DJ Vice makes career out of beats and feet
DJ Vice is such a shoe fetishist (a "shoehead"), he describes himself as "kind of like the Al Bundy of DJing."
But Vice (Eric Aguirre) has made a side career of his obsession. He co-owns a specialty shoe store called CRSVR in The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
Through his store, he hooks up DJ-producer buddies with sneaks.
"We don’t even just talk about music. They go, ‘Hey, can you hold me a size 10½?’"
This means Vice, who performs Saturday at Tao, has insider information to share with us, regarding DJ feet.
Biggest foot: Afrojack.
"He’s a tall dude. I forget what (shoe size) he has, but he has like a 15. It’s hard to get those sizes. You have to custom get them," Vice says. "We have to pull some favors."
Smallest foot: Chuckie.
"I think he has a 7. So cute. Hahaha," Vice says.
The guy with the best shoe collection was Vice’s friend, the late DJ AM.
"I used to go to his house, and we would eBay shop together," Vice says. "His shoe collection was unreal. He killed mine. Smashed mine. Smashed it."
If you’re not a shoehead, you should know it’s a luxury compulsion.
"Girls pay sometimes $1,200 for heels. In the sneaker world, you pay $1,200 for a pair of Nikes. It’s kind of crazy.
"The Louboutins that girls are wearing are handcrafted in Paris," he points out. "We’re buying a (sneaker) shoe, and it says, ‘Made in China,’ or Vietnam."
A few months ago, you could have gone to CRSVR to see the hard-to-get Kanye West Air Yeezys when they were selling on eBay for a measly $3,000. Then someone on eBay bought a pair for $93,000.
Another hot pair in the CRSVR window this summer were the Air Mags, known as the "Marty McFlys."
"They’re the ones from ‘Back to the Future.’ Remember, he put them on in the movie, and the power laces laced up?"
Vice and his business partner Nick Sakai opened their shoe stores – first in Santa Monica, then in Vegas – because they were sick of standing in lines outside of stores on shoe-release days, and paying triple-retail on eBay.
"Swedish House Mafia, Kaskade, Laidback Luke – everybody comes" to The Cosmopolitan store, he says. "All the residents of Marquee (nightclub in The Cosmopolitan) come in here to buy shoes."
Vice was pulled into the shoehead world as a kid in Los Angeles, listening to Run-DMC’s "My Adidas" and other hip-hop hits.
"Those songs, to me as a kid, stuck in my head, like, ‘I gotta have cool shoes.’ "
But even when he was a struggling DJ in the early 1990s, music trumped his desire to buy new kicks.
"I was kinda broke then. It was either: Buy a couple new records or buy a pair of shoes. My shoes might have had some holes in the bottom, but at least I was wiping them down every day trying to make them look clean."
Vice has DJed in Vegas longer than most, spinning at club Baby’s to Body English and beyond.
On the one foot, he is a musician, doing official remixes for Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Enrique Iglesias.
On the other foot, he has provided shoes to Bieber and Kourtney Kardashian.
"My hobby is DJing. I’m just lucky to get paid for it. And maybe my side gig is buying shoes, collecting shoes. … It sounds kinda weird."
Not at all.
Oh, here’s more shoe data. Most shoe-averse DJ: Kaskade.
"Kaskade DJs in flip-flops at times. That’s cool," Vice says. "Maybe I should go that route. It’s a lot cheaper."
Vice isn’t into women’s shoes, but he notices them.
"I do like high heels," he says. "I think a girl has to come with it on the high heels. And at the same time, I don’t mind if a girl comes in and they have a fresh pair of sneakers on – but the right sneakers. If a girl’s wearing a classic pair of Jordans, that’s sexy to me too."
To Vice, though, the sexiest woman in shoes is his wife, Angela. She, of course, is not a shoehead. And, in heels, she’s taller than he is.
"I kind of put her collection together," he says with a laugh. "She’s more flats."
Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.
