Hot Mix Fridays (July 17th, 2014) - Excerpts From Katie and Sean's Wedding

Have you ever DJ'd a wedding before? It's not easy. Not that I thought that it would be. But by the end of the night, I was surprised at just how difficult the whole thing was, and how completely exhausted I felt.

Last Saturday, our friends Sean and Katie got married. They had asked me to DJ their wedding reception- which is something I had never done before. But because they know I used to be on the radio, and that I have a working understanding of contemporary popular music, and they thought I would do a good job. So in preparation, I'd spent roughly the last month or so building two playlists to use: the first was 3 hours of music that would play in the background during the dinner portion of the evening. Shout out to the iTunes crossfade option, coming through in a clutch. The second playlist was 3 hours of music to get people dancing. And that mostly worked out. Except Stevie Wonder cleared the floor. Which was weird. But whatever.

I was a little foolish in thinking I could stick to the playlist in the order that I compiled it when it came to actually getting people to dance. I did take some requests by streaming music online, but I found about 90 minutes in, I needed to start jumping ahead and mixing things up more once I found what worked and what didn't. 

Since I'm not going to make a 6 hour mp3 for you all to eat up all your bandwidth and hard drive space, this week's hot mix takes a well-earned break from the 1990's, and is two separate mixes, lovingly put into a convenient zip file for you to download. They are both bits and pieces of what I used last week when I was spinning the tunes.

So feel free to use the Dinner side the next time you are entertaining folks in your home, and feel free to use the Dance side when you wanna shake your ass, or slowly and awkwardly sway with your boo. 

Also, this week's tape cover is bae and I having fun with the photobooth that was at the wedding reception. I know that this is a common thing now to have, but we don't go to many weddings, so it's the first time I've seen this in action.

This Could Be Us But You Playin

Dinner (Side A)- Division by Moby/In The Deep Shade by The Frames/Let's Just Kiss by Harry Connick JR/Samba Da Benaco by Babel Gilberto/'Til I Met Thee by Cody Chesnutt/Shucks by Dungeonesse/So What by Miles Davis/I'm Gonna Make You Love Me by The Temptations and The Supremes/No One's Gonna Love You by Band of Horses/My Love For You is Real by Ryan Adams and The Cardinals/Loving You is Sweeter Than Ever by The Four Tops/Everything Happens to Me by Wynton Marsalis/As Time Goes By by Dooley Wilson/I Choose You by Sara Bareilles/Protection by Massive Attack/Ordinary People by John Legend

Dance (Side B)- Stand By Me by Ben E King/Dancing Queen by ABBA/Let's Stay Together by Al Green/Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley/We Are Family by Sister Sledge/Georgia on My Mind by Ray Charles/Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers/Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees/All Night Long by Lionel Richie/The Way You Look Tonight by Tony Bennett/September by Earth, Wind, & Fire/At Last by Etta James/The Sign by Ace of Base/I Swear by All-4-One/It Takes Two by DJ EZ Rock and Rob Base/We R Who We R by Ke$ha/Billie Jean by Michael Jackson/This is How We Do It by Montell Jordan/Satellite by Alison Young/Ignition (remix) by R. Kelly/I'm Beginning to See The Light by Bobby Darin