Las Vegas's craziest DJ is coming to Whistler.
This is an official designation. Michael Toast was voted the honour for 2014.
"It's kind of a backhanded compliment from the guys who gave it to me and it's really nice, but that's Vegas for you," he says.
Musically speaking, Toast creates dance sounds in all sorts of genres. And this got him another Las Vegas music award — Best Multi-Genre DJ of 2014 and 2015.
The man is doing something right and pleasing a lot of people, it seems.
Toast says: "I like playing all different style and stuff. I've been on a trap kick for a while, a dubstep kick, drum n bass. I'm a lover of music but at the end of the day I am all about partying, rocking and giving everybody a good time. If I can make a remix or provide a remix to the crowd that gives them what they know or a twist on what they don't know, that's what I like. It's all good."
Lovers of his music will have a few opportunities to catch him. Toast is performing at The Longhorn from Friday, Jan. 16 to Monday, Jan. 19 along with the club's regular DJ nights.
The Gibbons Group has been bringing Toast to Whistler for the better part of the last decade. He has played it all here — Crankworx, Cornucopia, Martin Luther King weekend, spring break and the World Ski and Snowboard Festival.
"It was really to groom me for the Olympics, to play up there in 2010, which I did... 27 days," he says. "I've been up a few times for everything, I think. It's cool because everytime I go up there to do something different, you can be yourself and change a bit and learn more about why the mountains are so amazing. Fun in the summer or the snow."
Toast released "a whole slew" of remixes in 2014 and is working on original stuff for this year.
He has been part of the U.S. DJ scene for 30 years, getting his start on the East Coast; his New York accent is still strong.
"I've been into music a long time. Ever since I was a baby, I've been playing. I bought my first record at three-and-a-half years old. A Paul McCartney record because my name was in it or something," he says.
But that's what a DJ is, Toast says, someone who gets to be in charge of the radio and take it from there.
"I try to separate the whole DJ-as-God thing from reality, because I feel the more people who learn how to DJ will appreciate a good DJ. As I get older, I don't want to be that old guy who doesn't share. I want to help people who are up-and-coming and show people how it is," he says, adding that mentoring and teaching younger DJs is part of his business now.
