After last year’s Creamfields after-party, where Canadian artist Deadmau5 was involved in an incident with a local DJ, James Cameron, another member of Brisbane’s clubbing community has had a run-in with an international star.

This time it involved New York City’s Pete Rock, who was performing at Alhambra Friday January 6. Rocking Horse Records staffer and veteran DJ, Kieron C, was at the show as a punter when he noticed sound issues with Rock’s DJ set.

“He was having issues with Serato, you could hear it in the first record. He wasn't getting good signal through the cartridge, and so it just sounded like shit. And so he's just jumped on the mic and started bagging out the system, saying it’s all shit and that he's a professional.

“I told the promoter what the problem was and he asked me to go up there and fix it. I initially said no, 'cause I said 'it's not my job mate', and he kind of looked at me and said 'please'. So I went up there, waited a couple of seconds, got Pete's attention and said 'the problem with that turntable is a stylus issue', and he basically turned on me and said, ‘this stylus has been solid for me all over the world, I'm not gonna stand here and let you tell me this shit'. And I was like 'No Pete it's the connection, you can see it in on your Serato’ — there's a signal bar on Serato which lets you know whether or not you've got solid connection, and you could see that it wasn't performing, and I said 'Look it's on your Serato mate, you just gotta reset your cartridge or check the IPA', but he just blanked me and ignored me and I just left him to it.

“Terry, who was doing the photos, he said a little bit later (that) he just took the cartridges off, gave them a lick and stuck them back on, and once I found that out I just thought 'oh, you're a tool, should've just done it when I said it’.”

Is Brisbane’s clubbing community getting the raw end of the prawn with their friendly offers to assist visiting DJs with technical issues? Or should we allow international artists to act in a manner that lives up to their rockstar billing?

“Well if the dude couldn't fix his own fuckin' Serato then he should have a word with his flunkies who set it up for him, and set it up right,” Kieron says. “It's just a matter of refitting the cartridge and you're away, happy days and he just douchebagged it. He made himself look like a fuckin' idiot. Maybe it was just lost in translation mate.”