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Katie Behan Many DJs dream of walking into a club
and playing an hour or two of their choicest techno cuts, before walking out with 400 euro in their pocket. But Katie Behan, resident DJ for the Academy on Saturday nights, has a healthy dose of reality. “If you actually wanna earn money DJing, play charts. People lap it up. The crowd you want to play techno or trance to, that’s a very small minority. I try to tell lads that, but no one wants to hear it!” Katie started DJing after attending one of the DJ Society meet-ups in DIT. She became engrossed in the craft, and it wasn’t long before she was reaching out to clubs to try to get short slots. She started to make inroads but like most creative industries, there’s little pay at the bottom of the ladder. “You’re working your way up and trying to earn respect, but there’s only so much you can do before people are just taking the piss out of you. When you’re a student DJ just trying to fit in a half hour slot, you’re lucky to get 20 euro for a taxi home.” That’s what led to Katie doing chart music. “One thing I learned very, very, very quickly; ‘You play the shite if the pay is right.’ Think about the stag parties, the hen dos, the 30ths. The majority of them want to listen to chart music, so just play it, because they’ll pay you good money for it.” 26 Soon Katie had nights in various venues, playing charts music that ranged from emo and punk to “HedKandi Ibiza music.” The rock and metal crowds wanted to hear the songs exactly as they were recorded, so there was minimal mixing or technical challenges. Instead, Katie learned how to read a crowd.“When you’re playing techno, people are just there to listen to the latest releases, you can play what you want. But playing chart music, you need to be able to see what people are enjoying, and when they’re disappearing.” Eventually, Katie worked her way up to playing The Academy every Saturday, one of the biggest club nights in Dublin. Starting at 11pm and ending at 3am, it’s a non-stop set that requires her to constantly keep the dance floor full and moving. Katie plays everything from Ray Charles to Abba to Dad-rock, but she’s constantly surprised by what her crowd asks for, many of whom have the year 2000 on their passport. “I remember I got requests to play ‘Amarillo’ by Tony Christie, thinking ‘Jaysus, really?’ And the next week I played it and the whole place erupted. Then I remembered that Peter Kay did a version of it for Children in Need. They pick up a lot of stuff from movies and TV. And anything that’s a meme!” Though Katie hasn’t yet found a way to incorporate the Wii game console music into You play the shite if the pay is right. her set (a real request) she always makes room for Angels by Robbie Williams. Surely the most played song at funerals isn’t the best way to get a crowd buzzing? “See for my room personally, it’s about the sing-song. It’s about ‘oh we’re all here to have the best night ever, I love all my friends, let’s all get in a big huddle!’ When Ireland beat the All-Blacks, I played ‘Ireland’s Call’ and they literally nearly flipped tables they were so happy about it!” In recent years, Katie has begun to step back from DJing in order to preserve her energy for her full-time job as a Societies Development Officer in DIT, but she still has a lot of love for it. “It’s about seeing people have a buzz and making their night better. Sometimes I get more satisfaction out of those four hours on a Saturday than I do out of my whole week of work.”