Godfather of Mash | The Monster Mash. We could go on for days with 'mash' references...
z-trip
w/ Degree, Agent Orange, All Out DJs. Aug. 30 (9pm). Starlite Room (10030-102 St). Tickets: $25, available at Ticketmaster, Foosh, FS, Soular, Blackbyrd.
Even though house and techno can also trace their origins back to the U.S., mash-up is arguably the quintessential American dance style. Musically, it’s the ultimate melting pot — a winning mélange of rock, hip hop, funk, punk, and come what may — and sitting atop the mash-up heap is Zach Sciacca, otherwise known as DJ Z-Trip. Sciacca was cutting, layering, and scratching records long before mash-up became the dance scene’s latest infatuation, a fact that has seen him dubbed the sound’s “Godfather” and earning him recognition as one of the 100 greatest artists of all time by Rolling Stone. He insists, however, that he isn’t Captain America by any stretch.
He’s been grappling with his sense of patriotism ever since he returned from Kuwait earlier this year where he performed as part of Operation MySpace alongside acts like Jessica Simpson, Disturbed, and The Pussycat Dolls. While Sciacca says he was glad to entertain U.S. troops readying for deployment into Iraq, he admits that the experience still haunts him a little.
In a way, I almost feel like I somehow served my country and did my part,” he says, “but I’m not sure I would go back right away. I don’t support this war and never did. But Chuck D from Public Enemy actually reminded me that James Brown went to Vietnam to entertain the troops. That helped me make my decision to go. Still, in some ways, I felt like the odd man out there. I’d be trying to rock the party, because that’s what I do, but really I was just trying to take their minds off what they’re about to go into — and there isn’t much to celebrate over there.”
Even American holy days like the last Fourth of July had an ugly bent for Sciacca after a run-in during a gig in Colorado. Sciacca dropped in “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine, a staple of his sets, while inviting the crowd to raise their middle fingers in salute to George W. Bush, the Worst U.S. President Ever. The showy move resulted in Sciacca getting a drink thrown at him — by a Marine, no less.
It went all over my shit — and this guy had just been partying along with me in the VIP area a few songs prior to that,” Sciacca says. “The song ended and the guy walked up to me calling me a pussy. I got on the mic again and basically said, ‘Look, man. Are you really going to try and tell me that George Bush isn’t the worst president in U.S. history? Fuck him, fuck Condoleezza Rice, fuck Cheney, and fuck all the people who put all of us in the worst position imaginable. But isn’t it great that we live in a country where people like you defend the right of people like me to say stuff like that on the microphone?’”
Sciacca never got a response, much less an apologetic handshake. The experience have made him realize just how much is riding on the upcoming U.S. presidential election. An unabashed Barack Obama supporter, Sciacca says if the Democrats don’t pull through this time, he’ll be working doubly hard to convince his wife to move to Vancouver. He’s also an unabashed fan of Canada, Canadians, our healthcare system, and our seemingly permissive attitudes towards marijuana. “I really love Canada,” he once wrote on his website (www.djztrip.com). “For the record, whenever possible, I’m always down to go to Canada.”
Not that there aren’t some happy times stateside. When I caught up with him, Sciacca was in San Francisco’s Bay area to attend the wedding of his buddy DJ Golden Child and the occasion brought to mind a time when wedding gigs were Z-Trip’s bread and butter. Sciacca’s popularity is such nowadays that he’s glad to have priced himself out of that world. Still, I can’t resist asking him whether he’d prefer playing for troops in the Middle East or dropping “The Bird Dance” for the middle-aged.
Oh, God,” he laughs. “I’d rather call in sick. If my life means that I am playing a wedding one day and Kuwait the next, then I need a fucking break, man.”
