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Traditionally, with a DJ set, you just go hear DJ that has a good reputation and let the DJ take you somewhere. It was up to the DJ what he wanted to play. Typically in dance music, people didn't know most of the songs a DJ played.
A-Trak
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A-Trak
Age: 42
Born: 1982
Born: March 30
Composer
Disc Jockey
Dj
Entrepreneur
Musician
Record Producer
Recording Artist
Singer
Montreal
Quebec
Alain Macklovitch
Music
Reputation
Wanted
Somewhere
Play
Played
Take
Dance
Good
Songs
People
Hear
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Traditionally
Didn
Typically
More quotes by A-Trak
My ears are open to all sorts of stuff. I appreciate some of the big electro house guys.I love their music but I also like a lot of the stuff coming out of the U.K. Future garage stuff. A lot of stuff like that.
A-Trak
I'm one of the few DJs who uses turntables. I'm the only DJ that's scratching.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
We have to wake up early and make songs everyday. I run my record label. You work at hours where your body isn't designed to work. But it's fun.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
I think that's becoming the key to where the whole idea of art and culture are going nowadays anyway, is the idea of curation. Knowing what you like. That's sort of the future right now. Molding something, whether it be a roster on a label, or your blog, or a song, or your DJ set.
A-Trak
There's a ton of amazing music that's not getting heard.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
It's always important to me to play something other DJs aren't playing.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
It's a good feeling to have something to stand for in any part of your life. It's like personal integrity.
A-Trak
I'm still a hip-hop producer. I never put a label on what I can do as a producer or a DJ.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak
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.
A-Trak