A Brief History of DJs Being Kicked Off the Decks

With the different pitfalls and problems that DJs face, one of the biggest problems a DJ has to face is being told to stop DJing. Over the years, we'v

September 9, 2013

Image via Complex Original

With the different pitfalls and problems that DJs face, one of the biggest problems a DJ has to face is being told to stop DJing. Over the years, we've seen a rise in venues asking DJs to leave the turntables, primarily because of what they're playing. Why some of these clubs would book an artist without knowing if their regulars will be into their music is a confusing ordeal, but with EDM meaning big dollars for these huge megaclubs, bookers are either solely looking at Facebook likes or are just gambling with their slots. In light of recent events, with the hope that the increased mainstream eyes on dance music doesn't intensify these incidents, we wanted to bring you a brief look of DJs getting kicked off of the decks.

Chemical Brothers

Club: Unknown (Sheffield, UK)

When: August 1995

Reason: Not pleasing Oasis' Liam Gallagher

In August of 1995, the Chemical Brothers were booked to DJ an Oasis gig. As the story goes, the only track that came close to appeasing the Oasis frontman was "Wrote for Luck" by the Happy Mondays. Liam ultimately asked the duo to step down from the decks, replacing them with someone from The Verve to man the turntables. Oddly enough, Liam's brother (and Oasis bandmate) Noel had approached the Chemicals some time later, expressing not only his love of their debut album Exit Planet Dust, but asking them if he can sing on one of their future bits. October of 1996 saw the release of the Chemical Brothers/Noel Gallagher collaboration, "Setting Sun."

THE 10 MOST UNLIKELY ROCK/EDM COLLABORATIONS

Dennis Ferrer

Club: Mansion (Miami, FL)

When: February 2012

Reason: Not being commercial enough

In February of 2012, Mansion was in hot water for asking Dennis Ferrer to step down for not playing material that was commercial enough for their patrons. What's the point of booking acts that have no business trying to appease your clientele, only to have them stop spinning mid-set? Dennis didn't keep quiet, explaining the entire ordeal. It looked like he'd played Mansion before, but this time around there were new faces booking the acts, who were forced by management to have him get off of the turntables. And it all led to the people who were paying to get in and cop all of the bottle service, apparently.

Mark Farina

Club: Marquee (Las Vegas, NV)

When: June 2012

Reason: The potential of not playing music the table service patrons would like.

That's right; during a night at Vegas' Marquee nightclub in June of 2012, Chicago's own Mark Farina, who was going to hit the decks after Miguel Migs' set, was told that he would not be performing due to complaints about the house music that Migs was playing, and essentially what some new Farina would be throwing down. It ultimately didn't stop Mark's hustle, as he had other Vegas dates booked that week, but we can see why situations like this would cause those who detest the term "EDM" to get up in arms.

Calvin Harris

Club: Tryst (Las Vegas, NV)

When: June 2012

Reason: Who knows?

This is one of those odd situations that we don't know who to believe. What we do know is, just days after the Mark Farina situation at Marquee, Calvin Harris was booked (and played) a set at Vegas' Tryst club. From Calvin's initial tweets, he was said to have been kicked off of the decks for "not playing Carly Rae Jepsen + hip-hop," but Tryst residents Dave Fogg and Joshua Stephens both said that no one kicked Calvin off the decks, with Stephens saying that Calvin walked off on his own due to being whistled at for music requests.

Tommie Sunshine

Club: WiP (NY, NY)

When: December 2012

Reason: Not playing more commercial music.

In December of 2012, the legendary Tommie Sunshine played at New York City's WiP for the release party of Faustix and Imanos' "Ambulance," of which Tommie did a remix for. As Tommie laid out, he was told during his second track that he needed to be playing "more commercial music with softer drops & more vocals," and odd request considering that the track they were celebrating with a release party "has NO VOCALS." Tommie went on to say that it was about half-way through his set that he was asked to step down, after being told that the music he was playing was "too hard," although he said he played tracks from Swedish House Mafia, Pitbull, a Ke$ha remix, and some "fun bootlegs."

DJ Shadow

Club: Mansion (Miami, FL)

When: December 2012

Reason: Not playing mainstream music.

In hindsight, this is one of those situations where the booker at the club should have realized who they were booking. If you have a "trendy" club like Miami's Mansion, you don't book someone like DJ Shadow, who has been known for ducking the mainstream trends since as far back as 1996. In any case, December 2012 saw his "All Bases Covered" tour hitting Mansion. All was good until about 30 minutes (or so) into his set, where someone representing the club came up to DJ Shadow and asked him to stop playing, due to what Shadow described as the music he was playing being "too future" for the crowd. A huge anti-Mansion push hit the Internet, with Facebook pages calling for a boycott being created, among the bad press that generated on a number of websites. Ultimately, Mansion ended up apologizing for the ordeal, and Shadow gave away what should have been the set he'd drop on Mansion that night. In the end, we hope this is a message to those booking acts at these clubs: know who you're booking. If you have clientele that wants more "Top 40" material being played, be sure to book DJs who are playing that style rather than DJs who are looking to take things a bit deeper.

Dyro

Club: Stages (Kingston, ON)

When: January 2013

Reason: We never really found out.

This was an intriguing story from early 2013 that never got resolved. While on with Hardwell's "Hardwell Presents Revealed" tour in Canada, Dyro's set at Stages was cut roughly 15 minutes short. His tweets never explained why he was asked to stop DJing before his set was over, but he did detail about how he not only got thrown from the decks, but ended up getting kicked in the face... twice. Oddly enough, a day later an "Anonymous Raver" posted their side of the story, which highlighted a different side of Dyro's actions that night that apparently included Dyro leaving the DJ booth trashed and not turning down the volume when instructed, twice. Threats were said to have been lobbed from Dyro and his manager (both of which were inebriated, per this story), leading to all of the music being turned off and Dyro and his manager being escorted from the venue. No word on how Dyro got kicked in the face, nor have we seen pictures to support any assault being done. Weird situation.

Skream

Club: Boiler Room (Austin, TX)

When: March 2013

Reason: Not wanting to end his set

To his credit, Skream did this Boiler Room x Ray Ban SXSW warehouse set while he was pretty drunk; he even tweeted about not remembering playing a single track during this set. While some Internets say that his set was "terrible" for a number of reasons, the fact of the matter was that at 3AM, Skream was scheduled to be done. An MC came on at the five-minute mark to announce that Skream's set was going to be coming to an end. For whatever reason, Skream didn't take too kindly to this news, and after realizing that the folks at Boiler Room had cut all sound from his decks, he did the next best thing: disconnected one of the CDJs and gave it away to an eager attendee.

Porter Robinson

Club: Kramer Arena for Matador Music Festival (Santa Barbara, CA)

When: April 2013

Reason: "Inciting a riot."

While playing Santa Barbara’s Matador Music Festival in April of 2013, Porter Robinson was told that his set was being cut short by Santa Barbara police. In his version of the story, Porter decided to play his huge hit "Language," but let the people know that in regards to the show ending abruptly, the ravers shouldn't get mad, but stay positive. Two minutes later, Santa Barbara police were said to have shut everything down, and threatening Porter with claims of "inciting a riot" for what he told the crowd, and going as far as potentially taking his equipment as "evidence." There's been no update regarding why this went down, so we can only imagine what got the police's dander up, but it's a sad situation in a day where EDM seems to be going nowhere.

Erick Morillo

Club: Ocean Club (Quincy, Massachusetts)

When: June 2013

Reason: Erratic behavior

In June of 2013, Erick Morillo showed up to the Ocean Club seemingly out of sorts. At the time, many could only speculate at what the reason for that was, but regardless, he was allowed to start his set, although around the 45-minute mark, security ended up forcibly removing Morillo. While the crowd reportedly didn't see this going down, it is said that there was only a loop on repeat for some time. We found almost a month later that Erick Morillo was dealing with substance abuse issues, and ended up doing a 30-day stint at a rehab facility in Malibu.