On the Circuit

It

is ironic that the musician who has capitalized most on the predominantly Caucasian subculture of cool kids tripping out on Thai and Indian beaches would himself be Asian, but that's precisely what has happened. As soon as Tokyo-born Tsuyoshi Suzuki began riding the circuit of travel and partying between Tokyo, Goa and Koh Phangan, he realized he had found an alternative way of living, and, more importantly for hundreds of thousands of clubbers and millions of music fans who would come to know him by his nom de decks DJ Tsuyoshi, a dynamic and new approach to making music. "Hearing these weird electronic noises coming from the beach in Goa just blew me away," says DJ Tsuyoshi, 35, "I just dove right in."

He went mad for life on the circuit, and that escapism has fueled his emergence as the cultural figure most synonymous with the Asian rave scene. Few DJs have ridden the peculiar admixture of talent, trend and attitude that makes a career behind turntables further than Tsuyoshi. He has achieved near shaman-like success. His band Joujouka's new single Invade, featuring Kyono, the lead singer for the popular metal band The Mad Capsule Markets, is a clubland smash. (The band also scored the PlayStation 2 shooter game, Rez.) With a catalog of over 20 albums and mix CDs, Tsuyoshi, whose return to Tokyo in 2000 triggered a nationwide trance boom, is that peculiar millennial superstar: the bankable DJ. Last month, he even launched his own Tokio Drome clothing line (named after his monthly Tokyo parties).

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Despite the legendary psychedelic flavor of those full moon parties and the epochal madness of three-day Goan raves, few globally renowned DJs emerged from the scene as so many did from other party spots like Ibiza or St. Tropez. Koh Phangan never produced a Sasha or Tall Paul, a deck maestro who made his name under the full moons before jetting off to earn $20,000 a night spinning at Cream or Ministry of Sound. Instead, the Asian raves coughed up Tsuyoshi, who first brought Shiva to the Tokyo dance floor a decade ago during his DJ residence at Wanna Dance, the notoriously hedonistic after-hours club in Tokyo's Nishi Azabu district. The following year he took his decks and 12-inches to London where other DJs, inspired by their trips to Goa, were creating a faster, harder and more synthetically-advanced style of techno dubbed Goa Trance. Tsuyoshi, with his striking features and Japanese post-punk style and sensibility—bondage pants worn with Hysteric Glamour shirts, vintage Clydes and Yohji Yamamoto stovepipes—was like a replicant, custom- made in Japan to thrive in this scene. His popularity spinning at London's now much-eulogized Return To The Source trance party propelled him to the top of the mid-'90s Eurotrance explosion, prompting tours of major rave festivals like the U.K.'s Big Love and Tribal Gathering and Germany's Love Parade. His arrival was confirmed in 1997, when leading designer Issey Miyake took him on as music director for his Paris and Tokyo shows, and again in 2000 when Versace hired him for its own Tokyo catwalks.

Tsuyoshi was born one of Tokyo's cool kids—his father, Noboru Suzuki, was a catcher for the Yomiuri Giants. The DJ today projects a professional athlete's quiet confidence and easygoing physicality. The younger of two brothers, Tsuyoshi became obsessed with music while his peers were becoming passionate about his dad's sport. His mother, an elementary school teacher, remembers scolding a 12-year-old Tsuyoshi for cutting cram school to hit a Yellow Magic Orchestra gig at the Budokan.

In high school, Tsuyoshi, who played drums for a Kraftwerk and Cocteau Twins-inspired new wave band, spent most of his school days smoking cigarettes with his bosozoku (motorcycle gang) buddies. "But since my grades were good, teachers hated me more," he adds, laughing. His slacker attitude continued into university, where the budding DJ spent his graduation day "dancing in Goa." His absentee rate once prompted a worried Nihon University College of Art professor to land him a job at a local TV production company. He lasted two weeks. "Then I dropped out." He spent the next eight years wandering between Asian hotspots, touching down in Tokyo to reboot on new DAT technology and reload on yen and then blasting off again for the white label Gulf of Siam islands or Arabian Sea coast.

It has been a life and music fashioned from the movable aural and narcotic feast of the circuit, and Tsuyoshi, taking a break from remixing Joujouka's upcoming third album at his Nishi Azabu studio, says he's finally getting burned out, insisting that the beautiful madness that turned him on is now long gone. "The whole genre's gotten so conservative these last six years," says the DJ, sporting his new gold-streaked Mohawk. "It's reached the point where everything trance meant for me in India feels like this totally separate thing."

And now the renegade artist wears the heavier burden of spokesman for the post-bubble, beaten generation. Huge crowds greeted his appearance at a Tokyo "Be-in" peace rally recently. And Tsuyoshi's opinion is now sought out on everything from music to politics to fashion.

Can an escapist really be the voice of a generation? "Let's face it," he says as he prepares to fly back to Bangkok for a one-night club stint before heading down to Koh Samui for a full moon party, "I'm hopping on a plane almost every weekend. Basically, I just can't wait to take off."