There's no truth a t all in David's assertion that no-one will dance to The Beatlees. At London's fashionable nitespot Rock'n'RollSoul, the evening's not complete unless 'Hey Bulldog' or 'It Won't Be Long' have been given a spin.

Problem: your disco is dying a death.

Treatment: one dose of Good Time by Chic as soon as Nile Rodger's guitar cuts in with that fantastic choppy "Doo Doo Doo doo der doo doo doo du doo doo" riff with the protohouse piano underneath everyone is sold....

like they say "lhappy days are here again"

One point about Radiohead's income stream that seems to have been missed is that they (and a fair amount of other artists) probabaly wouldn't be expecting to make much of their money from selling records/CDs/downloads/etc, but from touring. I don't know enough about the actual figures involved, but surely an act like Springsteen, Prince or any other established act (particularly one who has already made a solid live reputation) would be looking to make their living from sales of tickets rather than CDs. Not to mention the swag of acts who re-form for a greatest-hits tour rather than put out any new music.

It would seem to this humble correspondent that Radiohead's "pay what you think we're worth" is a gesture to fans, shrewd marketing (it's been happily picked up by the mainstream press) and good solid advertising for an upcoming tour. A single used to be the loss-leader for the album; might the album become the loss-leader for the tour?

Songs that DO & songs that DON'T

DO
Come on Eileen- Dexy's
Staying Alive - Bee Gee's
Let me Entertain you - Robbie
Venus - Bananarama
Dizzy - The wonderstuff
Ladies Night - Kool & the Gang
Little less conversation - Elvis
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Last night a dj saved my life - Indeep
Loveshack- B52's

DON'T
I feel love - Donna Summer
Girls on film - Duran Duran 12" version
Atmosphere- Joy Division
Hyperactive - Thomas Dolby
Video killed the radio star - Buggles
Reward - Teardrop Explodes

Myself & a mate managed to blag our ourselves as Dj's in a reading nightclub a couple of years and managed to play to a packed student crowd, doing a storm playing dizzy, this charming man etc. To our surprise the owner of the club asked us to come back and play on the following saturday night. We then spent the next week, raiding lots of friends collections for the latest urban tunes (all shit though). I distinctly remember a dead air moment that night when I decided to play Staying alive from a dusty vinyl LP, and killed the floor instantly by failing to find the vinyl button, however my friend recovered the situtaion gracefully with George Michael's Outside, (Floor Filler no less)

A friend's older brother's 21st party in the early/mid 70's was held at the somewhat swanky family house with the host's parents sensibly not trusting anyone and not going anywhere. Heads nodded to The Who Live at Leeds and Led Zeppelin II, and unsurprisingly everyone remained either cross-legged on the floor or posed as denim-clad struts at 45 degrees to the wall. Shame, as I had my eye on an older woman of 17 or so. Then the father slapped on a Trini Lopez record and within moments everyone was up and the place was going nuts to If I Had A Hammer - I think it was played almost continuously all night apart from the odd break for Hi Ho Silver Lining. Would it work nowadays though?
Have to disagree about The Beatles - at several young relatives' birthday/going to Australia/welcome back from Australia parties (man, and haven't I been to a few of these lately?) I Saw Her Standing There is a knock-em-dead staple of the last hour or so.
From recent experience, Ricky Martin's Vida Loca and She Bangs are sure-fire winners with the women and, as you say, the men will surely follow, but the results are pretty ugly. For these are tough nuts to crack for clumsy, half-cut once-were-ravers with little sense of style and no concept of rhythm - and the men are no better.

Me and mate were asked to DJ for a friends wedding and got together all the right tunes mainly on cd. Only to find that the cd dj equipment was a 12 disk multichanger which played songs at random. You would get the floor full with one song only for "this is a low by blur" to pop up at random and empty it. We abandoned the cd's and fell back on our small batch of vinyl. Between the best of two tone, abbas greatest hits (2) and the worlds best disco album we survived the night just, ending as is traditional by playing Manuel and the Muisc of the mountains followed by polka.

Two years ago, while travelling in Brazil with some friends, we visited a small village in a rainforest region. The wonderfully hospitable locals welcomed us by putting on a little party for our group at the tiny village hall. After a delicious meal, the tables were cleared to the side, and a cheerful local man with a record player began his DJ set. He had three records. The first two were played twice through: a Beatles greatest hits, and a Rolling Stones greatest hits. Both records filled the floor with happy backpackers and villagers, all by now at least tipsy from the local brew. But my interest was especially aroused when I recognised the third record, lying neglected by the DJÕs bag: ÒRadio-activityÓ by Kraftwerk.
Unfortunately my Portuguese didnÕt reach beyond Òa beerÓ and Òthe bill pleaseÓ, but I wanted to acknowledge the DJÕs good taste. I pointed to the album, gave a thumbs-up, grinned and nodded. His eyes lit up and he shook my hand delightedly; ÒKraftwerk!! Hahaha!!Ó
Within seconds, ÒSatisfactionÓ was zipped mid-strut off the turntable, and the eery pulse of ÒRaaadiiioooÉactiviteeeÓ took over the room.
I will always treasure the memory of Brazilian villagers and young English backpackers, sweating from jungle heat and partying, stopping in their tracks to what was surely at that moment the most incongruous piece of music possible. It didnÕt entirely clear the dance floor though; the DJ and I threw interesting shapes to ÒOhm Sweet OhmÓ as the howler monkeys struck up in the vegetation outside.

I was a DJ at a nightclub during the early 00's school disco fad. For about 2 years Can't get you out of my head was the most popular tune and I was forced to play it every week. When I played it again about a year later it was met with indifference.
I also remember clearing the floor with Amarillo just a few months before Peter Kay revived it, obviously a bit too upfront with the white labels there!
One of the rules I had was never play Duran Duran. I'd get ladies of a certain age asking for Rio or whatever, to which I'd reply "no one will dance to it". They'd then promise to dance to it so if it was early in the evening I'd slip it on. Without fail they was bop around for about a minute and then shuffle off to the bar.
All in all I'd say that perhaps Outer Space by the Prodigy was the biggest tune.
Anyway I stopped DJing about 2 and a half years ago and have not listened to current pop music since. My Saturday night intake of Newcastle Brown has also dipped significantly.

The Radiohead "pay what you want" idea is a stroke of genius, and clearly based on the realisation that the people who'll try to pay nothing, or a penny, are exactly the same people who would, in the case of a physical CD, wait for a mate to buy it then rip it for free, or who would download pirated copies of the MP3s. They simply exclude those people from consideration, and base their expectations on the undoubtedly large number of fans who'll genuinely pay what they consider to be a fair price. In my case, as an eMusic subscriber on a "90 monthly downloads for £14.99" plan, I reckoned 17p per track, and paid Radiohead £1.70, as if it were available on eMusic. Simple and fair, I think. The super DeLuxe collector's edition for £40 should also keep the hardcore fans and collectors happy, whilst netting a nice premium for the band. Andy Partridge did the same a couple of years ago with the special boxed set of XTC's "Apple Venus", and continues this approach with the Fuzzy Warbles box etc. Bill Nelson also released a 6-CD set a few years ago, selling directly via his website. This approach may not make millionaires out of any bands who aren't already in that happy position, but it certainly enables them to make a living without having to negotiate and compromise with record companies. The music straight from the artist to the listener, the money straight from the listener to the artist. As it should be.

There are two interesting things about Radiohead's decision to allow the market to choose how much their downloads are worth.

The first is that, as I understand it, Radiohead don't allow their albums onto the iTunes Store and other download services because they want people to hear the whole thing as an album, rather than random tracks. I have very little interest in their music at the moment (although like most of the rest of the world I have a copy of OK Computer and thought their performance at Glastonbury 1997 was incredible), but I am intrigued to know how they are going to enforce the "album only" ideal for this download.

The second thing is that this is not a new business model for music, but it is new at the top end of the spectrum. For some time now, I have been intending to pay for the Jets Overhead album and EP I downloaded from their website, which offers voluntary payment for free downloads". Listening to the podcast shamed me into doing so when I got home this evening.

The difference between Jets Overhead and Radiohead (apart from all but the last syllable of their names) is huge. Jets Overhead are probably only just surviving on what they get from their music, whereas I expect Radiohead are doing pretty well, all told. Paradoxically, this means they have more to lose, doesn't it?

The thing about downloads is that they are a significantly inferior product - MP3 sound crap as most of the music has been removed by the compression algorithms. They are sort of OK through headphones, but play an MP3 on your main stereo and toggle it A/B style with the source CD and the limitations leap out at you. This is not an audiophile impossible to discern the difference test - anyone can hear the difference. I wouldn't buy an album I actually want to treasure as a download simply because of this audio quality problem. I tend to only download tracks which are back catalogue/impulse buys.

Oddly enough, I was browsing through a Q Radiohead special edition last weekend and they put this idea forward a few years ago, Thom Yorke suggesting 50p per track. Seems reasonable to me, but I'd cap it at £5 per album. As noted above, despite the publicity, MP3's etc are lower quality than CD's so why pay full price for lower quality?

Two DJ experiences spring to mind
1) Our employers hired one of the clubs in town for the "Office Christmas Party", on a Monday about a week before Christmas. We all went along but you could tell that nobody was really up for it and you really felt for the DJ because he tried every classic guaranteed cheesy-party floorfiller (Dancing Queen, YMCA, It's Raining Men, I Will Survive, The Grease Megamix, Steps, Spice Girls and many others) to no avail Ð people just wouldn't get up and dance. It wasn't till about half an hour before chucking out when he played Britney's "Baby One More Time" that people finally stormed the dancefloor. I think it was Christmas '99 because it was definitely pre-"CanÕt Get You Out Of My Head" and pre-"Reach" by S Club 7 (which at one point had to be played three times a night at this same club, I suspect it doesn't any more)
2) A village hall party with a home-made disco run by a guy in his mid-60s whose idea of a guaranteed floor filler was "Cuba" by the Gibson Brothers, approximately 20 years after it may have last filled a dancefloor, and who always played "The Lady In Red" as the first slowie of the evening (it got met with ironic cheers after a few times). The evening was just dying on its feet Ð people were pleading with someone (anyone !) to go and play some decent music so me & another guy went and asked if we could have a go. The main problem was that we had one CD player and one turntable and had no option but to alternate between them so we were frantically searching through the boxes of 7" singles for anything suitable, whilst also having to deal with a CD collection that only amounted to the most recent half a dozen "NOW" compilations. We ended up fixing on one particular guy who was being the life and soul of the party and figured that if we could keep him dancing, everyone else would as well, and it just about worked.

Did I hear Mark Ellen saying he lost all his e mail addresses? I'm guessing from past comments that he uses a Mac and an iPod. To avoid this happening again, Mark, you should make sure you synchronise your contacts next time you plug in your iPod. Look in iPod prefences: it's pretty simple. The contents of your Apple address book will be stored on your iPod, just in case.

"Hey ya!" by Outkast followed by "Cannonball" by The Breeders and finally "Late in th evening" by Paul Simon (the 12" mix pitched up +2) Dancefloor will be chocka.

I recall the great John Peel writing in his column in Sounds during the 70's about his experiences with the much loved and greatly missed John Peel Roadshow. He mused that whilst his choice of music was not likely to get grannies, teenyboppers and middle aged businessmen up and boogying, if all looked doomed he'd put on "Brown Sugar" by the Stones. If that didn't get 'em moving, it was time to pack up and go home because nothing would. Amen and RIP.

About 10 years ago, my mate and myself,thought we would have a go at hospital radio in Scarborough.On the first day of the job, we were picked by an old lady who drove us to the hospital in silence, with a big frown her face and car that smelt of wee. We were kind of welcomed by three Radio staff who had a combined age of 240! They were all pleasant but slightly deaf, but it was clear we would not have a chance in hell of having a go on the mic.One of the "posse" an old guy called Derek, hoped we would "find a bit of action with the nurses" during out time in the job.Access to the studio was through a curtain into a tiny broom cupboard; the equipment all looked pre 2nd world war! Before broadcast, we walked round the wards collecting requests from patients. The library was very limited, mainly military brass band stuff, Val Doonican, Max Bygraves and more military band stuff. Most patients didn't even know the hospital had a radio station and some beds didn't even have listening sets. During broadcast I would clean the records, pass them to my mate, who would pass them to Derek, who would then pass them to Molly for a final check who would pass them through the curtain into the "Studio" into the hands of 90 year old DJ Sydney Beal. We only lasted about four weeks, the most excitment I had was when I disciplined by a nurse for offering a liver patient a sip of my 7 Up as I was fixing his headphones and set off his bedside alarm. We killed time thinking up our own playlists; "Sheer Heart Attack"-Queen, "Live & Let Die"-Wings, "Yellow" (for the liver ward)-Coldplay and "Dizzy"- Vic Reeves & The Wonderstuff etc etc.