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The Last Days of DJ AM
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The drug overdose of celebrity deejay Adam Goldstein last week shocked his friends and fans. Fab Five Freddy, DJ Lindsay Luv, and others recall his legacy.
When I first met Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM, at the Hollywood Hills home he shared with then-fiancée Nicole Richie, he had just slimmed down (with the help of gastric bypass surgery) from a peak weight of 326 pounds.
“It all starts with shoes,” he told me at the time. It was 2004, and he looked impossibly trim in skinny jeans and a T-shirt from Undefeated, a sneaker store in Los Angeles “If there are a pair that I want really bad, I’ll make an outfit around them.” Then on to the accessories. “It sucks for guys because we don’t get as many accessories as girls do. You don’t get a purse, jewelry, a little throw-on thing and all the other stuff. Guys have to pick the right three things: shoes, shirt and pants—that are going to represent you.” His wrist was tattooed with a Technics turntable logo. And he was eager to show off his new wardrobe.
“To this generation, AM was our bridge between genres of music and culture that had not yet been brought together.”
AM had battled drug addiction for much of his adult life, but when we met, he’d been sober for more than five years. As recently as last month, he was working on an MTV reality show called Gone Too Far, in which he would help teens kick drugs. The shock of his death last week, of an apparent drug overdose, was profound.
“Very sad this happened,” Liz Gateley, one of the producers of the MTV series, wrote in an email. “Trying to reconcile in my head a lot right now. But mostly just sad he’s gone. He was a great guy.”
DJ AM’s Facebook page (with 4,875 friends) is still up and scores of fans and friends are typing their thoughts to ease the pain. Fellow celebu-DJ Samantha Ronson posted a photo of her brother Mark Ronson with Goldstein via Twitter and wrote: “I still don’t have the words—but these 2 taught me everything—forever and ever and a day.”
DJ AM was set to gig at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas this Friday. The hotel paid tribute to Goldstein by turning off the letters of the building’s marquee so only the “A” and the “M” were illuminated. His last appearance behind the turntables was at the club Dusk, in Atlantic City.
Philadelphia-born Goldstein got famous fast—for his deft DJ-ing and his celebrity girlfriends. He was 31 when I dropped by to interview him for Fashion Week Daily, but acted like a kid surrounded by new toys. He had one room in their modest three-bedroom house where he kept all his turntables, sound equipment, and old vinyl records. His sneakers, of which he had had more than 1,000 pairs, stayed in neat stacks of boxes, organized by style, in the garage. He had one closet to Richie’s five, and in it kept his first suit, by Hugo Boss. At one point during the interview, he hauled out his Mac laptop to check his sneaker bids on eBay.
This is the side of Goldstein his friends remembered in the hours after he was discovered in his Manhattan apartment. When he wasn’t getting the party started for Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Hudson, or Tom Cruise, he was just a regular guy, listening to vintage vinyl and collecting sneakers.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Fashion's Night In
Peter Davis is the editor at large of Paper, his articles on style and celebrities have been published in Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The New York Observer.
What a compelling piece; poignant, raw, honest. And what a refreshing perspective - part journalist part insider. I read this all the way through and felt as if it somehow offered a fresh perspective on a heartbreaking story - that Adam was human and had his flaws, but that he will also leave a legacy.
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Tragic....a significant life lost too soon...
What a loss and what a sad story. Here's a guy given a second chance to live, but his life has been extinguished. Whatever demons haunted him, I hope he is in a place of peace and love. Let his legacy be that of a life to be lived in full as if it's your last and that drugs is never the answer.
You know what would be funny? If it really did all start with shoes.
I stopped reading Paper a couple years back when it became more about hangers-on than its own scene. This article captures some of what I loved about it and reminds me of why it stopped influencing me. :\
This author obviously has a much much broader definition of "celebrity" than most of us. This crackhead's only claim to fame was as the boyfriend of a talentless reality TV star.
Sounds like an "inside" story.
Never heard of the "celebrity."
Sorry the guy had an addiction problem.
After cheating death in the plane crash,
you'd think he'd embrace life, but maybe he
was depressed, who knows ?
Hey, You are stealing Rita's format. Not cool, can't you come up with your own unique brand?
"stealing Rita's format"
Not sure what that means, but feel bad whenever
someone is fighting personal "demons," and doesn't make it.
I'm guessing the guy had a family, a mother who loved him,
leaving devastating personal loss behind.
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The Dash Snow treatment of the bottle-service-only club scene
musical-accompainment employee DJ AM.
The Daily Beast once again channels its inner OK! Magazine/Teen Beat.
I don't think I have EVER seen so many brand endorsements in what I believe is to be read as some kind of appreciation of a dead person by his 'friends'/'associates'. Nice...
His death is sad, but, like the late non-event artist Dash Snow's obviously intentional heroin overdose/suicide in July - the hopeless addict part of the portrait is less important than that he got movie stars onto the dancefloor, and then went and bought stuff after he lost weight.
Tina Brown, why don't you just have an Access Hollywood/Billy Bush video stream on here and call it a day?
I wholly agree! Between this and the feel good Vanity Fair-esque articles about Obama's vacation, I wonder where the better journalism here lies?
I have never read an article in which brand names were so artlessly plopped into the text. It reads like the most popular kids at a middle school wrote it.
"He had one closet to Richie's five, and in it kept his first suit, by Hugo Boss. At one point during the interview, he hauled out his Mac laptop to check his sneaker bids on eBay."
Talk about stinking up the place with bad writing.
jds181--ouch!
The man showed what sobriety can do. He gave himself 11 extra years of life. What he did with that time was extraordinary.
He did away with the sad myth that drugs are an essential creative component or necessary to enjoy a party. The fame he sought and found just took the example and the joy further.
That's an amazing lot of good to done in this world.
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i like the girls quotes- they seem the most heartfelt.
his dj sets were mediocre. I wonder why he was famous? DJs have a reputation for being drug dealers. maybe he was a drug dealer to the stars...
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While I can feel empathy for his loss as a human being but...
the guy was an f'ing DJ, not an artist or some other creative innovator. He was a z grade talent lucky enough to hook up with a d grade celebrity.
His entire 'talent' revolved around playing OTHER PEOPLES' MUSIC.
Is a person an artist if their spend their time painting copies of other painters' works? No. Does playing in a tribute/cover band make a person an artist? No. Does spinning somebody else records make you an artist? If so, then I must be freakin' Picasso, Oscar Wilde and Da Vinci all rolled up in one body.
BTW- I have heard a DJ AM Set, it was nothing special. As a DJ, this guy wasn't qualified to carry ?uestlove's, Cut Chemist, Oakenfold's or DJ Shadow's vinyl to set.
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What is it with TDB and unknown sub-D-list celeb drug addicts? First an unknown art dude and now this guy that no one ever heard of until he died.
Yawn.
It appears to be an "insider" story reported by MULTIPLE media outlets who seem to know him. Most of us the public had no idea who he was, at first I thought he was the son of someone famous. It sucks when anyone dies, but he is no different than the thousands of other DJs who die daily. I'm sure their fans miss them too. But I guess those DJ aren't cool enough to the media "insiders".
Whatever one can say good or bad about DJAM is now beside the point. Addiction is very powerful; RIP
Give people the blanket of anonymity and they will say the dumbest shit. Some of you sound very old. "Couldn't be a celebrity, I never heard of him!" Your arrogance is only matched by your arrogance. Sorry you guys missed the boat. Go back to raising your kids or something rather than giving your worthless, callous, ignorant opinions on someone you admit to know nothing about.
And felipe, you sound like a real hoot to hang out with. Can we chill sometime and go to a party and sit in a corner and not dance and talk about dj shadow?
I'd love to see some of you people step up to a stage and try to rock a party for a thousand people with your favorite little jingles and subsequently get booed off stage within seconds. Why do you think he was paid millions of dollars to do what he did? Did he con the entire planet into paying him millions for something any joe shmo could do in their sleep? What a genius.
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you sound like someone who has done nothing that anyone anywhere has cared anything for. aka mad.
Get off it, opindumb. None of us would be on here commenting if we'd ever accomplished anything meaningful in our lives.
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I think their point is if 95% of the U.S. population doesn't know who you are and your death didn't have an impact on most of the country, it doesn't belong in NATIONAL publications. As soon as this man died, it made EVERY news channel and was reported on CNN as though it were as important as the death of a national figure. This is not to say that this man wasn't valuable or good at his job, it's just not NATIONAL news-local news yes but not national.
We can chill any time opindumb. You can tell me all about the DJ AM album that is an innovative sonic masterpiece surpasses "entroducing" with its sheer creativity and about his track that dwarfs the popularity of 'starry eyed surprise'.
oh wait, they don't exist, do they?
'nuff said.
btw - plenty of talentless people have conned the world into paying them millions of dollars. Milli Vanilli, Sarah Palin, Britney Spears, Kate & Jon Gosslin etc., its no big trick.
Did you see what your boy ?estlove had to say about that talentless con hack am?
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/08/rip_dj_am.php
@timberlakesongguy, I don't watch cable news so I am not aware of any media frenzy. Maybe it was a slow news day. He meant a lot to a lot of people, but evidently not much to daily beast readers. I would venture to say though that everyone here has heard his mark on music whether or not you knew it. Dude was incredibly influential to the most incredibly influential people in music. That's just a fact.
What I do take issue with is the the "Since I've never heard of him his life is means nothing" attitude so prevalent around these parts. It just strikes me as an incredibly antisocial and odd. Like he kicked your dog or something. All I read when I see those comments are "I am very bitter with my life and so I feel best spitting vitriol on someone who did no harm whatsoever to me." It just seems so transparent.
Ok overly earnest rant over.
Opin,
Still waiting for you to tell me the title of just ONE track that highlights this DJ AM's creative vision and output. All I hear are the crickets chirping in your keyboard and the sound of an issue ducked.
The Avalanches record 'Since I Left You' is a great example of the creative potential of DJ culture.
Of course ?uestlove is going to say nice things about AM, the guy is dead, and ?uest is a classy guy.
Here's a quote from another talentless hack, DJ PREMIER
"I already heard people are trying to hate like he wasn't important, like he wasn't a dope DJ. Let me tell you something: He is the fuckin' shit. This dude's a fuckin' maniac on turntables, for real. You have to experience this dude's tactics on turntables -- he's sick with it. And if I cosign it, fuck any DJ who disagrees. You either haven't seen him spin ... and this dude's history, his knowledge of music, was intense."
I don't mean to be foul but you're not too bright are you? You do realize there's a difference between a DJ and a PRODUCER. Some people do both, some stick to one, others make edits and remixes which is kinda in between. I mean I don't have time to sit here and school you on all this or how djing itself is a skill and an art but DJ am was a DJ not a PRODUCER. His job was rocking parties not making "since i met you part 2". Ok? Got it now?
Anyway I'll do you a solid anyway and give you a link to him DJING. He could do many different styles expertly, this one seems it might be more your speed judging by the artists you listed.
http://www.box.net/shared/g5162h36kb
please enjoy.
Opin,
I get it, you are a fan. But you made my point for me with this line "DJ am was a DJ not a PRODUCER. His job was rocking parties not making "since i met you part 2".
The point being that AM did not 'create' anything. Manipulating turntables (spinning other peoples music) is not the same as playing an instrument or writing a song, or even the sonic collages of the avalanches. not by a long shot, sorry.
would you support a movie director whose whole trip is to edit together scenes from other peoples movies? probably not. so why do you think that a guy who does the exact same thing, except with music, is a genius?
I know you think you're clever by taking a cheap shot at my intelligence, so let tell you how wrong and fucking ignorant you are. I spent nearly 20 years in the music biz, managing major recording studios, bands and even owned a small label that sold over 200K CD's out of my livingroom. I've forgotten more about music and the industry than you'll ever know you pathetic fanboy.
See I can be insulting too. Again, it's no big trick.
So either we can keep it civilized or you can f' off.......... wannabe
hahahaha, you sold cds out of your house! You must be an industry tycoon!! hahaha. Oh man, did you even go to that link? I'm sorry man, you still have no idea what you're talking about. You sold CD's out of your house in the 70s or something that's great, the industry may have just passed you by. And hip hop isn't music, right? Rock and roll is just noise right? You sound like my grandpa. DJing is an art. You may not realize it, but your kids or grand kids do. I tried to help you out but I'm gonna have to go with my grandpa on this one. "Don't try to teach a pig to read, it doesn't work and it annoys the pig."
See grandpas have a lot of knowledge to offer, but usually not as it relates to modern music.
HAHAHA No it was in 2002-2004 a-hole. We toured with the roots and eryka badu, did a leg of smokin' grooves too, along with many others, there's my hip hop cred for what its worth.
if you know who wrote 'the seed' (original version) then you'll know i am talkin' about.
i'll be expecting your retraction shortly.
Oh, yeah, opindumb, let me rush over to read a blog about this crackhead DJ I never gave two shits about in the first place.
ok, I am sorry. That was foul. You're still wrong though.
On your dealings in the music industry did you ever tell those djs you encountered what you think of their chosen profession? That they're just minstrel parasites feeding off of other people's art? That they create nothing themselves? 90 percent of djs suck, and might fit that description, but 90 percent of anything sucks. There are a handful of people really doing it. You should expand your perspective. Maybe check out that link I sent. You just might enjoy it.
Thank you for owning up to the unnecessary rudeness.
No, I never said anything like that to a DJ, but then again, I never said anything like to any artist/musician whose music I did not like either. In my position it was better to observe the 'if you can't say something nice......' rule. It would be hard to be rude to somebody who is really nice, even if you hate the music, and really, there is nothing to gain by doing so.
I freely admitted that there are practitioners of turntable-ism that I think make some truly mind blowing music, I just don't think that AM was one of those people. I've heard/seen(?) more than one of his sets, it did not strike me as anything special. Maybe he had a bad night, maybe it was me not in the mood to 'get it'.
However, given your heartfelt passion for the guy, I will check out the link you posted.
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No, opindumb, any society which would pay this guy millions is full of idiots.
>>>>but 90 percent of anything sucks. There are a handful of people really doing it.
Ok, opindumb, you got me there. That's a good point.
Bravo! I love the youthful anger and indignation!
But seriously, someday when you grow up and out of your sheltered little post-adolescent club-scene, your definitions of 'tragedy' and 'significant' and 'genius' hopefully will contract to more reasonable proportions.
If not, well, sorry. Young and stupid is no way to go through life.
See, you think that I must be really down with this "post-adolescent club-scene" to have heard of DJ AM. Not the case. I'd say pretty much anyone under 20 has heard of him. That is an assumption you made, an incorrect one.
Plus, I don't know where 'you're' getting these 'quotes' from. 'I' never 'used' the word 'tragedy', 'significant' or 'genius'. When I was 'facetiously' saying that he 'conned' the entire world into giving him 'millions' I said he must be a 'genius'. RIF
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Why is it that every third tier celebrity who O.D.'s gets lionized by the media? Can we expect the movie? The book? The Washington Memorial?
Budd Schulberg, who wrote On the Waterfront and What Makes Sammy Run? died recently. I don't think he was mentioned here. And he contributed far more to the culture than this sad nobody.
Are you targeting BEAST at 20-something 2nd wave Slackers or adults?
"he was just a regular guy, listening to vintage vinyl and collecting sneakers." Oh, is THAT what a "regular guy" is? I guess I should get to work on my sneaker collection (I only have two pair).
For some of you doo doo sleepyheads: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/08/rip_dj_am.php
(hope this will actually let me link)
I agree with others on here. It's cool that you like him and all but grow up. Just like you have the right to love him, others have the right to hate. And it makes no sense for you to post his music while at the same time trashing the music tastes of others. I appreciate the skills of a DJ as much as the next guy but come on! I think the media has OD like AM on this coverage thing. I mean really, he may have been good but he's no Ted Kennedy.
what music tastes have i trashed? I was just commenting on the level of hate dispelled by so many people here. I think it's disturbing. I think I am rightfully angry over that. A man died, show some fucking respect. Fighting hateful speech with hate is unfruitful and I know fighting ignorant callous statements on the internet is retarded, like fighting the tide. I never post in comments sections of websites, so I guess I'll stick to that.
And in this situation it seems that the next guy doesn't respect the skills of a DJ so much. With time that will change tho.
I didn't know DJ AM, but it seems he was a broadpath. I'm sorry we lost him. Guys, if your feeling bad ASK for help. It's there waiting for you.
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