i do whatever i want so.... do what you want is dead GO TO ccsheffield.tumblr.com: September 2009

The DJs/Sonic Aesthetes

C.C. Sheffield

Though known to Westsiders for spinning at The Standard in Hollywood, C.C. Sheffield is also an emerging songwriter with the lyrical nihilism that leads you to believe she’s not afraid of being punched in the face. For the track Escape Me, the former lead singer of Le Rev’s self-directed video starred Sheffield in an all-out brawl at Echo Park dive bar Little Joy with Little Loca, now a YouTube sensation. Cue balls cracked into skulls, draft beer poured over weaves—rest assured the night doesn’t end on a pretty note. “I’ve worked on the music scene since I was, like, 14 in Arizona, and I was definitely a target of some of the vata chicks. So I had to incorporate Little Loca for this,” she says.

Blunt and unpretentious, Sheffield has gone solo and was recently asked by DJ Tiësto to contribute a track for his upcoming album, which drops in October and also includes Nelly Furtado and Tegan and Sara. A recent song she worked on with Grammy-nominated producer Max Martin nearly made it onto the latest Kelly Clarkson album—perhaps to butch up the American Idol star’s street cred, Sheffield says. “The song’s all about drunk dialing and hooking up. Kelly didn’t want it, but she’s retarded. So whatever.”

Another bar fight is probably out of the question, however; Sheffield’s moved on. “Everyone in L.A. goes through a lot of different phases. For me, first it was “What the fuck am I doing?’, then it became an Echo Park drunky-punk phase. Now I’m feeling more Marina-del-Rey-sailboat.” —A.H.

Mathieu Schreyer

Taking a literal setlist approach to reflect L.A.’s current mood is the mark of any hack DJ. The Station Fire’s devastating flames are particularly rife for turntable melodrama to further fray our collective nerves (blech), which is why we’re happy that KCRW’s Mathieu Schreyer is on the late-Friday-night shift with sets both raucous and sensitive. “I think about it; everything’s on fire,” he says. “But it doesn’t influence what I’m doing. Something crazy is always happening. I just feel for the people affected.”

Schreyer joined the 89.9 FM line-up by way of colleague and Chocolate City host Garth Trinidad. A native of a France, his tastes, unsurprisingly, reflect a broad worldview, spanning Latin and reggae, hip-hop and electronica. But the underlying thread of his three-hour show is less a trite, Up With People vibe, and more a coronation for the ideal weekend—even if it devolves into a sloppy hangover and Carl’s Jr. wrappers inexplicably tossed on the kitchen floor by Sunday morning.

That “Mr. French” is Rosario Dawson’s beau you probably already know. That he is a chief collector of Nom de Guerre, you may not: Schreyer has been friends with the fashion label’s Isa Saalabi since its first season. “Like my music, I like well-made clothes that can express emotions,” he says. Despite Nom de Guerre’s brilliant, wayward-wanderer-meets-military-might fall/winter 2009 collection, “burn baby, burn” is not one of them. —A.H.