the venue. It took a few phone calls and some confused wandering around but we finally made it to where we needed to be. We got our artist badges and went up to the green room to meet everyone and see what we needed to do. The band had not yet arrived in full, but we got to talk to Zoe and she told us where we could change and store our suits after we had explained who we were and why we were in the green room with them. After we returned with the suits we got to meet the rest of the band and the manager. They told us how much the loved our video (and had even reposted it on their facebook which they didn't do for anyone else) and how we were exactly what they were looking for. The chat was brief as they were getting ready for the show, but they told us what they wanted us to do and when to be back to get ready. We were going to be on for the encore ^^

With that we all headed back and enjoyed the concert, watching Lynx, Minnesota, and Zion-I do their thing. It was a fantastic night and everyone was performing on top of their game. Beats antique came out and just set the place on fire. Their show is just fantastic, a hippy gwar as Zoe had later described it. Each of their songs had a different stage performance than the last and they executed flawlessly. Eventually it was time for us to go and get ready. We gave ourselves plenty of time to get ready for the show, making sure that nothing was going to go wrong. We found ourselves watching the last few songs from the side of the stage in suit waiting.

At last it was time. We stood on the side of the stage, with the crowd going nuts, cheering for Beats Antique to come back out. Soon the duck was on stage and that was our cue! We made our way out dancing and rocking out. The energy was amazing. There was over 3200 people, which was the largest show they had ever headlined ever, cheering and going nuts as they played catskillz. We danced and bounced around stage, playing with the giant squid trying to save the band members as they got caught up in the tentacles. It was all over so quick and drenched in sweat I exited the stage and headed back up to the green room. We shared in the excitement with the rest of the band with how well the show went. They showered us with praise telling us how awesome we were, and how they would love to get us out for their other shows in Colorado. I had so many wags, I couldn't contain myself at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5sVfPXznU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8OBMNcl9No

The band invited us to hang out for a while so we set up the hookah and smoked with them, talking about the tour and things like that. They were awesome to hang out and talk with and were very down to earth people. The manager put on my head and they look pictures of him doing hookah with it. It was awesome! Conversations were very random and just went in every direction as we we were all riding the high of the night. At the end of the night they had to head out a little early as they had a show to do the next day. They thanked us for everything we did soon parted having now experienced a once in a life time event.

Looking back this was just so awesome. Getting to be on stage, getting to perform in front of 3200 people and getting to meet such an amazing band and have them be so awesome. It was just incredible.

My god the MFF dances, I don't even know where to start. If you didn't go, you missed out because I've never seen things go off like that before.

I guess the first thing to do would be to thank the staff, Hartee, Oddy and Firr specifically as they do a lot of the heavy lifting to make sure that the dances are the experience that they are. It has been about 4 years since the new AV staff has started to roll in and we put a lot of work and did a lot of begging in order to get that new lighting and sound rig up and I think it paid off. I also want to thank Kodi for giving me the freedom to do what I think needs to be done.

Thursday night mixer:
Unfortunately I was unable to make it to the mixer, as i did not arrive at the con until later so I was only able to hear Pdawg drop his beats there. I was happy to see that we had a good number of people there given the setup and the room and I have heard nothing but good things about what Dakk and Madius played. I was impressed with what Pdawg threw down, especially considering where he started at. He is one of the few who is actually developing a style unique to himself and I've got a ton of respect for that.

Friday Night (Round 1)
I always get super nervous before a con dance, especially at MFF. I always worry no one will show up, or something really bad will happen right before doors and it is just nerve wrecking. Thankfully we had almost no issues the whole way through and we essentially started on time (or as close to reasonable as we could!).

Croc kicked things off, and I ran off to get into fursuit. When I came back I was pleasantly surprised at how many furs we had out there, and the crowd just kept getting bigger. At one point I got a surprise from Avery which caught me a lil off guard, but it was awesome. Croc played a fantastic set and I think everyone else on the floor agreed with me.

BBF was next up and he did not disappoint! He is a DJ gem in this fandom, spanning multiple genres with an old school mixing style that shows how much work he has put into what he does. Seeing how many furs we had on the dancefloor for his set made me wag.

Rawkz0rz took the stage at midnight, taking a moment to sing happy birthday to a friend which was sweet before dropping into some really really good stuff. He played a fantastic set, and has a good crew that he rolls with that supports him, which as a DJ means everything to you. The stage was packed to the point where we had to start moving people off to make sure the equipment wasn't going to have any issues. I was all wags when the con chair came by to see how things were going and just started at the crowd had in disbelief.

Rok closed out the night for us, keeping things moving with his DnB and Drumstep. I was impressed with what he did at youmacon, and MFF was no exception. I love how he interacts with the crowd and the energy he brings with each one of his sets. When the night closed down we still had furs dancing and that is always a good feeling.

Saturday Night (Rebel 2)
 Firr  recca_sen_li  tekfox
Firr returned to MFF this year as last year he got completely screwed out of his set due to a scheduling error, which sucked. This year Firr rocked the place. It was great seeing him run around the stage getting into what he was dropping and just having such a good time up there.

Tekfox
It is tough to sum everything up and look back on a set you've done and not see it as one huge blur of joy. This was the least nervous I have been since I've been playing a lot more recently and I felt pretty confident about everything. Oddy had requested that I play his new track that he had produced before my set and I was honored to do so. He is such a good producer and his stuff needs to be heard. As a quick interlude his track dropped and I was happy that people were asking me who this was as before I had mentioned that it was written by a fur. I happily pointed them to Oddy so their praise could be lavished upon it's author.

Then it was my turn. I started with a Muse track, which my wuff suggested I open with. It was a perfect opener too, I stood on the front of the stage mimicking the music in an impromptu performance before the song dropped. The first half of my set was unrelenting and massive; watching everyone out there moving with me was the highlight of my night. I moved into glitch hop and trap to give the crowd and myself a much needed breather. I like this style so much as I can build with it and actually take things somewhere instead of just moving from drop to drop to drop. I was happy to see people moving to the type of trap I like as I tend to stick with the more dirty stuff and not the dutch house infused stuff. There were stage concerns so we were trying to keep it clear but eventually I just said eff it, I'll keep an eye on things and called the suiters up on stage. Little did I know that it wasn't just suiters that were going to flood the stage but everyone. I was surrounded by people all dancing and jumping on stage, it was fantastic! I eventually moved into some drumstep and closed the night off with Mochipet, which I have been wanting to unleash on a con ever since I first heard the song. Needless to say it was about the perfect closer. After that I was in a sea of bliss as people told me how much they loved what I played and nothing makes me happier than seeing furs out there enjoying themselves.

Recca Took over after I introduced him and proceeded to rock the house. Every time I see Recca play I think back on previous cons and how far he has come and the progress he has made. It is pretty awesome and he has done a good job. The room and the stage stayed packed the whole time as he dropped his electro beats on the crowd. After his set was over the look and the hug he gave me so many wags as I knew what he felt in how awesome it is to rock a crowd like that.

Genki finished up the night with his hardcore beats. I have to give this man serious props as he is one of the last old school trained DJs who is just on top of his game. I'm not a fan of hardcore, I never have been, but I am a fan of Genki. He drops beats so well that I just can't not like what he does. I have so much respect for what he does and continues to do. When the Saturday dance closed up we had a loyal dancefloor that did not want to quit even after we had to bring the lights up, which makes me so happy.

Sunday Night (Round 3)
 CometTheWolf  ThatOtherVinny  brosine
Sunday night was my night to go out for a nice dinner with my wuff and close friends so this caused me to miss both Akonite and Chance's sets. I did, however, hear nothing but praise for Akonite from people in passing afterwards and I know he always delivers a good set. On my way back from dinner I poked my head in to see how Chance was doing, as he had about 15 minutes left to go in his set. I wanted to see how the con had reacted to a 100% pure hip hop segment and I was really really surprised at how many people were there rocking out. I'm glad that we have a place for more than just EDM at our conventions, even if that tends to be the predominant genre.

I got in suit quickly to come down and support Comet for his set and he threw down some really good beats. He was dancing and wagging all over the place which was pretty awesome. I love seeing DJs get excited about playing, it is infectious. I got hugs from the happy wagging DJ, which is always nice too ^^. For the last set of the day, Cosine and Vinny stepped up to close the night out. It was Cosines first time playing and he played very very well. There was a small equipment problem (and not the first for the con, I think that was the 4th one of the weekend) but I jumped up on stage to help fix the issue and he came back without missing a beat. After that Vinny took the stage for the last half hour to give us some good dubstep beats and bass in his signature style. He had to play on equipment that wasn't his, and I could tell it was stressing him out a bit, but he still delivered.

So after all that I am super happy with how everything went. This is the first time I have left the con without regrets or feeling like I could have done more. I felt prepared going in, during the convention I was there to ensure that all the issues along the way got taken care of. Additionally I decided that as a promoter I should be there for every DJs set, so I made every effort to be there and support the people I booked.

To everyone who came out to the dances, thank you so much, you all are the reason that we all do this. We love to share our craft with you and we love the support you give us along the way. Without all of you this wouldn't happen!