As i’m sure most are aware by now, I recently competed in the McDonald’s Flavor Battle- a competition of the regions beginning with 24 DJs, narrowed down 3 Finalists each representing their coast (West, East, Central).

After 3 rounds of 3 minute battle routines, I was crowned the 2012 Champion by a panel of notable judges:
- Jayceeoh (2011 Flavor Battle Champion)
- Spinderella (of Salt N Pepa)
- Skribble (MTV, the Simon Cowell of DJs)
- Irie (SKAM Artist)
Blah blah blah, just peep the video! Shout to McDonalds and Complex Magazine for putting on a fantastic production, and awarding me the big ass check!

Where do I sign up?

Related post: Us Greedy DJs.. 

My first gigs ever out of town were in San Francisco (ironically) at the beginning of 2007… I did a gig trade via management with then up-and-coming DJ Morse Code. I played Amabassador, Roe, and Slide.  Slide was a wild-card gig that I wasn’t even paid for. But it was a great spot and something for the resume.  They were very particular about their DJs, and since they never heard of me, they wanted me to play alongside their resident, DJ Solomon.

I showed up to the club close to 11pm, and which was already popping. I headed to the booth to meet “the other DJ”, who had all sorts of gadgets and gizmos surrounding the turntables.  This guy had midi controllers, a foot pedal, and in-ear headphones going, none of which i’d ever seen used by a DJ before.  Peculiar.

Solomon was super friendly and welcoming, and since we’d be trading off, he said he would set everything up so we can connect our laptops at the same time.  Any DJs out there who have ever tried to rewire Serato on the fly knows what kind of nightmare in can be… And nightmare it was.  The music cut out TWICE during the rewire, and the inevitable BOOOOOOOOS were rolling in.  He quickly got things going, and to pacify the crowd played the biggest hit song that was out, followed by the next biggest song, and the next biggest song. He went from cool eclectic opening set to GOING IN.

At once point I chimed in, “man its a bit early to be playing the hits eh?” He just smiled back and said, “between the 2 of us, we have plenty of music to carry the night”. I laughed it off, but my stomach got butterflies. For the first time ever, I was shook.

I thought to myself, how am I going to keep up with this guy? He was absolutely killing it and it was only 11:15pm.  I was as confident as anyone in my own party-rocking skills, but I knew he was going to give me a run for my money. Oh I should mention this was his first day back to DJing since he had broken his arm recently. And was still mixing and scratching circles around me.

We traded off every 30mins or so for what would be one of the best DJing experiences I’ve ever had.  I came out of my shell that night. I played my ass off that night. I was mixing and blending songs I had never even played in a club before. Solomon made me step my game up, way up. At the end of the night there was mutual praise of each other’s sets and music selection. We exchanged info, a few tracks, and started a friendship.

(Sidenote: For those who don’t know, Solomon was on Serato before DJ AM. They did a gig together and AM was blown away by the technology. He immediately went out and bought it, then flew Solomon out to his house to show him how to use the software, and I believe booked him for another show together as well.)

3 or so years later I would move to San Francisco… 4 blocks away from Solomon. He was one of the only people I knew in the city, so I would shamelessly cling to him and others for city guidance. Where to go, what to do, where to eat, who to know, etc.  We were both incredibly busy but we kicked it a lot when I first moved. He gave me the rundown on all I needed to know, we’d grab food, ride bikes, make music, etc (We remixed a Justin Timberlake track, but the original never went anywhere so we never bothered to put out our remix). Whenever he couldn’t make a gig he would hit me up to cover, which is how I got into a few of the clubs I still resident today.

Getting love from someone like that in a new city is rare, and i’m incredibly grateful for everything he did for me. We were equal in a lot of ways, but he was still someone i’ve always looked up to.  Outside of DJing, Sol was a database of tech knowledge, and master of at least a handful of outdoor sports and activities.  As many have said, Solomon was someone who enjoyed life and lived it to the absolute fullest.  He always had a smile on his face, and was always pleasant to be around. Not sure if there’s a bad bone in his body, and that’s why everyone loved him. He was the nicest guy ever, and unbelievably talented, which is one hell of a combo.  I’m deeply saddened by his loss, but grateful that our lives crossed paths the way they did. He was a young legend who will never be forgotten. Rest In Peace.

This is a conversation that almost every working DJ has had at least a few times in the career. This is certainly not the first time i’ve encountered it, just the first time I decided to screenshot and share.

Respect the craft. Read More

Twitter is going nuts right now about the passing of LRG Clothing Co-Founder Jonas Bevacqua. No info as to the cause, nonetheless its very sad news. LRG has been outfitting me for the last several years, and some of my close friends are part of the company. My condolenses to the whole LRG Family.

Below is a recent interview with Jonas via Hypebeast. His business mind and philosophies are incredible. He built an international empire spanding far beyond just clothing and accessories. He will be missed.

Read More

Recent interview it with NYC based Magazine, Goodies. We discussed the past, present, and future of Risk One, girls, and my crazy experiences in this line work.. full interview after the jump. Read More

For those not familiar with SXSW (South By Southwest), its bananas.  Basically a gigantic week long conference and music festival, taking over all of downtown Austin.  There’s over 80 stages and hundreds of bars and clubs involved, showcasing all things music from every genre. The hardest part is choosing your adventure.. when you have Kanye, Jazzy Jeff, Warren G, Diplo, Afrojack, Risk One (ha) and 100 other artists all performing at the same time, its almost not even fair. Such is life.

This is hands down my favorite festival to attend and participate, mostly b/c of the intimate nature of all the events, and the diversity of everything going on.  It still seems to be heavily dominated by the indie scene (floppy beanies and skinny jeans err’ywhere), but all the same there are hip-hop parties, bugged out sweaty dance parties, funk and soul parties on all vinyl, turntablist showcases, and everything in between. Also as an industry person the networking is amazing. Almost everyone is equally accessible, not to mention one of the only times to kick it w/ all the homies from all over the globe! Here’s a brief lenghty recap of my week… Read More

EVERYTHING THEY DO, THEY DO IT BIG

Have you ever seen a bigger Louis Vuitton bag in your life? Of course not.

Shopping here is next level. There are more shopping districts and markets than you can shake a bamboo stick at. Not to mention almost every street is lined with individual little shops that sell anything you can imagine. Most of the major stores and brands are out here, and for some reason they feel the need to build the biggest storefronts you’ve ever seen. And many of them lit top-to-bottom with flashy LED lights. You’d think they were Vegas hotels.

If you don’t feel like paying full price for that Coach bag you’re dying for, you can head to one of the fake markets to get knock-off ANYTHING. Bags, watches, phones, clothing, everything. These places are 3-4 floors and packed wall to wall with booths. They all essentially sell the same stuff and will literally try to pull you into their booth to look. I had to check a few people for grabbing me when I wasn’t even looking their direction. NO sense of personal space here.

I was hipped to these places by a friend, who said all these tiny booths have secret compartments or rooms in back, where they keep their higher quality items. The crap knockoffs are up front, they good stuff is all hidden. The shelving and walls of these booths push, fold, and slide all sorts of crazy ways revealing a whole new room of faux goods. They have catalogs of all your favorite brands and can have their “runner” bring you whatever you want to look at. I felt like i was in the middle of a drug deal. I didn’t buy anything but it was a damn cool experience.

Where I did clean up was the infamous Fabric Market, the same huge 3 story building but all dedicated to custom made clothing.. DIRT CHEAP. Suits, coats, jackets, dresses, scarves, ties, anything. They have samples, catalogs, or can make anything you want them to if you have an idea. I’m waiting on a tailor-made suit right now, should be done tomorrow.. for the whopping price of $90 USD. Also picked up 2 nice jackets for about $70 USD each. Unreal. All the employees at M1NT have their shirts and suits made here. Deals!

There’s a huge electronics market here too, but I don’t even mess with that b/c they are huge on manufacturing fake iPhone and iPads here.  Errrr’ybody is trying to sell me an iPhone 4. Yeah right. I did however get my phone unlocked there for $12, not bad.

OLD SHANGHAI

After ordering up my pimp suit, I wandered over to Old Shanghai, which is made up of great chinese architecure, and more shopping of course.  I was looking for more traditional chinese souvenirs to take home, yet still being asked ever 2mins if I want an iPhone, iPad, bag, or a lady. After much annoyance I figured out how to get rid of these guys… put them on camera. Smile!

SAD-ENDING MASSAGE

Besides drinking and shopping, the other thing to do here is get massages. Massage places here are like Starbucks in Seattle, Thai restaurants in SF, or Liquor stores in the hood. They’re on every corner. Only problem is you can’t distinguish the legit places from the “rub & tugs”.. The ones where guys stand in heavy tourist areas and every 5 feet.. “lady? you want lady? lady sex massage?” I’m cool, thanks.

My buddy said there was a spot by his house that was legit and cheap ($12 for 90mins). Shoot, sign me up! We got there and the place was nice and clean. We got in the room and they gave us the clothing to wear- apparently legit places make you wear clothes, so no one gets the wrong idea about what they do. Whatever I can deal w/ that.
The ladies come in and go to work. The massage seemed a bit unorthodox, starting with my face, but I was rolling with it. Neck and shoulders were mediocre, then she moved to arms and it was all bad. She was just quickly squeezing different areas of my arm top to bottom. WTF is this? she’s not hitting muscles or even concentrating on a single area. I dealt w/ it for several mins before asking her to stop and just move to my back. I flipped over, and it was more of the same. She was borderline hurting me b/c she was putting pressure on all the wrong places. Too much here, not enough there, etc. It was so bad I stopped her, and signaled to my friend to have him translate that I didn’t like the massage and wanted someone else. Or I’d rather just lay there and wait for his massage to be done.
She left, the manager came in, apologized and said he’d send in another person. A few mins later I got a new person, who was marginally better but tolerable. Prob the longest 90mins of my life, and pretty sure I left more tense than when I came in. $12 down the drain.

I’m told none of these girls have any formal training, which is why there are a million massage places and they are all so damn cheap.

I did end up getting the most amazing massage of my life (no happy ending) at a higher end chain called Dragonfly. 90min head, shoulder, and foot massage for around $25!! Best believe i’ll be returning multiple times before I leave on Sunday.

McNAP

I promise this is the last time I talk about McDonalds, its just such a fascinating place here. Last weekend I went after the club to get some delicious spicy wings, and to my amazement 90% of the people inside were sleep at their tables. One guy was even laying down in the booth… and the empolyees didn’t seem to care. Mind you these aren’t homeless people, they are relatively young and well dressed folk. Who seem to just pass out after eating.

I went back a few nights ago around the same time (4am), and sure enough just about everyone was asleep!! Why pay for a hotel when you got Mickey Dees…

YEAR OF THE RABBIT, err..  BUNNY

2011 is Year of the Rabbit, and this past week M1NT had a huge party with Playboy. 2 of the Bunnies from Playboy Club in Macau were in attendance, as well as the homie DJ Echo from LA who had just flown in from Malaysia for the party. Just another ridiculous night in Shanghai, great times!

SHANGHAI NIGHTLIFE | M1NT vs Everywhere else

Risko Uno, Echo, Spenny after 88

I wanted to check out some of the other clubs in Shanghai and compare them to M1nt. I’ve been unanimously told by everyone I meet here that M1nt is hands down the best club in Shanghai, but I wanted my own frame of reference to compare.. so M1nt resident DJ Spenny took me and Echo to his Tuesday night spot at 88, an UBER Chinese club.

Two days later he took me and the Bunnies to M2, which is one of the other popular chinese clubs. And one of my new local friends took me to Rich Baby last night, which i’ve also heard ppl speak of often. There’s a few things all these clubs have in common, which is what makes them typical “Chinese Clubs”:

Rich Baby

M2

1. They are all about huge megaclubs. There aren’t that many small clubs in Shanghai, its all huge 1000+ capacity clubs, with crazy lighting and ridiculous sound systems. Sometimes they can border on cheesy, but overall they are very nice clubs. On par with Vegas..

2. They are allll about Tables/Bottle Service. Despite such large venues, the dancefloors at these spots prob wouldn’t hold more than 100 ppl. Why? Because there are tables EVERYWHERE.  Literally jam packed with tables, and most of them are sold nightly. Kind of hard as a DJ to have such a small percentage of ppl actually dancing, but that’s just how it is here (maybe they don’t know how to dance?). They will all be enjoying the music and having the time of their life,  but they don’t dance.. they just pull up their pants and lean back.

3. They LOVE the live performance. Most of the clubs will have at least one or more live performances in the middle of the night. At 88 on Tuesday (which was slam packed) they had a Michael Jackson impersonator perform twice, and at another club the promoter’s girlfriend performed 2 Rihanna songs karaoke style in the middle of the night. And ppl ate it up!

I’ve def noticed at M1NT that the ppl on the dancefloor near the booth just stare at us DJs all night, as if expecting us to put on a show for them. Really gotta ham it up out here.

4. You can’t play techno mashups fast enough for these kids. That is the music format, Dance remixes of super commercial top40 – HipHouse. Granted artists like LMFAO and David Guetta have made that popular everywhere, but not like this. I don’t even know where these DJs get their music b/c they are terrible, terrible mashups and remixes. All of which are packed with Fatman scoop chants, sirens, etc. Its all hype all the time.

5. No dress code, rarely cover. I asked Spenny about the dress code at 88… “Bro you can come in a hawaiian shirt and flip flops if you want..” good cause that’s all i packed for this trip.

Also none of the handful of clubs i’ve been to charge cover, and don’t even check IDs at the door. Come one come all.

6. All you can drink. Or at least close.. at M2 they had a special: 10 drinks for 100RMB ($15). And some places have legitimate all-you-can-drink for around the same price. And you don’t even have to tip! As there is no tipping here.. #Win.

M1NT by comparison. While still a big club w/ tiny dancefloor, has a very upscale and exclusive crowd (members and guestlist only). So the crowd is very rich Chinese, and Europeans.  It is lacking the crazy club lighting of the chinese clubs (the lack of photos is b/c the club is so damn dark!), however we can play a much better music format as there is a more diverse crowd.

PARTY IN YOUR MOUTH

One commonality among all club, bars, and restaurants here.. the TWISTY STRAW. They are everywhere, and vary in colors. I asked the manager at M1nt why they don’t have straight straws.. “is that how it is in the states? That’s a good idea, i’ll look into those”. They really don’t exist out here!

Next post will be about my shopping excursions, one of the 3 main things to do out here (eat, drink, shop). And any other debauchery that goes down between now and then.

干杯  Gan Bei!