EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL:
1.)  Check out this free DJ presentation (downloadable PDF file) that I gave to the Perth Tango Club in 2010.  There are many pages of 'good ideas' about how to dj, including 2 pages of great 'dj resource' links (both traditional and alternative).

1.5)  Here's a Tango DJ 101 presentation (PDF file) that was used in a beginner DJ seminar at the first CalTech Tango Festival in Pasadena, April 2012.  It's a more streamlined & interactive version of item #1 above.

MIXED TRAD/ALT MUSIC DJ'ing:

2.)  Here's an external webpage link to Project Tango's CELLspace DJ Guidelines.  The CELLspace 'alternative' Milonga was founded by the initial non-profit Project Tango board (John Chang, Susan Lee, and Homer Ladas) in 2003.  The Secret Tango Society (now mostly defunct) was also a major contributor (volunteer pool).  Our first milonga was on Wednesday, July 9th (Nuevo de Julio) following the night of a live Gotan Project concert in San Francisco.  As the resident dj for the first 1.5 years I learned a lot.  In time I started to invite other dj's to either co-dj with me in tandem or solo.  Some nights we would have sporting "DJ Battles" with 4 or more dj's.  Many things we did or played back then will most likely never be done again.  At the time, however, most of the dancers enjoyed the music no matter what we played.  Eventually, circa 2009, we settled on a formula which included playing one traditional set followed by one alternative set the whole night.  Project Tango continues to thrive with a large volunteer base and strong board.  Their goal for CELLspace is to keep it going, improving the current mixed music dj knowledge base, while encouraging, promoting, and supporting more live music functions for dancers.

3.)  CELLspace example playlist from February 15, 2012:  This PDF file represents an evening at CELLspace.  It starts with pre-class alternative music (I also played a traditional Canaro set - which is not show on the attached PDF playlist file, sorry - right before the start of our two con-current classes) and then moves into a long D'Arienzo set (from 1935 to 1937) for the actual class music.  Afterwards is the tanda by tanda break down alternating between one alternative set and one traditional set for the rest of the night.  About 40% of the tandas were dedicated to the various dancers in attendance (not the usual thing, but more of a 'gentle joke' I do from time to time - especially when I know someone really likes certain music).  The cortina was the theme song to "So You Think You Can Dance" to highlight the 'break-time' performance we had of a tango couple (Mirabai and Diego) as a dry-run before their audition for said show.

4.)  This is a PDF file of a mostly traditional playlist from the Friday night Ann Arbor (January 2012) Fire & Ice festival.  The University Tango Club organizers ask me to add some alternative music into the traditional mix (about one 3-song alternative set every 5th tanda or so).  Here I kept the flow mostly to TTVTTM structure (read the above DJ presentation to understand the code).  I kept each set as cohesive as possible and substituted the appropriate alternative tanda as needed in the rotation.  There are a couple of notable deviations (maybe you can find them?).  I ended with an alternative song or two (not La Cumparsita) since there was a late night dance following my gig.

5.)  In March of 2012, Cristina and I supported USF (Tampa) for their first annual tango festival!  It was great fun.  Here's the playlist from the Sunday night mixed music closing milonga.  This was a last minute arrangement, and also I wanted to social dance a lot, so I put together mostly canned tandas from previous gigs (i.e. the cortina and several tandas came from the Ann Arbor playlist listed above).  Overall I spent about 20% of my time at the computer developing the flow and/or creating new song/tanda material.  The rest of the time I was on the floor dancing...  However, the real trick was creating a flow that worked for the Tampa crowd.  The right mix seemed to be one alternative set after every two traditional ones.  Note, I did not finish with La Cumparsita (by Donato) as listed (due to time constraints) but instead played the acapella version of I'm Yours/Somewhere over the Rainbow arrangement.  Also, thanks to Eric for the Latin set which came after one of the evening's 'breaks'.

COMPLETELY ALTERNATIVE DJ'ing:
6.)  Here's a PDF file of my Portland 2011 alternative milonga gig.  Note, I started the night after the first listed cortina (All I want is you). The music before that was not used...just extra scrap still that may be of interest to some folks. Also note that at the end of the night (after Mil Pasos - which I played for the second time upon request as the official alt milonga end song) I deviated from my normal order and from using Cortinas. The remaining songs were the unoffical gig after I announced the offical ending... Hugs, Homer