Music
The electronic music hero picks his favourite releases from the influential label he founded.
Can you believe Dim Mak is 20 years old? Label founder Steve Aoki hardly can.
“It's such a long journey, it feels like a lot of different journeys,” he says. “It doesn't feel linear either. It feels almost like a metamorphosis.”
Aoki celebrates two decades of mind-blowing resilience with a specially-curated Dim Mak stage at Electric Zoo in New York City on Saturday, September 3. It's a city that's been so important for him, the label and the whole music world. And he couldn't be happier to share this moment of pride and reflection with fans.
He's populating the Riverside Stage takeover with all of Dim Mak's biggest and brightest. It's a diverse line-up that Aoki says “represents the future of Dim Mak,” but one can't look toward the future at a moment like this without getting a bit misty-eyed for the past.
Dim Mak was founded when Aoki was just 19. He was throwing 20 shows a month in his living room, which he called The Pickle Patch. He witnessed so much amazing talent and he wanted to give these unsigned bands a voice. At the time, he existed in the sphere of hardcore, punk, emo and straight edge. He couldn't have known in 1996 that Dim Mak was the start of an incredible journey that would take him to the sonic corners of post-punk, hip hop and, of course, hard electro beats.
“At different stages, we cocooned ourselves to turn into a completely different species,” Aoki says. “As a business, that level of reset, destruction, change and evolution was really important as a whole to survival.”
Whatever the sound, whoever the artists, whenever the release occurred, the one thing that's stayed throughout Dim Mak's history has been the love of the music. “If you really genuinely put that first, your business will shine,” Aoki says.
Choosing your favourite records from each year is akin to saying which kid you love best, but Aoki did his best to sum up the legacy of Dim Mak here.
1996: stickfigurecarousel – Kids "This is Dim Mak 001, the record that started it off. Dan Sena, the guitarist in that band is still a friend of mine to this day and he's actually in my documentary, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. I've released all kinds of different monikers of his band, or now he's a DJ so, but he's been through the culture of Dim Mak from the very beginning. I remember printing out the 7-inch inserts, dry cutting the covers myself. I put my heart and soul into this record. We made 300 on baby-blue vinyl, 300 on black. It was a 7-inch, pretty cool."
1997: I Wish I – Fahrenheit"In the beginning we never hired radio promo, we never hired anyone. It wasn't even “we.” I didn't even have a lawyer for the first probably six years. It wasn't even a business.
1998: Cross My Heart – It Doesn't Take That Many Pills To Sleep ForeverAll throughout this period, Steve wasn't just hosting 20 shows a month and putting out punk records: "I went to school for women's studies and sociology and with those degrees you pretty much either do social work or you do research. I was considering to stay in school and live under a lamp and write books or follow my heart which was music. And follow my label, which was really my heart."
1999: Various Artists – Pickle Patch Live Shows 1997-1999 #1 "We made a zine that was a companion to the CD and we recorded every single live show in that living room. We had like 400 tapes. We recorded off of the same tape recorder that I recorded my first demo when I was 16. We recorded At the Drive In's show. I think I have a recording of Jimmy Eat World at one point, and !!! and the Rapture. So many incredible bands came through."
2000: The Fire Next Time – This Art Is My Weapon "I already experimented and toured with and played in multiple bands. In this band, I played guitar and sang and we recorded an album. We did a West Coast tour. I just remember this period of time as understanding collaboration by working with so many different kinds of people and so many different kinds of bands. They were all in the same genre, but at the end of the day, in the same genre there's so many different sounds. This one particular band, I sang, I wrote all the lyrics, I wrote all my music and there was a great learning process."
2001: Pretty Girls Make Graves – Pretty Girls Make Graves"This was the first EP to actually turn Dim Mak into a business. It was the first EP that we were like, 'Holy sh*t, we're selling thousands and thousands of CDs.' It was their first EP and it was just like a really cool sound. I learned a lot from them because they would take me on tour. I did probably five or six tours with them. This made me really think, 'Holy sh*t, this is turning into more than just helping bands.'”
2002: The Kills – Black Rooster"This is actually the first time that I put out a band where a major label emailed me and wanted to have dinner with me. I just moved to Los Angeles. I had just decided from this EP, I decided I'm not going to be taking my PhD program that I got accepted into. Capital Records said, 'Hey, we wanna talk to you.' I was like, 'Sweet!' I got a free dinner from a major label. They're the first artist that really catapulted Dim Mak into the music industry space, where the industry knew about us as a tastemaker label."
2003: The Gossip – Undead In NYC"2003 was a big, big year for us because I had full rein. I still didn't have any employees. It was just me. I'm running this out of my apartment in LA, I spent $950 a month, my girlfriend would split half that, so my bills were very low. And, this is a post-punk phase, the rock 'n' roll phase of Dim Mak. I picked this band because they opened me up to post-punk, just to me, the epitome of cool. I pretty much touted them as the Bible. Everything they did was just the Holy Grail to me. If they told me, 'Hey, my friend is doing this project with a saxophone player and drummer, it's experimental and there's nothing else like it' – Boom. I need to sign this."
2004: Bloc Party – Banquet "In 2003, I was like, 'I'm going to sign everything' and at the same time maxing out a million credit cards and then realizing how much debt I just incurred. 2004 was: 'I need to figure out how to pay off this debt because I don't have an income to do that.' I just started DJing. I was throwing parties in this hipster scene. Bloc Party was a massive record and then I started learning how to become a manager. We went to every single label together, we developed and grew this band in America together. The only artist I ever managed in my life was M.I.A., I say part and parcel because of Bloc Party."
2005: Baldhead Slick/2 Mex –Squeak E. Clean Presents "In 2005, we started branching out. We always were branching out in rock, but we were always guitar-based. In 2005, we did a stand-alone single with Baldhead Slick and 2 Mex by Squeeky Clean, and that was really cool, because we actually released a Gang Starr record. Baldhead Slick is Gang Starr, the Guru, and he's a legend, so I thought that was absolutely epic."
2006: Das Oath – Mini-LP"Das Oath is made up of members that were legends in the hardcore world already. They all had their own labels and they all released on Dim Mak because they wanted to be diplomatic. For me, it was like, 'Holy sh*t, I'm releasing Das Oath, these legendary hardcore giants and pillars of the community.' It's just this epic, thrashing, hardcore album that was just subversive and rebellious. Just right up my alley, so that was really awesome."
2007: Klaxons – Gravity’s Rainbow (Soulwax Remix)"Bloc Party opened the door to us signing a bunch of incredible new indie bands, one of which was Klaxons. We put out this Gravity's Rainbow 12-inch, which is super epic. It's not only the Klaxons but it's Soulwax; 2manydjs. Another big highlight at Dim Mak was releasing a 2manydjs-produced remix of Gravity's Rainbow in the electro era when everyone was remixing indie bands. That was when I first started remixing. I remixed Bloc Party and that's the sound that defined even me as an artist."
2008: MSTRKRFT – Fist Of God"That was a huge signing for us. It's one of the most hyped albums that we'd released so far and the first album that we did under the joint venture that I started with Downtown Records. It was a big signing for us and it didn't perform the way it was supposed to but it was a really, really big deal. And there are some big songs on that that, once again, defined the sound of that time." 2009: The Bloody Beetroots Feat Steve Aoki – Warp 1.9 "That was a very definitive record of that sound that was happening right then, from what indie electro became into just pure brazen electro, where it was more about distortion, noise and abrasive sounds. You're mixing in rock 'n' roll elements and the punk element into electronic music, which was one of the first times where I was like, 'This is where I can identify with my roots.' On that song, I'm screaming, I'm screaming like I used to scream in my old hardcore bands. It's just one of those really loud, electro records that defined that period of time."
2010: Refused x Bloody Beetroots x Steve Aoki – New Noise (Remix)"This is a song I asked to remix and released on Dim Mak and it took a year to get there. It just was one of the most satisfying releases that I could release. It's one of my favorite bands of all time, one of my favorite songs of all time, and I got to remix it and release it on Dim Mak. A personal notch in the belt. I was so excited to have the stems of this loud, distorted guitar and really use live instrumentation in my production. It was the turning point for me to start doing that more. I ended up working with Linkin Park, then Fall Out Boy and now Blink 182. This was one of the first bands where I got to use their sounds, their live instrumentation to help to really do something in the electronic space."
2011: Zedd - Stars Come Out "This is Zedd's first release and we obviously know how Zedd has done. We put out his early records and there's nothing more satisfying than supporting an artist from day one and seeing them grow to become a cross-genre, cross-platform artist that's part of pop culture."
2012: Steve Aoki & Angger Dimas Feat. Iggy Azalea – Beat Down "Another record where we got to work with an artist before she just blew up on the mainstream scale. It was great to do a song with her."
2013: Keys N Krates – Dum Dee Dum "One of our biggest songs to date on Dim Mak. We're going to hit Gold on this, which is pretty exciting. In our world, we sign them early, help develop them to a place where they have their own thing going on, and it's so great to see that happening. I love starting from square one and helping build and develop to help them see their vision through."
2014: XTRMST – Conformist "Dave Havok is a really old friend of mine, and he made this straight-edge band called XTRMST, and he wanted us to release it because he knew our roots. He knew about Pickle Patch from back in the day, and we shared that same lineage. It was great to go back in time in our roots and do this together. I have a personal sentimentality to this album. From the early days in Dim Mak to 2014, almost 20 years later, we're releasing a straight-edge hardcore outfit with Dave Havok man."
2015: WatchTheDuck Feat. Pharrell Williams – Stretch 2-3-4 "Now we can say Dim Mak released a record with Pharrell. That is beyond epic, beyond iconic. He's also a huge supporter of WatchTheDuck, because these guys were doing something where they were crossing a lot of different genres and doing it with such poise and such creative flow and charisma. Big fans of these guys and another notch in the belt for Dim Mak's history."
2016: Steve Aoki and Autoerotique – ILYSM"4OKI is an EP that we decided to put out as an underground club record. This isn't part of Neon Future, this isn't part of doing the biggest collaborations that I can possibly do. This is keeping it monochromatic, keeping it dark, keeping it a bit minimal. We used a classic Brandy sample, pitched it down, and really made a melodic house record. It's sentimental, it's dark and it's groovy. It's also the evolution of sound, to be able to change with the flow personally as an artist, and also as a business from the Dim Mak standpoint."
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