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The essential component of being a DJ is setting the mood; it's playing to the context. So that if you're not able to adapt from one context to another, then you're not a DJ.
Alain Macklovitch -
I think whether dance music had exploded in America, I still would've been a DJ a long time. This is my first love.
Alain Macklovitch
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I like getting feedback from people who show a lot of potential, and it's exciting to witness to new talents developing and bourgeoning. I always try to stay around the newest stuff, I don't like to stay with something that's kind of old or approaching it.
Alain Macklovitch -
I worked with him for years. I still think Kanye [West] is one of the most important people in music in the last ten years.
Alain Macklovitch -
I'm not even a trained producer. I just keep following my ear and working on stuff until it sounds the way I like it.
Alain Macklovitch -
There are things I like, there are things I strongly dislike. In my DJ sets and in my production I just gravitate towards what I like.
Alain Macklovitch -
What's amazing about a DJ set is when you're able to re-appropriate a song or give purpose to a song that people didn't really think it was supposed to have. Give it this sort of hidden power by playing it before this song and after that one. That it fits into this logic and it goes farther than you thought it could go.
Alain Macklovitch -
Right now it feels like we're playing a role, like me and a couple of my friends, in where popular culture is going. That's a very rare thing in a person's life to be able to be a part of that. It's a responsibility I take seriously.
Alain Macklovitch
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I've talked to people who say that their music and their creative work is a much needed and appreciated escape, where they don't have to think about the state of the world; they're not even thinking about themselves so much. They're not trying to express their own experiences of that day or relationship strife or anything.
Alain Macklovitch -
There are producers that have been my friends for many years that I'm still a big fan of, from Boyz Noize to solo acts. Justice. It really varies. All the way to like...sometimes I'll just find some dude out of Chicago that makes a great house song. I'm feeling a lot of the deep house stuff, Jamie Jones.
Alain Macklovitch -
At festivals you kind of have to play the game a bit and you have to play a lot of the big bangers but it's to me it's extra gratifying to be able to play the non-bangers and make it work. Because that's still the craft of the DJ, I think.
Alain Macklovitch -
There's a ton of amazing music that's not getting heard.
Alain Macklovitch -
There's a lot of producers that are much more technical or gear-skilled than I am. But I have a pure idea of what I like and where I want to go and I follow that.
Alain Macklovitch -
That was my challenge then, how to make scratching still fun for someone who didn't necessarily come to hear that. It was fun to develop that technique. And now in dance music - I'm still a hip-hop guy at heart, but I love dance music.
Alain Macklovitch
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One thing that I learned in recent years from working more with other people is this idea that part of a producer's job is to make people comfortable and confident.
Alain Macklovitch -
Now I'm able to play on the main stage and play my own tracks and the crowd likes them. I feel like a lot the other DJs play a lot of the same songs, and not to knock them, but it's important to me to go up there and sort of sneak in a bunch of stuff the other guys aren't playing.
Alain Macklovitch -
I love disco and we sample it a lot for Duck Sauce. For me, that sound is kind of a new manifestation.
Alain Macklovitch -
The lifestyle is strenuous on the body, but it's stimulating to the senses and the mind. So there's a give and take. There are days the flights knock me out, where I feel like the human punching bag that is being on planes every other day. I think people sort of glorify it, like "Oh, you're at parties and there's booze and girls." But it's still work.
Alain Macklovitch -
I have a radio show on Sirius XM. I put it up as a free download on my Soundcloud and on iTunes. That's a portal for me once a month, to play songs I know aren't getting played on that station the rest of the week.
Alain Macklovitch -
That's what a DJ is at the end of the day - someone who leads where the music goes. The only thing that's changed is that in America, people have woken up in the last few years and realized it.
Alain Macklovitch
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At the end of the day, Fool's Gold is a label that, when I hear something I like, I try to grab it for the label. There's a ton of great music coming out.
Alain Macklovitch -
I'm still a hip-hop producer. I never put a label on what I can do as a producer or a DJ.
Alain Macklovitch -
When you know what you like and what you want and you're able to nudge things in the right direction, that's more profitable than ever, because there's so much information out there. Everything's saturated. Tastemaker is probably the most overused word, but I still think it's important.
Alain Macklovitch -
I've been doing it since I was prepubescent when I loved to scratch records and play good music. As it happens, you know I sort of fell into the mix. I really feel like I played a role in bringing dance music to America years ago.
Alain Macklovitch