What is your destination?
House music hot property Alex Gaudino, also known as DJ Alex, gained his badge of honor by winning the best European A&R at the European music awards in 2000.
A deejay since 1993 and owner of a Milan-based record label after the success of his astute A&R signing, Alex decided to add another string to his bow: record producing.
The first-ever planted seed on the Italian house music scene came back in 2003 with a parade of gems, most notably the track Destination Unknown which featured the sound of Crystal Waters and received buckets of praise, despite not actually getting an official release.
When the Destination track grew in popularity, especially in the UK where Pete Tong and Judge Jules gave it maximum respect, Alex decided to up the ante and morphed into 2006’s “Destination Calabria.” A spicy brew of Crystal Waters and Rune’s hottie vocals, “Calabria” was eventually released and went supernova, detonating house clubs and charts alike.
Following up with the single Watch Out featuring Shena, Alex repeated the trick and cemented his reputation. Since then Gaudino became a key player in the exclusive, sexy, stylish party flavor, with a treasure trove of Italian disco and rocked-up electro house remixes under his belt and an unquenchable desire to get the glamorous party crowd heated up and grooving.
Alex started when he was 15 playing the usual house parties for friends, then he started going out to clubs and working there, where he realized he wanted to do this as a real job. So the dream grew bigger, Alex moving from his small town to music capital Milan, a scene not unlike London for the UK people: full of music, business, socializing and more. He started DJing at a loft in Milan then moved around Europe and then hit Ibiza with the Made In Italy group. Obviously, it was Destination that gave him the privilege to play everywhere; he made another record and everything started from there.
With his vinyl collection of 35,000 records, Alex Gaudino can practically build a house out of them — when he’s not bringing down the house, that is. The first record he bought was The Knack’s My Sharona. He was influenced by his mom, who supported him and advised him to follow his dream.
Alex gets his inspiration at the studio in Milan, inside the Time Records offices. He says, “During the day I can go there for the day or in the evening and then when the weekend comes along everything completely changes and I am going from one airport to another, but that’s cool. Every weekend is something different for me, different cities around Europe.”
Alex played in many clubs around the world but he cites his ultimate gigs in Brazil, Russia and the UK, which he describes as amazing. When you’re a performing artist like DJ Alex, it’s hard to choose the “best place” you’ve played at; as long as the fans are waiting for you in any destination you will be up and ready to play.
That’s the attitude of an artist passionate about his music: not dedicated merely to money, just trying to get out there and play for the crowd. Sad to say it’s not always the situation, with other artists creating bidding wars in certain territories, waiting for the best offers to roll in, while other promoters and clubs suffer.
But when these incidents happen, it’s usually the booking agent who is behind it. I have met with a lot of managers for major artist and they laugh when they see certain “riders” sent by booking agencies to promoters — the kind specifying “shrimp cocktails with champagne on stage” and the like. (If such rider requirements aren’t met by the promoter, the artist has the right to cancel his gig.) I mean, how happy can you be standing in the crowd, waiting for the artist to finish his cocktails before the music rolls?
What’s next for Alex? After finishing a new single with Steve Edwards who sang World Hold On with Bob Sinclair he will be going to work on a few new tracks for the Midem trade shows and he is going to remix a new single from Armin van Buuren as well as the forthcoming Benny Benassi single. I am eagerly excited to listen to these tracks soon.
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For comments and suggestions feel free to e-mail me at rickydaker@gmail.com.
“Beat Generation” is the only column that covers the electronica scene, with DJ interviews, CD reviews, parties and events around the world, exclusively in the Philippine STAR “YS” section every Friday.
