Frosh, post: 20780, member: 1351 wrote: I’m definitely not hating, because I’ve seen him twice and it’s always fantastic but I think Steve Aoki is a great example of a dj who doesn’t mix. Both times I’ve seen him he isn’t even behind the decks half the time. He presses play on track A, gets out of the booth, jumps around, spits champagne, throws cake, crowd surfs, and lights things on fire before climbing back in the booth, pressing play on track B when there’s 32 beats left in track A, getting back out of the booth, and continuing to do whatever so inspires him. The great thing is you never even realize it because you’re having such a blast the whole set.
Wow I was literally about to post that. I had only seen a few shows when I saw him and I was really confused when I noticed how little he was doing in the booth. It was a great show (love the antics and the substances) but I didn’t like it as much as other shows I had seen. He played tracks I’d heard before and some I hadn’t, but when I saw Skrillex for example, he played a good chunk of unknown stuff, but most of it was his own music. But the music he played was totally mixed and sounded completely different from what I’d heard and it was so new and exciting.
If I was to give an analogy, it’s like getting into your car and having the interior redone awesomely. It’s still your car and you know where everything is, but now you have purple leather and exciting new buttons on your dashboard. So to end this long rambling post, I respect both, but I like mixing more. It feels more like performing and making the music your own.
