Split decisions

>> Chi-town or 'Frisco, DJ Mark Farina has the best of both worlds

By KRISTA

Were it not for a few chance meetings, Mark Farina, the golden boy of San Francisco imprint Om Records, whose name is synonymous with the funky, jazzy sound of West Coast house, might have actually graduated from university and taken a nine-to-fiver. But, fate being what it is, he became a DJ instead.

Mark first encountered Derrick Carter while he was attending Columbia University in Chicago. "He was working at a record store called Imports Etcetera where I bought this M-Dock record," Farina recalls. "I ended up leaving it on the el [train] on the way home so I had to go back and buy another one, and we just started talking about music. We were both into new wave."

Though he is now based out of San Francisco, DJ Mark Farina grew up in Parkridge, a happy, moderate-income suburb of Chicago where he met and became best friends with Chris Nazuka, now an established producer who has done several tunes with Derrick. The two met in grade-school, in band class. They both played the trumpet. Mark wasn't very good.

"I was like second or third chair, and it got worse when I got braces," he says. "When we got to high school, we sort of came to realize the uncoolness of band; the trumpet is not very new wave. But our parents wanted us to stay." And so young Mark and Chris had to endure torturous hours of painstaking rehearsals, pep rallies and halftime marches.

Three Red Nails
Fast forward. Some time after meeting Derrick Carter, after Mark had already been to University in Arizona and transferred back to Chicago, he, Nazuka and Carter moved into a loft/studio in downtown Chicago. The three started dabbling in production, and even put out a few tracks under the moniker of Red Nail Kidz, a name that came from an acronym they used to remember their phone number (red nail). DJ Derrick Carter had officially reached superstar status and was being flown to a gig in a different city every week. Mark Farina, who by then was playing regularly at various spots around Chicago, decided to join Derrick on a trip to San Francisco. The experience proved to be a spiritual one.

"In some respects it was very similar to Chicago, but in others it was so different. In the beginning I was buying my own plane ticket out there and hooking up enough gigs to make back the difference," Mark remembers. "They had these parties that were outdoors during the day and stuff and I was really drawn to that. In Chicago everything dance music-oriented happens after dark between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. In San Francisco everyone was partying on Saturday night and then going straight to an outdoor after party on Sunday afternoon."

He was hooked. Over the next two years, Mark began making more frequent and regular visits to the City by the Bay, couch tripping at various friends' pads for up to two weeks at a time. He rediscovered the outdoorsman trapped inside of him and revelled in long nature walks and going to the beach. He even took up surfing (although now he's into boogie-boarding). And every time he visited San Francisco he brought a little more luggage.

As odd as it may seem, Mark's dual life proved healthy for his DJ career. In San Francisco the who's who of promoters and scenesters were all over his ability to melt mellow jazzy flavours with bumpin' thumpin' beats. Back in Chi-town buddies Carter and Nazuka were tearing it up and his connection to them added to his mystique. DJ Mark Farina began blowing up on the North American rave scene. Then he put out his first mix CD, Seasons One, and there was no looking back. Since then he's done five more: Imperial Dub Volume One for San Fran-disco band Dubtribe's label; Moonshine's United DJs of America Volume 9; the two highly successful Mushroom Jazz compilations on Om Records; and the most recent Om project, San Francisco Sessions Volume One, which Mark is currently on tour to support.

Joining Mark on his cross-country journey in the name of the San Francisco Sessions are two more DJs, the highly skilled Heather and J-Dub. Ironically, they're from Chicago, not San Francisco. "As different as San Francisco is, there's still nowhere like Chicago when it comes to dance music," offers Mark. "No other city, except for maybe London, has that kind of history of uncompromised music, and I think that makes for a good breeding ground for DJs." :

At Stereo on Friday, February 18, 2am, $20