Every DJ has one.
A night when everything that can possibly go wrong does – and it does so in spectacular fashion. ClashMusic brings you DJ Disasters, featuring some of the most respected figures in the dance world reminiscing about those moments when it all went badly wrong.
Real name James Jacob, multi-talented producer Jakwob dominated 2011 – earning himself a residency on Mista Jam’s Radio 1Xtra show with his Daily Does of Dubstep in the process.
Now signed to Mercury, Jakwob is set to release his new single ‘Electrify’ on February 27th. Tipped to make the final breakthrough into the mainstream, the producer’s path to success hasn’t always been easy, as ClashMusic finds out…
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Apart from the standard not having eaten / nearly fainting / suffering from major jetlag before a gig, I’ve never really had a real ‘disaster’ and hope that I never do.
For the sake of this feature, I’m going to tell you about the bizarre experience I had at a certain festival in a certain UK city in 2010 (I’ll protect their modesty). There were loads of great gigs going on all over the city and it seemed like it was going to be a pretty cool night. I arrived at the venue with a bunch of friends and we had a few drinks in the bar downstairs. I was taken upstairs to check out the huge room I’d be playing in later – it was empty but they assured me it’d completely fill up.
I came back an hour later to find literally about eight people wandering around the room. One of the promoters came up to me like “uh, yeah, you’re on now…”. Awesome. Having played to 1500 people in Bristol the previous night, and expecting Dot-To-Dot to be big, it was a bit gutting to say the least. I headed across the room, and, bearing in mind that the only people in the room were under eighteen, I got them all to come and sit down in front of the DJ booth school-assembly style, and we had ‘story time with Jakwob’.
After a bit of a chat, I soon had them all closing their eyes and spinning around the room to some liquid drum and bass.
After the initial shock of having to play to a virtually empty room with absolutely no vibe, it ended up being (though admittedly a little weird), really different and fun. In the end I wasn’t even that bothered how the night turned out – I felt sorry for the promoters though!
Jakwob is set to release new single ‘Electrify’ on February 27th.
