Thursday's Thoughts #1

This new segment I'm starting will be taking a look at the news over that past week in EDM and putting my own spin, opinion, and rant on it.

Over the last week Rusko had an interview with DJMag where he rips on a lot of things including Deadmau5 and his own performance. Rusko admits to heavy drug use not only in his producing sessions but also during his live performances. Rusko even had to postpone a recent show as he was carried away on a stretcher due to dehydration and left his audience to chill. Now most of us know that Deadmau5 is always one to take to twitter or tumblr to voice his opinions and back in 2010 Deadmau5 voiced his disaproval of Rusko smoking a joint backstage. Deadmau5 shakes these celebrity twitter wars off but Rusko hasn't gotten over it.

“People have tried to reconcile us,” Rusko tells the magazine. “I’m like, ‘Don’t bring that c**t near me.’ It’s still very much on. We haven’t really been in the same room since it happened, until we are put in the same room by accident or whatever, who knows? He might be chilled out; it’s still on for me. Once I hate someone, I hate ‘em forever.”

Although you wouldn't expect it from Joel, he genuinely wants to stop his shows when he sees people being carried away for medical attention because he promotes sense of responsibility. Rusko however is setting a bad example for young kids looking up at him when partys so hard at his performances.

“I’m very raspy today, after 22 nights of getting pissed up in a row,” he says. “You know they have the one litre bottles of Grey Goose, the big fat giant ones? I do a whole big one a night. It’s a combination of tolerance and being more fucked up. Every day I wake up more and more hung-over and more and more bruised and tired, so I have to drink more to get myself in the right frame of mind to get back on stage. I’ve been drinking vodka for the last 22 nights in a row, so you build up a tolerance to it. Now I’m just necking it out of the bottle. It does make mornings a little harder, but every night I get more pissed. It’s fun. If I worried about it, I’d be a mess.”

To be honest, most of the people that read that interview in DJMag will be under 21, that's plain and simple. When Rusko goes and boasts about his poor drinking habits it's a bit disappointing. It's not the fact that he's drinking that much. You can go to a random ass house party on the weekend and see plenty of morons trying to give themselves alcohol poisoning. No, it's the fact that Rusko is doing it so publicly when he has such an influence on a young crowd and even worse, the fact that he simply doesn't care either.

Here Rusko talks about the making of his latest album, Songs.

“I made Opium entirely on Promethazine codeine syrup, which basically looks like opium in a bottle,” he cheerily details to the DJ Mag interviewer. “I managed to score a bottle of the real lean 100-percent codeine syrup. The album was very inspired by the drugs I was taking while I was making it. One day I took Rohypnol, the date-rape drug. I date-raped myself, and made a track, Dirty Sexy Money. I’m at this stage now, I’m drinking a bottle of vodka a night, enjoying drugs for what they are, and not being shy about it. This album wouldn’t sound as good as it does if I wasn’t taking a fuck-load of drugs.”

The fact that Rusko believes that he has to resort to drug use to produce material is a really bad sign. People have made dubstep 10 times better than any of Rusko's tracks without having to go out every night and "get fucked up". It's really a shame that Rusko has to give credit for his music to drugs. It just makes it shittier for all the other artists who pour their personality and soul into their tracks where all Rusko seems to be pouring into his tracks is Grey Goose vodka and Promethazine codeine syrup. The worst part is, Rusko isn't damaging his own career but damaging the growing reputation of the EDM scene with throwing around casual recreational drug usage

Next up Skrillex, Diplo, KOAN Sound, Pretty Lights, Tokimonsta and Grimes’ Full Flex Express tour came to an end this past week. I wasn’t lucky enough to make it to the Toronto stop but I heard from friends in Ottawa and Calgary that it was a killer show. Diplo and KOAN Sound threw down amazing sets while underdogs Tokimonsta and Grimes took the crowds by surprise. Skrillex and his spaceship had a killer set featuring his latest remix for Birdy Nam Nam as well as all our favourite Skrillex tracks like Promises, Reptile, Ruffneck, Scary Monsters and Right In.

I secured my wristband the other day for the Veld Festival in Toronto. Lineup includes Deadmau5, Steve Aoki, Knife Party, Kill The Noise, Tommy Trash, Steve Angello, Avicii, Nicky Romero, Savoy, Krewella, Bassnectar, Swanky Tunes and many others. Its gearing up for an unbelievable day and I’ll be sure to hook you guys up with an aftermath post on that one.