SirensCeol Kicked Off the Decks at Grand Nightclub in San Francisco [UPDATED]

It’s an elite club, with members that include DJ Shadow and Kill Paris. Headlining at Grand Nightclub in San Francisco, SirensCeol was removed from the decks halfway through the night, after “constantly being hassled throughout my entire set to play a commercial EDM track.” Evidently, his refusal to adjust to the will of someone not actually headlining wasn’t taken well, as the night escalated into one giant mess.

[quote style=”1″ author=”SirensCeol”]There was a wall of people blocking the DJ booth, drunk hands all over the equipment and my laptop. The experience was cringing. [/quote]

Needless to say, it’s upsetting to see an artist in a major city have their set micromanaged by the venue, and even more upsetting to have that end in an artist being removed for wanting to play their own music. In the end, it reflects poorly on the venue. How many big name DJs will get behind the decks at a club with a reputation like that of the Grand? The answer is very few.

That said, Sirensceol will be joining Kaskade, Tiesto, Gramatik, and Snoop Dogg at Snowglobe, where we imagine he’ll be able to get through his set uninterrupted.

UPDATE: After contacting Grand Nightclub for comment, we received the following response:

[quote style=”1″ author=”Jay Chen, Owner”]We book DJs to entertain the crowd. This particular DJ failed to entertain the crowd. Our customers were complaining, people were not dancing and some customers actually left. When I went up to the DJ booth the promoters pointed out that he was using a cheat sheet play list and not willing to (or can’t) deviate from it.[/quote]

While refusal to deviate from a playlist may be frustrating from a promoter’s point of view, having an outline to begin with (whether in digital or physical form) is a time-honored industry standard. To demand an artist go off-book for the sake of pleasing the top-40 crowd sets a dangerous precedent, especially for an artist booked as a headliner and not simply as a wedding DJ. In the end, it comes down to whether or not the person behind the decks should be subject to the demands of the venue.

To top it off, the “playlist” in question wasn’t a playlist at all.  In order to produce the best possible live mixes, it’s necessary to ensure that transitions from track to track are made in complementary musical keys.  Closer inspection of the “cheat sheet” reveals it to be anything but, instead merely a listing of his top tracks’ keys for harmonic mixing.  While most artists use software to automatically key tracks, it appears that SirensCeol accomplishes this task manually – very impressive.

We strive to be understanding and fair towards both sides of a debate. But in this case, Grand actively called out SirensCeol on Instagram with a photo of the harmonic tracklist, crowing “We hired a DJ not a jukebox. Here is your playlist back!” Fact-checking is tantamount to credibility, especially when incorrectly calling out an artist for what wasn’t actually a “playlist.”

For anyone who happened to be in attendance, share your thoughts on how the night went down below, we’d love to get your perspective! For everyone else, tell us what you think as well. Is an artist justified in sticking to their planned set, or should they submit to the will of the people who booked them?

SirenCeol’s “playlist” from the night is actually a key list for harmonic (quality) mixing