CDR

Last friday we went to the CDR night at Trouw, a relatively new restaurant/club in Amsterdam by the creators of the excellent-but-no-longer-existing Eleven. They have a big dance floor and a restaurant on the main floor of this reclaimed industrial building, and a second dance floor in the basement , but we didn't have a reservation, so we didn't get to try their street food themed menu.

We headed straight to the basement (because that's where all the bass went) for the monthly CDR night hosted by Juha from Viral Radio. CDR is a new club night concept they brought over from the UK where indie producers can bring in their own tracks on CDR and the Viral radio DJs will play them. I read about it in Time Out Amsterdam, and jumped at the opportunity.

The night had it's good and bad points. Time Out made it sound like a bustling club night, but the reality was a room populated by about ten DJ/producers and their girlfriends. We sat on wooden benches while the DJ played our tracks. I think the low turnout was partially due to the horrid weather and the very early 20:30 start time, but there is definitely room for improvement.

On the other hand, the quality of the music that people brought was consistently good, and it was great to hear my tracks played on a professional club sound system. The tracks tended towards dubstep, but there were also some house, hip-hop, and electronica tracks to spice things up. Viral Radio is a dubstep night, so they had the bass cranked up nicely. I brought two tracks, Ghost and Spaghetti Western Style, and I am proud to report that even on a night full of bass-heavy sounds, my tracks were the only ones that made the air conditioning system rattle!

Ghost

Spaghetti Western Style


Even though this first CDR outing was a bit of a bust, I'll be going back again. I think they should make it less of a "producers only" night, and really sell it as a way to hear fresh new sounds from up and coming producers. One day, I like to see it filled with a crowd of eager young listeners that are there to dance and enjoy the music.