The drugs do work

>> Kid Loco on punk rock, reefer madness and being French

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

For a guy who spends his days and nights in a reefer rapture, concocting ridiculously sexy, stoned music, Kid Loco is, in a sense, a pretty grounded guy. The father of three daughters (the oldest of whom is 16), Monsieur Loco, aka Jean-Yves Prieur, is quick to separate himself from the whole ultra-hyped French dance music clique. No sir, you won't catch Prieur chugging cocktails with Cassius and Dimitri from Paris at some exclusive high fashion house soirée any time soon.
 "I'm not part of the French dance music genre. I don't wanna mix with some of those people," he explains matter-of-factly, via e-mail from New Zealand. No, he prefers his rather hazy studio playhouse to the glitz of Parisian nightlife. He does, however, give props to his favourite colleagues (and sometimes collaborators). "I'm a huge fan of people like Doctor L, St-Germain, Tommy Hools, DJ Cam..."
 But that old punk attitude just shines right through his laptop. See, Kid Loco didn't grow up on hip hop, early electro, funk or soul like half the world's DJs. No, a pubescent Prieur first got his rocks off on punk. "I started listening to punk rock in '77 with the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, Wire... back when it sounded quite interesting. I don't think any of these so-called 'punk' bands today have anything in common with what happened then." In the '80s he helped form French punk label Bondage, at which he worked as producer and engineer.
 When punk got boooo-ring, Loco moved on to things that tickled his fancy in an equally ferocious way. "Things have changed and I'm not gonna listen to the same 100 records forever and ever. Hip hop came and house came along," and then came Mega Reefer Scratch, his hip-hop-reggae-rock outfit. And Catch my Soul, a more synth-heavy project, soon followed. All the while, things seemed to be getting more... blunted.
 "I've smoked as much as I can since then. If Paul McCartney was better with pot, so it works for me. Yeah, the drugs do work." But don't call him trip hop 'cause that's not what he's about--not that he cares how people label him. "I'm still a punk rocker, so fuck 'em!"
 In an era when so many half-assed electronic fusion afterthoughts happen, with pop-rock acts throwing in scratching and 303 effects ("I heard even Celine Dion uses a beat box," Loco says), it's refreshing to hear things slide smoothly and fit together as perfectly as in Loco's sound. With a DJ Kicks mix under his belt and a world tour underway, Kid Loco doesn't show any signs of losing his innate sense of spontaneity. He still sometimes likes to ad-lib lyrics during his live shows.
 "I'm top class at the psychedelic bits," he claims. "Babyyyyyyyy, pleeeeaassssse!" Whoa, dude... :
 
 

With DJ Maues, Bosco and le Lutin the MEG, Club Soda, on Wednesday, May 31, 9pm, $15