My Dad Basically Invented DJing

Forty years ago was a dangerous time for DJs. Bands were nervous that DJs were going to take all their business and they were trying to choke out all the hotels to ban them. Bands would follow DJs home after gigs and slash their tires, or smash their equipment, which was totally handmade. You couldn’t just go and rent a mixer for your big stupid club night, you built that shit from scratch! In your garage! Also, do you think there was such a thing as self-important music bloggers putting up all the hot tracks you needed to party for downloading? Guess again! It’s called buying records because that’s your job.

Anyway, Dad eventually grew tired of all the cat-and-mousery and got together in a secret basement with five other dudes and formed the CDJA, aka Canadian Disc Jockey Assault Team. No, the Canadian Disc Jockey Association. From then on, they offered protection and gave bands the squeeze, and every night was a bloodbath of saxophones, ruffled lapels, and 45s. It is still my dad’s job to make completely normal people behave as if they were on spring break forever. I have seen him in a room with more than 5,000 people, the catalyst for a demented havoc usually reserved for cases of extreme drug usage. He has been offered underwear, free hotels, first borns, and towering, ten-foot-tall wedding centerpieces for decades. Shit pops off.

VICE: So Dad, why did you start DJing?

My dad: I was 17 and I thought it would be more fun than Loblaws. You got to go out, people bought you drinks.

Is it true that bands would follow you home and slash your tires? It sounds like West Side Story…

Yeah, they did some pretty bad stuff. One DJ was followed home by some musicians and his house was broken into and his equipment was stolen or smashed. We couldn’t take it anymore, they were stopping us from making a livelihood, but we didn’t have money to hire lawyers. We tried to join them–you know, if you can’t beat them, join them–but there was too much hatred there.

So basically you started a mafia for DJs when there was no such thing as DJs?

We just wanted to improve things and basically try to get these musicians to stop their gestapo tactics.

You can say it, you became the DJ don!

We were sharing information, we stood together. We started to get threatened. The recording industry wanted us all to have the same 200 tapes, the same songs, but we didn’t want that. We negotiated deals with the top ten major record companies. They wanted control, control, control; we wanted trust.

Is it true you DJed your own wedding?

Yeah, I took over for my DJ. He was my second DJ.

Did Mom get mad?

No, she was dancing with other people. I’m not a good dancer.

Why did you have me working gigs for you at age ten?

You started when you were eight.

What?

You were an assistant! I would nod at you and tell you when to start the next song for me and I would be out there doing the games with the kids. You always got a toy at corporate Christmas parties from the companies. You loved it. Santa was always at those parties!

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?

People taking their clothes off on the dance floor. A woman in her 60s, stripping, didn’t look very good. Girls trying to make their boyfriend jealous with the DJ.

That still happens! Way to set the standard. What else?

We’ve seen fights–probably the weirdest one was the groom and his father-in-law in a bloody fistfight in the parking lot following a wedding. Real great way to start things off with your in-laws.

Remember when we did that job in San Francisco and our hotel burnt down? And when we were out in the desert in Vegas and you were freaking out because we had to get back to the Venetian Hotel for soundcheck?

I didn’t freak out.

How do you get people to go so mental?

Getting them onstage gets them going. You don’t have to push them that hard, just a little bit. They do the rest themselves. I’m not there to do a show or wear funny hats, they are. I’m an instigator.

Who was the cooler person you met, Colonel Sanders or the original Q from James Bond?

Colonel Sanders in his white suit. Q was an old guy who was paid to tell me about the new James Bond.