26/07/2024
🪩 THE TL;DR
I haven’t posted much lately because I have been busy with some major life transitions which has led me to reminisce on past eras of my life. This is very apropos timing to announce that I will be playing at the FREQUENCY 8 Reunion Party this Saturday July 27 at the Vintage Club in the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa with DJ Mars and Mac Vaughn (formerly Uphonic). I play 11-12 and will take you on a journey from classic Trance to my current sound. Keep reading below for the full 411 and SF rave history! ᠁ 🫶🏼
🔗 Event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1288993545410539
👽 THE BACKSTORY 👽
When I was at the impressionable age of 16 in 1996, I attended my first massive Funky Tekno Tribe rave at the legendary HomeBase warehouse in Oakland and immediately felt like I had found my people and was at home; I was there living my best life until the rolling doors went up at 9AM. That night I was blown away as I watched DJ Dan (who I now call a friend) lead the packed dancefloor into a frenzy, and I knew I had found my calling in life. I said to myself “I want to do THAT!”
A week later, I attended an underground rave at the Dimension 7 warehouse where local heroes Mars & Mystr-E were playing and heard the Cybertrance sound for the first time. The euphoric beautiful melodies and 140 BPM beats captured my attention and heart and from then on, I was a Trance aficionado. Mars & Mystr-E were the founders of the Frequency 8 rave collective who were known for throwing full moon renegades at the beach and top-notch underground Trance parties in San Francisco that are embedded into Bay Area rave history; they also owned a popular dance music record store in the Upper Haight that imported German Trance. They had a unique message of “Love the music, not the drugs” because their belief was that music was the drug. I immediately joined their following and was excited to befriend them.
Mars took me under his wing and gave me my first DJ lesson on beatmatching, beat counting, phrasing, EQing, and other DJ fundamentals on Technics 1200s and I quickly picked up the skill and started my own budding DJ career at a time where very few of us were playing professionally (you could count them on one hand). At that stage of my life while I was still developing my sense of self and purpose, I really looked up to them and this movement was instrumental in permanently altering the course of my life. It was through Frequency 8 where I met life long friends I still have today, including aka Mac Vaughn, formerly Uphonic. It was coming up through Frequency 8 that led me to build a name for myself and eventually become an internationally touring artist with major agency representation, presence on internationally broadcasted TV shows and radio and producing releases on several dance music record labels; I am amazed that I am still DJing today, 27 years later. I am honored to be invited to play at the long-awaited Frequency 8 reunion party alongside these legendary artists. Thank you Mars, for inviting me! Hope to see you on the dance floor! PLUR 4 EVER! ❤️🌈
📸 This photo was taken at M & M’s apartment in the Panhandle in 1996, the turntables behind me were where I first learned how to DJ.
Official artist page for DJ ICON (djicon.com, Opulent Temple, PLUR:AF, Illeven Eleven, Fraktured SF)