What's In Your Fridge: Luke McKeehan

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      What’s in Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what’s sitting beside the Heinz Ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators.

      On the grill

      Luke McKeehan

      Who are you

      Owner of Nordic Trax record label, DJ, promoter, bad joke-teller. Upcoming dates: Barcelona (June 19), Vancouver (Open Studios, June 27), Calgary (Habitat, June 30).

      First concert

      According to my dad, it was 1972 Pacific Coliseum—Rolling Stones headlined, Stevie Wonder opened. I would have been two and was on my dad’s back. He could talk himself into anything and as the story goes walked to the front of the line and blagged his way in because he knew the promoter or someone involved. As you’d expect, I don’t remember any of it. I wish I did.

      First concert I bought tickets to was I believe Duran Duran in Ottawa, early '80s. They were quite epic and everyone knew all the words to every song. Flash-forward to late '90s at a private bar in London, we met Simon Le Bon and he was drunk and hitting on our friend from Vancouver, who was a waiter there. The bar’s DJ hadn’t shown up and when he found out we were DJs and had a CD with us, he asked us for one and put it on in the bar. It was quite tragic and he spilled a drink on his lap to top things off. Still epic.

      Life-changing concert

      Not really a concert per se, but the after-hours club Twilight Zone in Toronto in the mid '80s opened my mind (and many others) to a whole other world of music, people, and a general state of being that was counter to the mainstream. We were teenagers with liberally minded parents who let us go out and dance all night, and for a few years we would go there religiously on the weekends. There weren’t really fliers or posters, it was all word-of-mouth and the place has since been well-documented as Toronto’s version of the Paradise Garage. I would also listen to Dave’s Dance Music on CKLN on the weekend, go get the chart/track listing he provided at Starsound, and save my money to buy as many records as I could. I’ve been to thousands of club nights and parties since, none has ever been as special as that place to me. I can still remember when the record "Jack Your Body" by Steve "Silk" Hurley broke, many people thought the lyric was “Yankee Boy” at first (pre-Shazam).

      Top three records

      Simple Minds New Gold Dream  My uncle gave me this on cassette tape one year for Christmas—he is a fountain of musical knowledge, and though at the time we lived on separate sides of the country (him Vancouver, me Toronto) he always took time to introduce me to the music that excited him. I subsequently bought all their earlier albums and became the biggest Simple Minds fanboy—the live version of "Hunter and the Hunted" is as close to a perfect song as you will hear, in my opinion. I also turned my back on them like a stupid teenage music snob when they blew up after the success of "Don’t You (Forget About Me)" in The Breakfast Club. Such is life.

      George Benson Weekend in L.A.  I think I first heard "On Broadway" on the soundtrack to All That Jazz and that song just captured so much energy it blew me away. As a record collector I dug deep into his music, including the CTI catalogue, and I have most of his albums. I consider myself lucky to have seen him a few times live, and—what can you say—the man is an entertainer and HE CAN PLAY. Bothers me that he got a lot of flack from the jazz purists for singing and writing pop music, but it’s connected him with a much wider audience to be sure, and fuck those guys.

      E.S.P. "It’s You"  This is a single, not an album, but damn if you couldn’t just put this track on today and have the whole room moving. Such a simple and effective hook—so much of the early dance music has stood the test of time because the producers didn’t have all the tools and computer power we have today. So they had to focus on the core idea, and be creative with the limited tools they had. This song is perfect.

      All-time favourite video

      Anything by Michel Gondry  I’m kind of a cynic when it comes to music videos, I prefer to just listen to the music and let my mind wander where it goes. I went to film school and so I guess the videos I like are not showing off the band’s good looks or literally interpreting the lyrics, but are more conceptual. So since I have to choose, I would say anything by Michel Gondry. The video for Daft Punk's "Around The World" is a good example of his craft, but there are many.

      What’s in your fridge

      I’m going to sound like that skit from Portlandia where the couple talks about Spain all the time, but alas music has led me to live in Valencia part-time, where I’m writing from, so here goes…

      Fuet. It’s this cured Spanish sausage which you buy whole and can find anywhere here, but costs about 10 times as much in Vancouver, assuming you can find it. I could eat this all day long, much to my lady’s dismay. Actually, I’m going to have some now. Don’t ask me what’s in it—I don’t want to know.

      Banderillas picantes. These are hot pickled vegetables. I like pickles, maybe too much. They say if you have pickles before bed you will have crazy dreams, but I don’t mess with the dark arts and my dreams are already crazy enough. So these are strictly a daytime snack for me. If you like pickles, I highly suggest you hunt these down. And if you don’t, what’s wrong with you?

      Too much hot sauce. Like the lady in the ad says, "I put that sh*t on everything." But you know, why not? Spice is good. In North America the hot-sauce culture is kind of out of control, with all sorts of evil names and bad graphic designs for each brand. I blame the Food Network. But I’ll take a simple Tapatio or generic salsa picante with any kind of food.

       Luke McKeehan plays a Nordic Trax show at Open Studios on June 27. 

       

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