A-Trak's diary

Unibros Tour Recap

2008/10/06T00:00:00-0500

Attack Of The Unibros tour: great success! Let's recap, shall we? After spending 3 days mastering the Kid Sister album in London, being extra anal and working with the most awesomest engineers in the world to make the that baby bang like no other, I went to Germany for a triple-header of Unibro destruction with Boys Noize. We actually had a first show a week prior in Newcastle, but Germany is really when the tour kicked off properly. We hit Munich and played in a hot hot club. Like a dummy I showed up in a flannel shirt, which was promptly removed. I DJ'ed the first hour, then Boys Noize did an hour, and then we started going back and forth, tag-teaming. That turned into the format for the whole tour. Playing on the same mixer (me on Serato, him on CDJ's) made it really fun to tag-team because we were freaking the effects during each other's mixes. And it actually helped that we don't play the same type of tracks because we were never stepping on each other's toes, musically speaking. I made sure to do a little hip hop set at all of these shows too. It's fun because people don't expect it, so they end up flipping out. The next day was Berlin, with a surprise appearance by our broham DJ Mehdi. Mehdi's flight was delayed for like 8 hours or something ridiculous like that. He landed at almost 2am but was still able to come and DJ because these German parties go laaaaate. I had my video camera at all these shows. I asked this guy who actually makes videos to film the gig for me; I think he was really high because he literally filmed the disco ball for the whole night. And disco balls aren't kind to the autofocus function. The 3rd German date was in Cologne. That club was wild, there was giant candy everywhere and all these people in strange costumes dancing on stage: a bunny rabbit, a few horror masks and schoolgirl uniforms. It rounded off the weekend real lovely. We did at least 1000 people each night, it was a great first run.

After that I was finally able to rest for a few days in Berlin. It was my first time hanging out there. I really like that city, it reminds me of my old neighborhood in Montreal. Boys Noize has a dog that he brings to restaurants. We went to a spa and started working on a record together. He's got a whole bunch of gear piled up in his studios. I had fun twiddling knobs and banging on drum machines. Peaches also showed me around the city a bit and took me to the Holocaust Memorial. Another interesting thing about Berlin is that all these artists live in what used to be East Berlin. After the Wall got torn down there was a whole bunch of artsy squatting and it became like a hotbed for creative types. And rent is dumb cheap!!

We played in Oslo at this spot Bla where I've played a bunch of times before. The big question was, what country's got better hot dogs, Norway or Germany? Germany is the birthplace of the bratwurst, but in Scandinavia they put these crunchy onion bits on their dogs. I can't call it! Boys Noize is also obsessed with this Norwegian candy called Bamsa Mums and I love that name. I couldn't stop saying it for like a week. Then we went to Paris where I guested at this Institubes vs. Boys Noize Records party. It was literally the 2 labels facing off, there were 2 stages on opposite sides of this big square room. The crowd was mad young, all Facebook kids. It was pretty friggin' glorious though. It ended super late and when I woke up I dragged my tired arse to the train station and hopped on a TGV headed to Bordeaux, where I had a gig by myself outside the Unibros tour. I slept some more on the train and when I got to my destination I realized my girl had been trying to call me a bunch of times. She had just read about AM and Travis' plane crash and wanted to tell me. I got the news as I awoke and arrived in this strange city by myself. It was really hard to digest. Thank god they're getting better now. I really didn't feel like DJ'ing that night but I went through with it and finally went home the next morning.

Then I did a run of dates on the Santogold tour. Had to keep it moving. I was doing a 40 minute set after the other openers, right before she got on. I definitely couldn't play the same sets as I was doing with Boys Noize for Santi's crowd! The first date was in Philly, I drove down there with Catchdini. It was also Santi's birthday and her friends surprised her with a cake backstage. Free cake alert! From there I went to Toronto. This was a week before the Toronto Unibros show and the city was plastered with our posters. They even had giant posters on trucks! They went hard. Then we hit Cleveland, a city where I've had many a crappy show in the past. But this gig was actually enjoyable and may help fight the prejudice that I had built up against that city. Santi's crowd is really in the midst of crossing over, so you see a few hipsters but also some moms and stuff. One lady came and talked to me after my set and had never seen a DJ do tricks before. She was all like "I've never seen anything like that in my life, I'm about to tell all my friends about it!" My homie Chip Tha Ripper also came through and showed some love. On the Friday instead of putting my day off to its god-given use (resting), I flew to LA to play with MSTRKRFT at the Henry Fonda theater. Logical, right? I linked up with Steve Aoki when I got in town and he took me to his new restaurant that he just bought. It's a Korean BBQ and it was yummylicious. At one point during the meal Fat Lip (from Pharcyde) walked in, which was a bit strange because the restaurant isn't even really open yet. I'm still not sure how that happened. The show itself was dope, they had my name up on the marquee in big and the crowd was yoooouuung. Sinden was in town too so I went to check him out after and had to catch a 6am flight to be at the last Santogold show on my run, in Detroit. That was probably my favorite one too.

After a few days off in Chicago came the North American portion of the Unibros tour. In fact it was just 3 cities: Toronto, New York and Montreal. I arrived in Toronto with a painfully annoying stiff neck. So the first thing I did was look for a sauna to take care of that little situation. I didn't know my body was able to sweat that much! It did help though. The club was packed super early, it was a good show. Then came New York at Webster Hall. By a twist of fate Chromeo played Webster Hall while we were Toronto. So the Macklovitches sold out that room 2 consecutive nights! Yes New York was sold the heck out and there was electricity in the air that night. My favorite tidbit is that our friend DJ Eli got married that evening so Pase Rock, J2K and Amanda Blank came to our show post-wedding, still wearing suits. There's some cool pics from that show here.. We had like 2500 people in there. And finally, the big closer, Montreal. Doing New York and Montreal back-to-back is crazy for me because it's like the sorta-hometown and then the real hometown. They had giant cutouts of the Unibro heads in the venue. I'm trying to track down a pair now actually. They had me doing TV interviews before the gig. I had such a good time just playing my set. Then Boys Noize got on and the liquor started flowing and all I can say is it was a celebratory end to the Unibro extravaganza! I tried to avoid the crowd surfs during this tour (crowd surfing is so 2007, dudes) but that night I couldn't resisit. Again, there's some great pics here.

But that's not all. I had to somehow get out of bed at 8am and rush to the airport to continue my adventures. I flew to LA and got in the studio with Kanye to do some work on the new album. I could only be there for a day so we crammed some long hours. Let's keep that for the next blog. I gotta fly to Paris in a few! Someone buy me a neck pillow.

DJ Lessons for Playboy Bunnies

2008/08/30T00:00:00-0500

My publicist set up a feature for me this week and she later admitted being scared that I would mail her an anthrax letter. I should really send her flowers instead. Why did she think I wouldn't like this? I just spent an afternoon with a Playboy playmate. To be specific, Kelly Carrington, Miss October.

It all started when Playboy said they wanted to feature me in their March music issue for something called Rock The Rabbit. That alone is awesome. Then they decided to do a whole web video thing with me. Thank heavens for online added content. The plan was to have me spend an afternoon with a contest winner and a Playboy playmate. I was asked to give them both a DJ lesson and then go to some fancy lunch. Sure it's all pretty tame but in terms of quirkiness it's right up my alley!

I got picked up by a car service at noon and they took me to the Scratch DJ Academy, which was only open to us. I met Playboy's marketing people, the special Playboy bodyguard and Kelly. Everyone was really excited to learn how to do that zigga-zigga. We were just waiting for the contest winner-slash-intern, and they kept saying "you're gonna love this guy". I wasn't sure how to feel about this idea of being out with another dude and Miss October. What is this, ElimiDate? Then homeboy showed up and this guy was an exact real-life replica of McLovin. Right then, everything fell into place. So I gave them a little DJ lesson on camera. Kelly was impressed by how difficult it is to scratch. They made McLovin wear these wrap-around sunglasses, which was really funny because he wears normal glasses too so he'd try and wear the shades on top of his spectacles. His name was John but I'm just going to call him McLovin. After that they filmed us doing "OTF's" -- that's reality TV slang for "on the fly", those little summaries where you say stuff like "working with Kelly and John was an awesome experience, I think we had great chemistry". That TV show Orange City Choppers had really good OTF's, come to think of it.

After that a tinted SUV drove us over to the Gansevoort hotel where there's a lovely rooftop terrace and half of the pool was reserved for us. There were still people in the other half and they looked pretty puzzled, glancing at our motley crew as we filmed a bunch of random shots. We were filmed receiving a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, compliments of the house, and some strawberries with whipped cream. There was a massage train that felt very summer-camp-y, and the Playboy security guard gratuitously tossed McLovin into the pool. A couple more OTF's and we called it a day.

It was interesting to learn about the life of a Playboy bunny. Kelly recently moved to LA where she lives in a house with a few other bunnies, although they don't see each other very often because they're always going to shoots and whatnot. Apparently they have their meals at the Playboy mansion.

The video will be up in October... Stay tuned!

Another Weekend, Another Continent

2008/08/22T00:00:00-0500

I don't even know what time zone I'm in anymore. I just know I have a couple of pictures from last weekend that I wanted to post, so that warrants a blog post. Last Friday I flew to London for a gig at this venue Plan B, down in Brixton which is kind of a roughneck neighborhood. During the afternoon I went over to Herve's house and we finished a track together. (This is the part where you bloggers are supposed to get excited!) Then I did my gig, it was a hip hop party. I realized that in the course of the summer I played in different corners of London. River Thames, you're next.

Saturday morning I took the Eurostar over to Belgium to do Pukkelpop. What a great festival. When those things are well organized it's such a joy. I was sharing a dressing room with those jolly Italians known as the Crookers and it was actually the first time we met, even though they have a record coming out on Fool's Gold. (Hello!) My set was action-packed, I played for a couple thousand raving central-Europeans and they were singing soccer chants at the peaks. I stuck around to watch a few acts, most notably Jamie Lidell and 2 Many DJs. The catering was excellent. And then I went back to get some much needed rest.

The next day a driver took me on a 3 hour journey over to Amsterdam. Laidback Luke had one of his Nighttime Superheroes parties over by the beach (yes they have a beach in the Netherlands) and I was the special Canadian guest. The party started pretty early. I got there at 9pm and Luke was on. This was not my usual crowd. Reminded me of when I played the Hamptons a little over a year ago (Bobby Brown, Smooth B and Eric B showed up that day). There was a guy with a Chromeo shirt though. After Luke's set I went and plugged in Serato (as ubiquitous as it is in America, they have no idea what it is in the European dance world) and did my lil' thang. Diplo and Santogold were in town so they came through with the Santo-entourage. I was done at midnight so after my set we all headed to the city and Luke's manager took us to this funky ass club with low ceiling and 70's lighting and we danced the night away, me, Wes and Martelo and some Dutch ladies.

You internet hawks probably heard my track with the Laidback one. It's coming out in October on Fool's Gold in America and his label Mixmash in Europe. We're only getting one remix per continent so you can imagine those remixes will make your jaw drop. Fiyyaaah!!

I'm in LA now, bout to do some more shows. So, more blogs coming soon!!

Attack of the Unibros!

2008/08/04T00:00:00-0500

This fall, say no to tweezers.

Boys Noize and I are embarking on a spectacular world tour for the ages. Europe in September, select North American dates in October... (West Coast, we'll hit you next time!) It's a peaceful union between Germany and Canada, all for the sake of DJing and baseball caps.

Oh and that title isn't a typo. It's uniBRO because we're bros, bro. Shout out to the Bro Bro Brothers.

Flyer and logo designed by the great Nick Catchdubs.

Four Fast-Paced Days of A-Traking

2008/07/21T00:00:00-0500

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday I did 5 shows in 3 cities. You know what that means? A new blog for you, that's what. I'm gonna throw Thursday in the mix too because I did some pretty neat stuff. So strap on your blog seatbelt and get ready for the ride.

Thursday I was invited to the Nike ID studio in NY to design some custom kicks and they filmed the whole thing with some interviews to tie it back into the Running Man campaign. Since I don't know how to design I brought along Dust La Rock and Kesh for some help. When we arrived they had a whole team waiting for us. Nike staff supervising, interviewers, camera crew, people to help us design, etc. I felt pampered.

We made 2 shoes, one inspired by the Running Man cover and the other for Fool's Gold. I think they're gonna give them the special homie treatment and make a couple extra pairs for us. Then I got interviewed for Nike Sport Music and Nike Women (woohoo!). Dust said I look like Stevie Wonder when I do interviews, the way my head moves around. Not sure what to make of that!

Friday morning I flew to Chicago. That's where the madness really starts. I had a live set at the Apple Store to promote Running Man (since it's an iTunes exclusive), then my lady's high school reunion to attend, and then a Pitchfork Festival afterparty at Sonotheque. You know when you go to any Apple store there's always that little theatre where some guy with a Madonna mic is giving a lecture about iPhoto and how your Mac is the centre of your digital life? That theatre is where I did my in-store. I think the best part was the posters, they looked so official. They were also announcing it at Niketown down the street. Anyway I got there, wolfed down a burrito and got on stage for my hour-long thing. A couple kids came out specifically to see me and the rest of the people were just passers-by from the store. My set was totally improvised because of course I'm not gonna go to a computer shop and play the same stuff I play for drugged out club kids. I also made sure I included a lot of the tracks from Running Man, and I played all the new Say Whoa remixes which you'll hear about soon I'm sure. So anyway that was the Apple event. Melisa's high school reunion was a trip, we had name tags and some of her old friends ended up coming to my afterparty too. And said party was good fun. Sonotheque has a DJ booth that's essentially an aquarium. I've played that club 2 or 3 times before but I've always asked them to set me up outside the booth. This time I played inside and still had a good time. Of course there's less connection with the audience but I just went in there and did my thing through the looking glass.

Saturday I flew to LA for the Hard festival. I stayed in a really strange hotel. Usually for a show of that calibre you always get nice accommodations. This spot was chosen for its proximity to the venue, from what I'm told. In LA talk they said it was 5 minutes away. In reality that's a 15 minute drive with no traffic. It was in this Japanese neighborhood. From the hotel looked a bit unassuming. The rooms themselves were decent, they had those fancy japanese toilet bowls that heat and wash your bumbum. But no room service! I took a nap and woke up at 10pm. My homie Ibn rolled through. I was told we could get food at the restaurant on the 2nd floor. They didn't tell me it was a karaoke restaurant. Everything was really small in this hotel so we were right next to the inevitable big group of Japanese businessmen singing country songs. Then we bounced to the venue with Jesse from MSTRKRFT. Steve Aoki was playing before me and a rather inebriated Felli Felle was hosting on the mic. Those 2 made a very entertaining duo. Apparently Felli played my Stronger remix earlier in the night. The stage set-up was dope they had all these LED screens, and also a gazillion people hanging out up there. The first 10 minutes of my set was complete troubleshooting mayhem. There was this big monitor right next to me and as soon as I started playing it would cut on and off really fast like an off-beat transformer scratch. So it was pretty much impossible to mix the first couple of records I played. I just kept talking to the sound guy and trying to fix it. It was strange because at times it would seem like it was only one turntable doing that or that it would only happen when the levels were too hot but then something else would happen that would completely contradict that. So after a few records I just shut that monitor off, walked over to the other side of the stage and turned the 2nd monitor way up and that worked out great for the rest of my set. Once that was settled everything went quite nicely. Standing on tables and the whole nine. My set ended at 2:30am and as soon as I was done I had to jet to the hotel, take a quick shower and head over to the airport to catch a 6am flight.

I landed in New York at 2:30pm and the Mad Fools Summerstage party started at 3. I was on at 4. Needless to say it was strictly carry-on steez this weekend. So I jumped in a cab and made my way over to Central Park. It was scorching hot in the park. The crowd was packed when I got there. I think capacity was 5,500 and they turned people away. We made Fool's Gold towels for the party. Mad Decent went heavy with the merch, with their Get Mad tees and wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube-men straight out of the used car dealership. We were supposed to have a life-size Mr Goldbar mascot (that's the dude giving the thumbs-up on Le Blog) but the costume turned out to be a safety hazard so we had to dead that at the last second. I figured an afternoon shindig in the park wasn't really the place to go hard with distorted electro so my first record was Mary J's "Real Love". I did about 20 minutes of good ol' NY BBQ hip hop and made my way up to some uptempo party shtuff. Diplo jumped on with some dancers and then we went back-and-forth for a bit. I think the best thing about the whole event was just the overall family vibe. And the super soakers. Boy was it hot. Just when it seemed like the crowd was getting completely numbed by the heat, Santogold jumped on and gave them one last big jolt of energy. After that it was a wrap, everyone went home and unless they were horrible monsters, showered. But that's not the end of my wild weekend. There was still the afterparty at Santos Partyhouse. (Yes, I was billed as DJ Canada.) It's funny how close the word partyhouse is to pantyhose. Anyway that's when I started feeling a bit tired. Maybe it's because that club stays open until 4. It was pretty casual though, the crowd was visibly people who were at our Summerstage party and a bunch of us traded off DJ sets during the whole night. It was a rock-and-roll weekend but at least it's my only gigs for the month. I'm just holed up in the home studio working on some music, getting ready to unload a bunch of booty-shaking goodies in the fall! Thanks to everyone who came out this weekend. And to everyone who screamed the Orville Redenbacher line at Summer Stage.