Meet The DJ: DJ Flex Rock

As we've mentioned before, we love DJ Flex Rock. Like a lot. Like so much that one of our editors will be marrying him next month. And without actually checking with her first, we assume that's mostly because of his kickingassingness as a DJ and the fact that he throws down with a dance party at the end of every one of our Little Red Umbrella Variety Spectacular events, spinning songs from our Songs You Can Dance Around Your Apartment To podcasts. And with the next Variety Spectacular coming up tomorrow night at The Ossington (Facebook invite here), this seems like the perfect time to ask him a few questions and let you get to know him as well as we do.

Well, um, not quite that well. But you get the idea.

Then you can come meet him for real this Thursday night at The Ossington. There's no cover, 10% of the bar sales go to the AIDS Committee of Toronto, and line-up is just ridiculously fucking awesome.

Say, for some strange reason, all the music in the world is going to be destroyed, but you can save all the songs from one decade. Which decade's records would you save?

Oh that's a tough one. My first gut choices would be the '70s or the '90s. Most of the music I grew up with would have been from the '70s. It contains the best albums from Led Zeppelin, Bowie, Elton John, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, the birth of punk, The Clash, the Talking Heads, the Sex Pistols. You get the building blocks of what would turn into techno and electro though the stuff that Giorgio Moroder put out. Unfortunately that also means giving a reprieve to disco, the Bee Gees, lots of bad soft rock and truck-driving country music.

The '90s of course contain all the music of my formative years. It's got grunge, the best years of hip-hop, the coming out of electronic music into the mainstream. Most of my favourite albums of all time are from the '90s: Siamese Dream and Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, OK Computer, Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole, Vs and Vitology from Pearl Jam. It also has the depressing later years of boy bands and agro-rap rock from Limp Bizkit and the like.

It's a close one but I'd have to say... wait... You're asking ME do save ALL the songs? That sounds like way too much work. In that case I'm going to pick the 1880s and rip all the phonograph cylinders in a weekend.

What's your favourite song to spin live? Why?

The Gossip - "Standing in the Way of Control (Soulwax Remix)" is pretty much one of my all-time favorite dance tracks. Half rock, half dance, awesome vocals and when the big drop happens near the end of the song people just go crazy.

What's the worst album you own?

Oh man, when I first wanted to start DJing I would buy some stuff that was pretty bad euro-house. Probably the worst is a particularly hard pounding trance number that inexplicably samples Chicago's "It's Hard to say I'm Sorry" during the break down. I keep it on my shelf to remind myself never to buy crap records again.

If you absolutely had to get a face tattoo of album art from one record, which record would you want to have on your face for the rest of your life?

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane because how cool would it be to look like Bowie.

If you could DJ one venue you've never played before, what would it be?

Unfortunately the place I'd most want to play no longer exists. The former Element Bar on Queen West was probably my favourite club in the city until it closed a few years ago. The basement was particularly dark and small and just perfect for dancing to techno until late in the evening.

If you could work with any producer in the world who you haven’t already worked with, who would it be?

Jesper Dahlback. Dude makes great techno and acid tracks and is incredibly prolific.

Who, in your opinion, has/had the best facial hair of any band ever?

ZZ Top. No contest. Second place goes to ‘slave’ era Prince.

If you were going to be a groupie for one band, who would it be?

Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl seems like the most fun guy in rock music. I'd want to drink beers with him.

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Photo by Carmen Cheung

DJ Flex Rock is Summitt Rouss who you'll find more about on Facebook here.