If EDM’s bubble ever really does break, we all know one DJ who probably still has a very bright future ahead of him as a comedian. In addition to producing some pretty entertaining music videos that run the gamut from mobile phone styled lyrics, to cats with his face superimposed upon them, Dillon Francis has gone out of his way to make Youtube, Vine, and recently Instagram, his home away from home. In fact, he is a large reason why I still have Vine. After his recent foray into yet one more video series, DJ Hanzel, it is time to highlight Dillon Francis, the comedian.
1. Stages/Levels
One of Dillon’s first forays into trolling, he teamed up with Zedd to release his video for “Stages,” at the peak of Avicii’s levels fame. This spidered into a bunch of other videos trolling Avicii, which is also why you may have heard people referencing Levels as being played by Swedish House Mafia. This, for all intents and purposes, was Dillon’s debut.
If someone gave you seven seconds to make someone laugh, how would you do it? This is part of the charm of Vine. No long drawn out context, straight to the point, which often ends in total success or awkward failure. In this video with a cameo from Calvin Harris, he decides he can run on water. No big deal right?
https://vine.co/v/bliTvlPjYrK
3. I Hate White People
If Dillon found himself in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, I am totally confident he would have no problem entertaining himself. As part of a recent family reunion, Dillon ended up exactly there. This one creeps up on you. Maybe it’s the face at the end of the video, or trying to imagine what is going through his head as he films this. According to his Twitter, he loves making these because of the sheer number who take to the comments to remind him the he is, in fact, white.
https://vine.co/v/hBJ6EUYQZtu
4. 12th Planet Ghost
Dillon Francis has his own site, Dillonfrancis.com. This site has a Dillon Francis store. This is not just any store. In addition to his merchandise, he also has a “Dillon will do _______ for a sum of _______.” One of those items was that he would remake the pottery scene from Ghost with fellow DJ, 12th Planet for only $1,000 dollars. Well, Rukes, along with Zedd, led the charge in ensuring we all had the opportunity to enjoy this treat. If you do a bit of digging, you can also find his rendition of the bathtub scene from Billy Madison.
Dillon being Dillon just isn’t enough. Dillon therefore created deep house enthusiast, DJ Hanzel, forever pursuing the ability to go “one deeper.” This one is actually an Instagram series, but they play together in what seems like about a 48 hour stint. Timed extremely close to Tiesto’s announcement that he will be venturing back to trance, as well as his Club Life Podcast 331, Deep House Special, you have to believe Tiesto is also on Dillon’s troll list (burritos).
So this is technically cheating past the original goal of 5, but his first meeting with Usher can’t be ignored as one of his finer “late-evening” moments.
http://vine.co/v/blmB3EVubP0
Dillon Francis has found himself collaborating with a lot of new artists lately, and while his music is good enough as a standalone, you have to wonder if the inevitable laughs in the studio aren’t motivating recent/future collaborators like Ying Yang Twins, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, or Kill the Noise to push to make additional music with him.