FOR most of the 14 years Scott Rich of Make Sense Muzik has been producing underground electronic music shows in the South Bay, he featured strictly house and techno music.
But eventually, he began to get frustrated with the splintered electronic scene. With well over 100 different permutations of the sound fighting for attention, from ambient noise to hardstep to witch house, the various subgenres were acting more and more like cliques, in his opinion. A fan of many different styles, he began collaborating with other types of DJs to incorporate different sounds.
“I’d like to have unity in electronic music,” says Rich. “In the past, there’s been a huge divide.” Most often, Rich has been mixing house with dub step, a combination that’s proven to be hugely successful. “The dubstep people are liking house, and the house people are liking dubstep,” he says.
But even he has never attempted anything as ambitious as the South Bay Electronic Music Fest, which Make Sense will be producing Friday, Feb. 25, at Johnny V’s.
The festival features almost two dozen DJs in areas dedicated to specific styles. Rich booked a house/techno lineup headlined by DJ M3 (a.k.a. Manny), a San Jose native who was hugely influential in shaping the Bay Area house scene throughout the 1990s and soon found himself spinning at clubs around the world. Also featured are San Jose’s Lucas Rodenbush, better known as E.B.E., an electronic music pioneer whose music held its own next to John Digweed’s in the movie Groove; Sunnyvale’s Paul Leath, Arturo Garces, the manager of Chris Jackson’s San Jose house imprint Jump Recordings; and Rich himself.
“All of the artists are rooted in the South Bay,” says Rich, with pride.
That’s also true in the down-tempo/hip hop/ambient/glitch area, which features headliner Tape Mastah Steph, who made his name creating beats for the groundbreaking underground San Jose crew Subcontents. Also performing is Christopher Leath, brother of Paul and the other half of their partnership “Leathal DJs”; DJ Sparkle, De Nada and Joint Effort (Stephen Nicholas).
For the dubstep/jungle area, Rich enlisted the know-how of ubiquitous South Bay DJ Andrew Moyco, a.k.a. Audio Dru. Moyco has spun a lot of different types of music, but dubstep is his current passion, and he sees the scene growing fast around the Bay Area. “It took a long time for electro to catch on,” says Moyco. “Now it’s everywhere. I see the same thing for dub step.”
He also sees how the subgenre has reignited electronic music with a new influx of fans. “The dubstep scene has resurrected the rave scene,” he says. “There’s a whole new generation.”
Moyco thinks it’s fitting that the Electronic Music Fest is the centerpiece of a weekend celebrating the 8th anniversary of Johnny Van Wyk’s club. After bouncing around with his cutting-edge musical agenda, from VooDoo Lounge to Fahrenheit to Mission Ale House, Moyco’s found a permanent home at Johnny V’s. “He always supports the underground,” Moyco says of Van Wyk.
Moyco has booked Santa Cruz’s Dub Pirates to headline the dubstep/jungle area, which will also feature Oakland’s Mr. Kitt, who’s part of the Helicopter Showdown crew, and local DJs like HAK (who has been spinning since the days of the Cactus Club), TKO, Dubstantial, Wrek-One, Smizzle, Anigmal and Audio Dru himself. “There’s a pretty diverse draw,” says Moyco.
Perhaps the most impressive part of this ambitious event, however, is that it’s free. For Moyco, that means an opportunity to get exposure for the music, recognition for the area’s talent and one huge populist party.
“It’s for the people,” he says.
The festival was so wide-ranging in scope that some of the artists Rich first approached with the concept couldn’t even wrap their minds around what he was doing.
“I got a couple of negative reactions at first. They said, ‘I don’t know, it sounds a little bit wild,'” he remembers. “But once they saw it on paper, they called me back immediately and said, ‘I want to do it.’ Everybody was so enthused about it.”
Proving, perhaps, that he’s not the only one in the electronic scene calling for one big tent.
“We all know there are subgenres. There will always be subgenres,” he says. “But it’s about respect.”
South Bay Electronic Music Fest
Friday, 6pm
Free
