Music / Business & brands
Claude VonStroke
born 1971 · house DJ, producer, label founder
Detroit-raised house producer who founded San Francisco's Dirtybird Records and paid tribute to his hometown with “Who's Afraid of Detroit?”.
- Born
Cleveland, Ohio
age 55- Birth name
- Barclay Macbride Crenshaw
- Also known as
- Barclay Crenshaw
- Detroit years
- mid-1980s–early 1990s
- Field
- Music, Business & brands
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Barclay Crenshaw was born in Cleveland and moved with his family to Detroit when he was in seventh grade. In high school he hosted his own radio show, loving hip-hop first before discovering electronic music in the city where techno was being invented. He later moved to Los Angeles to work in film as a location scout and production assistant, and in 2002–2003 made the documentary Intellect: Techno House Progressive, interviewing more than 50 DJs. In January 2005, in San Francisco, he founded Dirtybird Records, and as Claude VonStroke he released the 2006 hit “Who's Afraid of Detroit?”, a bass-heavy, playful track whose title nodded to his teenage home, and remixed Fedde Le Grand's “Put Your Hands Up for Detroit” as the “Packard Plant Remix”. Dirtybird became one of America's most successful independent dance labels, named “label of the decade” by Mixmag in 2017, and VonStroke was voted America's best DJ in 2016. He has returned to play Detroit's Movement festival.
Highlights
- Founded Dirtybird Records in 2005.
- “Who's Afraid of Detroit?” (2006) became a club anthem.
- Named America's Best DJ in the 2016 Pioneer DJ/DJ Times poll.
- Mixmag named Dirtybird “label of the decade” in 2017.