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DJ 101

Steve Aoki and Junior Sanchez in a hotel room trading music from their laptops, while Alexander Technique and I chill in the background. NIN, Uffie, Prince, Justice, Cat Stevens, Bob Sinclar, Stevie Nicks, Phil Collins, Front 242 and more...

(music plays from Junior's Itunes)

Junior SANCHEZ: That’s new Nine Inch Nails. You should take that… These are remixes by Photek…

Steve Aoki: Ohhhh, that’s great!

Junior SANCHEZ: This is the original song. ‘Survivalism’. It’s from the album ‘Year Zero’.

Steve Aoki: It’s not out yet?

Junior SANCHEZ: No.

Bronques: How’d you get that Junior?

Junior SANCHEZ: The same way that everybody else gets it… BLOGS! (Everybody laughs)

(song continues… loud industrial chorus kicks in…)

Steve Aoki: Yeah, I’d play that out…


'Survivalim', Nine Inch Nails:








Junior SANCHEZ: Hey, did you get this Diddy mix? The ‘Phones’ mix of Diddy? These are European remixes. The Switch remix is dope too…

Steve Aoki: I know… I start it at 2 minutes in…

Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah… this is hot…

Steve Aoki:: This is the original? Paul McCartney?

(‘Temporary Secretary’ plays…)

Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah and there’s a Radioslave mix too. Hey, do you know those girls, uh, ‘Teenagers from Japan’ or ‘Teenagers from Tokyo’?

Steve Aoki: No… But I saw a writeup on them in the new BPM magazine.

Junior SANCHEZ: Oh… It’s good man! If you can get that shit from them… They have this one song… I think it’s a hit! I think it’s fucking awesome! Oh, this one is Tommie Sunchine’s ‘Black Sweat’ remix. You got this? The Justice mix? (hard funky electro Soulwax remix plays)

Steve Aoki: Oh, no… I need that one!

Junior SANCHEZ: You got this? ‘Switch’… (track called ‘Foxxy’ plays)

Bronques: Who’s ‘Switch’?

Junior SANCHEZ: This older cat from the UK. What do you think ‘Foxxy’ is? (we all just listen and suddenly Jimi Hendrix’s voice comes in…)

Steve Aoki: Ohhhh… haha

(everyone laughs)

Junior SANCHEZ: Do you have that Titsworth mix of PM Dawn?

Steve Aoki: Oh, no no, but I’ve heard it… Do you have the ‘Poison’ remix by Titsworth?

Junior SANCHEZ: No…

Steve Aoki: I need that one! (sings) P-P-P-Poison, Poison… Hey do you have that big ass Vitalix song. What’s it called?

Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah… it’s on Gigalo… Hey take this Bostage…

Steve Aoki:: What’s that?

Junior SANCHEZ: From Yellow…

Steve Aoki: This is an old track?

Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah, Yellow. The band Yellow. Hey you got this? The Young Americans. They’re from LA. You know them right?

Steve Aoki: Yeah, they did a Scanners remix for me.

Junior SANCHEZ: They’re great! (plays a crazy electro remix)

Steve Aoki: Whoa! That’s so big!!

Junior SANCHEZ: It’s an edit.

Steve Aoki: Alright! Alright! I always play this one dude. DJ Ezzie

Junior SANCHEZ: It’s dope. It’s some French shit.

Steve Aoki: Oh! That sounds so BIG! (looking through Itunes) Anything down here?

Junior SANCHEZ: Oh check this… This is nasty… You play this to the crowd you played today and… It’s just… (dark techno distorted synth plays) I don’t even know what the fuck it’s called… some German dude gave it to me…

Steve Aoki: (looking for the tracks name on Junior’s itunes) Trakiehot? Trackiehot? Haha!! (everyone laughs)

Junior SANCHEZ: I got some CLASSIC house shit… Let me give you the stuff that people go crazy for… ‘Perculator’ You have that?

(Cajmere’s ‘Perculator’ plays)

Steve Aoki: Yeah, yeah…

Junior SANCHEZ: Oh ‘French Kiss’, this is classic. You play this to anybody that knows dance music…

(Lil Louis ‘French Kiss’ plays)

Steve Aoki: Oh yeah yeah… Please!

Junior SANCHEZ: ‘Conversation’ too… this is a classic… Joey Beltram! You play this out for raver kids…

Steve Aoki: You have any of that shit that goes (sings load aggressive synth hits) DEIN DEIN DEIN, DEIN DEIN… You know what I’m playing out a lot? Fedde Le Grand.








Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah, but that’s like modern shit. You play Beltram, and kids will go crazy! Like Acid Thunder… this is like back in the day… ‘Work That Pussy’… I played that for the Misshapes and they were like ‘Oh my god…’ (collective laughter) You have Earth people?

Steve Aoki: Yeah, wow, I’ll take that one!

Junior SANCHEZ: Even hiphop guys dance to this…

Steve Aoki: Exxeeder, you have that?

Junior SANCHEZ: (reluctantly) That’s new… I have it. Princess Superstar sent it to me. They did a mashup of one of her songs and it got really big in the UK. You got this one right? The Bucketheads? It’s from the 90s. They sampled Chicago. The original song’s called ‘Street Player’. I play it a lot. Watch… (plays original Chicago song)

Steve Aoki: Yeah! Dude, definitely…

Junior SANCHEZ: Genius song.

Steve Aoki: (looking through a secret list on his Blackberry) Do you have ‘Denzel Kemkrack 400’ Zombie Nation?

(everyone laughs)

Alexander Technique: You have a list? Haha… awesome…

Steve Aoki: This DJ was playing it and I was like wow that’s great, I’ll write that down… Do you have ‘If You Wanna Be Free’ by Cat Stevens? (singing) Ifyouwannabefree…

Junior SANCHEZ: The original?

Steve Aoki: Yeah yeah!

Junior SANCHEZ: Oh, that’s Limewire shit! (everyone laughs) Oh, you need this dude! It’s a classic. I’ll drop this tonight and you’ll see kids go fucking crazy! Todd Terry shit. Drop this on any crowd.

(rave synth hits play)

Steve Aoki: Yeah. That’s what I’m looking for (sings) DEIN DEIN DEIN! True raver shit… I gotta give you some shit that Feadz gave me that him and Uffie are working on… Listen to this… It’s a total raver song…

(song plays. Uffie sings ‘I want my ass on the floor, I want my ass on the floor…’)

Junior SANCHEZ: (excited) Oh, what?!

Steve Aoki: Yeaaaahhh! Dude… I gotta give you this one!

Junior SANCHEZ: That’s… that’s… He took those DEIN DEIN DEIN from 808 state! Listen to this…

Alexander Technique: Junior can crack any track.

Steve Aoki: That’s the kind of songs I love. Rave songs like that!

Junior SANCHEZ: That song is ‘Cubic’. That’s where he got that DEIN DEIN DEIN…

Steve Aoki: DJ AM played that one night at Banana Split. Wow! It sounded so big!

(Uffie track keeps playing)

Junior SANCHEZ: I gotta take that right now!

Steve Aoki: Feadz and Uffie… Paaarrrrrty!

Junior SANCHEZ: Nasty! It’s about time she did some new shit!

Steve Aoki: I don’t know if they’re gonna come out with that.

Junior SANCHEZ: They should. They’re buggin’…

Steve Aoki: I’ll put it on a 12 inch. Do you have Eric Trip Pink Floyd ‘Proper Education’?

Junior SANCHEZ: Uh…

Steve Aoki: (laughing) You don’t even want to give it to me, it’s so cheap, haha…

Junior SANCHEZ: I don’t even have it. But it works man… I just don’t play for those crowds… I need to find that ‘Cubic’… (looking on Limewire) I can’t get a connection…

Steve Aoki: Oh, your Limewire looks nice… I gotta pay for that shit…

Junior SANCHEZ: No… I didn’t pay for it…

Steve Aoki: Really? I guess I need to download the latest one…

Junior SANCHEZ: What else we got for you…

Steve Aoki: Hey, you want some rock edits? Check this out. Chris Holms did all of these and gave them to me. Roxy Music, Kool and The Gang, Rolling Stones, 2 Live Crew….

Junior SANCHEZ: Do they work?

Steve Aoki: Oh yeah. On Serato, it shows up perfect. 56 Edits. You want them all?

Junior SANCHEZ: You want Soulwax edits? Old ones?

Steve Aoki: Whoa! What’s this one?

Junior SANCHEZ: It’s the ‘Immigrant Song’ with Green Velvet. ‘Green Immigrant’.

Steve Aoki: Wow… that’s so dope! Whoa! Wow… That’s huge!

Junior SANCHEZ: You got this one? (plays ‘Get Your Rocks Off’ Primal Scream, Soulwax edit) Soulwax is two of my boys from Belgium…

Steve Aoki: Yeah, I love it!

Junior SANCHEZ: It’s the dude from Ninja Tunes who put it out. What’s his name?

Bronques: James Lavelle?

Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah! James Lavelle! He put it out. It’s like an edit of it. Hey, let me give you this {name of Junior’s track}.

Steve Aoki: Yeah, yeah… I love the name. I wanted to use that name for my new 12inch label.

Junior SANCHEZ: You should! I’ll just change the name of the track…

Steve Aoki: You sure? I was gonna call it {xxx}.

Junior SANCHEZ: No, use {name of Junior’s track}. It suits what you wanna do and it already sounds like a classic label… Alright… You want some old French shit that inspired Justice?

Steve Aoki: Yeah…

Junior SANCHEZ: Before Ed Bangers, Pedro had a label that was called ‘Cris De Mort’ with half of Daft Punk. This was some early French shit… I’ve known Pedro for like 12 years. You know how it’s edits now? Back then it was disco loops. Everybody just fucking disco looped… How about ‘Witch Doctor’ dude? Some Armand Van Helden shit

Steve Aoki: Definitely! I think I’m good though. I’m loaded up! You have that song… (sings) Ho-mo-sapien- tooo… Dein dein dein…

Junior SANCHEZ: Hmmm, no…

Steve Aoki: LCD has that song 'New York Scum', and they basically stole it from ‘Homosapien Too’. So I wanted to do a mashup of both.

Junior SANCHEZ: Or how about this Cindy Lauper ‘Goonies’ dub.

Steve Aoki: Oh, I love this song!

Junior SANCHEZ: The original to ‘Easy Lover’, you got that?

Steve Aoki: Oh, yeah…

Bronques: You guys play Phil Collins and Philip Bailey?

Junior SANCHEZ: Yeah… I got shit for playing it 5 years ago at some club in Miami though… I got kicked out of Pacha and Ibiza for playing The Faint 6 years ago.

Steve Aoki: You know what song I’m looking for? It starts off with Tarzan “Oh-oh-who-oh”…

Junior SANCHEZ: Baltimora!

Steve Aoki: You have that?

Junior SANCHEZ: 'Tarzan Boy', yeah… I have an extended version of ‘She Bop’… Oh how about this Sisters of Mercy? Or Warm Leatherette?

Steve Aoki: You have that song (sings) WAR! BOMBS! GUNS! FIRE! FIRE!

Junior SANCHEZ: Is that Front 242?

Steve Aoki: Benji {Madden from Good Charlotte} loves that song!

Junior SANCHEZ: Remember this Ministry shit when Al was all synthy and poppy… Oh you wanna hear some shit that will trip you out? It’s Trent Reznor before Nine Inch Nails when he lived in Cleveland. It’s really synthy. It’s called The Exotic Birds. He wrote the songs with his partner.

(song plays and it’s Trent Reznor singing a synth pop melody ‘Dance-with-meeeeee’… every body laughs)

Junior SANCHEZ: Back then everybody wanted to sound like they were English.

(song continues to play and Trent yells ‘Lets-goooo’. Everybody laughs.)

Steve Aoki: ‘Let’s go!’ Haha…

Junior SANCHEZ: ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’…

Bronques: You play this?

Junior SANCHEZ: I played this in Amsterdam and the kids went crazy. I got them all singing it.

Bronques: That’s Phil Collins on drums…

Steve Aoki: Really? This guy is everywhere...

Junior SANCHEZ: Bronques, you’re gonna shit your pants when you hear this. I have the whole multitracks of ‘Stand Back’ with Prince’s keyboards, Prince bass… (keyboard part that sounds like ‘Little Red Corvette’ plays) I’m doing a remix of it, so they gave me all the parts.

Steve Aoki: Oh wow!

Bronques: Oh my god!

Junior SANCHEZ: But they’re watermarked so I can’t leak them.

Bronques: What does that mean?

Junior SANCHEZ: They’ll track it back to me if it shows up somewhere.

Steve Aoki: They personalize every part on the CD…

Junior SANCHEZ: That’s Prince on the OBX. You know the story to this? Jimmy Iovine was producing this song at the time with Stevie Nicks and she did this song ‘cause she loved ‘Little Red Corvette’. So Jimmy called Prince to do the track, and when he got there they had all gone out to eat so he came in and layed down all the keyboards and the bass, and she never met him until the song was released and it was a hit. I think he got half the publishing.

Steve Aoki: Wow…

Junior SANCHEZ: So all this on this drive is mine?

Steve Aoki: Yeah, take all that.