SAN FRANCISCO — What's your biggest fear? Spiders? Heights? For DJ WiiJ, it's a broken Bluetooth connection. "Having to reconnect mid-show would suck," the San Francisco musician told MTV News.
DJ WiiJ, otherwise known as 27-year-old Jimmy Lesondak, is one of the more unique artists on the Bay Area circuit. He doesn't DJ with a turntable: Instead, he waves around two Wiimote controllers connected to a hidden Nintendo Wii console.
"I bought [the Wii] for gaming on launch day," he said. "It wasn't until about a month into owning the system that I started using Wiimotes on my PC. I had been playing with one of the mouse hacks at the time and decided to open one of the DJ software applications I use. I started mixing using the Wiimote as a mouse and it dawned on me that it was possible to configure the controller to DJ with."
Hacking Nintendo's Wiimote to perform other functions isn't new: People started experimenting with the hardware immediately after Wii hit shelves in November 2006. There are videos and step-by-step walkthroughs showing users how to navigate around Google Earth, play "Half-Life 2" and even manipulate an interactive whiteboard.
DJ WiiJ first premiered online in the same fashion, but he eventually took his skills to the stage, debuting at San Francisco's Bootie bar in May 2007.
"The first time I Wii-Jed in public went pretty well, actually," he recalled. "The crowd was into it, nothing technical went wrong — which was my biggest fear — and everyone seemed to dig that I wasn't DJing the usual way."
In addition to mixing and mashing music on a Nintendo system, Lesondak also incorporates a stage show of sorts. It's hardly professionally choreographed, but his friends join him on stage in Wario, Link, Zelda, Peach and Toad costumes.
They proved a big hit at the recent show that MTV News attended. Lesondak views the plethora of well-known Nintendo characters as completely unique: He doesn't believe audiences would react the same way if Master Chief from "Halo" or Solid Snake from "Metal Gear Solid" were jumping around, even though he wishes the situation were different.
"For [my] last show I really wanted to branch out from the recent classic Nintendo resurrection fad people seem to be having," he said. "I started to think of other games or systems that I could work with, but after a while they just didn't seem to have the 'Nintendo Power' that the classics had. With the Nintendo classics they all feel like family to most gamers. Master Chief and Kratos don't feel like family. You might recognize them, but they just don't have that bond that Link and Donkey Kong do."
Lesondak has been performing on stage with Wiimote in hand for more than a year. Though Nintendo hasn't contacted him, other companies have. "Assassin's Creed" publisher Ubisoft wanted him to headline a company party, but it didn't work out. Nonetheless, he's leaving an open invitation to Nintendo of America president/ fan-favorite gaming executive Reggie Fils-Aime.
"If Reggie wanted me to host a Nintendo party I totally would," Lesondak said. "I couldn't think of anywhere else it would go down better!"
Unfortunately, if you're not in the Bay Area, there's currently not much opportunity to witness DJ WiiJ, though Lesondak said he's trying to book some performances elsewhere in California later this year. You can keep up with his schedule at his official site.
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