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5. Floorfillers Part 2: Billy Ocean - Love Really Hurts Without You

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  Floorfillers Part 2- Billy Ocean - Love Really Hurts Without You Picture Credit Ronzoni wikipedia creative commons Background If at first you don’t succeed, try try try again. Billy Ocean’s song, Love Really Hurts Without You was his tenth release after his first nine songs completely flopped. It reached number 2 in 1976 and from then on, life was never to be the same again. In the early 70s, Billy Ocean, real name Leslie Charles was working on the production line at Ford in Dagenham by day and at night, a struggling singer doing demos at Southern recording studio in London. It was here he met producer, Ben Findon. Around the same time, he bought a second hand piano for 30 pounds and started composing a demo for ‘Love Really Hurts Without You and played it to Findon who added his own parts to it, before releasing it in January 1976. The song steadily rose the charts to its peak, only being held off the Number 1 spot by the Eurovision winning song, Save All Your Kisses for me by Brot

Welcome to Jonathan's Disco Blog!

 Thankyou for reaching this drop in the ocean on t' world wide web. As some of you may know (and others not) I have been doing this DJ lark for twenty years now. In those years of DJing at hundreds of weddings, birthday parties, kids parties and any other celebration you care to mention, I have many stories to tell and acquired a decent knowledge of music too. I hope you enjoy my foray into the world of sticky dancefloors, drunk aunties, overpriced beer, stroppy bridesmaids and dad dancing that make up the very fabric of private parties in the UK. Jonathan             

3. What The DJ Saw Part 2 - Mika - Big Girls You Are Beautiful

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                              Mika in 2007 Source Seraphim Whipp wikipedia creative commons Sometime in late 2007, a 40 th party was not really going to plan. Everybody was sat down, no dancing, just talking and quite frankly I may as well have been invisible. That is until I was approached by one of the guests who asked, Could you play Mika, Big Girls You Are Beautiful mate? which at the time was in the charts. I gladly obliged and the transformation was amazing! To a man the entire crowd rushed onto the dancefloor and started dancing like their life depended on it. At last, the night had begun, or so I thought! As soon as the song ended and the next one started, to a man the whole crowd sat down and it was back to an empty dancefloor once again and like that for the rest of the night, until I was asked for Mika – Big Girls again, when true to form, the whole crowd got up and danced, then promptly  sat down again once the song had finished. This happened a couple of times more,

2. What The DJ Saw Part 1 - My First DJ Gig

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      What The DJ Saw Part 1 - My First DJ Gig No he wasn't there in person!...... Picture Credit: Connormah Flickr       Going into my first dj gig, which was a 10 year old's birthday party in October 2004, I was understandably quite nervous. The party had been organised by a work colleague of mine at the time for his son at a church hall in the suburbs of York. Having not listened to the charts for a few years, because I'd stopped listening to them once B*witched and Westlife kept getting to Number 1 with increased regularity I was a little out of touch with what kids listened to in 2004. So after some research  I had in my musical armoury, S Club 7, The Sugababes, Cha Cha Slide and things like that. I played these but could get nothing out of these kids whatsoever, as all they did was run around and play tig, or biff each other over the head with balloons. Even the game of Musical Statues I attempted descended into chaos, as there were far too many kids and I could n

1. Floorfilers Part 1 - The Killers - Mr Brightside

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  Background One of the most requested songs in modern times, Mr. Brightside by the Killers was released in 2003 as part of their first album, ‘Hot Fuss’ and is one of the first songs that the band wrote together. It became a hit on its re-release in 2004, reaching a peak of number 10 in the UK and spending a total of 208 weeks in the charts. There are many interpretations of the song, but the favoured one is that it is about the lead singer, Brandon Flowers, ‘Mr Brightside’ who caught his girlfriend cheating on him. The songs explore the visions of jealousy that he goes through in his head about what they may have got up to behind his back, but despite that tries to put a brave face on it by looking on the ‘Brightside.’ Throw in a killer guitar riff and a thumping bassline and you have a perfect modern rock floorfiller. From a DJ’s Perspective I have played this song many times over the years and it is always something I turn to if I have a young-ish crowd and want to ‘Get the guitars