San Jose’s nightlife has a high tolerance for bad taste—eurotrash masquerading as pop, cheesy nightclubs with aspirations beyond their zip code, and most importantly: lacking a single decent place to listen to electronic music. For those of us who’ve lost interest in making the + 100 mile roundtrip trek to San Francisco, we’ve been confined to the living rooms of close friends or huddled by the speakers at a house party, exchanging playlists, URLs, and idle complaints.
It’s where I used to find San Jose DJ Chris “Demi Child” Rios. Not content to bitch and moan, Rios has become proactive in the last year. Soft-spoken and unassuming, he’s been quietly networking with a string of like-minded DJs and club owners to find a place where both the inveterate clubgoer and electronic geek can find common ground. And with the broadly titled Bass Club, his newest monthly held at Motif, he believes he’s done it.
We spoke about the rise of brostep (read: Skrillex), why the EDM acronym sucks, and kidnapping groupies.
What’s your take on San Jose’s scene?
As a citizen, I love the nightlife—it’s alive! As a DJ, it brings me down at times. It’s a big city and yet everybody knows what you do, how you do, and who you do. Which is a great benefit for entertainers, promoters and DJs but it stays contained. San Jose is great and has talent but no one really listens or gives anyone a chance due to various cliques and clichés.
It’s hard to get an “in” unless you’re in bed with a t-shirt company, taco truck, or radio station. I kinda hit on those points for our night. The music has changed little since I moved back. But it’s still a friendly place overall.
What are you guys playing?
A lot of bass, percussion heavy house, techno, b-more, indie disco, moombahton and an emphasis on San Jose stuff. You’ll hear a lot from Justin Weisberg’s label Filthy WHAT?!, and lots of Bay Area-produced music. No David Guetta.
Shots fired. Best party you’ve been to?
It’s a tossup between Lights Down Low and the Rickshaw Stop with Jeffrey Paradise and Richie Panic – the glory days, I guess. Those parties are what my friends are trying to mimic.
EDM (electronic dance music) is a terrible acronym, wouldn’t you agree?
I was barely aware of it until last year. I think it’s from the younger crowd. It’s funny cause I didn’t quite get it until I realized that’s what we used to call IDM—”indie dance music”—in early 2000 [sighs]. It’s what the younger generation called it, and it has a stigma. I know what you mean though—it sucks. People who say that usually listen to Skrillex.
Can you explain his popularity? Let’s talk ‘brostep.’
[laughs] There’s this guy in Santa Cruz who plays it, very wompy and grindy, it’s electronic grunge for head-bobbers. Dubstep isn’t really my thing. I’m into UK love step. That stuff is saucy, like Roni Size and Goldie.
I once read that Wu Tang’s Raekwon refuses to listen to rap music on the weekends—something about needing to clear his mind. With that incredibly bogus segue, what do you listen to that’s under 120 BPM?
So true. To keep my pallet fresh, everything I listen to in my car is either a part of my set or way off in left field. I usually listen to a lot of older punk and indie. Right now I’m into some Southeast Asian go-go music I found at Streetlight.
A lot of stuff from people out here too, like Albert Preset. I can go on for days about Joy Division then go to talking about some bootleg of The Supremes found at a garage sale.
Somewhat apropos of that, I’ve always wished I could’ve seen New Order at The Hacienda in Manchester. If you could back to any scene in the world, where would you go?
Berlin in the early 90s. I’m so inspired by that scene. It’s the groundwork for what we have going on over [in the States], especially [considering how] Detroit evolved.
After the wall came down, my dad was in charge of detaining that area for the army. There were all these abandoned and condemned buildings, and people claimed [them] and set up little clubs along the border of the wall. [The army] had no responsibility whatsoever – only to investigate and make sure nothing crazy was going on beyond each wall. I’ve looked at these pictures and seen [something] that almost resembled Manchester.
And finally, why do girls dig DJs? Aren’t you guys basically glorified members of the waitstaff? (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
Oh man, at times I wish. But it’s a “who you know” type of thing. DJs seem to know a lot of people and girls figure if you want to have a good time, follow that guy. I’ve found that it’s mostly the wrong girl that winds up going for the DJ. I can’t really engage with someone like that.
It can get annoying. I remember one time when I worked with Insomniac on the Electronic Daisy Carnival in Tulare. Hyperreal sent out twenty of us to cover the event but we [had] to hijack a golf cart and pickup some girls to fill the backstage for “atmosphere.” No one knew [that] the main DJ wasn’t “into girls.” After we brought the girls, the agent had us get rid of half of them because they all tried to get on stage and make out with him in the middle of the set.
SJ Bass Club is the second Friday of every month @ Motif, 389 S. 1st Street. DJ Wool headlines the next event on Friday, March 9th. More info.
.Nightlife: San Jose Bass Club
