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Food

2013 in DJs and the Stuff They Ate

The world's only reporter dedicated to the cooking DJ beat takes us through an eventful year.

Looking back at the grand arc of history, certain years have specific and obvious associations. 1492—the voyage of Christopher Columbus. 1812—the war of 1812. 1969—Serge Gainsbourg's "'69, Année Erotique." In all likelihood, 2013 will be remembered as the year in which somebody (that would be me) finally started asking DJs for their advice about cooking.

Now, as this monumental year draws to a close, I, the world's only reporter dedicated to the increasingly important cooking DJ beat, present what is sure to be the only year-end wrap up of food-related DJ news, and a wildly incomplete one at that. On to the timeline:

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February 7: McDonalds' yearly Flavor Battle takes place in Miami Beach. DJs compete from booths designed to resemble the packaging of Big Macs, Quarter Pounders etc. The significance of the prankishly elaborate metaphor for the corporatization of art and music is seemingly lost on everybody. In a related story, I'm gonna pitch a DJ battle concept to Lockheed Martin where contestants ride weaponized drones. Should be great PR.

February 13: The tumblr DJs You Can Eat quietly launches with a photoshop of "Breadinski and Falafelstein." (See above).  Semi-regular posts throughout the year yield mixed results. Yes: Curry Chandler. No: Roni Fries.

April 24: Compulsive Twitter shit-talker (and House Gangster) DJ Sneak suggests that he can out-BBQ Seth Troxler. During the summer, Troxler goes on to open a BBQ pop-up just east of Kingsland Road in East London's Haggerston section. In October, the two compete in a cook off at the Amsterdam Dance Event.

July 6-7: I made an epic, 24 hour rib recipe. Delicious.

July 18: French producer and sound engineer Fab Dupont, known for his popular Pure Mix engineering tutorials, releases the second yearly installment of his hilarious French cooking demos. Dupont demystifies quiche whilst getting drunk on quality wine. Not suprisingly, the sound design on the video is top notch. "I know a lot of people who insist on making quiche with red wine. I am no longer friends with those people."

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August 3: While onstage in Toronto, Steve Aoki hits a kid in a wheelchair in the face with a sheet cake. This moment captured the zeitgeist of DJing in 2013—doing a bunch of shit on stage that isn't DJing in front of a bunch of bro-dudes. More importantly, it was an inappropriate use of both cake and arm strength.

September 28: THUMP's "Cooking With the DJ" launches with the Hood Internet's Steve Reidell. Julia Child re-animates, has her agent book her a headlining slot at Ultra.

October 2: DJ Tiesto goes to South Korea and tweets a bunch of jokes about eating dog. He later deletes the tweets. The first thing I thought when I saw that tweet was that being eaten by Tiesto is probably one of the worst fates I can imagine. Just think about how awful it would be to get digested and pooped out by DJ Tiesto. Some of you would get assimilated into his cells and actually become a part of him. Terrifying. The second thing I thought was "he didn't specify which Korea he's tweeting from." If VICE can get Dennis Rodman into North Korea, I don't see why they can't send me to Pyongyang with Tiesto. Think on it editors.

October 16: Seth Troxler takes home his third consecutive crown at the ADE DJ Cook Off, besting his adversary DJ Sneak as well as Tom Trago and others.

December 9: Jayson Musson AKA Hennessey Youngman puts up a bunch of loosies from his mid-2006s Philadelphia avant party rap group Plastic Little. I played a buncha shows with these guys around that time, and fondly remember their facetious ad campaign for non-existent food conglomerate "Duke Foods." There was one about a pretzel full of soda and then there was also the Dick Pizza—a thoroughly obnoxious ad for a piece of pizza you can have sex with to the strains of the canonical "Think" drum breakbeat.

Michael Fichman is a DJ, producer and label owner living in Philadelphia.  Follow him on twitter at @djaptone.