Killer touch

>> L.A.’s Steve Aoki keeps his finger
on the pulse, always ready to strike

ON THE EDGE: Steve Aoki

by JACK OATMON

“I’m in the middle of booking Bloc Party for my second festival in L.A.” California’s Steve Aoki casually apologizes for one of the numerous, rapid text-message exchanges on his wireless toy that he pauses for during our meal together. He’s just arrived from New York, for his first-ever visit to Montreal, a couple of hours before we meet up.

“I’ll be flying in to New York three times this month. I’m there at the very least once a month,” he tells me. With regular residencies DJing in cities on opposite sides of the U.S., in the midst of an average of 20-plus bookings per month, as well as organizing his own parties and festivals, he already strikes me as a very busy guy.

Add to that his masterminding of the record label Dim Mak (translation: “death touch”), releasing records from the likes of the Rakes, Klaxons, Bloc Party, Datarock and recent local signees Pony Up, and his schedule seems to border on the ridiculous. Then throw in a clothing line that parallels bleeding-edge pop culture as narrowly as Aoki’s timely musical taste and, well, I’m starting to wonder how the hell he manages to be so damn relaxed and personable amidst the entrepreneurial storm he has conjured up around himself.

Over pasta and salad at l’Avenue on Mont Royal, I’m slightly taken aback at the frequency at which Aoki can namedrop icons and keep a straight face, while remaining totally humble and unpretentious. Even tales of his college days raise my eyebrow.

“We had over 450 bands play in our living room. Smaller than this restaurant. We had At the Drive-In, the Locust, all kinds of bands like that. The Rapture played there,” he informs me between bites of fettuccini.

I won’t even begin to recount the résumé of celebrities he refers to in an hour because, frankly, the dude knows everybody. And I mean everybody. When I got home, I mentioned my encounter with Aoki to my upstairs neighbour and good buddy Andrew, to which he replied, “Oh yeah, I met him at a MisShapes party in New York.”

So how the heck did he get himself into all this? I’m sure there must be at least a vague connection to his prolific family members (read: father Rocky Aoki, owner of the Benihana restaurant chain, and sister Devon, actor—she’s in Sin City—and model for Chanel and Versace), but something about his savvy demeanor screams a DIY attitude only a punk could have. So I ask.

“I used to write for a magazine, too. My obsession with getting involved in music in general all started when I was 14 or 15, getting into straight-edge. The thing about straight-edge that, to me, is the most productive element of that movement and lifestyle is that you realize that you control everything you do and you can change whatever you want to change by actually going out and doing it.”

With the 115th record coming out on Dim Mak, work with his band Weird Science (with Blake Miller from the Moving Units), new clothing lines and a pile of other side projects I probably don’t even know the half of, Aoki, still in his twenties, is most definitely a “That Guy” of my generation.

With Hatchmatik at House on
Saturday, June 16, 10 p.m., $15