Welcome to another exciting episode of That Other Lifestyle Podcast! Join host Jason as he sits down with his favorite DJ, the legendary DJ FABZ. In this episode, they delve into the art of DJing, particularly within the lifestyle community, and how it differs from mainstream DJing. DJ FABZ shares his fascinating journey from spinning vinyl at New York City block parties in the '80s to becoming a lifestyle DJ who knows how to keep everyone dancing, even the non-dancers. They discuss the nuances and skills required to be a successful DJ in lifestyle events, the creative freedom it offers, and how it serves as a unique form of crowd control. Tune in to hear about DJ FABZ's insights into creating the perfect party atmosphere, the importance of playing music that resonates with everyone, and the special connection between the DJ and the audience in lifestyle settings. Whether you're a seasoned lifestyle participant or new to the scene, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at what makes a great lifestyle DJ. www.djfabz.com My links: www.thatotherlifestyle.com National Lifestyle Weekend Tickets Naughty in New Orleans 2025 Tickets Single Men's Guide to the Lifestyle Course https://beacons.ai/thatotherlifestyle Risque Lifestyle Parties SDC.com
Transcript
Speaker1: good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are i hope you have blue skies and we're going to talk to one of my favorite people in the world today my name is jason welcome to that other lifestyle podcast today i have a very special guest with me i dare say he is my favorite dj ever i never thought i would say that i had a favorite dj welcome to the show dj faves We'll be right i know right i have a favorite dj and y'all to his credit i have been to a lot of parties that he has been at and he this is no lie he will get everyone dancing my wife is not a dancer i am a dancer albeit not great but i'm a dancer i will get out there my wife she will actually move whenever you are spinning whenever you are playing it is fantastic it is amazing i have seen you spin a lot um and we've known each other for a while now and you just started really blowing up so i wanted to get you onto the show talking about what it is to be a dj and what it is to be a dj in the lifestyle and how that's different and how that's spicy and fun and we talked a little bit yesterday and you were blowing my mind with all kinds of nuances to the skill that you have. And it is a skill. It's a craft. If anyone out there, if y'all ever seen a really good DJ play, he is in the zone. So thank you very much for hanging out with us today. Thanks, man. I appreciate that highly flattering introduction. It's an interesting journey. I'll tell you why. Because I literally, okay. So first of all, full disclosure, November, I will be 61 years old. Okay. Just to everybody, just so y'all know, if I'm going to put a video out there, but if you're listening to this, this man does not look 61. I would, when I first met him like, ah, cool. He's 40, right? Tell y'all a quick story. He came to our holiday Christmas party. The sheer swagger and sexiness this man exudes. He comes into my house. We're having this big old fancy cocktail party, holiday party thing. He comes in wearing a white tiger fur coat. And I look at my wife and I was like, get me one of those. I want a a white tiger fur coat that man wears it well i want to try it the swagger the swagger you have is incredible stop so i say that to say you know this whole realm of djing that people know very well today started and was born when mixers were invented. Okay. The two channel mixers, people use the Technics 1200 mark two turntables. They bought tons of vinyl. It was very heavy, put it in crates, right? Yeah. And you, and you learn how to beat match songs and extend them and keep the party going without throwing people off their dance rhythm. That the whole way it started so I started DJing I started learning to DJ when I was 17 years old wow right at the time when mixers were literally coming up to market so me and my three roommates decided okay you buy a turntable I'll buy a turntable and we'll go in on mixer and we'll all teach each other and help each other learn how to do this. That's where it started. That's so cool. Yeah. So that morphed into a big thing in New York City where I'm from, which is where I'm originally from. I was born in the Bronx and I lived in Queens and Hollis, Queens, right? Where mom's cooking chicken and collard greens, you know, the rap song, right? So I would, you know, do block parties. That's a big thing in New York. You know, you can permit, you shut down the street for a day during the summertime, which seems very brief in New York. And you put out some speakers and some amplifiers and some music and people barbecue and they do their thing and play dominoes and spades and all that stuff. And you play music until the end of the night of the night that's how it was done so we all cut our teeth doing that right so we were spinning good times by chic and all these songs that are like the iconic songs we were playing the bgs and leo sayer what and yeah this is the stuff that we literally like grew up with right so you know when you hear songs like you know i will survive and all that's our stuff that was the material that we had right djing back then you always thought man what if i could do this what if i could do that right well i dj'd you know all the way up until i went you know into another line of work for the rest of my lifelong career, you know, and then it was like, the bug to DJ was always still there. It's kind of like DJing is like a lot of other professions. It's not what you do. It's who you are. Because every time you hear a song, you can hear the sample, you can pick out what it would mix with. You're always putting together mashups in your head, that kind of thing and you know so years ago my wife and i would get into the lifestyle back in 2018 it was and we are attending you know lifestyle parties yeah house parties takeovers going to cancun to temptations your desire this that whatever we've done the cruises all of those environments that are organized in particular in that fashion have djs right and i thought wow this is really cool you know this is kindling my desire to get back into this however there's a stark difference between a 1980 dj and a you know a 21st century dj they use controllers typically I don't know. difference between a 1980 dj and a you know a 21st century dj they use controllers typically not vinyl you know they're using electronic files it's it's a different nomenclature around the whole thing right yeah different skill set so i basically deliberated it and said i've got to do it like i can't stop myself from at least trying. Right. Right. So I invest the money. I get the, you know, the deck and the computer and I started investing in the music files and get, go down that rabbit hole. And very quickly within the first week of me having the equipment, I walked up to a guy in the lifestyle industry and said, look, I see the drama going on in Facebook with this DJ you have opening opening for you all the time i can do this and we attended their parties all the time so he's like sure you can you're like no really i can do this like i can i can you're asking you're asking for a shot and just let me try i'm like so he so he throws this party during the fourth of july weekend that's like a private only like 35 people type party because he wanted to get together with folks and he's like this would be the perfect time for you to just go ahead and jump in there and do what you want to do right sure enough that's what we do long story short four years later i'm still doing this right and i've not missed one of those parties. I do both nights, you know, it's, it's morphed into a lot more. The cool thing about it is all those creative ideas that I had back in the eighties and the nineties, when I was DJing and opening up at places like the fun house and all these like iconic clubs back in the day, I can do, you know, because equipment allows you to be far more creative. There's much more activity going on in the mix today. So this is why I love to tell people something I heard on the Internet. I cannot take credit for this statement, but it is a statement that is 100% accurate. DJing is like playing Tetris on level 10 for three hours i can see that the time just goes which is probably why djs get so disheveled and a little twisted up when people start shoving phones in their face trying to show them songs i want to request this i want to yeah there's a reason because because it's concentrated out of your flow state you know yeah not a problem per se if as long as you can recover from that well but it can really throw people off right um but there's just certain things so specifically about the lifestyle what makes it so much more satisfying because i dj'd it some cool venues yeah I can honestly tell you there's nothing to me like doing it in the lifestyle. It's a different animal. You know, there's a very specific window with a very specific focus and a good lifestyle DJ will recognize that window and what that focus is. So one of the things that I say is like a mantra is i play typically for the ladies oh yeah we talked about this yeah i mean most of most of the clubs are are you know couple centric right there's select a few that do some other things and that's fine but the nucleus of all of it is couples and therefore the nucleus of the couple is the lady We'll be right back. that do some other things and that's fine but the nucleus of all of it is couples and therefore the nucleus of the couple is the lady yes so i play my music to them they're the crowd that i'm watching i'm not watching the guy that totally gets it and is vibing out in the corner i'm watching the women that are wallflowering or on the fence or on the periphery of the dance floor that I want to draw them in because there's a certain thing that happens in a lifestyle environment. When you get the physical bodies of the people on the dance floor, they're closer to the setup in the way that it's designed. They're feeling the base energy more. That's where the transformation happens from meet and greet socialize to wind your hips get sexy and then it's sexy party time you follow what i'm saying and so there's a science in essence to that that is really enthralling for a lifestyle dj and i think I'm speaking for all lifestyle DJs when I say this. And, you know, I said, I've been doing this for years. I do it consistently a lot throughout the year. And it was only up until recently, I think it was back in July specifically that I woke up one morning and I turned to my wife. hold i know i know hold that thought okay because i feel like you're about to drop something really really good on us here hold that thought we're going to go to a quick commercial break and when we come back i promise y'all he's about to blow your minds so stay tuned we'll be right back all Cool deal. Risqué means slightly indecent or liable to shock, especially by being sexually suggestive. Risqué Lifestyle throws premier lifestyle parties and takeovers in the Southern United States that are slightly indecent, liable to shock, and very sexually suggestive. My wife and I and our friends attend every risque party and we love them. The hosts provide a safe, fun environment for new couples, experienced couples, and everyone in between. The dance floor is open all night with awesome DJs who can get anyone dancing. They go above and beyond to provide an event that you will be talking about for weeks and recommending to all of your lifestyle friends. And the themes. Where else can we party until 4 a.m. with hundreds of our lifestyle friends in an affordable, welcoming environment that gives us a reason to dress up? Nowhere except at a risque party. Whether it's a party in Lafayette, Louisiana, a two-day hotel takeover in Baton Rouge, or a night of naughtiness in Texas, risque is worth a trip no matter where you. Visit RisqueLifestyleParties.com to find out more information. Tell them That Other Lifestyle sent you, and I will see you at the next party. Hey, welcome back, everybody, to the show. Had a little commercial break. Thanks again for listening, everybody. If you are curious, I do have a group over on SDC called That Other Lifestyle. So make sure you go check that out. I do want to mention National Lifestyle Weekend. Tickets are on sale right now for that. It's going to be July 19th through the 21st next year in Las Vegas. And I do want to plug my website, thatotherlifestyle.com. Fabian, what is your website? My website is djfabes, F-A-B-Z.com. Yep. We got to make sure we mentioned that a whole bunch in this second half. Absolutely. So you were telling us, and I knew where you were going with us, like, wait, we got to tease this first and make everybody wait a minute. So you set it up, you had this wonderful lead-in. So you woke up one morning and had a flash of brilliance. You hit me. Something it dawned on me, man. Like I said, I've been doing lifestyle DJing now consistently every other week or month, even for four years. And I turned to my wife and I said, babe, guess what? She goes, what? I said, I know why lifestyle DJing is so much more appealing to me than any other type of DJing I've ever done. And she said, why? I said, because it's a kink. And she's like, what? I said, no, hear me out. Oh yeah. Explain that one. Well, it's a control kink. You know, one of the many kinks that exists out there is domination and control and all these things. And I realized Thank you. Well, it's a control kink. You know, one of the many kinks that exists out there is domination and control and all these things. And I realized that it tickles the hell out of me to be able to determine when the meeting and greeting and chatting is going to subside. and I'm going to pull people to a dance floor and turn the party on.
Speaker2:
That, in essence, is a kink.
Speaker1:
And I knowingly get a kick out of it because I do it deliberately. In fact, at a recent party in June of this year, I had a gentleman ask me about the lights and the speakers and everything. He said, don't you think this is a little overkill? Because they had never had it at their party before. And I said, absolutely not. I said, there's no way in God's creation, you're going to get 260, 270 people's attention and stop them and get them on the dance floor with two Bluetooth speakers and a phone. It's not going to happen. I said, so we come here with 20,000 Watts and, you know, a truss and lasers and the whole thing for a reason. I said, why don't you just stand right here and let me show you why? And he goes okay you know so he stands there i said i'm about to do this and he's like and he looks and i literally just grabbed the volume knob and turned it to my party mark yeah which which brings the music up people can still talk but the bass energy and the light reaction to the sound of the music is so palpable that people literally just instantaneously gravitated to the dance floor. And I hadn't even changed the song. Wow. And he looked at me and he said, wow, that's powerful. I said, now go dance. And he went off and dance. Case in point being, that moment reflected in my head so many times because I thought, man, it's cool that, first of all, that I had the gumption to even present it that way because it could have failed, right? I mean, I could have turned the volume up, but I knew better. I mean, I've been doing this for 40 years, literally, right? I knew what he was about to witness and it was so cool so it was a kink for me to do that and show him that he was wrong about how much stuff we had it was a kink for me to draw the people onto the dance floor and that whole thing resonates with me in a way musically that's like what do people like to say new kink unlocked it can get locked yeah it's just so that's a premise that i'm throwing out musically, that's like, what do people like to say? New kink unlocked. So that's a premise that I'm throwing out there to the other lifestyle DJs. I'd love to one day have a poll or a forum or a conversation with a bunch of folks who DJ and say, do you agree with that thought process? And speaking of other DJs, your style is different because I have been to a lot of places and they have the dj and they have the techno musical and the edm the house music whatever it is and at my jam your style though it really resonates with me and a lot of other people because it's not that it's something different and i really dig it yeah there is a deliberate approach to what i do and i actually describe it to people when they ask me because i'll have somebody come up to me say you know the ballrooms will open say nine o'clock let's use that as a litmus point nine o'clock the ballroom opens i know that people are they've spent look these ladies have spent a lot of time getting together oh yes to make their entrance into that ballroom and they want to have the ability to focus on the reactions that they're getting, the conversation and banter that goes back between them and their husbands and partners about the reactions that they're getting. There's a lot that goes on in that first hour in the ballroom that I don't want to necessarily interfere with. So I deliberately do a few things. One is I start the music tempo at around 65 beats per minute. So we're talking about, you know, trap, hip hop, that kind of stuff. The stuff that you would expect to hear in a multicultural strip club for the girls to dance to so they can twerk in their heels think about it like that right incredibly descriptive but yes right you know when the when the girl holds the pole she goes down into that squat and she looks over her shoulder and she starts doing the booty thing that's where i start so booties by nature shake at 65 beats per minute that's the that's That's the standard setting. I mean, it's a nice pulsating, easy to follow moment, right? You can roll with it. So I deliberately do that. The other thing I deliberately do is I don't bring the music into the volume threshold that we're going to be at. Once people are feeling their greatest, feeling their most relaxed, they've melted themselves into the room, right? You know, they're no longer just the new thing that walked in or whatever. Now they're part of the ecosystem. Part of the crowd, yep. Absolutely. I don't go there yet because I want all those other pieces to play out because that's a very important part of how well the dance floor is going to perform later because if you lose people early and you kind of push them out or blow them out of the place it's very difficult to get them back especially when we're talking about takeovers cruises are different but takeovers people have rooms to retreat to and other spaces to go you see what i mean the cruise is a captive audience everybody's is a captive audience. Everybody's looking for the party, the party's on deck, right? The party's on deck and that's where you're going to be. I mean, it's simple. Takeover is a little different. That's one thing. And then the trick is to build the pace and the energy. And I want to interject something really important into this for people who are listening to it, because this is another conversation I have with a lot of folks about DJing and the lifestyle. There's a perception, you know, people, they're the people that say, I don't drink brown liquor. I only drink, you know, I don't drink clear liquor because of whatever they think that's about. And then there's this thing about, you know, I don't like EDM. I'm going to tell you a secret about music. You can do some really funky, cool things with crowd control with music using dance beats. The trick is for them to be things that people are familiar with so they don't notice or care that you actually have them dancing at 125 beats per minute, which is an EDM pace, as long as they know the song and can sing along. So my progression is trap, hip hop, very, very few R&B tracks. I mean, there'll be Chris Brown tracks, things like that that people know, right right you get into the rihanna and all that kind of stuff and you get into the pop scene with the kesha i know he played vogue one night for my wife yeah on that version that version is not the original version okay and and interestingly the funhouse one of the clubs that i was talking about that's where my that the dj there jellybean benitos that's the guy that produced her first two albums oh snap so to put you in a time frame of where that was right so i yes i played vogue i mean first of all she just rocks the look like so it was a halloween party last year i think i have some pictures on stc she handmade this marie anoinette outfit. She had this big bouffant, fancy wig that she put diamonds in. And she made the corset and the outfit. And then she carried around a basket with Louis XVI's head. One of those heads. It was stunning. It was wild. Ridiculous. To the point that I had to come out from the DJ booth in the middle of a track to acknowledge it. because it was stunning it was wild ridiculous to the point that i had to come out from the dj booth in the middle of a track to acknowledge it because it was that spectacular yes right yes so so you'll hear me play things that people know like dreams by fleetwood mac and san enter sandman by metallica that's why i dig it because it is music i know and yeah you do speed it up and do your magic to it precisely it's like how cool is that to play enter sandman at one of these parties that you could dance to it and people are fist throwing and losing their minds over it you know looking at the dj booth like who are you right because i've heard i've heard someone say at one of the events i think you were there too that it was like a multi-day thing you know the last day they're like i just keep hearing the same songs over and over again like yeah there's a couple of songs that get played a whole bunch but to your credit you play a huge mix i never hear the same stuff twice and i really dig that that's an absolute i would refuse to play the same track twice and there's no reason to there's hundreds of millions of songs in the world right yeah and in that ecosystem there are enough songs i can promise you that you can find bangers that people will dance to that you shouldn't have to go back to the well to replay something because you've got to recapture your dance floor and that's the only way you know how to do it we can play stuff other than little john y'all little john makes enough money off our lifestyle royalties and events we can play something other than that yeah so i mean it's really cool man it's a cool thing to do it's it's great weaving the tapestry of that i could very easily for the next party that i'm going to do Which is a halloween party go right to my record box software Pull a playlist that I curated myself because I do them all myself And just rehash that playlist from last year's halloween party or from the last back to school party You know from a weekend or so ago. Yep and be just fine. But If you take the time to say, I'm going to create a folder Halloween 2024, and then you go right back through that process again, you wind up with something that's different than 23s, different than last week's party. It's tailor-made for the party you're doing. i have halloween versions of megan the stallion songs and soldier boy and stuff that i whip out on halloween that you hear for an entire 12 months and they're cool as hell because people know the songs and they're like that's got spooky creepy holly stuff in it and halloween references that is freaking awesome right so there's there's a there's a commitment to doing this that you have to agree in your mind to subscribe to that can get you the type of reactions that you're getting i mean i just created my sdc business page a couple days ago and it's got 16 reviews i think i'm literally the most reviewed dj on sdc as of right now that's i that i'm so happy for you and you can't find um you can't find them on you can't find dj faves on sdc um it's got a profile over there and then your website one more time djfaves.com djfabz.com and the the sdc profile is dj faves as well gotcha yeah i i'm so happy for you to get on sdc We'll be right back. dot com djfabz.com and the the sdc profile is dj fabes as well gotcha yeah i i'm so happy for you to get on sdc um they're one of the partners at the show they're super nice to me i got a link on my website if you want to sign up for them that other lifestyle.com go check them out you can find them over there so i know you had a chat you had a notepad yeah okay so we we talked about tetris playing tetris about sexy tetris we haven't talked a lot about the visuals um okay that's a that's a big piece too um you know i'm i'm one of the risque lifestyle uh parties principal djs and i like working with them a lot because not only do they have an epic audio system which rival god y'all risque goes all out they have a sound system that will blow your mind it's it's all contemporary stuff it's qsc and uh ev stuff it's i mean they're running four 18 inch subs when they they you know rig it up translate that to you you can feel it you can it's amazing and it's not just like overwhelming bass you know hitting you in the face you can actually feel the music itself yeah and people can walk out of that room into a you know an area that's not in the trajectory of the immediate sound and not have ringing ears and be comfortable. And that's really important. There's a lot of work prior to the production turning on at nine o'clock that goes into that, which is tuning the room and getting it right so that you're not just blaring people into a coma. You don't want to do that either. Because I have been to places where, yeah, when you walk out of the room, your ears are ringing, you can't hear. That's not a good night, especially when you're trying to have that unfun conversation of you want to go back to my room. You need to be able to hear the answers to that one. Right. And so, you know, going back into that, like a recap on that progression. So, you know, 60, 65 beats a minute is 130 beats a minute if you double it. That's the game I play. I'm like, I already got you where I want you. That's why I can put EDM beats on R&B tracks, rock and roll tracks, and still have you jamming out because, yeah, it's EDM, but it's not what you think EDM is. It's not the obscure, ethereal, I don't know the lyrics. You got to be in a certain frame of mind. Are there words? There other words right yeah so yo yeah so you're at my sets you're gonna hear pink floyd you're gonna hear acdc i have and i loved it because i am a rock guy preed like there's it's it's pretty different but i am a rock guy i like funk uh yeah funk is cool you, oldies. I'm open to a lot of stuff. I have my preferences, but you definitely play a wide mix of stuff. Going back to something you mentioned earlier about the women. Yeah. And getting the women involved, getting the women dancing. It goes back to something I learned from my friend Peter and I've been talking about for a while. Lifestyle spaces are for women. Women control the lifestyle. Lifestyle spaces are for women. Guys, you just got to roll with this one. We are the protectors of the space. We're not the hunters. We're the protectors of the space. We are the ones that we stand on the side to create this space so that women can be free and enjoy themselves and dance and have a good time and then fabian's up there pulling the strings i look i love what you said about being the protectors of the space i think that's a paradigm that every man in the lifestyle married not married or single needs to adopt yep because and even especially so for a single guy, if you adopt the idea that you're the protector of the space and not a hunter in the space, man, that goes a long way. You talk about gentleman cred, big time gentleman cred for that. So I really appreciate you using that terminology and putting that out there because I think that's a great paradigm shift for people. I really like in the, once you have that space where the women feel comfortable, that's when all the fun happens. That's when it just gets spicy and wild and I dig it. 100%. I am the beneficiary of a beautiful beautiful wife oh my god your wife who has a deep understanding of this lifestyle and you know it's really cool to get off of my set i i told her i said years ago i said i want our room to always be like my green room you know i want to feel like i'm james hype and i just left tomorrow land right yeah i want to come off you know come off the the uh the dais hand it over to in most cases with the risque parties it's going to be mind mechanic which is justin you know and then i want to go to my room take my shoes off get off my feet that i've been on because i set up first so i don't just dj the three hours i do two hours of setup so that's five hours i'm on my feet down there before the ballroom opens right so i like to go up there and just like get up sit in the chair listen to the down tempo music that's in the room the lights are on the whole deal and and the best part for me is you know and she comes with me and she sits me down and then she begins to explain to me who she met today that we may have never met before that she's going to introduce me to when we go back, you know, who's interested possibly in us and all the different debriefing. So I just get to sit there and chill and have a, you know, a nice cold soda and listen to all this and, you know, brush my teeth and get some gum and get ready to go down and maybe even do a wardrobe change. Who knows? But it's a really cool thing to, um, to know that even when she's busy and I go up first, that my mind is so clear because I know that she is safe because I know who's in the orbit of the people. I don't have to know all the people. All I have to know is my people. And if my people are there, then I know that my girl is good, you know?
Speaker2:
And that's-
Speaker1:
I love the support she gives you because I've seen her at the parties and she's out there
Speaker2:
dancing.
Speaker1:
She's cutting up. She's having a good time. She's supporting you in this passion that you have. And it is a passion and it's sexy as hell. And I know the women dig it and it's really nice. And it's nice to see wives so supportive of what their husband is doing. I agree a hundred percent. I'm very, very fortunate to have the perfect storm when it comes to that. Oh, and she's a sweetheart. She has this energy. You just want to hang out with her. I could go to McDonald's with her and just hang out. We could see fries together. She's just that kind of energy. She's just happy to be around her and she just makes other people happy around her. And it makes it really easy for me to do what I do. Because when I, like I said about playing tetris on level 10 for three hours my focus back there is totally 100 on this deck over here like that's it like really i can look up and interact with the crowd a lot and i do because i'm feeling the music i just wave at you and run off like bye you know you know i'm feeling the music too so i'll cut up back there but i'm still very focused on what's happening next you know uh and it doesn't actually allow me the opportunity to really focus on what she's doing so it's really great to have a safe environment with great people around her to help her help me nice give us your website one more time i want to make sure i plug this a whole bunch for you and for everybody out there who's still listening to us and they're like i could use a dj for something yeah yeah it's dj fabes which is f a b z.com dj fabes.com is my website the sdc business page is dj fabes and so is the group i also have a group on sdc now oh snap yeah yeah so getting some invites there's some broadcasts going out you know just trying to make connect with everybody especially the business side of the world because i hear there's a thing going on right now where a lot of these businesses the desires the temptations the blisses all these folks are saying they're having a hard time finding real open format djs that can do something other than just the edm and it's like here you go hey how y'all doing right here i know i've been talking about what is on your mind what else you got dude i used to be need to cover i think we have covered a lot of bases uh i want i guess maybe spin the deck around and look at this conversation from the from the the people on the dance floor side you know um i want them to know i think i alluded to it when i talked about prepping for a gig right but i want them to know at least when it comes to me and and several other djs that i can think of off the top of my head in terms of preparation there's a lot of preparation that goes into what we do um we know that we can't satisfy everybody every time oh yeah but my method and style is designed to get stuff in to touch everybody. Because for example, a back to school party, I think about it in two different ways. Some people just think, oh, the kids are going back to school. The adult's going to have a good time. I think of it as a throwback party because we've all graduated in different years and decades. Yeah, that's true. so when you say dj a back to school party to dj fabes i'm thinking we're gonna go from the 70s to the 80s the 90s and most people's musical preference is locked in 16 to 18 like that's your that's your musical whatever's popular then you can tell me when you're born i can tell you what music i know your musical taste and you you're the stuff you played that night it spanned the whole range 70s 80s 90s 2000s 22 all the way up and i dig it i dig it because i like all of that music across the whole spectrum yeah and and look and everybody knows certain songs like when you you play a, a EDM drummed version of Stevie wonder superstition, you've got everybody. I promise you like, you know, and, and the person, and look, and this happened, there was a lady on a dance floor that lost her mind, like turned out to be her favorite song in the world. And she would have never, and she said this i would never have expected to hear stevie wonder at a lifestyle party because all we get is edm right but that was edm and she said well i liked it to the lay person i mean we just hear we hear the song not the genre the nuances and all these little pieces to it and that's again why i dig your style because it is no matter what you play it's like i can connect with that i can get out there and dance and i'm not a great dancer at all but i'm gonna do it well and you have enough no i agree with that i mean you do you do just fine i can promise you oh thank Oh, thank you. Because you're watching. When you're dancing, I'm really not watching you. So I guess that's why. Once there's enough people on the dance floor, I'm a fantastic dancer because nobody can see me. That's a tip for the guys. If you're bashful about dancing, just wait till there's enough people out there and then just go in the middle of it nobody can see what you're doing amen amen because i am promise you i'm not a great dancer i will do some stuff but it's definitely not going to be memorable um but yeah i think i want you know want the people who are the receiving end of of the services of the djs all over you know the country and on the cruises and stuff there's there's a lot of prep that goes into that sometimes it's a it's it's uh it misses the mark maybe and that's why feedback is important that's why i don't get upset when people approach and ask me about things oh you're a professional yeah i mean you know i'm totally game to hear what you got uh it sometimes it's not always convenient but i make it work you know i can always get myself back into the mix and because you get into this flow state and that's the thing i mentioned briefly that i didn't get into where you really are like you're gone you're in another dimension literally and the best mixes the best sets come out of djs that are able to get into that flow state the lifestyle presents an opportunity for that doing weddings and things like that does not um the lifestyle scene does provide that opportunity and it's a lot of fun to be in it it's a very cathartic and very euphoric kind of thing for a dj to be able to do well there's freedom in it because like you mentioned weddings i could totally see a wedding i'm telling you exactly what to play you know the maybe the probably not the beats but telling you exactly what to play like well grandma is going to be here and she doesn't like this kind of music so you got to go this way and stuff and with a lifestyle so many things we do is all about freedom it's fun freedom of expression and freedom to be ourselves in a moment whether you do anything or not and i will say this for the parties that we have been to the parties that go on all the time there are no swap couples there they're out there they're cutting up and having a great time right and yeah it's a lifestyle event and it's all sexy and stuff but they're not doing anything they're not going to do anything right they're there to enjoy the party they're there to enjoy the badass dj that's up there because there's nowhere else that you're going to get this kind of environment you could go to a nightclub or something but that's a whole whole different vibe. You know, I always feel like nightclubs, vanilla nightclubs. It's, I go back to being the protector of the space. I can't protect the space because I'm protecting my wife and myself. That's a hundred percent accurate. You know, I mean, look, clubs, they do their thing. They have their security and all that stuff. But you, first of all, the big difference between that and the lifestyle is an organization that puts on a lifestyle event is nine out of 10 times vetting all the people who are attending that event to begin with. So extra layer of protection, so to speak, to the environment. And then you add yourself into that and you know you're where you're talking about whereas in a public space you really don't have that the people don't understand the rules of engagement right right and that's why i like the lifestyle we have all these unspoken rules well no there's an etiquette there are spoken rules to all this stuff there's definitely rules by rules by consent, and you don't do this, and you don't do this, and you do do this. In the vanilla world, we just don't have that. That's why I like the lifestyle spaces so much. We all get the rules of engagement, as you say. 100%. Because in the lifestyle, it's a broad street, and you know when you've crossed it. That's why when people do break the rules they're always so quick to mea culpa and be like hey sorry like had a little too much to drink or i don't know what i was thinking or i just got a little overwhelmed i apologize like it's instantaneous whereas in the vanilla world people are being predatory they're the hunters and they are doing their hunting thing and they don't really give a damn about anything else going on around it. So that's another really, really valid point, which is why it's so important for me to have the comfort of being able to get into the deck, get into my flow state and know that my baby's good because the Jasons and all the other people in our orbit are around and everything's taken care of. Just got an eye on everything. It ain't them. It ain't that I'm staring. We're just watching. There's a difference. We're just watching, just watching the situation and the crowd, you know, you're just, but yeah, in the lifestyle spaces, I'm a lot more comfortable because we don't really do nightclubs. We don't do vanilla nightclubs. We do the parties and events, the lifestyle stuff. I'm just not comfortable in vanilla nightclubs like that because it is, like you say, predatory. And with the lifestyle spaces, there is that really cool synergy between the DJ and the people dancing. And you're able to tailor what you're doing to the crowd, which I always love that too, because I know you're always watching the crowd always. I mean, you know, it's a, it's a really, it's a dance, man. It's a balance, you know, because you don't want to take, you don't ever want to take yourself out of flow state when you get in it. Cause it's such a great place to be, you know, it's like its own aphrodisiac of sorts. And there's a way you do it, you know, you connect and you get back in you just you just make sure your intervals are good and you it's one of the reasons why i went from using the type of controller i started with which was a pioneer ddj to ddj 1000 means nothing to most people so it's a dagger and you play the music off of a laptop because i had this 17-inch laptop on a pedestal so I could see everything, right? I am 61 in November, right? So I can see the big font. I don't have the big font yet, although I need it. But it felt like it was cutting me off from the people. So I went to this controller that I'm using now, which is the Opus Quad. a self-contained unit with a like a low level flattened screen on it i feel way more connected to the crowd that way i'm not peeking out behind something you know trying to get read on what's going on or getting lost in in in the screen in the industry to have a term for it sometimes they call it serato face where you're just so lost in the menus of looking for stuff and you know that's why preparation is so important you know people the people who get this quote-unquote serato face are kind of winging it in the moment um and they're like thinking oh they're basically thinking too much like what am i going to play next oh god i got to find something that matches or matches in key or match. don't do that i prep and i have a roadmap and i do veer off the roadmap based upon what's going on in the room but it's really important for me so that you guys who are out there wanting to dance and party you're not getting some janky you know mix oh god i've never heard fabian drop the beat never never have i heard you drop the beat or do a hard shift ever if you're right i've heard other guys do it you know well never look it happens to the best of us i had one night uh where were we this is probably four parties go i had a night where my control time and parties by the way this is we tell time and parties. This is normal. Yeah. I had a moment where I would load a track and it would start playing on its own. Oh no. And it was a behavior that was not set for it. It was really weird. Turned out in the aftermath of it, there was a jog wheel issue going on with my deck that I was not aware of at the time I found out about it at my next gig which fortunately was a wedding gig in New Orleans where I was able to use one side of the deck and play things off of Bluetooth and it was perfectly fine because you know weddings are play it's that kind of environment it drove me insane because I thought to myself in that moment it's never happened to me and here i am sounding like i don't know what the hell i'm doing and the good thing was i picked up the microphone and said that was really weird something's going on we'll get it taken care of in the meantime boom drop a nice banger and started looking sweat beads literally flipping off my forehead like what is happening turned out to be equipment failure hey that's okay you overcome and adapt man well we're gonna wrap it up here today thank you so much for hanging out with us you'll definitely be on the show again all right let's plug that website one more time dj fabes f-a-b-z.com dj fabes.com sdc page is dj fabes as is the sdc group is also dj fabes as long as you stay with the d the j the f-a-b-z you're in shape that's good branding right there it's cohesive thank you so much for hanging out with me this has been that other lifestyle podcast i am your host jason everybody we've left vanilla behind for a little while and we'll be back next week with a whole nother great episode for everybody go check out the website that other lifestyle.com we've got the single guy course out there for you and we're working on the men's guide to flirting course that's going to be dropping in October. Y'all have a wonderful day. Thank you for your time.
