Ask for requests from your guests in advance. Download the tracks you haven't got to your iPod. Set up a play list with the tracks nicely sequenced (or be brave and just have shuffle working on the playlist). Nice amp and decent speakers. Bob's your uncle.

The additional downloads will cost you less than a DJ and you don't have to put up with either inane chatter or being condescended to all night.

Worked for me at my last party, which was, admittedly, some time ago. I even had a couple of requests for copies of the stuff we played.

Senora Malo had a large birthday party : 100 or so guests, so we hired a hall. I assembled the playlist she wanted, made some suggestions, bought some other songs she wanted to have for the party but for various reasons weren't part of my electronic collection. I then put them into iTunes playlists, sequenced and burned CDs so she could check it all beforehand. That led to a second go round, which was fine.

On the night I took the CDs, spare copies of the CDs, and my iPod as a fallback : result was she got all the music she wanted, when she wanted it. It wasn't that hard to do.

If you hire a DJ for a party and he's too cool to play what you want - unless it's DJ Shadow - then don't pay him! If you agreed beforehand what he would play, and he doesn't comply on the night, then he's in breach of contract. You did tell the DJ beforehand specifically what you wanted ?

when DJ's started thinking of themselves as 'artistes' in their own right. Once upon a time they provided a service: they played the right kind of records for the audience in front of them, went across genres and generations and they ensured everyone had a good time. Nowadays, they seem to think it's their party and we've all come along to be wowed by their selections.

some people treat the music at parties as way to show off their good taste but if you want people to dance you might have to play a bit less Gong and ornette coleman.

... will sense and anticipate the mood of the crowd, delight, surprise, and take the room with him/her on a X-hour musical journey that will leave everyone smiling, exhausted (from dancing!), and with heads full of mental notes for tracks to download when they get home...

A *Bad* DJ will kill a mood in the space of a poorly-chosen segue, and the moment they think they're the party, they're doomed...

Went to a great wedding last year at which the groom's uncle was DJing - and was way better than this might sound.

The reception was interrupted by a fire alarm going off, which meant everyone had to be evacuated while the firemen came to investigate.

Once the venue was declared safe we all trooped back in again...
and the DJ played Disco Inferno!

Scunthorpe's top DJ, Steve Bird of the Abacus Roadshow would play Freebird so us punks could make good our escape whilst our would be assassins shook their hair about a bit.
That's a good DJ at work that is.

'just play your own style and don't compromise'.

I can see it from both sides:
The DJ wants to heighten his/her career and play their own particular style because they were booked to play their records. After all, no wedding DJ has ever headlined Creamfields.

On the other hand, the DJs don't seriously think about their potential audience. They just want the money and if they were booked, then they must be trusted for their own choice of music, right?

It boils down to the fact that neither party is wholly to blame. There needs to be more dialogue from the event organiser who just wants 'a DJ'. The organiser's musical tastes should be explained well in advance, and the DJ should be prepared to decline gigs if they think the audience might not be completely behind their style of music.

I know it may not be a particularly wide-held viewpoint for the readers of this magazine, but DJs should (if they want to get anywhere in their career) be as original as any band would be.

It was bloody terrifying. I had a pile of seventies disco and a pile of cheesy line dance style country music (it was in a remote place which liked that stuff. Think "Hillbilly Rock, Hillbilly Roll." Thank the lord I was warned).

People danced, all night, felt I did a good job. Next day at breakfast, a sizeable proportion all moaned at me. DJ's cannot make everyone happy.

My colleague and I seem to have acquired a sideline as DJ's for Weddings/40th/50th Birthdays of late purely by accident/word of mouth.

It has to be said, it is a tremendous way to spend an evening. The person booking us has to Hire the PA but we take no fee other than first dibs on the Buffet Supper and a few beers each. I can't believe people expect to get paid for this! You get to put your own choice of records on and watch people enjoy the music, dance, sing, clap and generally make merry and I'm pretty sure we're having as much fun as the guests.

We have turntables and vinyl records, but also a Laptop full of enough tracks to cover most emergencies. I suspend my own particular tastes (otherwise it would be 4 hours of Autechre, Animal Collective and solo projects by various members of Wire) but we take great pride in getting everybody up dancing and singing without playing anything truly rubbish like Lady GaGa. We never play more than 2-3 records of the same genre in a row but all carefully mixed so its not too random. We have a constant debate between us about what to play next, and unlike your Ipod, we monitor the dancefloor closely and if something isn't working we can shift gears quickly. We have a Mic, but it remains switched off unless the host wishes to make a speech or we need to alert our patrons to Last Orders.

It has only mis-fired once, this weekend in fact, when we had to share duties with a chap who wanted to show off his mixing skills and do a "Funky Vocal House" mix. He took the post-buffet slot and 10 of his mates danced and everyone else retreated to the bar. We managed to wrestle him off our decks for the last 30 mins...threw the 7" of Teenage Kicks on and watched the dancefloor suddenly spring into joy. Moral of the story..unless you are the organiser of Creamfields or your 40th/50th is a 3 day festival...only book one set of DJs, not two.

Setting up a few amplifiers, drums, leads, microphones and all the acoutrements of the practising covers band at a wedding, we were acosted by the DJ for the night (who'd obviously got there early, nabbed the middle of the stage and gone off for a meal) who enquired whether we did any Beatles - specifically "Twist and Shout". We confirmed that indeed we did. He proudly held up a copy of The Beatles red album. "I play that one too!" he beamed.

I worked part-time on a Thames party boat collecting glasses etc. The clients who'd hired the boat (could be a wedding, birthday or a works outing) would normally hire a DJ and I got to know a lot about how they worked.

They would always play stuff from the current charts, so I have an unrivalled recall of tracks by Sweet, Showaddywaddy, Suzi Quattro, T Rex and Donny Osmond, mixed in with a few classics from slightly earlier and from the sixties plus, depending on the age group, some old-time proper dance bands thgat people could foxtrot or whatever to.

One thing I learned was that Honky Tonk Women would always fill the dance floor no matter what the crowd. I guess that's probably not so much the case now unless everyone there is as old as I am.

The important point was that the DJs realised that they were there to provide a service. They had the decks, the PA, the lights and the records but what they were expected to add was their judgement of what would be suitable for the crowd. I'm sure they got as sick of playing Donny Osmond or Tony Orlando and Dawn as I did of hearing them but that was what they were there for. If they just wanted to be stars in their own right, playing their preferences, they'd chosen the wrong job.

The other thing I learned was that the only parties where a fight was likely to break out were those booked by London dockers or by the Metropolitan Police.

worked for us when it was Mrs P's 40th. We hired a great band who we'd heard before at another party, who did two 45 minute sets. For in between, I'd made up CDs on which I'd burned some of Mrs P's favourites, plus the favourite party song of each guest, requested well in advance. Had most of these, downloaded the rest. The band had their own CD player which they pugged into their PA, so all I had to do was slot the CD in press play.

It worked a treat, mainly because whenever one person's favourite came up, they'd have to get up to dance, plus everyone else at their table, which kept the floor full all of the night.