Fucking hot (the set, not the weather).. as usual.. Another reason to hate Miami..

It is kind of funny imagining the looks in VIP..

Mansion is a shit club…. It’s for superficial posers of the electronic music scene in Miami . I was upset to hear they did that to dj shadow . Not necessarily cause I’m a fan of his, but because I a a dj. And that was really disrespectful .

I can say from the first track played it didnt set the mood right, they are in Miami, I can safely assume most people want to hear something a little more familiar to them to start the night.

I personally keep it familiar to people for about 30-45min once they start getting a little drunk (depending on when you come on) and then blast with some shit they havent heard but flows well.

so who was this infamous VIP?

Yoga on acid

I’m sorry, He was headlining his own show showcasing his own tunes… Rules change once you book someone like shadow….

Probably a compliment being asked to stop. Shadow one of our most creative and complex DJs around and goes to prove that not all of clubland gives a shit about musicianship. Wrong tunes, wrong place. Fuck em.

Well TBH wasnt a big fan of his set. Technically it was very well done…but I could not imagine getting down to this set in a Club…Its too slow and it doesnt make me want to dance at all…and really isnt that the point of a DJ? The problems DJ Shadow had were 100% fault of the promoter. I may get flack for this…but really his set has zero flow…There is a lot of amazing technical tricks he is doing and he is probably going balls out on the decks making his sound sound the way he wants…but we all DJ for one main reason…to get people to dance….

Do we know at what point he got pulled?

“but we all DJ for one main reason…to get people to dance” – not necessarily so

Is this simple Mr.Promoter know your dj before you book them for your venue, do your fuken job son! You hire DjShadow to “his thing”, no? If you wanted the top 40s or the top 100 Beatport tracks you should had gotten DjPaulie D, stupid!

Wrong place for this set for sure…. How much should a DJ know about the crowd though? Every venue and place on the planet has different criteria or needs. If this was a concert then people are paying to see you perform. A club has all walks of life coming in and you have to teeter on a fine line to please all of them and it sorta is not about you anymore. – just saying….

DJ Shadow is a legend but this set should’ve stayed in the bedroom. I would’ve headed for the exits on this one.

This is awesome! Very intelligent music, no cliches, no common places, creative original stuff – and top it all, great technique while spinning the set.

To everyone who did not like this: i respect you girls, but please go back to listening David Guetta on the radio.

Cheers!!

too future for the club yes, too future for shadow, no… this should have been expected if they got shadow to dj…

it’s only gonna be “too future” for ignoramuses…music and art are about evolution and expression of one’s self

Anybody who knows dj shadow would expect a set like this from him, the promoter probably never listened to any of his material and just saw a popular artist with the prefix dj and was like take my money.

I love all kinds of underground music, but tbh I would probably need to take drugs to really feel this set.

Getting kicked off really ended up working to his benefit. He’s receiving soooo much press over this, and it is proving to be an invaluable promotion. The set is what I would expect from Shadow, so I don’t really understand what the promoter was thinking he would play

Isn’t this one of those things where it’s the fault of both the DJ and promoter? First off – this is a Dj knowing where he should and should not take a gig. Period. To the guy who made the David Guetta comment – whatever you think of his production/djing, Guetta isn’t accepting gigs at places his music isn’t welcome. If Will.I.Am and LMFAO came down to your Warehouse party and started playing their music you’d all go bonkers (and no, the difference is not that “Will.I.Am plays shit music and DJ Shadow plays great music.” Because clearly it isn’t great for someone out there). Secondly, Shadow should have never been asked to play. It was a poor business decision which was certainly costly to the promoter of the event.

As an aside, that Simpsons track was so corny, and I love the simpsons. That sounded like really cornball geeked out resampled nonsense. I am down with the really technical sets and enjoy the musicality of it all, but this isn’t Beethoven’s 5th here so don’t pump it up like it’s a tribute to the god’s or some infallible masterpiece.

While being kicked off the decks is rude indeed, Masion isn’t running a charity, and I’m sure they paid him every penny they promised. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that “artists” are just as stuck-up and self-serving as the asshole in the VIP booth buying bottles, they just like to hide behind the guise of intellectual pursuit or higher calling. It’s clear by Shadow’s twitter post, and DJ booth tantrum, that he is incredibly self-centered and childish. He didn’t HAVE to post on twitter, he didn’t HAVE to make that announcement when they asked him to leave the booth. He COULD have handled it in a much more professional manner, but he decided not to. Instead he decided that he was right and Mansion was wrong without considering, in the least, what Mansion was trying to accomplish and how they had recognized their failure in booking him, and corrected their mistake by removing him from the decks. One bad night for a club can ruin it and put it out of business, getting kicked of the decks is clearly a boon for the DJ, so who is really screwing who here?

I’d be willing to bet the conversation went like this:

Promoter: “Hey, DJ Shadow, do you think you could play something a bit more mainstream or recognizable to our crowd? The guys in the VIP who spend enough money to cover your contract 10x over aren’t liking what you are playing.”

DJ Shadow: “…The fuck? I’m DJ S hadow, this is my shit. You booked me.”

Promoter: “Look we have paying customers who keep this place in business and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars here, if you could just change up what you are doing to suit that, we are paying you quite a bit of money to headline tonight”

DJ Shadow: “No.”

Promoter: “Ok, then we will pay you what was stated in your contract, but we need to you step out of the DJ Booth so we can bring in someone who will plays music more amenable to our customers. Your music is “too future” for them, and they don’t particularly enjoy it. You are more then welcome to stay and enjoy the rest of your night, we’re sorry this didn’t work out.”

DJ Shadow: **Makes a Scene, Posts on Twitter, Screams like a spoiled child**

Everyone Else: “Blah blah blah, Mansion Sucks because DJ Shadow plays great choons and is like Chopin on the decks. All they do is play music that I don’t particularly enjoy but many other people do however, since I am the center of the universe and whatever I don’t enjoy must be terrible, then by the transitive property, Masion is terrible, DJ Shadow rules, YEAH! Fight the power! I don’t like rich people with tastes that differ from mine and who are able to use their money to enjoy things the way they want them! Boo on them. I only enjoy people who aren’t rich who want to enjoy things the way they want them, and take money from the aforementioned rich people, and decide that this customer is no longer important because their musical tastes are not in line with said paid agent (aka the DJ) of the club. ”

I am willing to bet Shadow’s contract was fully honored in terms of compensation. So, he should shut his mouth and thank the good people at Mansion for paying him what was likely an exorbitant fee for a short-nights work (and the free trip to Miami, likely). Unless he pro-rated his fee (because clearly – it isn’t about the money right? It’s about the artist’s intellectual pursuit and evolution of their medium) I call bullshit. Next time maybe he’ll think about where he takes a gig and who he takes money from. I don’t give passes to so-called “artists” for making stupid decisions as much as you guys don’t to the mainstream pop cliches (don’t worry, I don’t give them any passes either).

If I went to Mansion and heard that set I’d be pissed too. If I went to some less mainstream place or to Shadow’s residency where this is the norm and what I fully expected to hear, I’d be happy as a pig in shit. Do any of you see how even people who enjoy this music might only enjoy it within the correct context? Music in and of itself is a contextual medium. It is one that conjures certain emotions and nostalgia in its listeners. If the listeners do not identify with the music in the context in which it is set, then it is an abject failure which does not succeed in one of the main goals of the art form. There needs to be an understanding of the separation and intermingling between the technical and intellectual side of music and the emotional, contextual, and social aspect of music which must be correctly balanced within the context it is being listened to and for the crowd who is listening.

That’s my rant. I’m just tired of this one sided bash on a Club which is CLEAR in its intentions and makes no bones about who it is catering to. It’s not as if Mansion came out and said “Hey DJ Shadow you fucking suck.” They told him his music wasn’t correct for their clientele. If that’s wrong, then maybe business’s should just go out of business every time they make a correctable mistake? No one would suggest Apple should continue to manufacture iPhones if it would bankrupt them, would they (I guess some of you actually might)? So why the fuck should a nightclub act any differently from any other profit-seeking business? To assuage the self-serving behaviors of a small and overly vocal minority? Once again – it just goes to show that all of you so-called “artists” think of nothing but yourself and have a one sided, entitled view of a world, of which, you can clearly barely comprehend. The club isn’t there to serve the DJ, and until DJ Shadow can bring in the clientele which buys bottles and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, the ridiculous argument of “But he is DJ Shadow” doesn’t hold water.

I DJ to get women and money

Set for a chillout room or afterhours? why would anyone play this for EDM expecting redbullvodka fueled patrons?

I thought this set was swag as fuck. Mansion needs to smoke a joint and chill the fuck out for once. Dance music doesn’t all have to be about cocaine and vodka sodas.

The thing you have to realize, is that he wasn’t taking things back to the good ol’ days, or trying to jerk off his oldschool fans. With this set (and with the sets he continues to morph and shape with his constant touring), Shadow was trying to predict the next big break. The next “dubstep” if you will. There is an explosion in future style bass music right now, and Shadow is basically jumpin’ on; he’s also a direct influence on the scene as a whole.

He was kicked off for being “too future”, not “too old and dated”. This might not be your type of club vibe now, but who knows, just wait a bit. Though I don’t disagree with some of the points you made regarding his attitude and such, you made some solid points for sure.

Hey – Maybe I am just totally confused but isn’t this soundcloud mix way longer than what he actually played???

This would be pretty sweet if his set was pre-recorded…

p.s. I can’t really see the ladies getting down to this set..

I realize that he is trying to push the envelope. I get he’s trying to push music in a certain direction. While I may not think it is the best direction for music, I still respect him as an “artist”, “creator” and a “visionary”. I can respect artistic talent and vision for what it is. All I am suggesting is that Mansion simply wasn’t the place for this kind of music (even if Mansion issued an apology – I think that was damage control, and taking the high road, which can’t be said for Shadow), and that even DJ Shadow’s tagline of “I play for Smart Kids” is incredibly narcissistic, and his actions so self serving, that he negated any moral high-ground he may have had, by acting in the way he did.

The way I see this issue is an “Emperor wears no clothes” scenario. Everyone is afraid to criticize DJ Shadow’s childish actions for fear of being labeled part of the “mainstream” or agreeing with “spoiled rich kids.” I don’t think that kicking someone off the decks is a good idea or very polite, and I agree that the promoters should have done their research. I get the feeling that the promoter who booked Shadow was likely fired or at the very least severely reprimanded for the negative press that was brought about by neglecting to have the proper vetting process in place when booking an act. However, I also feel it ironic that DJ Shadow likely took his full fee for the night, yet claims he will never “compromise his integrity as a DJ.” The word integrity and compromise are used in such self-serving ways it’s hard to agree. I’d be inclined to believe him more if he donated his fee to charity.

I also understand that from a business standpoint, all Shadow is doing is building his brand. He is a non-conformist. He doesn’t play for the ‘rich kids’ who like ‘mainstream music.’ He plays for ‘smart’ people. Again – a nod to the emperor wears no clothes (The implication that if you don’t like his music, you are “stupid” or “unenlightened”). It’s a great marketing stunt by him, and I commend his business acumen and shameless self-promotion. But lets not confuse that with artistic integrity.

No, this is the fault of the promoter, the club, and Shadow’s booking agent (maybe). When you book DJ Shadow, you are getting a DJ Shadow show. This is well known – booking a turntabilist is more like booking a musician than a club DJ. For crying out loud, he performs (not play, performs) some of his own original material from “Endtroducing” in that set.

Shadow has won tons of accolades and his debut album is frequently in the “top 100 albums of the 90′s” type lists. While he is a “DJ”, he is truly a musician that actually performs his material on stage. So when you book Shadow, you get a DJ Shadow show. Its not a club night, its more like a rock concert.

Look, there definitely was a gross error in booking Shadow at the Mansion, whose fault it is probably extends to multiple parties. But Shadow doesn’t control his gigs, his management takes care of that stuff. But the promoter should know damn well who DJ Shadow is too, especially because he probably costs 15-30k per night.

Yeah, other sites say he was kicked off after about 20 minutes

This IS the set they booked him to play. He plays the same set over and over again (fuckin’ weak IMO, and I’ve been a fan for 15+ years) and they booked him to play “All Bases Covered”.

Not prerecorded but he basically plays the same set from gig to gig (so it might as well be prerecorded).

IF you look at The Mansion’s facebook page you will see that they were hyping up his “All Bases Covered” set and even posted a YouTube link to a sample of it. So how are you going to book him to do a particular show, promote it as such and then get upset when he actually plays it? Booking DJ Shadow is not like booking a local party DJ or cover band that will play to your whims, he is a producer of original music and is currently on tour for a specific format.

Amen – definitely NOT a dance-able kind of DJ set. (currently at 50 minutes into his 1 hour, 26 minute set…)

The stuff is vintage Shadow and very interesting but I can’t see this getting the butts out on the dance floor.

There are two people to blame in this fiasco.

1) Whoever books the talent for the Mansion.

Their booking person clearly did not have a clue who they were booking and the sort of stuff they do. They did not do their research.

2) DJ Shadow’s management

Clearly Shadow’s people did not do their due diligence in determining whether Mansion was the sort of club Shadow should be playing in.

dp

Honestly, all this mix proved to me is that despite having the biggest record collection known to DJ-hood, DJ Shadow of 2012 is a bandwagon jumper who plays soundcloud music off of Serato.. and is really not very good at mixing pseudo-electronic music’s bandwagon genres of the minute.

You can’t dance to it… end of… thats why he was kicked off in a dance club…so they booked him for his name thinking he was a DJ that rocked the house not realising he was an experimental DJ that does’nt wanna be like everyone else….!!

I listened to the set and first off the man has immense skill (was not aware of who he was, it isnt really my genre) and i put the fault directly on whoever hired him. I see it like hiring the Clash for your Jazz club and expecting Jazz. It’s not that either are bad, they’re just not catering to the proper audience. The set is awesome but definitely does not set the “typical” club setting that i assume the venue usually has. Shadow will keep doing what he’s doing and the people that love it will continue going to see him, hopefully more and more people start appreciating the skill required to put something like this together

Im lovin this trap session. Def. not for the mainstream

Guys who diss other guys by calling them girls get all the girls.

shadow is so ridiculous riding on this PR wave now. did he got paid? did he set the place on fire with his set? if he didn’t get paid there is a reason to complain, if he was emtiing the floor it’s a business decision to stop him. he is a DJ and should stop being bigheaded and brief his booking agency better where he want’s to play and were NOT instead of cashing in in mainstream clubs.

anyone else notice the intro sample? “i am not going to do it the way you want…you cannot keep telling me what you think is the beter thing…” kind of makes this whole thing make sense. Shadow will always do his thing and i respect his no compromise attitude. at the end of the day all parties involved are just looking out for their best interests. Shadow is looking after his integrity as a musician, Mansion are looking after their integrity as a venue with a particular clientele.

Did the crowd that went to this “full bottle service” club, even bother to look/listen in advance who was playing at the Mansion?
It’s their fault to, you don’t visit a show you’re not going to like. If you don’t like it you can also leave and visit another club, instead of asking things could be changed in your favor. As an example: When you’re watching television, you switch to a channel you like and you’re not going to call the station to ask them to broadcast something else. Right?

By the way, I’m not really a fan of VIP decks and full bottle service things… Be part of the crowd, that can chance your perception.

I thought most people go to clubs to dance. I would have also been looking up at the DJ saying “WTF” had he played that set and I was standing on the dance floor. Actually, I would have left the dance floor. Very strange energy at the beginning and 80% of the set is not very much dance music at all. To me, it’s more like “psychedelic, let’s get high and weird out” kind of music. Sorry, but that is just me.

Edit: I am surprised he could play for over an hour…..

scamo

You’re such a tool.

Shadow is king!

Ah, a well thought out and cogent counter-argument indeed. I commend you.

well it’s not dance music in the regular sense but i can definitely get the vibe and the energy of his set, i think it’s pretty great in the way he made it flow overall, but i do think that the bridges between some of the sections of the set could have been better integrated.
and he finished his set with “could this be”….i mean, what could possibly top that ;)

He could’ve gotten away with so much more had he played Trap Bootlegs and a couple rap records that everyone loves… like Trap is MEANT to be danced to… the avante garde shit is for a 6pm festival or a drug den… sorry…

it may not have been dance floor friendly through and through, but it was awesome. this would have went over well in a city like Montreal, for certain.

I don’t think Mansion handled this very well. Clearly Shadow was not a good fit for the club but rather than interrupt his set they should have taken their lumps, let him finish and then never book him again. It was no mystery what Shadow was going to do since there were youtube videos of him doing this very set from earlier tour dates.

So yeah they made a mistake in hiring Shadow but an even bigger mistake in how they handled correcting this mistake.

He got kicked while playing Noisia – Could This Be which I think is around the 24 min. mark. So, drum and bass got him kicked off the decks.

this is all promo for dj shadow.. i wouldn’t be surprised if all of this is a set up to get more attention for dj shadow

O M GGGG!!! terrible :( Couldn’t stand listening to it for longer thna 10 mins, and even then i was cutting through it, trying to find ‘good’ tracks that would suit a nightclub (ie A club where people DANCE) – Who could dance to this crud? He’s playing music that makes people go ‘YEAHH!’ when they hear a sick wobble-bass, but that sort of fan only stands around, looking at what DJs do.. nt actually contributing to the vibe of the night, which in turn makes EVERYONE present have a good time! Another thing, did he start of his real set with that sample at the beginning? Sounds a little inflammatory to the venue, doesn’t it?

HOLD UP – You said ‘DANCE’ music?? Who exactly THE FUCK would you propose ANYBODY without EPILEPSY dance to this CCRRAAPP? Oops, ‘dance music’

exactly, no flow for dancing. Tricks galore, yipee, still I would have left that room for the “dance floor”

Can’t dance to this? Give me a break! (literally) It seems there are a lot of people on hear that don’t have enough rhythm to dance to anything more complicated than a straight beat! If it doesn’t make you want to dance it’s because you’re not feeling it and that’s fine. Now if you say you can’t dance to it, I’m calling BS on that!

Train wrecking, at that. :/

Could barely get into this set. It actually took effort to stay with it. Love the DJ but not this set

Didn’t he get booted after about half an hour? Sure, it’s not electro-bangers, but I would hardly refer to it as “too future”. Seemed pretty straight forward to me up to about 34 mins..

once i had a mainstream club owner tell me to play something crappy so people would stop dancing and start drinking. i can remember thinking to my self i dont have any crappy records. i decided to throw down some drum and bass which made me happy and the club owner happy because people bought drinks. seeing this was a vip room and ten years ago people didnt care all dance music was foreign to them. playing dnb in the middle of a house set at an underground club would have been disaster.

now it seems normal to hear multiple genres in a dj set that is why im surprised to hear shadows is to future. at this point i dont think its possible to be to future. i found the set brilliant and wish more sets where like this. for a dancer this set would have been an epic break journey. i know people want to hear this high energy hard hoover style hands in the air horn washed out over hyped rap star celebrity house craziness which has its time and place but i would personally rather dance to this shadow set any day.

dont get me wrong i can jack to the juke while doing the electro wobble shuffle which basically means i can dance to anything but when people say who could dance to this crud or that shadow isnt playing dance music obviously doent know how to dance and probably only knows how to trancersize.

trancersizing is when people dance like they are using one of those nordic track exercise ski machines to bad trance music. dont pretend you have no idea what im talking about. again dont get me wrong i have nothing against trance music. when emotion of sasha melody breaks down i have seen people cry so i totally respect trance etc… but find it absurd that anybody would think that this shadow set was not dance worthy. feel free to use my word trancersize.

i actually thought i was going to hear some real future shit like i dont know some sort of artificial intelligent glitched out generative music made by only a machine that had not been taught to dance yet by the way people are freaking out ?

seriously this shadow set has a bit of everything in it. if you bother to listen past the first ten min then you may have heard elements of classical, pop, rock, acid, techno, electro, hip hop, house, dub step, drum and bass etc…

To be fair… I think it was fucking hilarious of him to play this in a club. Not for the average club going crowd, but I think the set is amazing.

I personally did not enjoy this set…. I have to be on something to appreciate it.

so smart people listen to that ?? , but its the dumb people who listen to progressive house like avicii ? that makes no sense, just because you listen to a certain genre of music doesn’t mean your smarter or more stupid..

and the average person isnt tryin to hear that shit at the club, and the average girl sure as hell cant dance to it, so the promoter was probably like “what the fuck did i do” ha…. id rather listen to that song not dance to it, and thats not good music for a club like mansion

dj Shadow has lost his contact with listeners. His set was a clusterf**k of different bass beats with no flow or identity. My ipod shuffle could of done the same job. Everyone knows dubstep by now as well as knowing trip hop has died. Shadow still thinks people are in the dark, and that he actually dropped tunes. He needs to check Walshy Fire & Major Lazer “Bass Station” for how to put it all together, Miami style

I know I’m way late to this discussion since I wanted to listen to this set today for some random reason, and I couldn’t help but notice that you made some tremendously great points. I couldn’t agree with what you said more, and it’s pretty rare to see this type of constructive discussion on any site with a comment section.

I do have one gripe with your post, though. I understand that Mansion is not running a charity. I understand that they have clientele to please, and that makes perfect sense. However, how is it any less than acceptable for them to disrespect the people who paid the (likely) bloated prices to get into this club specifically to see the DJ Shadow show that THEY promoted? I’m all for arguing in defense of businesses being out to make money, but it’s outrageously insulting from a customer’s standpoint to have the show YOU paid to see cut short because some douchebags in the VIP section weren’t feeling what the DJ was playing. The club made it quite clear that they don’t particularly give a shit about the people who were in their club specifically to see DJ Shadow. How is that good for business? Shouldn’t they be interested in bringing in new people who wouldn’t necessarily come to a place like that instead of jerking off the assholes that think they’re entitled to whine about an artist because they bought a bunch of drinks?

I’m not naive enough to think that a club should treat their VIP clients the same as the average Joe that just wants to come in and thrust his pelvic region on the dance floor, but I think there’s plenty of reason to be outraged when a business establishment does not honor a product the customers paid for. Also, as a lot of other people have said, people should know what it’s going to be like when DJ Shadow is playing a set. They booked him, they promoted him, they brought in people that wanted to hear him. The people that were there complaining should have fucked off if they weren’t interested in DJ Shadow. Are people too good to do some research on an artist that was probably promoted to hell and back all over this club before the fact? If they weren’t fond of the music that was going to be playing, then why the hell did they even come that night? It’s a shitty attitude to have when you declare “I’m a very important person and I don’t like this music so turn it the fuck off because I have money and I said so. Fuck all the other people that are here that want to hear DJ Shadow, I’m the only person that matters and I want them to go back to playing Daft Punk so I can get the Russian prostitutes I’m with to take their panties off faster”. At some point, a business should consider that maybe the majority’s wishes are better than the minority. It’s probably a safe assumption that the people that were unhappy with his set were a minority since there were significant “boos” after they cut him off.

Or 5 people came that night specifically for DJ Shadow and the entire club was pissy that they lacked the rhythmic ability to dance to things that are a little more challenging. I don’t know because I wasn’t there (and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be)!