Viewing archive for the ‘Anecdotes’ Category
13Mexico vs. Laptops
This weekend I went to Mexico City for a gig and had a great time. There will be pics, recaps and mementos coming shortly, but for now I wanted to share a story about one of my favorite topics: laptops. I’m profoundly puzzled and wondering if anyone can help elucidate this business. It all started last year when I went to Mexico to play in Puebla. When I landed and went through customs and immigration, they searched my bags and asked me why I had 2 laptops. I told them I was there to work as a DJ, that one laptop is for my shows and the other for work. The officer said: “you’re a musician? do you have a card?” I looked at him incredulously. Like, a business card? I’ve always refused to have a business card. Categorically. But I wasn’t going to give this officer my schpiel about “why do I need a card? If I want to give someone my number I’ll just give them my number.” I simply said no, I don’t. To this guy, though, if you’re a professional musician you must have a card, if you have a card then you’re a musician and if you don’t then you aren’t. (Necessary and sufficient conditions. A question of logic.) It didn’t matter that I had an official work visa from the festival and letters stated that I was there to DJ. The fact that I had 2 laptops was a problem. After much pleading and interventions from the festival organizers they eventually let me through, but it was obviously a big problem to travel to Mexico with more than one computer, and in all my years of globetrotting I’ve never encountered anything similar.
This weekend when I was on my way to Mexico and filling out customs forms on the plane, I read the small print for the section where they ask if you’re bringing in professional equipment (and what you’re entitled), and lo and behold there was a clause about not having more than one personal computer. What in the world?? Thankfully this time when I went through customs they didn’t search me and I got in without a hitch. But I really felt like I was smuggling something. So strange.
Later that night I went to do sound check at the club. It was a big club and we had to fill out sign-in sheets. A security guard looked at my bag and guess where he stopped? He saw that I had a laptop! I had to fill out a sort of registration form just to walk into this club with my computer. Name, contact info, make of the computer and reason for bringing it in. All this for a Serato sound check.
People, people, people. What gives?
Recap of the Kidrobot signing
Last Wednesday Kidrobot hosted a signing at their NY store with myself and Dust La Rock for the launch of our Grateful Bear toy. Nylon covered it.
Check my pictures from the event:
More pics after the jump, including a surprise visit from Kid Cudi…
Grateful Bear is going on tour!
Today is the first day of my tour and I have my bodyguard Grateful with me. He handled his first flight like a champ, and then we met up with our tour bus. Let the adventures begin!
I hope US Airways finds my luggage… Grateful might need to open a can of whup-ass.
You can purchase your very own Grateful Bear on the Kidrobot site. Limited quantities so hurry up!
Photo shoot for Swagger
Today I did a photo shoot for the next Swagger collection. Here’s a few pics from my camera.
Also met Pac Div at the shoot, they were mad cool.
R.I.P. Michael Jackson
It’s still sinking in… I know he’s gone but I still catch myself thinking “damn, Michael Jackson died.”
What a strange day. I got home mid-afternoon and my friend told me there were some rumors of Michael Jackson having a heart attack. Twitter started buzzing about “is he dead?”. The next 2 hours were very eerie. People speculating on his death, checking news sites frantically waiting for some sort of confirmation. It’s weird how we feel this entitlement to know right away whether or not the man had passed away. AIM shut down a few times. Then TMZ announced it way ahead of anyone else. I remember thinking “If they’re wrong they’re going to catch a lashing. And I hope they’re wrong.” But slowly, one by one, sources started announcing what we all feared. Michael Jackson died today.
Damn. The icon of our generation when we were growing up. Possibly the last music superstar of that stature. Who since Michael made pop music that was so universal and uncompromising? You listen to Thriller today and it still embodies perfection on so many levels, from the songwriting to the instrumentation, the mixdowns all the way to the pure emotion and well-roundedness of the album. The King of Pop reminded us in this jaded age that pop doesn’t have to be cheesy; on the contrary it can be superior music.
In the evening as I was watching a live stream of De La Soul’s Maceo playing old Jacksons joint, I started hearing that New Yorkers were going to rally in Times Square for a sort of vigil. I decided to go but alas found nothing but a small group of people dancing and the music getting cut off by cops. I thought this would be one of those magical nights where New Yorkers come together. I guess not. I’m sure there will be some proper tributes to come though. This is the biggest loss that the music world could have suffered. Let’s stay positive though and celebrate the man’s life and all the gifts that he left us.
Rest in peace Michael! Your music will live on forever.
This deserves a re-post: the cardboard cut-out
I talked about this cardboard cut-out of Mehdi and me as Men In Black in my Pitchfork Guest List so lots of people have been asking to see it lately. When we got it as a gift at an LA show, my idea was to take pictures of it all around the world like in Amelie. But then we lost it the next day. We still got enough shots to make this gif though. This was on the first Fool’s Gold tour in October 2007.
I gotta give a give a big shout out to the artist who made this, his name is Busc check him out!
Troy Dunnit from Obscure Disorder: new video
Now let me take a trip down memory lane. Who here knows about Obscure Disorder? Before Kanye, before Kid Sister, even before the Allies, my first affiliation was with this Montreal rap group. Obscure Disorder was produced mostly by my brother Dave 1 (sometimes by me), and the 3 MC’s were Dave’s high school friends: Troy Dunnit, Eclipse and Logic. Between 1997 and 2002 we released 5 singles on Audio Research, the defunct indie hip hop label that Dave and I ran together. The highlight was a collaboration with Non Phixion called “2004″.
Troy was the de facto frontman of the group, the only member to release a solo single on Audio Research while the group was still active. OD never really broke up, everyone just grew up and moved on to different projects. We had an album about 75% done but never finished it… Maybe we’ll dust it off the shelves one day and let you hear it.
In the meantime, check out Troy Dunnit‘s latest offering, a collaboration with fellow Montrealer Lotus entitled “New Flava” (produced by Lotus).
Interesting read on Damon Dash
OK this picture is kind of a bigger deal than the content of this post. Of course it’s Damon Dash, me and Kanye, but this is the first time I met Kanye, right when he asked me to come on tour with him. Dame was actually trying to get me to DJ for Samantha Ronson but Kanye snatched me. This picture has never appeared online. Straight out the shoebox. (May, 2004)
Anyway, the reason for this post is I wanted to link an article on Damon Dash written by this guy Combat Jack. Not sure who he is, he says he “repped” Dame in the mid-90′s. Just by coincidence there’s also that video that surfaced today of Dame spazzing out… but the article is much more interesting. Watching a guy spazz is pretty one-dimensional. I actually have a lot of respect for Dame and am a bit fascinated with the early days of Roc-A-Fella since I run a label myself. So, read up!
Shout out to DJ Soul for the twitter referral.
Watch me walk the runway at the Givenchy show
I told this story in my Paris recap last week… Now here’s the video. We were at the Givenchy show in Paris, it was taking too long to start so I said something like “I should just walk the runway myself”. So Ibn turned on the camera and we had a literal representation of “don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk”… him & Muriel egging me on.
(The original unedited appears on the Ferrari Murakami blog, but I trimmed a bit of fat here. I don’t know why the image is stretched out like that. It’s not because of widescreen settings… Ah well who cares.)
Woman for man at the Studio B show
Taken from Craigslist:
“I was at the A-Trak show at Studio B last night with my two friends, you were there with a bunch of guys. You had on a black shirt, jeans and wingtips (I have this thing about shoes, if I don’t like your shoes I’m not likely to give you the time of day.) I wore a white t-shirt, black pants and white Nikes. Before the show started, we were sitting in one of the lounge areas and I repeatedly caught you looking at me so I acted all shy and avoided eye contact because I’m really good at that. A few hours and several drinks later, I had trouble maintaining the shyness and found you on the dance floor. I admit it, meeting up was no accident, I went looking for you. We danced and…stuff. You seemed into it – I certainly was – then it occurred to me that I should find my friends because it would have been a pain in the ass to find my way home without them, so I wandered off and lost you. I’m pretty good at that too. Wish I’d gotten your number or, at the very least, your name. Sigh.”
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- I would like a scrumptious snack.
- RT @kimcockerill: trying to plan my outfit for @atrak tomorrow, think its a proper occasion to bust out the new gold jeans #discopants
- RT @timmhotep: I was already on fish and spaghetti.
- Bobby "Gefilte" Fischer
- Real trap shit!! RT @DJCassidy: Souvlaki by Estee Lauder
