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DJ Diary: Friendly

DJmag.com asked breakbeat DJ Friendly/Milke to track his weekend for us. He played in Glasgow and London.

Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke
Breakbeat DJ Friendly's new band Milke rocks out

Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke

Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke

Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke

Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke

Friday

Friday night and we're playing at Chew The Fat up in Glasgow.

It's me with my Friendly hat on, Paul Arnold and Lee Coombs, with local Bradley C at the Sub Club.

Rumour has it this venue has been under various names as a club for almost 100 years, with jazz legends, northern soul, disco, funk, rave, house and now breaks gracing its sound system.

The night is great, and the Glaswegians prove to be well up for anything we throw at them.

For me, a good night is when the crowd let me play what I like, and it's definitely the case here, so I have the chance to really play my own sound – a mix of dirty electro-house and breaks, which is all well appreciated.

Their new sound system sounds fat, and I manage to wedge in two new Friendly tracks fresh off CDR.

I'll definitely be up for coming back to play in Glasgow again!

The ups:

• Glasgow's super-friendly locals

• An awesome little club and an appreciative crowd

The downs:

• Being asked for an Armand van Helden track whilst I was DJing.

• Being asked for a vodka and tonic whilst DJing.

• Having to be up at 7:30am the next morning to catch a flight back to London.

Saturday

We catch the early flight back to London on Saturday morning.

Paul's a bit gutted as he's missed some of the football and is actually considering booking an even earlier flight next time!

We get back to London about midday.

The annoying thing about this job is not the flying, it's all the palaver that goes on around flying; queue for check in, queue for security check, hang about the airport for an hour, queue to board, queue to get off.

All up, it takes about four hours just for an hour's flight.

And I thought flying was meant to be glamorous.

Once in London I head straight to the studio to get some prep done for Sunday's Milke gig at Hoxton Bar.

It's only gig number five for Milke, so we're still getting it all smooth, and there's a lot of fine-tuning going on.

We've got samplers and live drum triggers on stage, so it's a little more involved than your average band, and a lot more involved than a DJ set.

The ups:

• No gig means I get to hang with my friends tonight!

The downs:

• I'm so tired I end up crashing out instead

Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke
Sun Block

The irony of rockers DJing and DJs playing live doesn't escape me


DJ Friendly
Breakbeat DJ Friendly Milke

Sunday

Wake up early, do emails, then meet the band at the studios to lug gear to a rehearsal.

We rehearse and sound check all afternoon, then chill out a bit before the gig.

Performing live with Milke is so different to DJing, and as we're doing the lugging, rehearsing and sound checking I do kind of miss just rocking up an hour before I play with a bag of records and a set of headphones.

So much more needs to go into each gig, and so much more can go wrong.

It's worth it though, and watching a crowd get into the live interaction and performance is really something special.

Tonight is a new night called Kill Robot Kill, and we're playing alongside Bloc Party DJs and The Rakes DJing, the irony of rockers DJing and DJs playing live doesn't escape me.

We do our gig, just half an hour, including the current single 'She Says', and we get a great reaction.

Gerry, the promoter, has done an awesome job promo-ing the night, and we play at 11pm to a packed room who are really into the band.

It's probably our best gig to date. Our sound guy is in top form, making us sound big and fat, the band all play really well, and the technology all holds. Miracle!

After lugging gear back to the studio I manage to get home about 3am for a long sleep.

The good:

• Doing our best gig to date

The bad:

• Lugging gear and rehearsing all day.

The ugly:

• The girl who clambered on stage demanding my attention during our set to declare that I knew her mate Lee. I think you need to lay off the alcopops, babe.