Red Rack 'Em is enjoying the DJ life, just without the excess that comes with it - Artists - Mixmag
Artists

Red Rack 'Em is enjoying the DJ life, just without the excess that comes with it

"I am not expecting any sympathy, but it does start to hurt when you hit 40"

  • Dave Turner
  • 25 May 2017

My good friend Alex Kenning, aka Lex Luca, posted a new profile pic on Facebook last week: the classic head in hands remorseful DJ pose. I described it as the ‘Oh no, I have to get a flight in two hours and I didn’t even use my hotel’ look. His reply: ‘You know them ones!’. Oh, but I do. I fucking do.

I’ve just finished playing at Batofar in Paris where the backstage is crazy. The promoters are young, massively up for a party and alas (once again) I get swept along with their youthful exuberance. The next day, I check out of my untouched
hotel room and then have to do an in-store DJ set at La Source Records. Air France lost my bag on the way, so I play with borrowed records, sweating and dizzy. It’s not much fun.

Friday afternoon in the studio. The phone rings. “Can you be at the airport in one hour? Lone is ill so we need you to cover for him at our biggest party of the year”. I am the last minute headliner at a huge Mutant Disco party in the Tallinn docklands area. After my set, I end up playing a super fun drunken b2b with a local DJ outside in the morning sunshine. Some girl randomly kisses me while I’m playing (and posts a photo of it on Facebook – how degrading). It’s like those US movies about EDM DJs, but with good music.

I spend the afternoon with some really rough Russians, hanging out in a car park drinking straight vodka. All sorts of naughtiness ensues. I have to fly back to Berlin via a two-hour transfer in Frankfurt to play at the Sweatlodge showcase at
://about blank. I have no memory of the journey. I arrive to Iron Curtis smashing it and then have to play 3am to 6am. I play well, but it takes all of my inner strength to hold it together.

 
 
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