Stephen Curry and Co. uncorked the roars at Oracle Arena on Sunday, putting on a clinic in three-pointers, breakaway dunks and timely thefts during the first game of the NBA Western Conference Semifinals. But, the energy of that victory wasn’t supplied solely by the men on the court and their adoring fans. Credit is also due to a man few would likely recognize—a behind-the-scenes expert who dials up the excitement with music.

DJ D-Sharp, the official DJ of the Golden State Warriors, keeps the crowd and the players hyped—not by orchestrating the chipper thuds of in-game noise that lead the familiar tribal chants of “De-Fense!” and “Let’s Go, Oakland!”—but with a live-mixed set, which he spins as the players warm up.

“In any sport, when the (players) walk into the arena, they got their headphones on” says D-Sharp, a.k.a. Derrick Robinson. “The marriage between sports and music is something you can’t deny. They go hand in hand.”

Once the game begins, D-Sharp heads to section 122 to prepare for his fourth quarter set. He believes this second set has the power to change the direction of a game.

“The other night, they were down,” he says. “So, I mixed that Drake sample—‘Steph Curry with the shot’—with something from the Bay Area. The crowd got into it. Next thing you know, the team started going.”

His role in inspiring the crowd and the players has not gone unnoticed.

“David Lee, Shaun Livingston, even Luke Walton, they come over and ask me ‘what do you got today?’” he says, adding that he didn’t realize his work on the ones and twos had much of an impact. “They appreciate it. And, I never knew that. I just do it as a job. But, those guys need it to get pumped up.”

Rocking an arena is a unique challenge, D-Sharp says. “In the club you can let a song play. But, during the game, I can only play like maybe half a verse, then go to the hook, and from that into another beat over this new hook. Then, some oldies to please everyone.”

In 2001, the Warriors were among the pioneering teams to sanction a DJ. Back then, DJ Solomon ran the show. Solomon, a friend and influencer, brought D-Sharp for guest spots at games, and introduced him to digital mixing.

Three years ago, Solomon passed after a car accident during a tour in Thailand. It was a bittersweet opportunity for D-Sharp, who took his mentor’s place. Since then, D-Sharp has emphasized distinctive spinning.

“I like to showcase what a DJ can really do,” he said. “When I get those chances, I gotta captivate the crowd. I want people to know this is D-Sharp.”

In an age where too many DJ “performances” amount to little more than the pressing of buttons to initiate pre-recorded tracks, Los Angeles-based MAKJ stands out as a craftsman of the turntable. He scratches, beat-matches and improvises on actual vinyl. And he laments that these most elemental of DJ-ing skills have apparently been discarded by the current electronic scene, which he says often values massive bass drops and gaudy stage production over technical ability.

“I really feel like it’s a lost art right now,” says Mackenzie Johnson, the man behind the MAKJ moniker.

Johnson is one of the hottest new electronic musicians in the country—boasting a quickly growing fan-base, popular collaborations with Bassjackers and Lil Jon, and appearances at electronic music festivals, such as Ultra and TomorrowWorld. What is less known is that Johnson spent his formative years as a professional racecar driver in Asia.

Born in San Luis Obispo, the 29-year-old Johnson says being a professional racecar driver isn’t all that different from being a musician or DJ, and he credits his former career with helping him succeed in his current profession.

“I learned a lot: how to work with people, how to manage my money,” he says. “And how to be self-sufficient at age 14, which is a pretty hard thing to do nowadays.”

It was as at age 15, when he was already a veteran driver, that MAKJ first fell in love with DJ-ing. “I saw a DJ playing and was super interested in what he was doing,” he recalls—“just the way he was making the crowd react to certain songs was really amazing to me.”

After graduating from Cal Poly, where he played frat and house parties, MAKJ was mentored by the late and legendary DJ AM, before bursting onto the scene.

MAKJ mixes a variety of electronic music, incorporating contemporary EDM sounds, house, and trance influences with older DJ-ing techniques. “Everything I’ve taken from the past or everything I’ve learned, I use nowadays,” he says about his penchant for old-school flair. All of these threads combine into music that is absorbing, enticing—and most importantly—accessible. “It’s quick, DJ-friendly,” he says, “You can hear it anywhere from a college bar to a Vegas nightclub.”

While it may seem that MAKJ’s ability to manipulate the discs would give him a leg up, technically speaking, MAKJ says it doesn’t really make much difference to the audience. “The general public doesn’t really know what a DJ is doing,” he says. While he bemoans the dwindling art, he still sees it as an integral aspect to his sound. And, in hopes of remedying the apathy of crowds, MAKJ has begun to incorporate GoPro cameras in his performances, so that he can show the audience what he is actually doing. He plans to hire a full-time visual coordinator next year.

In the last two years Johnson has toured extensively in America, Asia and is wrapping up a recent jaunt in Mexico. His next stop is Sunnyvale’s Pure Lounge—a comparatively small venue for a MAKJ show, which Johnson welcomes.

“When you’re standing up there in front of God knows how many people, you kind of get lost,” he says. “EDC in Vegas was a perfect example—the stage was so big the audience didn’t really didn’t know where I was.”

While MAKJ now understands how to play to those giant crowds (relying more on showmanship than musical ability, he says with dismay), and despite the money such performances bring in, he still prefers intimate atmospheres.

“I came from playing house parties, so I really like the intimate vibe,” he says. “I like small parties where everyone’s watching what I’m doing on kind of a personal basis.”

However, you will be hard-pressed to find MAKJ at any house parties anytime soon. After this current hectic tour, he has another full tour planned for 2015. It kicks off in February.

MAKJ shows no sign of slowing down, no matter how excruciating the schedule. When it gets particularly hard on the road, MAKJ likes to remind himself of his fortunate position and how he got there.

“There’s definitely a lot worse places I could be in. I think about that every time I question this whole thing,” MAKJ says,  “I remind myself that I could always be doing a whole lot worse.”

MAKJ performs at Pure Lounge in Sunnyvale Dec 11 at 10pm. More info.

Local DJ and producer Teeko has been on a hot streak. He was recently featured on A-Trak’s Short Cut series, played a Boiler Room set in San Francisco and his performance on RevoltTV’s 1s and Tuesday is now the show’s second most-viewed episode. Teeko plays keyboard and triggers samples live, whilst flexing his ample scratching and turntable skills over boom-bap beats—creating a sound that is, in some senses, old-school. And yet, Teeko’s work also feels entirely new—especially in comparison to the four-on-the-floor EDM of many of his comparisons.

Teeko’s samples are a far cry from the smooth and glittering samples favored by future bass and dub step producers. Chopped and screwed vocals, fuzzy guitar solos, disintegrating, filthy synth tones and abrupt transitions permeate his recent Boiler Room session.

We talked to Teeko about challenging himself to do more with his live set, learning to let go of control, and the problem with getting all your music from the Internet. He is set to DJ at Return of the Boom Zap this Sunday, November 23rd at the Cardiff Lounge in Campbell.

Things have been pretty exciting for you recently. How did you end up on A-Trak’s Short Cut series?
Yeah the way that happened was really cool. I’ve known A-Trak for quite a bit—early on in the DJ battle community we recognized each other. He was already a world champion and we crossed paths in the battle scene. Early 2010, I was working on Mark Ronson’s album and A-Trak came in the studio and we hung out in New York a little. We’ve always had this “crossing paths” thing. When I did the SF Boiler Room, I got a really cool email from him. He basically told me that he had an eye on what I’ve been up to. He told me that he saw my Boiler Room set, saw some footage of me on Low End Theory and was really into what I was doing and my set up. He asked me if I would be down to remix one of his tracks and perform it on his YouTube video series. It was such a dope email and to get hit with a project like that. I’ve worked real hard on creating the best performance I could and I’m really glad that it came out on video. That performance is really hard for me to pull off live, my homie Ratha Nou did the editing for that video and did a fantastic job.

Since then I’ve been talking with A-Trak a lot more on the phone and we’ve been discussing some things on pushing this artform on a bigger scale for the future. It’s been really exciting because he is capable of advancing this thing to another level.

The Short Cuts episode showcases a very interesting set up. Tell us how you came up with that?
It took me awhile actually. I grew up playing piano and the guitar. Within the last 10 years I’ve been doing a lot of synthesizer work and playing the keyboard, along with getting down on the turntables and producing music. I felt like my 3 biggest strengths were my turntable work, my production and keyboard playing. So, basically, I wanted to put those things together and mess around. It was literally just something I did in my room just to mess around. It was like, “OK, let me pull that keyboard in a little and maybe I can play a chord while I tap some drums, and while cutting it a little bit. It was literally just an experiment with these things that I really liked.

Once I started using Traktor and feeling comfortable with their equipment, it gave me a lot of flexibility to create new and unique things. I just went for it and left my room set up like that. Everyday I would just go in and practice and try to hold down a chord progression, while I’m playing a different drum beat. I was doing something with my right hand, and something different from my left hand—which is something that comes from playing the piano. But it’s totally different when you are hitting pads and scratching while playing chords with your other hand. It took a minute for me to feel comfortable, but once it did, it felt really good. I felt like I was combining my strengths and it was very unique.

It’s different and exciting to see something like this happening for this type of art form.
I felt like it is what we need in the turntable community. Not only the that, but also in the electronic/live performance community. It just kinda felt like things were getting lame and that people were just looking at the computer screen. I knew that I wanted to improve and also show people that you can still do creative things, but you can’t be lazy. It seems like people skip all these steps and all of a sudden they are a producer or DJ—but never really learned how to play anything, except press “play” on tracks.

I’m not hating on that person, but I want people to see what I’m doing and maybe it will click in their head that this is what a real live performance is. The words “live set” have been blurred, and it is not really live at all. People are getting away with calling things a “live set.” So, I’d like to offer a contrast to that. If the bar is set higher, then maybe people will have to step it up.

You have the second-highest viewed 1s and Tuesday episode on RevoltTV; what do you think caused that huge of a response?
I just came out doing something totally different. All the material was my own. I performed one of my own tracks and then I did a “Starship Connection” joint which is me and B.Bravo. A lot of guys that get on there, have their own routine where they play other peoples music or they will cut over something. I was on there representing my own music and brought along B.Bravo to add the live talkbox, because I felt that would set it off even more and make it that much more different. I really wanted to set it off, I even wanted to have dancers. I just wanted to take it far.

Teeko Performs on REVOLT’s ‘1s and Tuesday’ from DJcityTV on Vimeo.

Tell us about the Boiler Room experience.
That 45min set was 95 percent my own material and some people didn’t catch that. I put the tracklist on teekomusic.com and if it wasn’t my own track, it was me and a collaborator. I pretty much had my hand on every track that I played during that set.

They hit me up last minute, I found out the night before. I basically stayed up all night, figuring out what of my material I wanted to do. Then I had to figure out the order and how to break it down. I was careful on how I wanted to represent it—which styles I wanted to cover and what tracks to drop. In the process, I was real hyped and excited to show a lot more people about what I’m doing, on that platform. I’m a fan of a lot of people that have been on there. It was honor to get a call to do it. During the whole set I was really hyped, it was an emotional thing. It was nice to have homies on there and it was dope to take a step back and give somebody a pound.

You talked about the whole process of putting together a set. When it comes to crafting a routine, is it something that occurs to you right away or do you take the time to be meticulous about it?
Definitely meticulous, but sometimes it falls in right away. But especially with a show that is archived and ingrained in history, I knew I had to come through and not mess up. So I put a lot of pressure on myself, especially because I’ve had this little voice in my head. For a few months, before I got the call to do Boiler Room, I had this weird thing where I kept feeling like “I gotta document, document, document…” I realized I was onto something new and it has been a really long time coming. Getting to this point with my set-up, and my abilities have taken so many shapes. I’ve traveled on this road where I have learned so much and had so many different experiences and have re-invented myself.

This voice was reminding me that I’m not going to be here forever. My body might not be able to take performing this long, it’s a lot of work for me. I only have a certain amount of these live performances left in me. It’s not infinite, its finite. There is a point that I’m not going to be able to perform anymore and just work on production and be behind the scenes. When I got that call from Boiler Room, it was like, cool I could take a breath. Like if I died tomorrow, I got at least a couple of videos and people could see what I was doing. My story could get heard. My life has had many ins and outs and so many roads I’ve taken.

I lost one of my best friends three years ago and he was way too young and all that kind of stuff just sticks with me. I don’t take stuff for granted and I feel very blessed to have my abilities and to be able to do what I do.

How has your recent success and the loss of your friend impacted you?
I feel more and more blessed. With every little opportunity, it keeps me going for sure. Just like every artist, I’ve gone through the stages of “Should I keep doing this?” or “Is this the right thing?” or “Maybe I should stop, this is frustrating.” But these exciting things are just a reminder for me to keep going. For example, when someone hits me up to do a remix or even an interview, when people want to actually talk to me and hear what I’m up to, I think, “Yeah! Maybe I should just keep going,” or “Maybe I should make the craziest shit today and give those people something to just freak out on.” I like freaking people out. It’s like watching someone fly. I want people to see that. Something like magic, something that brings back that fantasy element.

Where do you draw your musical inspirations from?
Sometimes I feel like I’m truly making music and sometimes I feel like I’m capturing it. Sometimes it’s more like it’s coming through me and I’m just trying to catch it. Here is a misconception and this why I think I people struggle with writer’s block, because I don’t really have writer’s block: I don’t feel like I’m actually fully in control. A lot of people want to be and feel like they are totally in control of their creative experience. For me, I try to let go of all that and find places that allow me to feel not in control. That is why I love the turntables so much, because there is a lot of room for weird shit to happen. I’m constantly looking for this area that wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s like a happy accident or the sweet spot. I’m listening to where my mind wants me to go, it might lead me to a certain sample or an old record and hear something in that. It’s really letting go of feeling like I’m totally in control.

When I’m making music, sometimes I feel like I’m a painter. Other times, especially when I’m sampling, I feel like a photographer. For example, it’s like I see a tree and the tree is perfect and I want to take a picture of the tree. I find the best angle of the tree when I shift it and move it a little bit this way. That is most beautiful shot and my job is to do that. But I have to see it and figure out the perspective and which angle to shoot it at. See, I didn’t make the tree or make the mountain, but maybe I’m the guy that says, “Yo, the tree should go on the top of that mountain.” I’m just shifting things, moving them and manipulating these things that are already in existence.

I have to stay aware of these signals that tell me where to go. I have to find the true purpose of the piece and I try not to feel like I’m totally in control. That’s the letting go of this ego that says, “I’m the creator. I’m making this music.”

What is something you would change in the music industry?
Basically, the most powerful thing—not only in the music industry—but also for humanity, is the Internet. Since we’ve been using the Internet (and it hasn’t been that long) I feel the way the music industry shifted into the Internet was way off. It was reactionary and adaptive and doing things quickly. The first Internet experience of getting music for free was through Napster, then iTunes came in and made every song 99 cents and it became a digital flatline. Then SoundCloud came in and said anybody can upload. It has then become, like a music industry standard and SoundCloud was not ready for that, nor did they test the delivery method of the music. It was not designed for that. I was at a meeting with A&R at Interscope Records and the A&R guy was scouting on SoundCloud and I thought to myself, “Wow, he is on SoundCloud, listening to some random producer and he isn’t even looking in a pool of professionals”.

We have people manipulating plays and likes, just playing a numbers game on the Internet. It’s fraudulent and it’s just a marketing scheme. Those numbers were never meant to be in front of the listener. The way it used to be, was those numbers were meant for the backend that you presented to your distribution office. Now, those numbers are in front of the listener and they can comment on your music. They can see your wav form so they know when the drop is coming or when something is gonna happen with your music. I feel that the engagement between the music and the listener has to be kept completely pure. Take away all that stuff and just use your ears to listen. That is all you need to appreciate it, blind people can appreciate music.

You’re coming to Return of the Boom Zap on November 23rd and it isn’t your first time. What do you enjoy about DJing at that particular party?
It’s a great crew, great sound system and a big old sign that says “No Requests.” I always look forward to hearing what these guys are doing. It’s good vibes and it’s fun. Plus, I get to test out a bunch of new stuff at that party. I’m gonna drop a bunch of new shit over there for sure.

What is your choice beverage and snack while in the studio?
I got the dark chocolate, walnuts, cashews and an organic apple fig newton. As for a beverage, I would have water and a yerba mate.

Anything else you’d like to say?
Always remember that the desired effect is what you get, when you bring your funky booties down to Cardiff Lounge on November 23rd at the Boom Zap all the way funked out edition.

DJ Teeko Shimon spins at Return of the Boom Zap this Sunday, Nov. 23rd at the Cardiff Lounge.

Talking to Roger Moorehouse, host and a resident DJ for Foxy Thursdays at the Cardiff Lounge, was like getting a sneak peek into some of the little rooms that make up the house of house music. He broke down the difference between filtered disco and soulful house—and even suggested that “EDM is like cheap liquor, while house music is like…

You started DJ-ing back in ’95. Did you start out with house music?
Well technically yes and no. I started out with buying house records, as well as freestyle/high energy music records.

What is it about that genre that interested you and who are some producers who inspired your technique?
Well I was a big hip-hop head, then I discovered freestyle and house music. I really liked it because it was positive and fun. People say that house music is a feeling and I took that to heart.

As for who inspires me, it’s been a wide range growing up. One is Roger Sanchez from New York. He is good because he can move from soulful house and big room electro house, to even more aggressive house. Another one is Miguel Migs. His album, Nude Tempo One, got me djing again after taking a short break from djing

Obviously, the genre has evolved since you started. What are you thoughts on the current state of house and dance music in general?
House music is in a weird spot right now, it’s a niche scene. Some people will say that it is dying out and not a lot of new people coming in.

House music is something that is not in your face. I think EDM is popular because it’s a harder sound. I feel like EDM is an intro to house music. With EDM you’re get hard bumps and faster beats, it is something you feel on the outside. With something like deep house you are feeling it on the inside.

EDM is like cheap liquor, house is more like red wine. Nothing wrong with it. It is important to remember we all came from the same place – the rave scene.

What excites you most about music now?
Really, it’s seeing people respond to the music. Seeing the crowd react to certain songs. Sometimes it’s expected and sometimes and not, but it’s really seeing the reactions people have that excites me.

How would you describe the South Bay house scene?
That is a political question (laughs). Some people say that the  South Bay can be commercial, which can be true. I would say it’s commercial initially, it is definitely important to grab the crowd. Then as the night progresses, I can play something deeper and more underground. The DJ’s job is to grab the crowd and keep them there. We you get crowd then you can play whatever.

You’re the host and one of the resident DJs for Foxy Thursday’s at Cardiff Lounge. Tell us about that party.
I took over the party almost three years now. It has been going for a total of 11 years, coming up this September. I do most of the marketing flyers as well as play there.

It is a party that I am very proud and passionate about. Going on for 11 years, I think it is the most consistent weekly party in the Bay Area. I have seen it grow and go through different things, but it has always been about positive music and a positive environment. We have a good group of DJ’s like Julius Papp, Wen Davis, and Federico Zabala that focus on the quality.

Downtown Campbell has been developing much in that last year, with new restaurants opening up, such as Opa’s and El Guapo’s next door. Have you seen that directly impact the attendance at the Cardiff Lounge? How so?
Yeah I have. I thought it was going to bring a lot more people. But what I have noticed is that it will be packed early on. I do know that Friday and Saturdays it make a difference. It has helped in terms of the beginning of the night. Campbell is a weird spot, I have people asking me to play certain songs and when I say that I can’t, they actually don’t leave. They stay and hang out.

Where else can we find you?
I have residency at WISH Bar in San Francisco every first Friday .

Can you explain a few of your favorite styles of house music?
Filtered disco is disco records with the house floor to floor beat to it. It gives it a new energy.

Soulful house is very heavy on the vocals, kind of like R&B music sped up and with more energy.

Progressive house, or tribal house is dark and ambient. Something for 3 or 4 in the morning. Think repetitive and drawn out.

Groovy funky house is like hard house but more fun and with more familiar samples.

What else are you listening to?
Depending on my mood. Right now, I’m listening to a lot of deep house. I really like Disclosure

I also listen to rock, I like Rage Against the Machine. I also listen to R&B and other artists like Sam Smith and MNEK.

What is your best gig to date?
Wow there have been a lot. Several at the Cardiff Lounge. Most recently, I would have to say 2nd Sunday Party at Cocomo’s in San Francisco. I played the late slot.  It was a big crowd and lot of house heads and dancers getting down. It was nice to look out and see everyone grooving.

If you had free reign to select a venue and line-up of DJ’s, what would you pick?
For DJ’s I would pick Disclosure, Tortured Soul, Miguel Migs, Mark Farina, Louie Vega, Kenny Dope, and Mr. V. The all connect well with the crowd and get the vibe going for a venue I would pick the DNA Lounge in San Francisco.

What do you do when you are not DJ’ing?
Graphic and website design. Watch movies and want to go vacation more.

What are you favorite spots for a late night bite after a gig?
There aren’t many to choose from here, that are open really late. So I would say Denny’s or Jack in the Box. In San Francisco, I would go to Crepes-a-Go Go.

Three places everyone should visit in the South Bay:
Cardiff Lounge, San Pedro Square, Willow Glen

Where is your favorite spot to eat in downtown Campbell? What would you order?
I like El Guapos. I usually get the grilled chicken burrito, black beans. the Tabique is pretty good at Guapos. It has beef, chicken, chorizo, bacon, pastor, bell peppers, onions and cheese.

I also like Sushi Confidential’s, Surf’s Up. It has steak and shrimp tempura. The Edamame Trio is good too.

You could fill a rolodex with adjectives to use when describing Wave Racer’s music—a high-energy mix of bright, shimmery synths and samples that wouldn’t sound out of place in the Nintendo 64 game from which Tom Purcell borrowed his stage name. One fan took to Twitter to proclaim that “listening to Wave Racer, is like looking at Lisa Frank stickers,” which also makes sense. It’s easy to imagine the Australian DJ and producer’s music evoking searing magentas, purples and neon pinks in the minds eye of a synesthete.

Purcell, who brings Wave Racer to SP2 Communal Bar + Restaurant next Tuesday, defers to his fans when it comes to explaining his tunes. “Everyone comes up with better adjectives than I do when describing my music,” he says. Wave Racer’s maximalist, “future bass” sound is often compared to Cashmere Cat, Hudson Mohawke and Rustie—all of whom are known for their jam-packed, erratic, yet pop-oriented, styles.

But all of that is too clinical sounding for Purcell. The way he explains it, he is just trying to make music that is “fun and makes you feel good with cool synth sounds.”

The majority of those “cool synth sounds” come from and through Purcell’s primary tool of creation—his laptop. “Technology and the Internet has made it possible for the process of making music a lot faster as well as having the ability to get more sounds on demand,” he says. The producer crafts his pieces by seeking out and experimenting with sounds—drawing them out of the vast electronic sea that is the web, pulling them apart, and combining them with other sonic scraps.

It’s a sound that is clearly resonating with clubgoers all over the world. Purcell is just coming off of a European tour, which took him to Amsterdam, London, Paris and Berlin. He’s set to play a homecoming show in Sydney before coming to the States for a string of shows, including the Mad Decent Block Party in Maryland, a headlining set at 1015 Folsom, and the SP2 show—a treat for fans of the bar who also happen to appreciate Wave Racer’s brand of glossy EDM.

The Wave Racer show is not the first such event at SP2, and it won’t be the last. However, according to Pomaikai Shishido, co-owner and manager of the bar and restaurant, SP2 is not looking to become a club. Although a previous show at SP2 drew as many as 800 people, the Wave Racer event is being intentionally limited in order to foster a more intimate vibe and avoid over-crowding.

As for Purcell, he is riding high on his recent, well, wave of success, and says he is excited for the show. “It’s always exciting going to new places and not knowing what to expect,” he says—“Just going out there to play my music and experiencing something new is really great.”

Wave Racer spins at SP2 Communal Bar + Restaurant on August 5 at 10pm. More info.

DJ Amy Robbins does a great show on KSJS with Badcat on Thursdays, featuring what she calls “dirty robot sex music.” They are maybe the most overcaffeinated duo on the dial, rattling the halls of San Jose State with yelps and screams and all kinds of ridiculous ramblings.

But Robbins’ agro silliness can’t hide the fact that she has a keen ear for the pop-dance gems that are often lost in the overly fractured, ever-shifting electronic subgenres. Like the original AM disc jockeys who plucked the hookiest songs out of obscurity and made rock ‘n’ roll into good radio, she mines the electro frontier not for its artiest or most technically accomplished statements, but for the rush of its most insistent should-be hits.

In this age of endless hot girls going DJ, the 22-year-old Robbins is unfortunately probably better known for having been on the 49ers Gold Rush cheer squad, but hey, in this day and age, you gotta take the followers where you can get ‘em.

Robbins will spin this Saturday at the “100% Recession Proof” DJ event at Axis Nightclub in Santa Clara. Also in the lineup will be SF’s DJ Playboi and headliner DJ Fabian from Vegas. A former Bay Area DJ best known for his residencies at XS and Tryst in Sin City, he’s also a producer for the Crooklyn Clan remix label.

This is the latest event from DJ Sy-ence, who’s been the resident DJ at Axis since it opened in May. The huge club’s three different rooms have allowed him to present everything from EDM to hip-hop to reggae, sometimes all at the same time.

100% RECESSION PROOF will be held Saturday, July 14 at Axis Nightclub in Santa Clara, beginning at 10:30pm. Cover is $5 until 11:30pm, $10 until midnight, $15 midnight-4am.

It’s not always easy mentoring a DJ. John Fowler, a respected turntablist in the South Bay for two decades, got lucky, as his understudy learns fast. But there are certain technological changes that have created a generation gap—for instance, the way computer programs like Virtual DJ have created a reliance on eyes over ears among young DJs.

“One of the difficult things I’m finding is teaching him to beatmatch aurally, as opposed to visually,” says Fowler. “It’s a visual beatmatch now.”

Did I say young? They don’t come any younger—Fowler’s understudy is 11 years old. He’s also Fowler’s son. In fact, he was named after Fowler’s DJ handle, “Justin Hale.” The younger Fowler now goes by Lil Justin. Both father and son will be spinning at the second annual South Bay Electronic Music Festival in Los Gatos on July 15. Justin Hale will be spinning on one stage, along with headliner Rick Preston, and a slew of other mostly local DJs, including DFunkt, Robbie Durham, Alonso Ordonez, J-Funk and Wona. Lil Justin will spin his own 30-minute set on another stage, which will also feature headliner Ernesto Cruz, Smizzle, Gabriel Black, Audio Dru, DJ Peak, B Rich and D Leikam.

What’s even more remarkable about Lil Justin’s story is that he already has two years of DJ experience under his belt. It started with dancing, popping and locking while his dad DJed. First he was into the electro-house sound.

“Then one day he found dubstep. He never looked back. It was bass music all the way,” says Fowler. “He was 9. That’s when he first wanted to DJ.”

Lil Justin made his public debut in 2010, at a party on a boat—not exactly how most grade-schoolers are spending their summer vacations. He picked and mixed all the tracks himself; the footage is on YouTube, and even then, he wasn’t too bad. It’s kind of ironic when Bassnectar’s “Bass Head” comes in three minutes or so in—to Lil Justin, Lorin Ashton is one of the most iconic DJs of his generation. To John Fowler, he’s a guy he used to bump into at the Cactus Club 15 years ago.

While Spin Master J—the nom de scratch for 22-year-old South Bay DJ Jerry Huizar—was in Fahrenheit’s Wheels of Steel battle last year, he told me he saw his sets as 20 minutes to tell the audience a story.

He came in third in that DJ battle, after having won Beezo up in San Francisco the year before. But it turns out that storytelling philosophy might be even more important to his turntable career than his technical skills.

Huizar won the first Music Palooza last year at Evergreen Valley College, where he goes to school, doing a short set centered around the theme of what makes a good DJ.

“This year, I wanted to do something more over the top,” he says. So last month at the second Music Palooza, he did a six-minute piece about his last semester at Evergreen Valley. He has transferred to San Francisco State, where he’ll start in the fall, after moving north this summer. In some ways, his set in April was as much a farewell to DJing in the South Bay as it was to his school. Using everything from LMFAO and Kid Cuti bits to Simpsons and Family Guy samples, along with some Kanye, Sam Cooke and Trey Songz, it’s a sound collage, with not just a few story elements, but an actual plot.

Huizar says he got inspired to take the narrative to the next level when he saw what DJs were doing at the Threestyle competition in SF.

“A lot of DJs were doing so many tracks and tricks, I thought if you could slow it down to tell a story, that would be amazing,” he says.

He wasn’t the only one who thought so. After Huizar posted a video of the performance to YouTube, it was reposted by DJ Inbetween. That’s apparently how legendary Bay Area DJ Jazzy Jim, best known for his long stint on Wild 94.9, apparently found it. He, too, reposted it, which suddenly gave it a level of fame Huizar hadn’t been expecting.

“It got around on Facebook,” he says.

He realizes most people won’t be used to seeing a DJ do this kind of project, but he figures that just makes him stand out a little more in the crowded world of turntablism.

“There’s tons of DJs in the world,” he says. “But there’s only a handful who get famous.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Almost hidden away amid rows of trees, a block from DeAnza Boulevard, the Cupertino Public Library is about as far as one can get from the thousands of screaming, writhing fans at the festivals and stadiums that Bassnectar plays around the country, and the world.

But embossed on the side of the building is the Jorge Luis Borges quote “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” And for Bassnectar, it was. Long before he became one of the most popular and respected DJs in the now-huge Electronic Dance Music (EDM) movement, Bassnectar was a 16-year-old growing up in San Jose, and known only as Lorin Ashton. A burgeoning metal guitarist at the time, he was obsessed with the extreme metal bands in the underground DIY scene centered around the Cupertino Library.

The library was remodeled eight years ago, but in the ’90s, there was a community room in its basement where he and his friends would organize shows, cramming a single setup for all the bands into one corner of a space that could probably hold about 40 people legally. That’s where Ashton got his first taste of the relentless energy that would come to define his performance style.

“I remember my band playing one time, and then after we played, Exhumed played,” Ashton says in an interview from his current home in San Francisco. “They were the San Jose death-metal heroes. They were three or four years older than me, and I looked up to them. They had hair on their arms. They were godly to me. I remember they came on, and at the first strike, the room exploded. Every single one of them, you could just see the muscles tensing in their arms as they played, and in their throats as they sang.”

The body-memory of that moment still echoes today in Ashton’s hair-whipping, sweat-soaked performances. “It really affected me, ’cause it’s how I normally felt. At that age, I needed one of my peers who I looked up to show me that that’s what you do: you let yourself be you.”

Dancing With Myself

For the 34-year-old Ashton, who returns to the South Bay on Saturday, May 5, to perform at the San Jose State University Event Center—as far as he can remember, his first-ever show in his hometown—it’s not just a persona for public consumption.

Moombahton and moombahsoul are the hottest new trends in dance music, and the San Francisco DJ known as J Boogie—real name Justin Boland—has a theory as to why. To him, 108 to 115 beats per minute has been a lost tempo in EDM for too long.

“It’s not super fast, it’s not super slow,” says Boland. “It’s that mid-level, that boogie stepper’s level, like you’re getting warmed up on the dance floor.”

As one of the Bay Area’s top DJs, Boland was influential in bringing the moombahton and moombahsoul styles to the Bay Area, after adopting them as his favorite new sounds. His authoritative take on the music was acknowledged when he contributed a track to a moombahsoul compilation produced by David Heartbreak, who pretty much created the sound out of the framework of moombahton (which itself didn’t officially exist as the bastard love child of EDM and reggaeton until two years ago—although Diplo might not agree—and didn’t break until last summer).

At his show at the Pagoda this week, he’ll demonstrate his knack for combining them with classic genres for a very different musical experience.