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.

The night before Wallpaper played the Blank Club on Saturday, they were in L.A. With Wallpaper signing with Epic and on MTV, industry types are all over Ricky Reed right now. But halfway through the Blank show, he took stock of the situation and declared that “just like I knew it would, San Jose’s blowing them out of the water.”

That’s because the South Bay was down with Wallpaper pretty much from the beginning, years before L.A. Reid reportedly had Ricky Reed locked in his office until they nailed down a contract. The show was packed, and a lot of the crowd knew all the words.

But it wasn’t only that. Just like Reed upped his game on the last Wallpaper record, with harder beats, mind-boggling arrangements, and deep-register raps, he’s turned his live show into the craziest and best party in town, with a swirling, punch-drunk mash-up of monster hooks, polyrhythms (he had three backing drummers) and synchronized dance action. When he’s up there on stage, the man simply does not stop moving, and neither did the crowd.

Songs like “Shotgun” (which he opened with) and “Okay” that weren’t even the best tracks on the last EP sounded epic in their live incarnations. The latter’s refrain of “Hey, champagnin’, got no place in the mornin’!” suddenly came across like his best party rallying cry yet.

The songs from Wallpaper’s first album were beefed-up as well, from “T Rex” to “Gettin’ Drip” to “ddd.” The electro hook on “I Got Soul, I’m So Wasted” seemed massively bigger than when he recorded it just three years ago.

But the newer songs were the best, from the moment he strapped on a guitar for “2 Pair a Shades.” “Fucking Best Song Everr” turned into a kind of funk drum circle at the end, taking the energy to yet another level. But that’s not even where it topped out—first Reed and company came back for his new song “Blake Griffinin’,” a funny tribute to the NBA star. Then everything went completely over the edge for “Stupidfacedd,” finishing with a wall of sound that is only hinted at in the recorded version. It was a full-on sonic assault, wrapping up a hell of a show. I personally think Ricky Reed’s songs are deeper than the get credit for, but even just on a purely visceral level, Wallpaper is just about as much fun as you can have live right now. If it’s never too early to think about the top gigs of the year, this is an early contender.