Become a DJ to Travel Internationally

I’ve shared a lot of my loves and hobbies and passions on this site. I’ve talked about how I love traveling with a hammock, how I prefer listening to music on a vinyl record player more than any other source, how I’ve wanted to learn how to sing, and, of course, my love for raves and electronic music concerts.

What is surprising is that I have never mentioned drumming before. Drums are a natural instrument for those of us who are really into electronic music. Sure, we like to get out the turntable and spin some vinyl, using it as an instrument through scratching and such, but even better is producing our own music.

When you produce music, you can use drum machines or keyboards or samples or all of those on a computer. But I prefer using real instruments. I feel it sounds much better. And the instrument I like playing the most is the drums. I actually had a drum set growing up. Yes, my neighbors hated me.

And I just got a new drum set, but this time I won’t be pissing off my neighbors. Why is that? That is because I got an electric drum set this time. The set I got is certainly not the best electric drum kit you can find online, but it is quite good. More on that below.

First, I want to explain more what e-drums actually are. These didn’t exist when I was young, but to me, they are an incredibly important invention.

They’re basically like a regular drum kit, except the sound is not created by hitting the drums and echoing out. Instead you hit an electronic pad and everything is done digitally. Sound is interpreted and reproduced digitally.

That means that you can play very quietly. You can hit the pads and have the sound turned down. Is this as good is playing loud? No, of course not. You lose a lot of things when you play quietly like this.

But it does have one huge advantage. It does not bother your neighbors or anyone else. And that means that you can practice far more often. With a normal drum set, you’re limited to certain times of the day, usually those times when you have agreed with those living around you that they will suffer through your drumming for that one or two hours. Outside of that time, you simply cannot practice anymore.

With an electric drum set, you can practice during those times. You can practice anytime you want, because you can turn on the sound and not bother anyone. That completely changes the way drummers practice and get better.

Previously, so much time was spent on trying to find a suitable practice base, or trying to work around other people schedules. Now you practice anytime you want and pretty much anywhere you want. That frees up so much more time to practice your drumming. You can make progress much faster. As a result, I think these electric drum kits are better than acoustic drum sets.

Now, I am obviously not a professional drummer. I just like to do it for fun. I do record some of my own music and I hope to press some of it to vinyl some day. It would just be so cool to listen to my own music on my vinyl record player. But even if that never happens, I just love making music. Even if no one else ever hears it, the joy of creating my own tunes, and now doing so with my own drum set, is just unbeatable.

If you’re wondering about where to get an electric drum set, I bought mine online from a place called Percussion Cave. Well, I read their review of my kit, but bought it elsewhere. You can generally get them at a local store that carries instruments.

There are a bunch of different brands available. I bought a fairly small one that doesn’t have too many different parts. I didn’t need anything fancy. It is considered a beginners kit, but it has so many advanced features that I think the only thing that makes it beginner is the fact that it doesn’t have more pieces.

It was really more of an advanced kit, but one with fewer pieces for the drummer who doesn’t feel like he needs to show off with hundreds of different components. And that is me, since I’m not really a real drummer anyway. I just need enough pieces to be able to make the sounds that I want and I have that.

I’ve been using my kid a lot since I got it and I absolutely love it. If you are a drummer or thinking of becoming one, I highly recommend getting an electric drum kit. Obviously, if you play live, you’ll need a real drum set too, but you should still get an electric one to practice on. They are actually surprisingly affordable. You owe it to yourself to check them out.

There are only a few things I always take with me when I hit the road. And perhaps the most important one to me is my hammock. That’s probably surprising to hear, but there’s a reason for that and it’s a pretty good story. Before we get to that, let me introduce you to my hammock.

I have what is called a parachute style hammock. I bought it online from some website. It was not a huge site, but they have a good selection and they have great prices on parachute hammocks. They also sell other types of hammocks, like Mayan hammocks and Brazilian hammocks and tree tents, but parachute hammocks are the best for traveling.

The reason parachute hammocks are so good that they weigh very little and they roll up into a tiny ball. You stuff them in the pouch they come with and they take up very little space. Despite that, they are very strong. More importantly, they are incredibly comfortable.

The only hammocks that are (slightly) more comfortable are Mayan hammocks and Nicaraguan hammocks or perhaps Brazilian hammocks. For me Brazilian hammocks are a bit too warm, but Mayan and Nicaraguan hammocks are cooler. All three are very comfortable though. They are the kind of hammocks you can sleep in. The drawback of these hammocks is that they are bulkier and they weigh a little bit more and they are much more expensive. That is why I have a parachute style hammock.

I started carrying a hammock with me when I first began DJing in other countries. Back then I could not afford to stay in nice hotel rooms and even hostels were a bit expensive for me in the long run. I quickly learned from other travelers that you could often stay in a hostel for much cheaper if you brought a hammock with you and simply hung it up on the property.

They would charge you half of what they would charge for dorm room and often even less. In exchange for that, you get access to the kitchen and their bathroom facilities. For me this was important. I know I could’ve hung my hammock up out in nature and not paid anything, but I really wanted to be clean. You can’t roll up looking like a homeless person when you’re DJing in a club.

Because of what I said earlier, you’re probably wondering what other things I take with me. The others you can probably guess. Naturally I always bring my phone and a lightweight laptop. I need these for my business. I don’t bring much DJ equipment anymore, since I can do everything from my laptop. Sometimes, when I play big festivals, I do bring actual turntables and a mixer. At these types of events, I like to still spin it old-school style with real turntable record players. Apart from that, I just bring the standard stuff you would take when traveling: clothes, toiletries and so on.

Like I said, there’s nothing too surprising in there. Except for the hammock of course. These days, I can afford nicer hotel rooms, but I still like sleeping in my hammock to be honest. Sleeping in a hammock is much more comfortable than just about any bed.

Of course, this presumes that you know how to sleep in a hammock. Most people do it wrong. They lie init like a banana and that is not comfortable for a long period of time. You have to lie a bit diagonally, so that your body ends up being straight. Lie in one like this and hammocks are super comfortable and also great for your back. You get the best sleep of your life, trust me.

As you know, I travel a lot. I’ve been all over the world and have played all kinds of clubs. In addition to the clubs, I’ve played raves, I’ve played electronic dance music festivals, I’ve played birthday parties, I’ve played frat house parties, I’ve played weddings. You name it, and I’ve played it.

Now the list of places I hate playing is exceedingly long. The list of places where I love playing is shockingly short. But I’m not going to go into either of these two lists in this article. That would fill a book. Scratch that, that would fill a multi volume book. Maybe even an encyclopedia. You know one of those old ones that took up a whole bookshelf in your dad’s study? Yeah, the list of places I hate DJing could fill one of those. And you know that business card some idiot handed you the other day? Turn it over. The list of places I like playing would easily fit on there.

Anyway, I digress. Today I want to talk about one specific club. A type of club you may well know if and even play quite often, if you travel and DJ like I do. It is the club full of tourists. Like this one. I hate these. That is not to say I especially like playing local clubs either. Those very much depend on the country. In some countries, the locals are great. This is true in much of Europe. It’s even true in parts of the US. It’s not true in China. It’s not true in Thailand. It’s not true in countries like those where people dislike horrible music.

Again, I digress. Back to the tourist clubs. Why do I hate them? I’m sure you can imagine this on your own, can’t you? I realize tourist is a general descriptor. They come in all shapes and sizes and have all different tastes in music. That is the problem, I suppose. When playing a club or show, I like the audience to have generally the same musical taste. That way I can create a set that will take them on a journey. It is specifically tailored to what they like and as a result they love me.

When you have a lot of different musical tastes to cater to, this is impossible. Every song you play, 60 to 90% of the audience will hate it. You can’t really create a coherent set. You have to just wing it. In many cases you have to do the unthinkable: you have to take requests. Now this is the absolute worst. People never seem to request good music. They generally request stuff that doesn’t fit in with anything else you’re playing or stuff you would never be caught dead playing. They expect you to have tracks no one has heard of and tracks everyone has heard of, but no self-respecting DJ would have. Dealing with these requests is the worst. And if you try to do any singing, don’t even get me started…

But when you travel and DJ, you often have to play events like these. You’re not going to get the best gigs when you’re new in town. It doesn’t matter how great your reputation was in the last country, people won’t know you in the next one, unless you are one of those superstars. So you have to build up your reputation again. That means you have to start from near the bottom again. It’s simply the price you pay for traveling the world in our profession. As with any other job, if you want stability and security you can’t move around.

So what do I advise aspiring traveling DJs to do? Suck it up. If it gets too much, vent to your friends. If they don’t want to hear it anymore, do what I did. Start a blog and vent to the public. Probably no one will read it, but some people might. You just did, after all.