DJ Sets for personal use

July 2, 2007 3:38 PM

Looking for recordings of live DJ sets/mixes to play at parties at my place.

Quite awhile ago DJ AM (dj-am.com) made available for download a recording of a live set he did at Concorde in LA for some celebrity's birthday party. It was 2 hours long and I used it to rock many a house party. It also made great work out and car music.

That was years ago, and I'm growing tired of the mix, so I am looking for similar and perhaps newer recordings. It doesn't have to be AM, but I'm not looking for a concert recording where you can hear the crowd, but rather just the DJ's set.

The DJ AM set had mostly crowd pleasers: hip-hop, pop, funk, reggae, classics, etc. I'm looking for something similar. No house or techno please.

posted by AceRock to media & arts (10 comments total)

Does it have to be live?

DJ Helix - many mixes here.. the trapp mix is good, though will feel dated at the end of this month.

Rappersiknow, Pizza at Primo’s, Vol. 1.
posted by hobbes at 4:20 PM on July 2, 2007

The Rub DJs have mixes available, as do the NYCTrust folks. Ooh, and East Village Radio. And Z-Trip. Plenty of others, too, but that's a start.
posted by box at 4:22 PM on July 2, 2007

DJ Z-trip offers a lot of downloads on his official site. His stuff is pretty fun, bouncy, mainstream remix-like material -- but could definitely be a good workout soundtrack.

There's also a huge amount at Pearson Towers, though like most User Generated Content, much of it is kinda amateur-hour. With some digging and some trial and error, you should be able to find some things there, too.
posted by toxic at 4:33 PM on July 2, 2007

Oh, goodness, I am going to enjoy the answers this thread provides.

Recordings of the BBC Radio program Breezeblock are fairly common on internet-based methods of procuring music. As far as I know, these are all bootlegs and there have been no officially sanctioned recordings produced.

There's no crowd there, but the DJs do mix sets live in the studio, rather than just play their latest CD.

Since a different artist was featured every week, you can pick and choose which episodes you'd most enjoy, but I am a huge fan of the Dan the Automator ep recorded shortly before the release of Handsome Boy Modeling School's first CD. It was basically the entire album, mixed and reassembled, with lots of extras thrown in. I like it better than So...How's Your Girl.

I am also obsessed with an episode of a similar radio show from Australia named Mix it Up, Triple J featuring Dexter, also known as DJ Dexta. He won the Australian DMC a few times, and was the DJ for The Avalanches (note: there are a million dudes in the Avalanches, so you can't know how much of the work was his, but his mixes are typically a bit rougher than Since I Left You; less polished and bigger chunks of uncleared samples).

If you don't mind that it's not live, Gimix is the rough first version of the Avalanches album Since I Left You. It is much more similar to Dexter's solo style than the final version of the album. It was never given wide release due to the uncleared samples(I'm pretty sure there's some Madonna in there), but bootlegs were sold at Avalanches gigs.
posted by Juliet Banana at 4:46 PM on July 2, 2007

One online archive of freely downloadable DJ sets that I like is the one at Beta Lounge. Free registration is required.

A favorite from the Beta Lounge archive: take a listen to the DJ Krust show from March 6, 2000. Specifically, the first set (DJ Boll Weevil).
posted by rxrfrx at 6:03 PM on July 2, 2007

Oh, and the giant archive: http://dhpmixes.com/mixes/

Though the site seems to be having problems right now.
posted by rxrfrx at 6:05 PM on July 2, 2007

What you are looking for, my friend, is The Mixing Bowl.

It has some of what you don't want, and it has a lot of what you do.

Check (if the torrent is still alive) "Gimix" by the Avalanches. It is the version of their Since I Left You album chock-filled with samples they couldn't clear.
posted by rachelpapers at 6:33 PM on July 2, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Try MixUpload. Again, you will need to register (free) but you can stream and/or download a lot of stuff. All organised by genre and searchable - I've found some gems on there.
posted by jonesor at 2:46 AM on July 3, 2007

Here are the highly extensive audio archives of my old crew. Tons of mixes for your listening pleasure.
posted by onedarkride at 5:04 AM on July 3, 2007

i concur about Beta Lounge - always good. The guys of Thievery Corporation also have good sets floating around out there.

i've also come across many good BBC Radio One programmes that have good mix sets.
posted by kuppajava at 1:02 PM on July 3, 2007