A party is not a party without a bounce house. You would think it would be just for little kids but high school teens love the bounce house. They can be a kid again!  We were able to contact Cal Jumps to set up two bounce houses. They were awesome to work with. We were able to get an obstacle course bounce house that was about 70 feet in length and also got a decent size bounce house. Since we did not have a power source the company brought some generators. We had them out the whole day and students could not get enough of them. Cal jumps has a number that you can call and text and they respond pretty quickly. What is neat is that you can text them and it is shared with the drivers so they can see the communication. It took them about an hour to set up and about 45 minutes to put it away. Other events were a tug a war with a pool of water in between. They had a basketball game and   volleyball game going on. They had a dunk tank and students were having a ball. They did have speakers playing music but it would have benefited from a do playing Latin music and current pop and hip hop. A dj would have made the party an epic one.  A dj can help the atmosphere become more festive and raise the fun so much.

Mt Madonna had wonderful graduation ceremony at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy for class of 23. We have done the last 4 celebrations but we did take two years off from Covid. Mt. Maddonna is so awesome to work with since they give us the schedule so its so easy to follow.  The amphitheater is a beautiful spot to hold a graduation. All you  need is two speakers to reach the whole audience.  The city runs the facility and all we do is make a phone call to get them to open up the  power  for us. It is nice to have that support. Such a beautiful place to walk the stage, grab a diploma, and share memories with loved ones! We provided the microphones, music and sound and made it memorable! We played a little background music as people settled in, the main song was Pomp and circumstance as the graduates walk in, rise up by Andrea day played in the back as students got up and shared a rose with someone who supported then along the way. Tomorrows people by Ziggy Marley played after every graduate had received their diploma. Final hits at the end of the day that were played were Celebration by Kool and the Gang can’t stop the feeling by Justin Timberlake, Firework by Katy Perry, Congratulations by Post Malone, 24K Magic by Bruno Mars, and many more fun songs were played that day. Congratulations to the Class of 2023!

We had a call to do a big corporate event in Sunnyvale.  I asked them how many people will be present and they said their should be close to 1000 folks. We made sure we had plenty of sound that day. There was also a Band Playing. We were in charge of making announcements.  The big worry was to figure out where the stage was since it was a huge campus but it was easy to find and the staff made it easily accessible. They had not had a big event like this in years

Company hosted an amazing family day event for their employees and family, which was a pleasure for me to be part of. As much is 10 different food trucks, beautiful, car show, robotics presentations, and Chicago style stepping dance show that was hosted by one of their employees. Guest of all ages we’re all over enjoying good food and great music. I was happy to receive amount of compliments for providing music from the 70s and 80s dance and funk. Some hits enjoyed. Include the song requested by a guest “get up Offa that Thing by James Brown, September, by Earth, Wind and Fire, Billie, Jean, by Michael Jackson, Girls Just Wanna have Fun by Cyndi Lauper Dancing Queen by ABBA and tainted love by Soft Cell. The game plan was to have music from little kids to 70 year olds. We had to get really popular music ranging from 70s to current times.

Djing in retail stores does not just happen in Christmas time. It can happen anytime and I played in May at the Brea Mall last Saturday by the Make Up Area. Love playing at Nordstrom since they have a booth of their own so it just makes it easy to set up. The staff is very helpful and let me borrow a cart to load my gear on so I can do everything in one shot. Love the energy of the staff since a lot of them love the music and sway with the vibes. They even gave some cool requests to. Songs that seemed to be big hits were the funk and the Spanish songs. Why play the same tracks everyone else plays? Its best too go against the grain and not be the same cookie cutter dj who plays the same songs every time.

  The theme was flower that day so we made sure we played a couple of different edits of Miley Cyrus Flower song. Lots of people did stroll by but the goal was to get the heads bobbing. I did all pop and feel good songs and I threw in some Latin songs in the mix. I think we did play over 10 Latin songs in the 5-hour session. If you think about it, California is full of latin people so why not throw some Latin flavor in the mix. Why not throw some reggaeton and come cumbia songs? Speaking of 5 hours, it felt like 15 minutes since playing music for me is super fan and trying to be creative with the mixes and playing songs that go together.

  When I first started learning how to spin music it was from records. Boy, it was not cheap. It was an expensive hobby and most people would go to cd then later to mp3.

I am proud that I learned how to spin off vinyl. We had to learn how to mix by ear which is a lost art. Now a day’s people just use the sync button which makes it easier to match beats.

But one of the most therapeutic time we had as djs was going through records and talking with the record store employees about the dj events or anything dj related.

  Right now if you google San Jose dj and look at the top 3 searches under the google businesses you will see Elite Entertainment, Black and White Affair, and Knight Sounds. Elite is a multi op who is the busiest dj business in San Jose. BWADj is who I am. And Knight Sounds is a record store slash dj business. I spent many hours talking with Carlos Diaz the owner of Knight Sounds and he was a master when it came to the old tracks and talking about gear. He was a mentor to me and pretty much anyone who from the Bay Area knew about Carlos and his store. He would have turntable stations so you can hear the track before you bought it.  Most stores are small but this store was big enough to be lost for hours. There were hours and hours of good old school music. As Carlos said, Vinyl never crashes. Feel Free to call Black and White Affair for our all vinyl dj set.

It is a fact that not too many djs can honestly say they can do an all vinyl set. With the day and age of streaming and just playing mp3’s, it seems to be more economical and easier on the wallet. Anyways who would want to carry around heavy records and better yet store all that vinyl at your home when you can have way more music on your laptop and take way less space.

   Why would anyone spin on vinyl if its way more expensive to maintain? One reason is its cool to see visually and it connects with the past. In the 70s and 80s that is what all the djs used to at parties. For those djs who learned on record had to learn how to mix by ear as opposed to having a computer help you beat match. There is something nostalgic about flipping through records while looking at the cover of the song. It is a good way to stand out over all the other digital djs out here.

 A lot of folks do not like the new music out coming out now but love the classics from the 70s, 80s and 90s and 00s. A lot of djs who went the digital route got rid of their beloved collections and went for the cash for their collection. But a few had a deeper connection with the vinyl they collected or maybe they ignored their partners request to get rid of their vinyl and they can pull them out for special occasions. This is an instance of old school being cool. Bring vinyl back and call Black and White Affair for your all vinyl event.

 Two weeks before the prom the school mentioned that they wanted silent disco in the patio area. We have done silent disco before but mentioned we do not own the gear but we know how to set it up. I gave the director a suggestion of a company we used. The cool thing about these companies is they send the silent disco gear by mail and then you send it back. It took a week to confirm that they were going to confirm with the silent disco event. I had a dj in the main room rocking with 4 speakers and one dj rocking the patio rocking with 0 speakers. The cool thing about silent disco you can have 1 to 3 djs in the same area mixing music while the party folks have 3 options of what mixes they want to  listen to. Also you do not have the neighbors complaining about the noise from the bass since it comes through the head phones. Plus, Silent disco is an awesome experience. You can select the type of music you want and can control the volume of it so you don’t have to worry about your eardrums blowing out. For this party we had a dj spinning live in the patio and we had two different kinds of genres playing on the other channels.  We had Latin music playing on one channel like cumbia and  reggaeton and the other channel had pop songs that are good to sing a long with.

  Taking on a prom is no easy task.  Prom is one of the most monumental events in a young person’s life so we try to make it as memorable as possible. We have to make sure we bring as much sound and get the playlist ready for the big night. Every prom is different since some have dinner included while some just have the dance component. With dinner proms, there is less stress since we don’t have to play hit after hit but rather calmer music. When it’s the dance part of the night we like to quick mix to help build energy.

We were picked to play at Corinthian on 3rd street in San Jose. We did a prom there in February so we were familiar with the location. The activities director was great. She supplied us with the map and was really easy to get a hold of. The school provided us with a playlist. These are the songs that stood out. We try to play as many songs as we can from their playlist since every event is a custom event. Since we have been playing at many proms we keep the songs close by that were hits in the other dances. They requested a lot of hip hop and pop. They gave a good amount of songs around 80 to work from. Students were able to request some songs they were not on the list and we tried to play as much of their songs as possible.