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SkiiTour skedaddles to festivals all over the country

Just back from two sets at Shambhala, Whistler DJ duo launch their own label
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Skii Happy Rapper Def 3 with DJs Tim Livingston and Canosis of SkiiTour at Shambhala in 2015. The Whistler DJs have just started their own record label. PHOTO submitted

SkiiTour's DJs are your summer snowmen.

Snow seems to follow the Whistler duo of Tim Livingstone and Canosis wherever they go to play — in the form of snow machines and even snowballs.

The latter was courtesy of an obliging snow-cone seller from Washington state, who brought his machine to the Shambhala Festival last year. There were pitched snowball battles with grateful fans who were sizzling in the heat.

And this year's Shambhala has just ended — Livingstone is a little groggy from lack of sleep and not sure what day it is. SkiiTour is off to Alberta at the end of the week for another festival, so he is happy to find out it's only Tuesday.

"It's been a pretty intense summer. I think we've played at one festival each weekend, all summer long," he says, his words crackling with vocal fry.

This has meant travelling as far east as Moncton, N.B., with a healthy smattering of Western Canadian festivals, where SkiiTour is becoming a regular feature.

"I think that's 10 in all. It has been really interesting for us this year, because we've been playing two sets at a lot of the festivals. We did a four-hour chill set at Astro Harvest (near Slave Lake, Alta.) and it was fantastic," he says.

"Then we got a call two or three weeks ago from Shambhala asking if we could do a second set because somebody pulled out. We got to play the Fractal Forest Stage (the main stage) and it was amazing.

"We were blown away, it was quite an honour. We had spent May and June getting our first Shambhala set ready and then we got the call two weeks to pull together the other set. We were like, 'Damn it, but yes!'"

With 11,000 fans watching at Shambhala, it would seem that SkiiTour's star is rising. They played just after the Sunday Funk Jam hosted by A.Skillz and Small Town DJs and fans stayed to party with them. Livingstone called the experience "surreal."

"I remember visiting that stage many moons ago; it was a goal of mine to play it. It's an amazing feeling," he adds.

SkiiTour also performed its first tour in Australia this past spring. Livingstone says Aussie fans were turning up in their trademark vintage ski gear from the 1970s and '80s.

In June, Livingstone and Canosis launched their own label, Double Black Records.

"It's kind of an homage to skiing, but Black Diamond Records was already taken," Livingstone says.

SkiiTour's first single on the label is a collaboration with rapper Ray Black, "The Rave Won't Leave Me Alone."

"We're working with a couple hip-hop artists, including Def 3. We have a whole bunch of tunes ready to go," Livingstone says.

"The Rave Won't Leave Me Alone" can be found on iTunes and Spotify.

In the meantime, fans can see them perform at the Garibaldi Lift Company on Wednesday, Aug. 17, at 9:30 p.m.

For more information, visit www.skiitour.com.