Mighty in the House
Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards featured a Jewish house DJ. Joel Zimmerman is the given name of the Toronto-based artist who got his start in his basement and now performs as DeadMau5 (pronounced dead mouse, not dead mao 5). His stage name is no allusion to Art Spiegelman’s opus. The name came organically, when a Zimmerman found an actual rodent that had crawled into his computer and died. Ack. His internet compadres started calling him “that dead mouse guy,” so Zimmerman began spinning under the moniker.
He has a neck tattoo of a cat’s paw that says “meowski,” but it’s often covered up by his showpiece: a mouse head that’s two parts Mickey, one part disco ball. In fact, a quick google search will return a frightening number of different mouse heads that this guy owns. He is currently touring. Here are dates.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.