Listening to Mark Farina is like taking the melody train all over the city of sound.
Farina said his style fuses house beats with hip-hop and acid jazz — and he calls it “mushroom jazz.”
“Acid Jazz started as a kind of English style of funk and hip-hop type of thing in the early 90s and was popular in San Francisco in the mid 90s,” Farina said. “I thought I would take a more organic approach.”
Farina is the headlining act at Sound Therapy, a show this Saturday at the Moonlight Lounge.
Farina said the genre’s popularity in San Francisco gave him gigs with packed crowds on a weekly basis.
He released the first of a series of six albums titled Mushroom Jazz in 1996.
“Mushroom Jazz became a popular mix tape, as opposed to being more clubby music, it became music to chill out to after the party or before,” Farina said.
Local funky house disc jockey Timm Reynolds, aka Reverend Mitton, said Farina’s style is phenomenal and brings in a diverse crowd of music listeners.
“A lot of people get into the Mushroom Jazz series, come to his show, find out that they are also checking out house music, and discover that they are both really similar to each other,” he said. “There are a lot of people that really like him for down-tempo and get into house music later, people that would not normally like house.”
Local DJ John Bowra said Farina appeals to both the hip-hop and house scenes.
“I have a lot of hip-hop friends that know just as much about Mark Farina as my friends who like house,” Bowra said. “He is definitely respected in both cultures.”
DJ Eldon, a local soulful house DJ, said Farina is unique because he has a variety of influences.
“Mushroom jazz is based on real instrumentation and has an organic feel to the music, as well as an updated version of tri p-hop,” Eldon said. “It utilizes jazz and scat, along with trip-hop and new jazz,” he said.
Farina said when he plays a live show he feels out whether a crowd wants pure house, pure mushroom jazz, or a combination of the two.
“Some cities are more into tempo changes, some like Chicago want straight house all night,” Farina said. “In places like Albuquerque or Portland, people expect a half an hour or so of a change of tempo with some down-tempo,” Farina said he enjoys spinning for several hours at a time.
“I like playing long sets. When I started DJ-ing, I played all night in Chicago, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.,” he said. “After playing long sets for six years or so, it was harder for me to reverse to two hour sets.”
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Farina said he is getting ready for a digital/vinyl record label that will be up and running next month. His next installment of the Mushroom Jazz series, Mushroom Jazz 7, will be released in the spring of 2010.
*Sound Therapy with Mark Farina
Sunshine Theater’s Moonlight Lounge
Saturday, Oct. 10
9 p.m. – 2 a.m.
16 and up
$20 at the door or on TicketMaster.com
*
