040: GARTH
Dj Garth is synonymous with west coast dance music. According to Wikipedia, Garth, “is largely credited with both defining and capturing the sound of San Francisco house music in the 1990s. He co-founded the Wicked Sound System and established a series of underground parties which were important in putting San Francisco on the club/rave map.”
Garth at King Street Garage, 1999
Anyone who has taken part in a renegade party in the Bay Area should understand the significance of Garth. In the early 1990s, Garth formed the Wicked Crew with his co-conspirators Markie, Thomas Bullock, and Jeno, all serious DJ’s in their own right, establishing Full Moon beach raves based on a DIY ethos, an openness to diversity of body, mind and spirit, and a firm commitment to expanding the boundaries of house music. The psychedelic house sound developed in these early raves influenced a generation of San Franciscans. Today, the legacy of Wicked’s sound and approach is undeniable. The Wicked crew remains a strong inspiration for upcoming and established artists in the San Francisco area and the greater West Coast scene.
A British ex-pat, Garth’s innovation as a DJ in these days became well-known; he and his contemporaries explored a wide range of genres much in line with Tonka soundystem parties they’d experienced back in Britain. His role in propelling the psychedelic rave movement in San Francisco established its place as a house music hub. By the mid, 90’s the DIY movement expanded onto the legendary Grayhound bus, a vintage vehicle re-assembled by a group of Wicked devotees - allowing the Wicked Crew to tour through the remainder of the 90’s; as the crew toured throughout the West, they helped transplant their psychedelic house music movement into new terrain from all of California, to Las Vegas, Salt Lake, Denver, Phoenix. After the Western tours, Wicked would fly east to finish their tours across the eastern US. Back in SF, Wicked threw club nights regularly, bringing some of their early house music heroes to play their sound system and San Francisco for the first time including Francois K, Tony Humphries, DJ Pierre, Chez Damier, Robert Owens and many others.
While many had caught wind of the San Francisco rave movement by the mid 90’s, Garth found notoreity as a recording artist in 1996 with his, “20 minutes of Disco Glory”, an underground cult classic, gaining him recognition globally and taking him to even further flung locations as a touring DJ. Garth started with Japan, Australia in 93’ and by the mid 90’s hit other exotic Eastern locations around the globe, touring in over 20 countries. His label, “Grayhound” (paying homage to the tour bus he traveled on with Wicked), went on to release 54 singles; during this time, Garth worked with numerous important artists and producers such as DJ Harvey, amongst others.
As if his legacy wasn’t full enough, Garth is credited with bringing the first proper sound system to Burning Man in its early days and helping to establish dance music as a fixture of the popular event. Certainly those who know their dance music history are aware of Garth’s status as a pioneer in the landscape of house music. Garth carries on a commitment to playing vinyl only paying homage to the original medium of DJ’ing and supporting underground producers in the process.
Wicked Burning Man 1995
Garth moved to LA in the mid 2000’s; he now resides in the Lake Arrowhead region of rural California, surrounded by the beauty of nature. He made his youthful passion for acting a career playing roles in feature films like, “Speed Dragon” and many others. Garth continues to tour actively as a DJ and throw monthly “Pussy Rave” parties with his girfriend online which are open to all, while continuing his acting pursuits.
We were thrilled that Garth agreed to deliver our 40th mix in the series. Even better, the mix is a set from the Love Long Beach Festival from earlier this summer, capturing a very special moment in time for him. Tune in to OVER&OVER 040 for a taste of the transcendent and read our exclusive interview with Garth to learn more about this dance music legend.
Garth, Love Long Beach Festival 2022
GARTH INTERVIEW W/ BAD LT
Garth - thank you for being a part of our series. I’m stoked that you’ve delivered a special live mix for the 40th installment. The vibes are real! To me it seems like a quality sample of your style - cutting across genres but propelled by the energy and tempo of the live environment in a psychedelic house/ disco / rave… Proper!
G: Thank you. There’s been too much amazing dance music over the last 50 years to be a slave to genres. The only way I know to get all the feels is to mix them all together.
BL: Can you give us a bit of information about the venue and setting of the event and the feel of the mix? I know you hold the festival near and dear to your heart…
G: This was my third year playing Anton Tumas’ Subtract stage at Love Long Beach Festival. The sound system is astounding and the setting unreal, on a gently sloping grass hill right on the ocean at Long Beach Aquarium. The shortest set I will ever play anywhere mind you at just one hour but found time for an intro, a build, a ™ burst of disco glory - and an outro for the next guy. All to a sea of smiling faces dancing into sunset.
BL: Excellent. The lucky few… You’re clearly staying very active on the DJ front these days (as seen on your socials :) How has it felt getting back into the rhythm of live DJ’ing after the long pandemic freeze? Has anything changed?
G: Not gonna lie the last few months have felt like paradise. All the parties have had that juice and I feel I’m playing better than ever. The down time put things into perspective for me. What a joy and a privilege it is to play records for a living. Not something to be taken for granted.
BL: For the uninitiated, there is a lot of ground to cover when it comes to the story of Garth. I covered a good deal of your history in the writeup, and needless to say it’s quite a compelling narrative …
Young British expat sets the Bay Area on fire with a new version of rave on the beaches of San Francisco in the early 90’s, creating a blueprint for a new generation of West coast dance culture and “renegade parties”, acid bus excursions through the Western United States a la Ken Kesey, major DJ productions , countless events and festivals, a major move to LA in the 2000’s (which is now your home), an acting career...
Did you have any idea a life like this would find you growing up in England? How did you get into records/ music? Was there always a desire for adventure/ rebellion/ creation for you that led you on a path to the US?
G: At this age it’s easier to see now how everything happens for a reason. There was always music playing in my house - from Mum’s Motown and Soft Rock in the 70’s, my sister’s Disco collection, buying my first records at 13. At 18 I headed out to NYC to travel America by bus in ‘86, returning in the summers of ‘88 and again in ‘89 this time falling in love with San Francisco where I knew not one soul. Finishing up my degree in London when Acid House exploded then heading back to SF this time to live. But not before inviting all my friends from Tonka Sound System to come visit and bring records to help me get this scene started out west. They came of course, just a few months later and the rest as they say is history. The call of the siren was strong and not just for me apparently!
BL: Tell us a bit more about your influences. Anyone who listens to your sets can get a sense of your breadth as a DJ, the musicality is there, yet there is always the throughline of psychedelic dance and disco at the core.
G: I was fortunate to be exposed to the best of both worlds as a kid. In 1980 we moved to Atlanta. I was 12, had my first boombox and stumbled across a music station V103 playing nothing but this alien music called Funk. All news to me. Superjams like Burn Rubber, Fantastic Voyage, Rapture, Double Dutch Bus and all the rest. The family moved back to England a year later. No Funk but 2 Tone and The Specials! And then all the New Romantic British bands. Soft Cell, Human League, Visage, Heaven 17, Duran Duran. They all had at least one ground-breaking electronic album. A couple years later the first bands I went to see live were The Cure, Siouxie, PIL, The Cult, Killing Joke, Spear of Destiny and lesser known ones championed on John Peel’s radio show. In ‘86 with a fake ID at 18 I went on a night clubbing pilgrimage to NYC and came back 3 months later touting all sorts of new influences - Hip Hop, GoGo, Rare Groove, Soul, Jazz. All Black American dance music basically, the best of which I have never grown tired of.
Were you directly influenced by the Western psychedelic movement or is that something that emerged as a result of your environment, being in the historical hub of psych culture? You traveled on a bus, a direct reference to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters…
G: The west coast psychedelic bands of the 60’s never rocked my world to be honest. I first did mushrooms in the English countryside as a teenager. We’d get up at dawn in search of a patch growing in a soggy horse field. Then munch them in the car and trip usually to a tape of Pink Floyd or The Who, even Joy Division! No wonder shit got weird. My introduction to LSD was with bands like Gong if memory serves. They handed out tabs at the shows. Obviously San Francisco was no stranger to Psychedelia and it didn’t take long for it to find me again.
BL: Okay so life on the Wicked bus, with that crew! It must have been um vivid… how did you survive that?
G: Ha! Well to be clear it wasn’t the Wicked bus. In 1994 we had just imported a 15k TurboSound rig custom built by revered UK sound engineer Tony Andrews and some followers from our years of Full Moon beach parties were a young crew from Berkeley that had just rescued a 1947 Greyhound bus from a scrap yard. In a past life it had belonged to a Baptist Church group. Anyway these kids, Clay mostly went to work fixing it up. The timing was perfect as we had just lost a couple of our founder members Al and Trish back to England and needed some fresh blood, preferably American. The first Wicked Tour was ‘95 and we toured in a convoy of vans. Clay and I became fast friends that year and he offered to take us on tour in the bus. So in ‘96 we upped our game, teamed up with Clay’s bus called Heaven and took America by storm with annual tours for the next 5 years. Acid House had never been presented like that before. Or since really. A distinctive self-contained crew of 4 DJs (Jeno, Markie, Thomas, Garth) with kick-ass sound system, a bus, 23 of us and a dog. Heaven but probably only because we broke it up between the gigs in search of natural hot springs and the great American wilderness which of course we found.
BL: Did you have a sense at the time (90’s) that you were in a cultural moment, or you were creating a movement? You clearly have a legacy, e.g. the “renegade party” culture in the Bay Area and the Burning Man lifestyle fashioned by so many (I know you were there at the first one)… how do you feel about this evolution, do you think the spirit of what you were doing lives on… or is it different?
G: Well by this point we’d already been a somewhat functioning unit for 5 years throwing full moon renegades at every beach and park in Northern California and sold out club nights all over the City so any indulgent conversations about spearheading a movement were definitely in the rear view mirror. We were learning to have more fun having moved through some of that headiness with all the drugs and notoriety of our formative years in the Bay Area and into a more balanced and focused era. We weren’t at the first Burning Man but were I believe the first proper sound system to set up on the playa in ‘95. I’d already had some success selling thousands of my mix tapes which led to possibly the first mix CD of them all No Rest For The Wicked in ‘93 which took me to Japan, Australia and Canada so the next step was to make music of my own. By ‘96 I had my first record out, a collaboration with ETI. Disco Glory blew up worldwide which funded my own label Grayhound Recordings taking the bus as inspiration as an outlet for my own releases and other west coast artists to put our stamp on things.
BL: So you’ve been living in LA since the mid 2000’s… Why the move? Did anything surprise you about the city? What changes has the move to the lake & mountains ( I think it is bear lake?) You there for life?
G: I enjoyed 20 years living in the Bay Area, the first 10 raving in San Francisco, then another 10 in Berkeley to raise a family and run the label. 10 seems to be my limit living anywhere. Another 10 in Los Angeles where I fell into film and TV acting, and now this time a move away from the city to the forest of Lake Arrowhead. A change of scenery lights a fire in me every time. I love the sense of peace even though it’s only 90 mins from Los Angeles. What’s good for the soul is good for the music. Now when I come down the mountain for a gig I get to share that inspiration with the dancefloor and they reflect it right back. I can see it in their faces.
BL: You have a career as an actor as well. The renaissance nature of artists always fascinates me. Do the mediums inform and balance each other? Do you feel attached to both mediums to the same degree? What’s the effect on your approach, your inspiration as an artist? Who were your inspirations to try acting? Have you studied in a structured method?
G: Looking back I can see I was headed for both. I was only ever good at two extra curricular things at Boarding School. Music and Drama. Won the school acting cup in my final year for the lead part in the play and was crowned head of the Choir also in my final year. Film acting and DJing are quite similar in that the time between ‘Action’ and ‘Cut’ are entirely yours to play in. You do your preparation beforehand so that when you show up for your gig you are ON as soon as the first record is on the platter. The key is to be so prepared that there are no nerves. Just a sense that you got this. That you have something unique to bring to the table. And you need that inner confidence in order to relax into the moment and be authentic. Having an ego certainly doesn’t help. You are never working alone. There’s always a crew. Making magic together is the goal. I took some Improv acting classes when I started out, read every book by the masters of modern Theatre - Hagen, Eisner, Stanislavski, Chekhov. But at the end of the day I learned by doing - on set. Despite my fears nobody ever told me I had no right to be there, to fuck off home and never come back. And I think that’s always been the way for me.
BL: Finally, let’s talk about the commitment to vinyl, you are a rare bird in today’s dj climate. Have you stuck with vinyl because of the explosion of cheap, widely available dance music? How does vinyl keep you involved in the art, the digging, the work… why is it so important to you?
G: I’m quite happy being a rare bird on this one. I literally have never played a single CD in a club. Every set for the past 30+ years has been all vinyl. Records I have either bought, been gifted or pressed myself. Each to his own of course but watching DJs I have respected for years now turning up with their USB sticks, wearing specs to see the screen displaying all those words and lights, it does nothing for me at all. No feelings of ‘God I should really get with the times and join them’. It’s just more technology than I want in my life. I am a visual artist. I need to see the sleeve or the label in order to know what the hell I am working with. Being hopeless with names I would be entirely lost scrolling through categories of genres. And with an audience in front of you! But more than that even I think we gave away our collective power as independent artists when we abandoned our boutique vinyl labels, the small record stores that were the heart of each town’s dance scene, the record pools and distributors, basically a whole cottage industry of self-sustaining musicians gave it all away to a small handful of digital distributors that now control everything and barely pay out any royalties at all. So I am quite happy to be the last man standing, buying and playing records. Doing my part to keep the original art form alive. Plus it looks cool.
BL: What’s next for DJ Garth? What should we look out for?
G: I recently left Wicked after 30 years and immediately noticed things starting to click in the right ways again. One door closes, another one opens and all that. Some good overseas gigs coming up. Wonderfruit Festival in Thailand, Japan, Mexico and the usual rotation in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. I just wrapped on my first horror film. A very juicy part with a top notch crew. Do Not Watch will be doing the film festival rounds very soon. I have a good feeling about this one. I have also been throwing a monthly live music stream every full moon called the Pussy Rave with my partner Amy where I dig deep into my record collection and play anywhere from 5 to 9 hour sessions (we went 12 once) while she dances and hosts a separate women’s group via zoom. The music can be streamed by anyone at mixlr.com/garthhound. The zoom meeting is for women only @witchbitchwhore which makes for a wild ride!
BL: SHOUT-OUTS !!!!
G: To my amazing daughter Amber crushing it at art school in NYC these days and to my fiery woman Amy for always believing. I love you both!
