KEITH MACKENZIE

All right, welcome to episode five of A DJ's Journey. I am Deckard, also Keith. Welcome another illustrious Keith in the breaks community, Keith McKenzie, welcome.

Yeah, it was a, what an amazing event you guys did. And I've been paying attention to the event for I don't know how long. I mean, you guys have been doing it for 25 years now. My bad. So, you know, I've seen the lineups every year and I'm like, man, I really want to play at that. And then finally, you know, I got the call or the email and I'm like, it worked out. Amazing.

So before we hit the current, I'm going to jump way back with you, though. What was music like when you were a kid? What was music like in your household? What did your mom and dad listen to?

Well, my dad's favorite group was Steely Dan. But, you know, I grew up in the Bay area of Tampa — in a town called Seminole. My mom, she's just really fun. We were always dancing and anything popular back in the eighties. I remember one funny story — I don't know if you've ever heard of the jukebox channel. So basically you could call and request a song to play. I was just calling up, ordering all these songs — Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, JJ Fad, Takes Two, Supersonic. We got a $200 phone bill and my dad was really pissed.

Well, my older brother was seven years older. He had the Beastie Boys License to Ill tape before anyone. Fast forward to when I was 17 years old — the first rave I ever went to. He brought me to Club Infinity in Orlando, February of 1995. I didn't have an ID and the door guy just asked when I was born and took my word for it. That club later became Cyber Zone — the defining breakbeat spot in Orlando in the early 2000s.

I grew up in Florida until my senior year of high school. I skipped so much school that I failed a whole semester. My dad and my aunt figured out a loophole — in Maine it takes less credits to graduate. I moved to Old Town to live with my aunt and uncle. The gymnasium was named McKenzie Gymnasium after my grandfather. He was a legendary coach there. My brother would send me CDs and tapes. One CD that I had was Kimball Collins, United DJs of America.

One of my good girlfriends in Maine, her boyfriend had a bunch of mixtapes from DJs from New England. One tape I really loved was DJ Bag of Donuts. It was hardcore breakbeat. In Orlando there was a lot of house and progressive. But every time the one dude playing breaks came on, I was like — this is it.

So I'll go back to my brother again. He bought decks. He was older and had money. I was like 19 when I first started messing around on his tables. The two records I first matched were DJ Icey's Sonic Party and Josh Wink's Higher State of Consciousness. I put those two records together and I'm like, oh shit. Then I just started playing on his decks all the time. My brother told my dad: I think Keith is good — you should buy him turntables. And my dad bought me turntables.

Double assist from your brother.

I think I started playing out in like 97. DJ Luke gave me my first opportunity to play from nine to eleven at Turtle Club in Clearwater. My advice for anyone trying to get gigs: show your face. Go out to the events the promoters are playing. Support. The internet makes people think they can sidestep that. They can't.

I ended up working at a record store in downtown St. Pete called Luscious Records. Then a distribution company came to Clearwater. They were called Gemini Distribution and they ended up turning into Subsonic Distribution. I was basically in charge of calling people, calling record stores and selling them records over the phone — with a turntable at my desk, playing them over a landline.

When it was 99, or probably late 98 — I was hanging out with DJ Fixx, we were just working on music, and my first record Float was done in his studio. The first three records were done there. The second record was Music Takes Us Higher. 90% of Subsonic's catalog was breakbeat.

My mentor at the beginning — DJ Icey absolutely helped me so much throughout. He co-signed a lot of my stuff. He put out some of my music. Back in the MySpace days, I was number one on his top eight and people used to pay attention to that. I actually thought when I moved to Chicago — there's no breakbeat scene at all — I thought I'm just gonna have to accept not getting as much work. But that was actually not what happened. I was like the busiest ever.

Sporty-O — I found him on MySpace, but I had also heard one of his records that he did with AquaSky. I sent him like a beat, and then he sent me back just continuous rap. Our first record we ever did together was Guest List. I worked on that with Angel Alanis here in Chicago. I sent it to Deekline and Deekline actually took the vocal — "ain't trying to flex this, I be on that guest list" — made it the hook, pitched it down. That became the record everyone knows.

I flew Sporty out to Salt Lake City for a festival called Get Freaky. We played on the stage with Krafty Kuts and Deekline and Wizard and MC Flipside. That was the first time I had ever met Sporty in person. We had only one record, but we were working on more.

The label started in 2004 maybe. The first four releases were vinyl only. I didn't put the label on Beatport until like 2007. Icey hooked me up with Tom Hook from Beatport. All the art direction was done by my best friend Darcy. He's basically responsible for every piece of artwork from the label.

In 2012, all the way until 2017, we did a separate music alias called Smookie Illson. It was me, Darcy and Fixx together. We did trap — EDM trap music.

Yo Majesty from Tampa — they had that record Club Action which was big like in 2007. So when we started doing trap, we were just like, we're gonna do a stripped down version of Club Action. Very simple and stripped down. I sent it to Icey and he was like, dude. I gave it to a few people. Baauer started playing it. Then Skrillex started playing it on his Mothership Tour. And then everybody — you couldn't go to an EDM festival without hearing it like seven times.

There's one question that you may use your editing powers on. Kelly Reverb said: you have to ask him about the New Orleans story about getting robbed by a prostitute.

Well, I played at Ampersand in New Orleans and we ended up going to a strip club after. The owner took us there — me and Darcy. We were leaving the strip club, it was like five o'clock in the morning, and I was offered a ride, and we were leaving, and I hopped into a car. That's all I know. That's all I know.

Yeah, and I quit drinking. New Year's going into 2017 was the last time I drank. I just started not adding anything good to my life. That's a simple way to put it. I just feel better.

I went to Australia and New Zealand for a few dates. On the way back, I didn't get up from my seat from New Zealand to LA and I got a blood clot — a pulmonary embolism. I was on blood thinners for like a whole year. The doctor was like, you can't drink on blood thinners. When the doctor said I could stop taking it, it only took me like three months to say I'm done.

I love Chris Lake — he's my favorite house producer. Walker and Royce are some of my favorites.

I'm going to be setting up a Bandcamp subscription page — uploading DJ edits and remixes, releasing three edits a month. They'll be exclusive. I have a show in Spain coming up in May. Miami Music Week. And San Francisco, June 15th.

Yeah, June 15th. Right on. Well, we're looking forward to that. It's been a pleasure having you on. Appreciate it.

Awesome. Cool. Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was fun.