Main Room:
Mark Farina
Les Croasdaile & Scott Carey
In The SoapBar:
Nick Stockley & Darren Harvey(PentHouse, Stoke)
10pm - 4am
Sankeys Soap
Adv: £10
Guestlist/Info: info@lovestylus.co.uk // (07966) 781 633
www.lovestylus.co.uk/board
Stylus 2005
September 9th: New Resident Party with Jason Boardman
Les & Scott, Jason Baordman!
In The Shack: Ambidextrous Sound System
October 14th: Stylus Is Two!
Robodisco Reunion, Les & Scott. More TBC
In The Shack: Special guest, electro-funk pioneer Greg Wilson (5hrs)
Farina Bio
Mark developed his musical tastes in Chicago - listening to house music on the radio, living in one of the country's most primordial breeding grounds for house. Around '88, while record shopping at Imports, Etc., he met Derrick Carter and a friendship began. "I just ended up there between classes, I ended up buying his picks. He steered me toward the cutting edge House producers of the time."
"I started playing when I lived with my parents and didn't have any bills to pay so I could just buy records. My intentions were never to just make money, it's nice, but it's kind of turned into a job by accident - it was a hobby that turned into a job."
Living together and working on tracks together along with Chris Nazuka, they utilized the tight connections between the Detroit and Chicago scenes. Fondly, Mark remembers hanging out listening to Detroit Techno classics - Model 500, Derrick May - eating bologne sandwiches on white bread and drinking Kool-Aid out of a paper cup, prepared by none other than Chef Saunderson himself. In '89, they signed on Kevin Saunderson's KMS Records under the Symbols in Instruments moniker and produced a landmark track called "Mood". "Mood" sold 35,000+ copies in the US and the UK. This record was the first ambient house track ever made and, accordingly, it has taken its position as a classic. The same year, The Face magazine published their year end Top 50 with "Mood" ranking above pop anthems by Dee-Lite and The Pet Shop Boys.
"I used to do mixes with Derrick on the radio at Northwestern, we'd make it at the house and listen to it on the lake where they filmed 'Risky Business'. We would drive around and listen 89.3 WNUR; they had a policy, guest DJs didn't have to be students." Eventually, the University changed their policy and only students were allowed to DJ.
When Farina first started wandering from his passion for the purist forms of House into what grew into one of his trademark styles, Mushroom Jazz, he was playing the main room in a club in Chicago and got demoted to the B-room after playing too many Martin Luther King Jr. samples. Mark experimented with a deeper style, dropping De La Soul, disco classics and other stuff that wasn't being played in the main room. However, in 1992, Mark found a welcome place for his collection of downtempo tunes accompanied by a small run of mix tapes entitled "Mushroom Jazz". Originally launched as a cassette series, the Mushroom Jazz tapes grew from the first Chicago run of 50 copies each…on to the next stage, where 500 copies of several volumes were easily distributed and sought after. As the Acid Jazz boom began, he perfected his sound and fused the newest tracks from the West Coast's jazzy, organic producers with the more urban sounds he had championed in Chicago. While the predominant musical force in SF was still dark, dubby House and Wicked-style Breaks, the city embraced the downtempo movement with a healthy bunch of live bands and DJs generating the tunes.
Mark Farina, along with partner, and manager, Patty Ryan-Smith, created the now legendary weekly club in San Francisco, Mushroom Jazz, in 1992. Every Monday night the crowd slowly germinated - from 100 for the first few months to 600-700 two years later. As time passed, Farina and Patty put their energies into another project, the first Mushroom Jazz interactive CD-ROM for Om Records. After a three year run, where the club had established a fanatical, cult-like following for Farina and the Mushroom Jazz sound, the club closed its doors and transformed into a CD series and accompanying tours.
This wandering record minstrel has played to incredible crowds all over the globe. Consistently drawing new fans to his style of chunky-funky rhythms and deep underground house, Mark plays upwards of 200 shows to over one million (1,000,000) club goers per year. Voted in the top 20 DJ's in the world by MUZIK and BPM Magazine, his taste making skills continue to turn the heads of seasoned veterans as well as youngsters just getting into the music.
