DJ Keoki
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| Superstar DJ Keoki | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Keoki Franconi |
| Born | October 22, 1966 |
| Origin | New York Club Kid scene |
| Genre(s) | Electronic Music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, producer, DJ |
| Years active | 1980s-present |
| Website | http://www.djkeoki.net/ |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| Turntables | |
Superstar DJ Keoki (born October 22, 1966, Keoki Franconi) is a Electronic music DJ who was born in El Salvador, but raised in Hawaii.[1] Ironically, he had no experience as a DJ when was branded Superstar DJ Keoki. It was infamous partykid/murderer Michael Alig who helped in the early promotion of his then boyfriend DJ Keoki[2]
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[edit] Bio
Keoki Franconi was born in El Salvador but moved to Kihei, Maui, when he was 8.[1] After graduating from Kailua High school he moved to the mainland to study at an airline school in California. When that didn't work, he moved to New York City and got a job with Trans World Airlines in New York, tracking lost luggage[3] while also being a busboy at the city's trendy Danceteria club.[1] It was at Danceteria that he got his start:
| “ | I kept bugging a nearby club's manager to, please, please, please let me DJ there. I told him I knew how to do it, even though I only had a small collection of records and one turntable at home. He let me play a lounge gig on some of the slower nights. He told me to 'play whatever the f--- you want, so long as they stay,' words I've continued to live by to this day. | ” |
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— DJ Keoki [1]
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[edit] Club Kids and Michael Alig
While in New York City he met and began a romance with Michael Alig.[2] Alig rose to international fame as the head of "the Club Kids" gang, a group of diverse partygoers who would dress in costumes each night and form parties in New York and all over the United States. Franconi performed as a DJ during the parties.
Dance music writer Jennifer Warner remembers,
| “ | I was marking the side of a mile-high stack of party invites with a huge purple pen and this body appeared, covered in silver glitter, wearing what looked like a diaper and dragging a boy [Michael Alig], also sporting a falling-off diaper, minus the glitter but made up like a clown. | ” |
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— Jennifer Warner [1]
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It was while DJing at Disco 2000 Alig's party night at the Limelight that one of the biggest myths about Keoki began, the one where Mr Superstar passed out on the turntables while doing a set, "I guarantee you that never fuckin' happened" states DJ Keoki. [4] Franconi and Alig both developed expensive drug habits and began to grow apart. Alig's drug use indebted him to Angel Melendez, whom he murdered after an argument over many things including a long-standing drug debt.[5] Subsequently, Alig became a fugitive from the law and Franconi broke all ties with him.
[edit] Superstar
Franconi cleaned up and went on to have a successful career during the late 1990s and early 2000s as Superstar DJ Keoki, releasing a number of CDs over that decade and he was hired to play for thousands of people at massive rave dances. He last toured, dressed extravagantly, wearing makeup, and sporting a number of tattoos, in the United States and Europe on the Club Party Monster Tour, a tribute to both the Party Monster movie as well as a nod to the Club Kid scene that shot him into stardom. The tour began in November, 2006 and featured shows in 2007 as well.
[edit] Discography
2004 - The Great Soundclash Swindle
2003 - Kill The DJ
2002 - Misdirected Jealousy: The Remix Album
2002 - Keokiclash
2001 - Jealousy (also released in a Limited Edition 2XCD version with bonus CD w/ exclusive remixes)
2000 - djmixed.com/keoki
1998 - Altered Ego Trip (The Remix Album)
1998 - Inevitable Alien Nation
1997 - Ego Trip
1996 - Disco Death Race 2000
1996 - The Transatlantic Move
1995 - All Mixed Up
1995 - We Are One
1994 - Journeys By DJ
[edit] Keoki in popular Media
- He is written about in James St. James book, Disco Bloodbath:James St. James. Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland, August 11, 1999, Simon & Schuster, 2222. ISBN 0684857642.
- He was portrayed by Wilmer Valderrama in Party Monster, a biopic about James St. James and Michael Alig
- Interviewed in the Better Living Through Circuitry a 1999 documentary about Electronic dance music culture, and the first such full-length film on the subject.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Gary C. W. Chun (Friday, December 7, 2001). Superstar DJ Keoki keeps the party going (HTML). Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
- ^ a b Michael Musto (March 26th, 2002 12:00 AM). NYC Life (HTML). villagevoice. Retrieved on 2008-03-22. “Alig and his then boyfriend, Keoki,”
- ^ Keoki Biography (HTML). famousdjs (2007). Retrieved on 2008-03-25. “Landing a job with TWA in New York, tracking lost luggage, enabled keoki the opportunity to travel the world for free.”
- ^ DJ Keoki (2007). DJ Keoki (HTML). djkeoki.net. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. “The "I passed out on the turntable" story that I have heard forever that never happened. I guarantee you that never fuckin' happened.”
- ^ Robert "Freeze" Riggs written confession (HTML). The Smoking Gun (2007). Retrieved on 2008-03-22.
