Posted by: Jay

Podcast Monday??  Well that’s what happens with the Holidays, we gotta cram all of our leftovers down your throats before they get old and freezer burned.

We’ve said everything that could be said about our party over here, so let me just talk a little about this set it self.  I really tried to fuse together a lot of the highlights of 2010 which turned out to be a bit challenging as I spent half the year in Bolivia!  I really think DJing there, and in Japan, has helped my over all sound and appreciation for music though.

I’ve always maintained that when you travel you find out more about what it means to be human.  See when you travel  you can interact with people and cultures thousands of miles away that have completely different languages and cultural norms, yet you can still observe all these similarities (sharing a smile, a love of food, kids kicking a ball, helping a stranger, love for family, etc).  To me, those are basic human traits that we share with all others of our species.

And while this corollary doesn’t exactly hold true with music, I have found that there are certain rhythms, certain sounds that most club-going people in the world get down with, so  I tried to bring a little this international favor back with me.  Combine that with a bunch of hand made mash-ups and re-edits, some hot off the presses new jams, and a custom NYE intro* and hopefully we’ve got a set fit to kick off your 2011!

Enjoy!  We’ll be having another party here soon so hope to see you there!

DJ Jay - “Bangin In The New Year” (Right click and “Save As” to download)

* The countdown in the beginning of the set is the actual recoding form the party!

Posted by: Jay

I need a whole different cure for my Mondays these days.  I’m now on my second week of holding down the ultra coveted Sunday and Monday, 7pm - 3:30am DJ slots, and let me tell ya: It’s brutal.  If I had my druthers I’d be headed to bed early on Sunday after a weekend of partying, not staying up ’till 3:30 am DJing pop music*… but I’m not here to look a gift residency in the mouth.  No, this crazy gig of DJing for vacationing tourists on off nights actually has opened me up to wells of new music, which has been really fun!

* My Facebook status after last Monday’s set: “Jay Austin Gregory officially sold out as a DJ… errr, changed his style so that the 40 tourists would remain on the dance floor. Black Eyed Peas? Sure! Shakira? You got it! Kings Of Leon? Coming right up! Daddy Yankee? But of course!”

Of course a good chunk of this music that I’m “discovering” is what they play in heavy rotation on top 40 radio station, and while these songs never fail to get the crowd hyped I won’t subject you to them any more than you already are.  I want you guys to check out some of the other stuff I’ve been throwing down though!

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Posted by: Jay

As many of you know, I’m living down here in Bolivia these days.  Being a big fan of music and dancing, whenever I’m in a new place I love to check out there night clubs.  You can learn a lot about a society from their nightclub culture; things like what kind of music they listen to, what time the club gets full, how long the peeps stay out, the interaction between the sexes, the type of dancing, the clothes, etc… These all give you hints into the culture as a whole.

Bolivia is a poor country (the second poorest in Latin America after Haiti) so the clubs are not extravagant, but they’re not hella ghetto either.  What they lack in flash they make up for in energy and musical variety  I don’t know if I’ve ever heard such a crazy range of music played than I do at the clubs out here!  It’s nuts, they’ll go from Latin pop, to reggaeton, to US pop, to hip hop, to traditional Bolivian music to house in the span of the night.  And somehow the DJs manage to blend all of these styles smoothly.  I am continually impressed!

Music, photos, videos and impressions from a trip out to “Club Lujos” in Cochabamba after the jump.

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