I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Steve Aoki is a DJ who plays more than two hundred nights a year, sleeping on planes and waking up on stage. The documentary follows that pace, but what it is really about is his father: Rocky Aoki, who came from Japan to America and founded the Benihana restaurant chain, a wrestler, a balloon racer, a man forever taking on dangerous things. There is a link between how hard Steve works and the space his father left. Justin Krook's film is a family story more than a music documentary. Aoki's stage show, the cakes thrown into crowds, the crowds themselves pass quickly; the real time goes to the relationship with the father, to his sister Devon and to Rocky's years of illness. Names like Diplo, Travis Barker and Tiësto speak, but most of what they say is praise. The film makes no claim about Aoki's music, which was never its subject; the title describes the pace of a life.