Maine DJ Directory

Maine DJ Directory has been re-done

2010-11-17T05:21:00.000-05:00

Good morning!
It has been quite awhile since I posted last as I tried to figure out what to do with this and my other blogs. Those that blog every single day have my undying respect. It is a toug thing to do this even once per week, let alone daily. I will be attempting to do this on a weekly basis.

Let's start off with some news about the website itself. If you haven't been there recently, it has been totally re-done. The navigation is much better, the color scheme doesn't reek of awful anymore, it is a much more professional looking website.

Right now, there are 11 DJs listed. Some will work in every corner of the state, others in just a few countied and cities. Whatever the case, you should be able to find a DJ that will have good chemistry with you and fit your budget.

Some of the new features of the website include Top 20-40 songs for wedding formal dances, links to other great DJ and wedding resources, and more.

Hope you enjoy.

The Maine DJ Directory

2010-03-02T14:41:00.003-05:00

After 12 years of dedication to making the best DJ site possible for the state of Maine, I have turned my baby into a grown-up directory.

Now, along with all of the national directories, Maine finally has a directory for just Disc Jockeys, the Maine DJ Directory.

Anyone looking for DJ services in Maine can now find them if they search by county, or by major metroploitan area (i.e. Portland-Cape Elizabeth), etc

I have some great information on there for brides and grooms, and will soon expand the site further to allow the nine current DJs on the site to showcase themselves even more.

The nine that are currently listed

M & M Entertainment of South Portland
Joe Farren of Gray
Dave & Joe Dionne DJs of Gorham
Trust The Entertainer of Lewiston
Rokkin Rod's Professional DJ Service of Palmyra
Fred Pappalardo of York
Dan Giroux of Augusta
Lary Thibodeau of Sanford
Maine's DJ Jaz of Ogunquit

Nine services, nine different cities.

The Bangor area could use some representation there, but that's just great for Rokkin' Rod.

I'm going to try to do a new article weekly now.

Have a great week!

A new beginning...in Florida

2010-01-18T14:55:00.002-05:00

That's right!

If you are reading this, the past few months have been momentous. I had an awesome Summer 209 with plenty of weddings, a couple of bar and bat mitzvahs, and Campardy at www.campardy.com - featuring my Game Show.

Fast forward to January 6th when I packed up my van with as much equipment as I could fit and took off for Clearwter, Florida.

The business climate in Maine was getting to be too hard to handle. High taxes, unnecessary paperwork, and more along with the weather made me realize it was time to move.

Now, I have ended up in Clearwater. What a great city this is in the Tampa Bay area.

I am five minutes awaw from anything I need and a short drive to some of the most amazing views in this country.

And I get to view these EVERY DAY!

My website at www.djmaine.com is now a directory for you to find a DJ for your event in Maine.

In Florida, I now have an address of www.myfloridadiscjockey.com

DJs now have to charge 5% Sales Tax in Maine

2009-06-15T12:56:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's true.

LD 1495, which was a compromise bill (LD 1088) was passed quickly by both houses of the Maine Legislature and signed by Gov. Baldacci late last week.

That means as of January 1, 2010, I now have to charge my clientele an extra 5% Sales tax.

I wouldn't be opposed to the new tax if it were across the board. Unfortunately, Maine is a cherry picking state that special interest groups control.

Don't be shocked if more than a few DJ companies try to cheat their way around this tax (I certainly will not)

Prepping for a New Wedding Season

2009-05-11T08:36:00.004-04:00

The 2009 wedding season is just about here and I am really excited about this year's couples!

As you may or may not know, I only book between 20 and 30 weddings per year because I want to keep the quality of service high and to make sure I never burn out of this business.

To me, weddings are very rewarding. I get the honor of hosting their memorable party as the bride and groom share their love with their friends and family. It's something I take seriously and I make certain that my brides and grooms are always the center of attention. That's the way it should be!

Because I do not limit my market to just Greater Portland, I get to see many different places in my travels throughout Maine, NH and Massachusetts. This season is no different. Here is a sampling of where I am playing this season

The Retreat at French's Point near Belfast
Mariner's Church in Portland
Spruce Point Inn, Boothbay Harbor (Several times)
Bald Peak Colony Club in Moultonborough, NH
Dunegrass Country Club in Old Orchard Beach
Portland Country Club in Falmouth
York Golf and Tennis Club
Fisherman's Wharf Inn in Boothbay Harbor
Harpswell Inn
Camp Hammond in Yarmouth
Martindale Country Club in Auburn
Apple Hill Music Center near Keene, NH
Grandeur Sun in Waterville, ME
Coastal House in Wells

I will also be doing other events in these cities and towns:
Skowhegan, Oakland, ME, Yarmouth, Harrison, Freeport, Windham, Kittery, Baileyville (YES!), Ossipee NH, Derry, NH and more!

This season looks to be among my busiest ever and I am really looking forward to helping all of my brides and grooms have the party they deserve as newlyweds.

Great Wedding at the Mt. Washington Resort

2008-12-19T09:53:00.002-05:00

Greetings!

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to all of my friends, colleagues, and current, future of past clientele!

Today, I want to describe the beauty and wonder that is the Mt. Washington Resort.

I did my first wedding there on December 6th for a bride that had booked me previously (the first guy did not pan out).

I did a site walk back in the summertime and realized what a large place this was in the middle of nowhere.

Well, it is a much different atmosphere close to Christmas. It was beautifully decorated with Christmas trees everywhere and a gingerbread replica of the Resort itself.

The ballroom there is massive with a capacity of around 400 - 500. High towering colums surrond the area and as I nestled my gear in between two of them adjacent to dance floor, I could tell this would be a fun evening.

Here is the feedback I received from that night from the Mother of the Bride. Enjoy!

*******************************************************************************
Name: Lynda Payette
Date: December 6, 2008
TypeOfEvent: Wedding
Friendly: checked
Enthusiastic: checked
Courteous: checked
Listened_to_needs: checked
Professional: checked
Return_Calls_Email: yes
Appearance: Outstanding
Personality: Outstanding
Music: Outstanding
PrePlan: Outstanding
Website: AboveAverage
Overall: Outstanding
ValueOfService: Yes
DJ_Value: Equal
DJ_Importance: 50_percent
Reference: Yes
EMailTelephone: Jim or Lynda Payette at (603) 869-2097 or LyndaPayette@msn.com or JimPayette@msn.com
B1: Submit

Comments:

From the momemnt I met with Jim, we hit it off. You usually can tell from the first impression if someone is going to be right for your event or not, and I was right on. Jim took charge when appropriate and stayed in the shadows when necessary. It is very tricky to be able to have the creativity such as Jim Casey to keep the dance floor alive. It is so very important at a wedding working with such a diverse age group, to keep the dancing going, but Jim in his spacing out the activities and being so darn organized was able to pull it off without a hitch. Totally awesome entertainer! A must have! Our guests are still talking about the DJ!!

TRL 1998-2008

2008-11-16T22:11:00.003-05:00

Ok...I admit it, I have been a fan of this type of show since MTV premiered Dial MTV back in 1986 (remember Motley Crue "Home Sweet Home")

The show isn't as good as it was in 1998-2000, but the star power that showed up for the finale is amazing.

The Backstreet Boys were just on the show at about 10:10pm and it brought back a weird memory I have (and what would be an embarrssing one for my son Connor)

I watched the show religiously to keep up with current music. One day, my son was sitting on my lap (he was barely over one year old) and it happened to be the day that Backstreet shut down Times Square promoting their Millenium album.

They sang "I Want It That Way" and my boy was literally moving to the song - the first one that I noticed he did that to. It was so cute, but I realized that someday he would be completely embarrassed about this fact.

Oh-oh. :)

Summertime Update

2008-11-01T07:55:00.000-04:00

Summertime Update

Well...what a weird summer to date!

Here we are in the middle of August and the temperature hasn;t touched 90 ALL SUMMER! Are we kidding? It hasn't been 80 in August so far. It rains and we have violent Thunderstorms almost daily.

Today, we have the largest hailstorm I have seen in 25 years. Sent some video to WCSH6's website. It was crazy - 15 minutes of heavy hail. That stuff hurts.

Enough weather.

Went down to Atlantic City for a DJ Convention last week. AC is OVERRATED at best. What a waste of space. Unless you are an addicted gambler, even with the boardwalk, I found AC to be boring and nothing more than a stretched out Old Orchard Beach. Seminar content was light at the show too.

Just before that, I did EIGHT events in four days. 1 Wednesday, 4 Thursday, 1 Friday, 2 Saturday. Very busy indeed. It all ended with a great wedding (booked very last minute) in Biddeford. Good stuff!

Well, got a very busy September ahead with 8 weddings. Looking forward to it!

A Tremendous Tip!

2006-07-25T16:05:00.000-04:00

Hello!

This past weekend was another great one for my service. I only did one wedding and it happened to be in Wellesley, Massachusetts at Wellesley College Club. The bride and groom had met me the previous September when he was the best man at his sister's wedding in Lincolnville, Maine.

That wedding was a tremendous success and expectations were very high.

Because of the rain, the wedding ceremony was moved inside. I had to setup in three different rooms. One for the ceremony on the 2nd floor, one for cocktails also on the 2nd floor, and the reception which was held on the 1st floor.

Setup went very smoothly with equipment in place within 35 minutes.
The wedding itself could not have gone more smoothly or perfectly. My new lavalier mic worked without a hitch, gave clean, crisp sound and allowed everyone to hear the bride and groom too!

At the end of cocktails, I had to remind everyone to do downstairs for the ceremony. They slowly left and dinner started roughly 20 minutes later than scheduled.

This was a wedding that I did not have to do any introductions, bouquet/garter tosses, anniversary dance or any other formal events outside of 1st dance and parent dances.

It took a couple of music blocks for the dance floor to heat up, but once it did they were there right up to the end at 11:00pm.

The bride and groom thanked me for my help putting together their ceremony (we did this only 4 days beforehand) and the groom handed me an envelope.

I told him he did not need to do this and his exact words to me were: "Yes I do" He smiled and walked away. I finished loading and said my goodbyes.

When I got to my hotel and opened up the envelope. I almost fell on the floor when I saw what was inside.

It was easily the largest tip I had ever received and I almost felt guilty about it. Rather than giving the amount of the tip, let's just say it was for 25% of the original contract. I am always extremely grateful when a client feels I did a great enough job to warrant a tip at the end of the night, but this one just absolutely blew me away.

I am very happy that he thought that much of the service I offered him and his new wife. I always strive for excellence and apparently they thought my service was excellent.

2006-07-21T08:51:00.000-04:00

Good morning!

Everything continues to be a mess with my Windstar repairs. Lee Auto is refusing to work on the van saying that Atlas Auto Body in Windham should work on the job again. This is my worst case scenario. I am in total disbelief! I just wish the van had been totalled so I could have moved on.

On the wedding front, I travel to Wellesley, Massachusetts on Saturday for the wedding of the gentleman pictured on the front of my trading card sized business cards. He happened to be the best man and brother of a bride who's wedding I performed at last September. It should be fun to see the family again, albeit 5 hours south of last year's wedding.

The wedding season as a whole has been very inconsistent here in Maine. For the first time I have a wedding on Thanksgiving Day Weekend, but I have 4 of the next 6 Saturdays completely open (July 29, Aug 5, 26, Sep 2). A couple of those weeks have a Friday or Sunday wedding, but not all. It will be great to spend that time with my family which in past wedding seasons has not been the case.

Well, off to fight the batlle of the Windstar. I have no idea what my next move should be.

Have a great day!

Windstar Held Hostage - Day 40

2006-07-17T08:39:00.000-04:00

It has been 40 days since I got into my van accident. I thought by the time I wrote today's blog that I would finally have my 2003 Ford Windstar back.

I was wrong.

On Friday I was informed that the van will need another $3700 in repair work to correct the work that the Body Shop I requested do the work failed to do.

This has easily been the most exasperating process I have gone through in years. Unfortunately, a decision that I made back on June 8th indirectly caused my headaches.

Progressive was very quick to get back to me and prepared to get my van to a Body Shop. They have deals with certain body shops that they will guarantee the repairs with.

I had been told in the past never to trust these kinds of deals. So, I went ahead and requested the van be brought to the shop I knew of in Windham.

I should have been suspicious from the start when the owner there said I would get the "extra money". I was still in shock from what had happened so I let the comment go without challenging it.

Progressive had ordered new parts for the door, hood, and apron (not quite sure what that is). Upon inspection from my very trusted mechanic, he concluded I got a USED door that may have had BONDO put on (BONDO is quite useless), the hood was simply pounded out and repainted, and the apron was never replaced among other things.

Progressive had already done its part by paying the Body Shop and had no responsibility remaining other than a cross member(?) that holds the engine in place. My wife, who had been in her own serious car accident a few months prior took it upon herself and called the body shop in Windham and read the riot act to the owner. By the time I knew what had happened he had agreed to fix the van properly.

The van was being sent to Progressive's partner Lee Auto Body in Westbrook to fix the remaining part anyway, so I asked them for a quote on fixing the van correctly.

When I got the news on Friday I immediately called the Windham shop and told the owner I wanted to have the van repair at Lee at his expense. He apologized for the mistakes and agreed to do so. Now, I wait to see if he will follow through on his word to call Lee and make the necessary arrangements.

Lee estimated the repairs will take another two weeks or more meaning I will have had the Toyota Sienna rental van for a full two months by the time the repairs are finished. The body shop will pay for the additional time that I need to rent the van as well.

Lesson learned.

2006-07-07T09:57:00.000-04:00

Good morning!
It has been a very hectic week for my service between client meetings, vendor consultations, and events.

Just yesterday I did an event for one of my favorite clients up on Long Lake in Naples. It happened to fall on the one year to the day after I played for their ceremony and reception. I must say they do love to dance and have a great time. One of the guests commented when she saw me walk in that she almost didn;t recognize me becuase I had lost weight.

For the first time I am proud to say that wasn't just somebody being nice. I have dropped 22 pounds from my max of 306 last winter. As a diabetic, I need to continue to lose the weight so I can avoid taking pills on a daily basis. I have a goal to get down to 250 by year's end. It's difficult with the schedule I keep as a professional DJ, but with perseverance I know I can do it.

It has now been a full month since my automobile accident and I STILL have a rental car. Atlas Auto Body had specific instructions on what to do with certain parts and they failed to live up to those expectations. The insurance company of the person that hit me, Progressive, has been extremely professional about everything and I am very impressed with their customer service to date. They have been extremely accomodating and helpful at every turn.

I simply have no idea when I will get my Ford Windstar back.

That's all from here. Have a great day!

The End of June ALREADY!

2006-06-30T08:07:00.000-04:00

Amazing how quickly time flies when you are having fun!

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. I did two island events back to back. These are generally the toughest to do logistically. You have to be on a Ferry at a certain time or you risk being very late.

My June 17th island event was at Jones' Landing on Peaks Island three miles from Portland. Fortunately, they have a car ferry which is much easier to deal with. It costs about $70 round trip and they fill up fast in the summertime so you generally need to be there at least one hour in advance of the boat's departure. It was a very fun party with all of the guests being from New York, Chicago, or Boston (not one single Mainer except me!) I don't believe I played a bad song during the open dancing.

I took a brief vacation the following Monday through Friday at Smuggler's Notch in Vermont. The grounds were very nice and they had plenty of activities. The place we stayed at was kind of dark and really nothing special (especially for $200 a night). My wisdom tooth extraction played a big role too as I had headaches caused by what we think was a tiny hole in my gums.

Thank you Anbesol and Orajel for helping me through that week!

So then we get to Saturday June 24th. This time the wedding was on Chebeague Island, just off the Cumberland coastline. It is accessible by two ferries, one based in Cumberland that is more expensive and a lot more work, or the Casco Bay Lines in Portland. It is a much less expensive, much longer boat trip.

I had called CBL on Friday asking about schedules. The wedding was 3-10pm. I was told to take a 10:00am ferry out that would arrive at noon and an 11:40 ferry home that would arrive after 1:00am.

That's a very long day, but I had prepared for that and built in extra fees.

When I arrived at 8:30 on Saturday morning, I was told the same thing. Packed my freight into their carts and got onboard the ship.

The wedding coordinator meets me at noon at the Chandler's Cove dock on Chebeague. He is barefoot (which raised my eyebrow for a moment) and proceeds to help me load my gear into his truck.

The island had received two inches of rain the night before and it was still foggy. We get to the site and it is muddy everywhere. Since we cannot get close to the site and a cart would not help me, the coordinator again helps me with my gear.

I have a table waiting for me in front of a riser, I test the table by pressing down only to see it sink an inch while barely pushing. I ask to switch tables to a smaller one so I could be up on the riser. This works out very well for everyone.

I am fully setup by 1:30 and the wedding gets underway ontime at 3:30. Unfortnately the bride and groom are 175 feet away from me and about 150 people are surrounding them making it impossible to see. The wedding coordinator does a great job cueing me for music (the minister woould not wear a microphone)

All goes as planned throughout except the mud keeps getting worse. In some spots in the tent it is six inches deep. There was so much mud on the dance floor that the wedding coordinator asked people to dance on the adjacent grass outside of the tent. That worked for about an hour, then they moved in anyway. There was one slip and fall that broke glass on the dance floor, but it generally went well.

As time went on, everyone got mud caked on them. Even the brides dress was completely messed up (I hope she got it thoroughly cleaned). My tuxedo was totally caked in mud to my knees and I had mudspots elsewhere too.

The family surprised the bride and groom with a 15 minute fireworks display atthe end of the night. I played a couple of encore songs and finished up at 10:15.

I am brought over to the dock at 11:15 waiting for an 11:40 ferry back to Portland.

The people that ran the bar were waiting for their water taxi which was late due to the heavy fog. At 11:40, the water taxi arrives and I ask the driver how far behind the CBL Ferry is. he look sat me funny and says there is no ferry on Saturday nights. I ask if he is kidding. He tells me that the ferry runs only on Friday night.

Jonathan, the gentleman who's home was used for the wedding, happens to be fishing at the dock and hears my plight. He tells me I can leave my gear there safely and they would send it over tomorrow morning if I want to take the water taxi. I inquire but the driver says there is no room. He already had the maximum of 8 people onboard.

All the other water taxis are shut down for the night too. I am officially stuck on the island.

Jonathan offers to let me use his air mattress and sleep on the floor of what will be his restaurant.

Of course, I have no change of clothes so I have to wash the mud off my tux pants as best I can. let them dry, then sleep.

I woke up at 6:30 Sunday morning, read the newspaper, then walked back toward the reception site where the wedding family happened to be staying. The best man eventually brought me back to the dock and I arrived back in Portland at 10:15am.

I talked with the CBL management about the error. They apologized and graciously refunded me my freight costs.

That's a story I'm sure I will laughingly tell my grandkids about someday.

2006-06-14T10:04:00.000-04:00

Good morning!
It has been two days since I had three wisdom teeth extracted. I veel rather good considering the pain I know some friends went through when their were extracted. I admittedly was about as nervous and terrified as I have ever been. Before Monday, I had never been put out before and that make me extremely anxious. The Oral Surgeon though did a great job in getting me to calm down and then with the sugery itself.

Today happens to be my 10th wedding anniversary to my beautiful wife Rosalyn. We have been through a lot in the past ten years (the last six months have been especially trying with our car accidents) but I feel like I have my soul partner and am very happy to have her.

I get to do an 8th Grade Graduation party today in Cumberland for a repeat client. It's always nice to be able to do an outdoor event that I do not have to be in a tuxedo for. Should be a fun, relaxing day!

2006-06-09T18:02:00.000-04:00

Well... it is Friday evening as I sit in my office ripping and organizing the music I need for my wedding tomoorw at the Retreat at French's Point near Belfast.

What a week this has been.

It was going to be busy to begin with, but Wednesday afternoon changed everything.

It was about 12:45pm and I was driving on US Route 302 in Windham in my Ford Windstar van when a vehicle in the other direction got into my lane (looked like he was turning), then went onto the shoulder (ON MY SIDE).

My first thought was, this isn't going to end well.

I attempted to go around it, but he careened into the front quarter on my passenger side. I ended up bouncing straight into a ditch on the other side of the road. Got transported to Mercy Hospital with a slight pain in my lower back.

Otherwise I was very lucky to not have been T-Boned when my van crossed the center line after impact.

Three witnesses came up to me almost instantly and said the other driver had been swerving for some time. His excuse was he was looking back at his child and lost control.

To me he looked high or at the very least something wasn't quite right with him.

I'm sure I was a terrible crash victim as for about 15 minutes I stood in the rain next to my van on the phone calling people to let them know and calling my best friend and fellow colleague Mike Mahoney to see if he could retrieve the equipment once the van was towed to Atlas Auto Body.

He did, and I only lost an LCD Monitor out of the deal...not a big problem...easily replaceable and I came out almost totally unscathed (minus the lower back twinge)

The Body Shop and the Insurance company told me I was close to totalling the van (about $6500 in damages) but it is fixable and the van before this was in great mechanical shape. I sure hope it will continue that way.

I am currently in a 2006 Toyota Sienna. It is OK, but probably not something I would buy myself. It shoudl get the job done for a couple of weeks.

Here is a photo of my beat up van

http://www.djmaine.com/accident.jpg

1st Blog

2006-06-06T07:45:00.000-04:00

Good morning,
My name is Jim Casey, President of djmaine.com, LLC which includes the Maine Wedding Planner ( www.maineweddingplanner.com ), Maine Disc Jockey Network ( www.maineweddingdj.net ), and what I will focus on with this blog, Jim Casey Entertainment ( www.djmaine.com )

I have been thinking about blogging for quite awhile but have been hesitant due to my sometimes due to my passion for the wedding industry being misinterpreted.

In January 2007, I will be celebrating my 10th anniversary as a Independent Mobile Disc Jockey (my 22nd year as a DJ). In that time, I have seen my business change from that of just a guy spinning "records" for fun to the Full-Time Professional headquartered in one of Maine's premier business parks.

Did you know that at least 90% of Mobile Disc Jockeys are only part-time or hobbyists? My goal with this blog is to present the fun and challenges associated with being a Full-Time Professional.

Have a great day!