Which five words best describe you as a DJ?
Juicy, wild, UFO, affordable, analog and soulful.
Which track have you been opening your sets with recently?
Pollyester - You Are Aman (original mix). That was the opening track of my previous set for the Sunday afternoon sessions at the Jatujak Weekend Market. But most of the time I don’t start with the same track. It depends on the venue, whether someone played before me, what they played, the mood of the people, what I ate before, and if I was kidnapped by UFOs during the day! The choice of the first track is something really holistic... or not!
Which track do you play to rescue a dancefloor?
I don’t have a particular track but if I think the crowd isn’t really into the music sometimes I’ll cut the mix and play some classic old disco, soul or funk that everyone knows (for example, Sunny by Bobby Hebb). Then I’ll try to mix those kinds of tracks with something new that has a really simple beat (“boom-chak”).
Name your top five records of all time…
Pfffff... this is a really difficult question. I’ll give you five tracks that I really love to play in the club and some non-clubs tracks...
Mike Dunn & Mr. 69 - Crazy MF (Mike Dunn's Original Phreak Mixx)
Kim - You Don’t Like My Music (original mix)
Laid Back - Bakerman
Cat Stevens - Was Dog A Doughnut? (original from 1977!)
Midnight Magic - Beam Me Up (Jacques Renauld remix)
How much money does it take to get you out of bed in the morning?
Nothing. I think the best deal is to try and let yourself be surprised by life every single day. That gives me energy every morning.
If you could DJ back to back with anyone, who would it be and why?
I heard one time that Martin Scorsese used to play radio mixes (playing track after track without mixing them) at parties, so that would be cool. I think to play with someone who comes from a totally different background to yours is always surprising and rewarding. And I’m sure Scorsese would have some really rare tracks in his library.
For those that may not know, can you tell us about your former collective, Digital Natives?
Digital Natives was a project I started with three of my best friends in 2007. It was more an agency organising parties and promoting artists emerging or re-emerging on the international scene through social media networks (MySpace, Soundcloud, etc…).
We used to play before the guests we invited but soon started to get invited to play at clubs and festivals under the name Digital Natives. From that point we developed a mixture of live act and DJ set and our performance centered on doing remixes live on stage. That was our signature and it was really well received by the public. We toured a lot around Switzerland and also got some gigs in Europe. The project ended more than a year ago as each of us evolved professionally and artistically in different ways.
You’re currently based in Bangkok, what’s the live music scene like there and how does it stack up against Saigon’s?
I know a lot more about the clubbing scene in Bangkok than the live music scene but people from Bangkok often say that Saigon seems to have more interesting things going on than in Bangkok, and yet the people I meet in Vietnam say that the exact opposite!
In Thailand I have met Maft Sai from Zudrangma Records. He’s half of the duet Paradise Bangkok and runs a monthly party of Luk Thung and Molam music, Thai pop from the 60s and 70s. It’s always really dancey and full of tracks you’ve never heard before. There’s also a collective called Giant Swing run by Masa Niwayama and Hiroo Oyama. They organise a monthly house/deep house/techno party at Glow Club in Sunkhumvit, with a guest DJ each time, usually from Japan. Those guys and their parties rock a lot! Apart that, you have the usual main clubs like Bed, Q Bar, etc… that invite international DJs to play.
I think that Saigon could have a nice future in music events with collectives like The Beats Saigon, dOSe and Everyone’s A DJ all doing things. I’m almost sure that in the near future Saigon could be more creative compared to what’s happening now in Bangkok. Let’s see!
Michael Cleaveland once wrote the song “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”. Has a DJ ever saved your life?
Mmm... that’s happened many times, but not when playing records... haha!
