Legions of Boom

TIMELINE/ROLL CALL!

2010-07-14T21:55:00.001-07:00

First of all, I want to thank research assistant Fiona Truong who went through my archives and helped assemble this timeline/roll call of the mobile scene: http://bit.ly/9fXBkm

You'll notice - it's pretty basic. Tons of crews missing. That's where you come in.

This is a public document, meant to be added to/corrected/shared. Please take a look, pass it onto whoever you think can add to it and have them email me at: oliverwang@gmail.com and I will process new additions as they come along.

The basic details should be:
Year founded
Crew Name
Crew Members
City or cities of origin
High School(s) of origin
Year disbanded (if applicable)
...and contact info for at least one member.

I'll add onto the timeline as we go along. I'm very excited to see this thing grow.

Don't forget to join our Facebook group to get more updates and instant info.

PROJECT UPDATE!

2010-06-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hi,

It’s been a minute but I wanted to update everyone on the status of the project.

First of all, and we apologize for the trouble, but we’re asking everyone who is part of the Legions of Boom (LOB) Facebook *Group* to migrate over to the LOB Facebook *Page*. I know this may seem identical but the way Facebook works, it’s much easier to send out updates via the Page system than via the Group system.

Second of all, completion on LOB for Duke University Press is nearing the final lap. A draft of the book will be sent to the publisher by summer’s end and from there, it will take another few months to get everything edited and revised.

As part of completing this phase, in the next few weeks, we’ll be prepping a *mobile crew timeline/roll call*. This was long overdue and we’ll need as much input from all of you to help with additions and corrections. The aim is to create as comprehensive a list as possible that lists what crews were out there, where they were from, who was in them and when they formed. This will be a *public* document that people will be invited to contribute to and share as a community resource. We should have this up and running by early/mid-July. We’ll keep you posted.

Third - *and this is big* - in addition to the LOB book on Duke Univ. Press, we also want to create a *second* book, written for general audiences, and documenting the *visual* side of the scene. That means business cards, fliers, crew photos, etc. We know many of you have collected and posted these on Facebook and other sites and what we want to do is create a comprehensive “coffee table” book of these images, accompanied with an overview history of the scene. *This* would be the book designed for you, your friends, your kids, etc. in terms of showcasing a visual history of the scene.

We’re currently researching publishing options (this wouldn’t be through Duke) but the ideal would be to have this available as both a physical book and an e-book and partner with a community non-profit to help publish and publicize it. At some point later this summer, we’ll start reaching out to all of you for help with getting materials.

Lastly, FOB has a research intern, Fiona Truong, and she will be contacting some of you down the road and sending out updates via Facebook and email. Keep an eye out for her.

Ok, that’s it! Thanks again for you help and patience and interest. And please, don’t forget to join/migrate over to our new LOB Facebook Page.

Sincerely,

O.W.

FRANCISCO PARDORLA INTERVIEW

2009-12-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Francisco Pardorla is one of my interviewees that I've consistently re-interviewed throughout the years and that's been for a few reasons: he was one of the few people from the Fremont/U.C. side of town that I spoke to, thus offering a glimpse into other parts of the scene beyond just the SF/DC core. Francisco wasn't just part of a crew (Images Inc.) - he was part of the crew-of-crews, Legion of Boom, plus helped run AA Productions alongside Arleen Alviar. Francisco also founded Velocity Records, home to freestyle star Buffy. These days, you can find him throwing the Classic Old School parties, bringing your favorite mobile DJs back into the mixing booth (though, chances are, they might be using Serato instead of vinyl).

Francisco and I originally spoke back in 2002 (though I've bugged him more than a few times since then!). Here's a partial transcript of our conversation:

OW: Where did you grow up?

FP: I grew up pretty much here in the Fremont/ UC area, but back then there wasn’t a lot to do here. So we spent most of our time where all the action was obviously.

OW: Where was that?

FP: The City.

OW: What was your neighborhood like where you grew up in Fremont?

FP: It was a heavy Filipino community. We were in a city where Fremont is mostly Caucasian, but there are specific areas, like North Fremont, is the little pointed part of Fremont that stabs right into the middle of UC. So technically, we were in UC, but we lived in Fremont. And everybody in my neighborhood was Filipino.

OW: Where did you go to high school?

FP: American High School in Fremont.

OW: What was American like, back then?

FP: I think we segregated ourselves, everyone came out in cliques. Even the Filipinos were separated in diffreent ways. There were the ones who were highly involved with the school. There were the ones who hung around only by themselves and did only speak Tagalog. And then there were the ones like myself, we were the like troublemakers on campus.

OW: Did you start DJing in high school?

FP: Yes. I started DJing my sophomore year [1982].

OW: What was your first exposure to DJing?

FP: See, I was about 14 and my best friend was about 13, but he had a sister who was 16, but she dated older guys. And he was going to a party…a dance at City College, no Alameda City College. So she took us out there, we just tagged along with her.

I guess I went to parties where people are playing records, but never acknowledged them as DJ’s, but this was the first time I went to a party and I saw there guys that had 2 turntables and a mixer, I don’t remember what kind of mixer they had. But I do remember one thing, that their turntables didn’t match. And actually they had an AKAI...no one used AKAI turntables. It was a group called City Lights. They had all the homemade lights, equipment that didn’t match. I guess it was the control that they had over the crowd. In a way, sort of the “celebrity-dom” that they had. Plus, it seemed that they were having so much fun giving people enjoyment. It was a college crowd and we weren’t supposed to be there or see this.

I guess I was at an age that I was easily impressed. B/c obviously when you're 14/15 yrs old going to a community college dance, it's not like you’re there to meet girls b/c they’re not my age. So I think that I spent my time standing behind the DJ booth looking at what they had. The kind of lighting they had back then, they had colored gel lights, strobe lights, nothing really fancy, systems weren’t that big. It was just impressive.

And when we got back home, I forgot all about it until one of my family friends was having a bday party, and...she called my parents to ask if she could borrow our stereo b/c her family didn’t have one. So I called up this guy, Vince, and I asked if I could borrow his speakers. And he said that he was going to the same party too, so he wanted to all go together. So I brought my stuff there, he brought his stuff there. My dad had one turntable, he had one turntable, so we had 2 turntables, but we had no mixer. So we used “channel select” on the stereo, auxiliary 1 to auxiliary 2, that was our mixer. We brought the equipment there and we just played a few records.

OW: So that was your first gig basically?

FP: Yeah, but it wasn’t meant to be a DJ thing. We just meant to help someone out. But it was funny b/c at the end of the night, it was one of those all night mah-jong party type things. And at the end of the night, the parents came up and gave us $40. And I’m thinking $40!! Just for helping out? This is a good deal!

OW: And with that...lightbulb went off, right?

FP: We start talking about those DJ’s that we saw at the party a few weeks prior, and we’re thinking how much those guys get paid. And we’re thinking that they probably rich and making $100/night. So then that’s what we said, we realized that there was money to be made doing this. Honestly, I thought $40 was good money to do something to just go to someone’s house. You were going to go anyways. And when you went there, you were charged. You have a choice to either be a guest and stand up against the wall like everyone else or be in charge and get paid for it.

We used to have a saying, “we come to eat your food and drink your beer, and you pay us”. That’s pretty much the premise of it. This is so fun, we can’t believe that someone’s paying us $40. So that’s how we pretty much got started back then. And the industry was very young back then, so there wasn’t many guys that were doing it. This was 1982 so it was very young.

OW: Was City Lights Filipino?

FP: Yes.

OW: Did that make a difference to you?

FP: Yes. I think back then, I didn’t make a distinction between DJs that played at parties and those that played on the radio. A DJ’s a DJ. There used to be a show on TV back then, WKRP Cincinnati, and there was a DJ...Venus Flytrap! And that was my earliest notion of what a DJ was like. And even at age 14, we used to get into Studio West in SF, and that was the first time that I saw Cameron Paul. So I seen DJs, I seen black DJs and white DJs. DJs on TV are always black guys, but then when I saw Cameron Paul, I said “he’s not black”.

OW: Was he beat matching at that time?

FP: Yes, he was beat matching already. He was doing that Patrick Cowley disco stuff. He wasn’t using a slide-fader though, he was straight panning pots. He was doing the Bozak double pans. So I was trying to soak it up as much as I could going to places where DJs were. I’d go to these night clubs, I was young and wasn’t going to meet any girls. I would just go there to listen to the music and check it out. It was a split level night club so I would always stand over the highest part over the booth so that I could make a mental note of the exact equipment he had. The first time I saw he had the 1200’s, the Bozaks, and he had the whole system, the speakers were laid out and everything. I think I got more into the system and the control and everything else.

OW: You used to go to Studio West, was this after the City Lights gig?

FP: Yes. See, the City Lights guys are the first Filipino guys I saw. That’s when you think that you can do it. It's kind of like…for example, what’s one thing that Filipinos can’t do? Professional b-ball players. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know if there are any professional Filipino b-ball players. But believe me, one day, if they announce on the Lakers, a new Filipino forward, Jose de la Cruz, you know that all Filipino brothers are going to think they can do it do too. And all the ones that have kids in the 6th grade are going to start grooming them to be a professional b-ball player. If he could do it, then I could do it. And that’s what it was for me. When I saw that these guys could do it, I didn’t have to be Venus Flytrap, I didn’t have to be Cameron Paul.

OW: So who was your partner?

FP: Vince Aguilar.

OW: Did you guys have a crew name at that time?

FP: Not until our 2nd or 3rd gig. I think actually at that time, there was a group called Lips Inc. They sang that song “Funkytown”. We just liked that name “Inc”. So we came out with a group called “Images Incorporated”. There was like a new wave European group called “Public Image Limited”. So it was the merge of those 2 names so it was “Images Inc”. People would always ask us, “are you guys incorporated? Are you a public company”? No, it’s just a name. Well legally you can’t put “INC” if you’re not incorporated. We’re kids! Are you going to sue us? No, we’re not publically traded. Yeah, we’re on NASDAQ, look us up, we’re IMG.

OW: What kinds of gigs would you guys do in the beginning?

FP: In the beginning, I can tell you particularly, the first gig we did, I’m an artist in my trait, so I drew my own fliers back then, no Macintoshes back then. Just drew it all out, typed in the text, saying “hey we’re DJs, we’ll do your parties”. We didn’t think about high schools and colleges, we just wanted to do house parties back then. And we would just carry these around in our binders and every time we’d run into people, we’d just give it to them.

I remember the first girls that took us up were girls that went to Newark high school, and they hired us and I think the payment was $50, and that was our first paid gig. It was still the same situation too. We had to get dropped off b/c we had no car. So my bro had to drop us of b/c he had a real driver’s license by that time. Still getting dropped off, we were extra prepared. They didn’t expect people to show up until 8, we were there at 6.

We had our Mickey Mouse lighting systems, we were trouble makers when were kids. We were up in the middle of the night at 2 AM at constructions sites, you see those yellow blinking things. We’d go to there with a hacksaw in the middle of the night cutting those things off. I mean, there was no American DJ USA or Triplight.

There was one incident, there was this ambulance that parked across the street from the school all the time and I was a troublemaker but I wasn’t stupid. So I thought that it would be cheaper to pay someone like $40 to steal it. So I paid this guy $50, he jumped up there and I gave him the tools, told him how to do it, cut the wires, took off the ¾ inch bolts all the way around, there were 4 of them, get it off and they did it. I sat across the street and watched them do it. I paid them $50, to them $50 was a lot of $$, but to us it was whatever. After one gig, that light paid for itself.

OW: How did you know how it was bolted down?

FP: I would just sit there and watch. I went there and looked. You see that it’s bolted the same way. They have that 4 bolts all the way around. I went around and scoped it all the time.

OW: That must have been fun to have that at your shows.

FP: Yeah, see I borrowed my other friend’s…its funny b/c when you borrow stuff from people, they become a member of your group. So it started out with 2 of us, me and Vince. And I remember the first guy that joined our group, we needed a tape deck b/c we wanted to record while he was playing. Btw, with that first gig that we did that we got $40, we went to Radio Shack and bought a mixer. And at our 2nd gig, we went and bought new headphones b/c we had ratty ones.

And every time someone would join the team, we just needed their tape deck and they could join the team, but they’re not getting the same percentages, but we’d have to chip away a little bit of our percentages. If you look at it now, it’s pretty generous to give 10% just for a tape deck. But they were also our friends. So we had this one friend who joined our team b/c he had a battery charger to charge his dad’s car. We needed a battery charger to run the lights b/c it ran on 12 volts. It was the craziest thing…what we couldn’t like steal, we’d borrow, we’d have to negotiate for.

OW: Where would you get loans from?

FP: Different places. Family friends. I took one out from the bank, that’s after we got established. We always had to take out loans, nothing was ever given to us. And everything was ROI.

OW: ROI?

FP: Return On Investment. Every time we made money, we told ourselves, we don’t need to pocket this and buy fancy things, we still live with our parents. We just put it all back into the equipment. And all we need is a majority vote. Just b/c me and my primary partner were always outvoting the other guys, we always buy new equipment. So it just amassed over time. What started out as a rinky dinky system, ended up being close to over $3,000 of equipment. It just blew up.

OW: How would you guys build up in terms of the levels of the types of gigs that you were doing?

FP: Part of it was b/c there wasn’t a lot of competition back then. We spent a lot of time just networking, and I spent a lot of time networking, passing out these leaflets that we made. And just always aspired for something higher. And at that same time, your other groups started coming around, but they didn’t feel like they could get into the high schools. The high schools, especially the student gov’t, were still not run by people who were aware of the DJ concept.

That was the hardest part of the beginning, in the early 80’s, was convincing the high school that you want to DJ, your students want a DJ. So you’re sitting here across from the principal and usually the counselor and two students, a panel of four, usually student body pres, and their fun committee or whoever they got. And they say, “so what do you do”? And we say, “well we’re DJs and we bring in records and lighting”. And the response that I always got from the principals were “so you play records, why would we hire people to play records, b/c I got a stereo at home”? They didn’t understand the concept, they thought that they could get a real band.

So early on, at a young age, I learned how to negotiate. Most of the time my partners didn’t say anything. Like I said, we divided up the tasks. My task was to negotiate and finance and take care of all the other promotional aspects. So I think at a young age, I learned how to deal business with adults, that’s why I encourage young people, if they want to get into the business, there’s more to it than sitting in your garage, spinning some wax and making cool tapes for your friends b/c if anything, what you take out of this is the business aspect as well.

OW: Were you also spinning as well, or were you mostly the business guy?

FP: I was mostly the business guy b/c Vince was actually a little bit more talented than myself. Without the promotion, he couldn’t get the name out too. And our thing was always networking too. I was always big on getting to know the other guys, going down to the city, hanging out with the other guys, spending time with the other DJs. As things progressed in the industry, the things and the showcases that came out, that’s how I got into the promotional end, is going to all these showcases and stuff. I figured that I’d probably be a better promoter than I would be a DJ group leader.

OW: You eventually linked up with Arleen Alviar.

FP: I had met Arleen incidentally. I started doing some work for my church, throwing dances. I had my crazy ideas of throwing in a dance in the church gymnasium. Especially here in UC/Fremont, all the parties were in SF/DC, so to throw a 600 capacity dance for teenagers was big. We overfilled the gymnasium. We couldn’t let no more in. So that’s how I got my start. And I had started talking to Arleen, who had thrown a party also...here at the Holly Center here in UC where she got like 3-400 people. So we thought about merging our groups together.

OW: So “AA” was basically you and Arleen then?

FP: Yes. But we didn’t want to change the name b/c it sounded stupid “AF”. I learned a lot more being around her b/c we fed off of each other. And to put together these showcases takes a lot of PR. You get to know the DJs really well b/c you weren’t paying these guys. The whole concept of promotions back then was along the lines of a fight promoter, rather than the way that people look at promoters now. I’m a party promoter, you’re promoting a party. Back then, we were DJ promoters, we were promoting the DJs, not necessarily the party. Kind of like a fight promoter who promotes the fighter and not the fight.

OW: The parties AA was throwing, was the crowd mostly Filipino?

FP: Yeah, mostly Filipinos. There were a little bit of Black and Latino. But by that time, I had already gotten to know all these DJs in SF, and she was very familiar with the South Bay, b/c her boyfriend at the time had lived in San Jose, so we started merging...it was the unprecedented of time to bring these guys from the South and these guys from the North and put them together. So we started putting the battles like that, we were pinning North vs. South. Just like a fight promoter, its all promotions. In real life, these guys had no grudges against each other. But it brings the people in.

OW: How many groups would you bring in?

FP: It depends. There was a main stage, and we had side stages. Usually 12 groups. And back then, it wasn’t like now, when you see a flier and you see 6 or 8 DJs on the bill. Now the guys just show up with a backpack full of records and their Stanton’s in a case, and the headphones around their neck. Its not like that at all. Back then, you brought full on gear. Everybody came in fully loaded.

And we started doing like a pot-luck type sound system. Sometimes, some of the smaller groups didn’t have a sound system, so would have to be put together with the other groups, and of course the bigger ones didn’t want their stuff touched. It was wild. It was a wild setup. I mean, I learned everything from tri-amping, quad-amping, to tapping 220 lines, done wrong, you could kill yourself. People would fly down from LA, b/c the promoters in LA were figuring out what we were doing. Back then, there was only AA and Imagine.

OW: Can you walk me through a typical showcase that you guys would throw? What time would you open the doors to the public?

FP: We’d open the doors to the public usually at 7:30 or 8:00 and we would often put on the fliers. Again, back then, there were no computers, everything was all illustrated. But we would put “$5 before 8:30”. And what does that mean? $5 before 8:30, but doesn’t really say how much is it AFTER 8:30. So again, it’s marketing. I work in marketing right now. This is the early stepping stone of it, I learned that you don’t have to tell the whole truth. people would show up, depending on what the cutoff time, say “$5 before 9”, and you show up 9:01, you’re out there with your $5 bill, and “oh that’s $10”. People are like “what”?! And people paid. What are they going to do? Go home?

And it was the initial rate, that was so cheap. $5, wow! That’s so good! And after a while people learned to come early. If you only have $5, come early. And it was proportional b/c there was another cutoff time when $10 wasn’t good enough. When we had…depending on, right before the battle, of course the main battle, like say Genie G vs. DJ Hasaan. DJ Hasaan was the biggest of the big, he was huge in San Jose. He was the king in San Jose, undisputed king in San Jose. And he had Genie G, pretty much the undisputed king of SF. And they went on at midnight. So when its 11:30 and you’re standing outside. And the person at the door is telling you “what was $5 is now $20 to get in”, you were digging deep b/c you want to see this battle. It was just as exciting to see your first Tyson fight. People would shell out for it.

OW: How was Images organized?

FP: We had everything from dress code. I told you ahead of time what you’re supposed to wear. What time you were going to show up. Who you could bring b/c a lot of guys wanted to bring their girlfriends and friends. I look at it now. I just got married last month. If my DJ would have brought the crew that we used to bring, I would have asked them to leave. But we would show up, the 6 of us, bring out girlfriends. No one ever said anything. That was unprofessional. But there were other groups at that time that had 14 people in their group and when you think about it, it’s just ridiculous. Well us, we made enough money where every single person had their own individual business card, like a real company.

There were some DJ groups out there who are basically there for the socialness, the lifestyle. They weren’t there to make money. But they would have one business card with 12 names on it. Which was ridiculous, 12 names, but only one phone #? Or 3, 4 phone numbers? And basically, they would have matching shirts and shoes, and they would have them screen-printed with their names, but they had crappy systems. B/c that’s where they spent their money, they spent it to be popular.

They were the ones that seriously undercutted too. There were a lot of DJs that would go to a school, and we would be negotiating their X-mas formal, and we were charging $350, and the committee would always say “well these guys..”, and it was always those DJs who weren’t in it for he business end. “These guys are going to do it for $150.” And I said, “believe me Mr. Principal, these guys got terrible sound system, they going to bring 14 people in their crew, and they got no lights. Whereas us, we’ll bring quality sound, quality lighting, and there’s only 5 of us. You won’t even know there’s 5 of us b/c the rest of us are going to be hiding. We’re not going to intermingle with the students here”. We had a different kind of professionalism. I looked at it as a business. We’re out to make money, whereas other people did it as a social…it started for me as a social thing. But I needed to make money.

OW: You favored wedding gigs, right?

FP: The weddings were the real money. There’s no fame in it. No one sees you. And the people who do see you can’t tell the difference how good or bad you were. But it was that money you made, that when you showed up at the showcases...you could show up with the huge sound system b/c you made so much money doing weddings.

OW: You were around a lot of different crews; what was essential to building a strong one?

FP: Control. With any good group, it starts with leadership. You don’t want a group with anarchy, where everyone’s trying to do their own thing. And everybody’s there for their own reasons. You got to be focused. And know what you want to do. We’re here to win this battle and make a name for ourselves. Whatever it is, they got to be focused. If everyone’s in it just to meet girls or do their own thing, and be fashionably cool, then the group will never amount to anything. That’s when you got to start kicking people out. Because they’re not doing anything.

OW: Could you tell that from the outside? Could you tell which groups had that kind of leadership?

FP: Oh yeah. Like battles for example, you go to a battle and their van starts backing up into the hall, and other guys show up in their own cars. And some of the guys sit there by the car thumping their stereos while the other guys are loading/hauling the equipment in. And bad leadership, the leader of the group isn’t saying “c’mon guys, get to work”! Nah, he just sits there and lets them do it. These guys are trying to get their mack on talking to girls in the parking lot, while these guys are bringing equipment in. But you know these guys are part of the group b/c they got the matching t-shirt. Though they have the status of the matching t-shirt, but they’re not actually doing anything. And you can see the group is moving. There’s 4 guys really moving everything in, wiring everything, and sweating, while the other guys are just there sporting the fashion. I don’t think that the group should have to shoulder the weight of these other guys. Just drop them.

OW: Besides leadership, what are the other essential elements?

FP: Putting together the right sound system...and the DJ, obviously, especially if you’re going to a showcase. Going to a wedding, no one knows what you’re playing, no one cares. But when you go to a showcase, believe me, when you’re offbeat, people will know. All of a sudden, you could just be sitting there playing, and next thing you knew, if it’s going offbeat, you can hear the crowd start to hiss and boo. All the people in the audience with the mixtapes in their cars, they know. That’s the one place where you can’t make a mistake.

A lot of groups too, they had a designated job. There was actually a designated lights guy, who would sit there and practice on the lights to get the timing down right so that it matches the sound. Everybody’s got their own thing. You got the designated sound guy, who knew he sound in and out. If that left speaker went out, he’s going to find out why. A group that’s segmented that way, that’s another good way of doing it too. It still goes back to an organization thing. But when it comes to the showcase, yeah, I think that the DJ, from when they get there to right before the first record goes on, is the rest of the crew. But once that first record goes on, it’s just all DJ. He’s going to carry everyone else. He’s the last one holding the baton.

OW: What new innovations did you see as the scene matured?

FP: I think the big sound systems, things started getting smaller. Promoters brought out the best in us as a DJ community, but I think they also helped destroy part of what the whole DJ scene stared out as b/c when the promoters were doing these things in these huge halls, and they were doing it every 4 months, that was cool.

But when the DJs were renting these bars, only packing 200 people in there, and they were doing it every other week, that sort of killed the scene b/c it brought about the importance of the individual DJ and diminished the importance of the DJ group as a whole b/c the places weren’t big enough to hold the whole sound system. “So we don’t need your entire group, we just need you. We just need you. We just need the DJ. And by the way, you’re only playing for 20 mins so don’t bring 20 crates”.

OW: At the height of the scene, who were the best crews that you knew of?

FP: I think my answer would still have to be the same. Ultimate Creations b/c they had the mystique about them. The matching systems, the La Scalas, we often wondered if he [Jose Olimpiada] rented it. But he kept showing up with the same stuff. He just had a clean system. No dents, no scratches. Everything was black with silver trim. Plus, Genie G was great. So they had the 2 most important elements. Hands down. The presentation and the DJ. Even the way that they showed up at the gig, they didn’t have a whole army of people, it was a few guys who’d show up and everything would be up really quick like they had a system. It’s almost like they had like little drills on how to put it together.

OW: Who else was good?

FP: It’s subjective. Like Apollo’s crew [Unlimited Sounds], they were good b/c they had the hype. They got people hyped up. They were popular guys. Well-known. Good lighting. They knew how to sell themselves. They had good presence. The whole Juice Crew thing worked out well.

OW: Juice Crew was one of early alliances, right?

FP: It’s like a union. In the late 80’s, all the groups started to group together like Legion of Boom. So Legion of Boom was my group, Bert’s group [Sound Sequence], Norman Poon [Creative Madness], and then Rick Lee [Styles Beyond Compare] joined later. Juice Crew was Unlimited Sounds, Unique Musique. Then in the South Bay, there was Empire, which probably had the loudest sound system. So the reason why people joined together like that was to have the ultimate sound system.

OW: Because you could pretty much take from everyone?

FP: Right, you got to take from everybody. It’s like a pool.

OW: Which union was the best?

FP: Aw, Legion of Boom of course! B/c we were the loudest and we always used to say, down South, they had the sound, but no lights. SF crews are very flashy. They had all lights, but no sound. We were right in the middle. We were the best of both worlds. We had the Vega system and all the lighting too. Bert’s group had a huge lighting system. I had the best of both worlds.

DJ REN (RENE ANIES) INTERVIEW

2009-12-04T13:48:00.001-08:00

(Ren's the one in the Members Only jacket, stylin'!)

Rene Anies, aka DJ Ren from San Francisco’s Electric Sounds, was one of the first people I ever interviewed for my research (back in 2001!) With remarkable recall and an affable personality, he was one of the people I enjoyed going back to the most to fill in blanks from the earliest days of the scene. Here’s some excerpts from our original interview.

Anies came to the U.S. from the P.I. in 1967 while still a toddler. He grew up in San Francisco and was a freshman at Lowell High in 1979.

RA: We went to a dance and there was a group called Sound Explosion that was one of my friend’s brother’s group.s And they were mixing while they were doing a dance, it was like things you’d see on t.v., at a club, non-stop music. We said, “hey, that’s pretty cool, we should do that”. And at that time, there was other DJs like Dr. Funk who was doing the high school circuit. Michael Erickson was the program director for KISS, he was in a DJ group, I forget which one, I think it was Music Masters, but none of them were mixing yet. The first one was Sound Explosion and we said, “hey, let’s get together, let’s create our own group.”

Anies joined forces with several friends at Balboa High (home to Sound Explosion) and at just 14, became one of the founding members of Electric Sounds.

RA: That was one of the problems – we were so young. Because nobody took us seriously. Even when we were trying to buy the equipment, nobody would deal with us, down to even just headphones, they’d give us a hard time. We were going to store where audiophiles would usually go and they wouldn’t even give us the time of day. And DJing was still an adult thing then, it was an adult business and we said, why can’t we do it? We know what the kids want and we’re in high school, we can do it. We were all freshmen in high school.

OW: What other DJs were doing similar work during then?

RA: Doing the high school circuit around San Francisco you probably had Dr. Funk, you had Music Masters – and they were all adults. They played what was hot on the radio but they didn’t know what the kids really wanted. Dr. Funk was pretty close but he was still doing radio style DJing, he would fade out, fade into the next song and talk over the song. He wasn’t doing non-stop music yet.

My sister-in-law used to frequent a club called Studio West and she knew the bouncer and he would sneak me in. And I got to go to the DJ booth and I saw a gentleman named Mickey mixing and I mean, I just fell for it. “Oh, that’s cool, I want to do that.” And that’s what got me into it personally, mixing.

OW: What got you and your friends into wanting to form a mobile crew?

RA: We just thought it was a good way to make some extra money and we wanted to be the ones to make the party live. We didn’t even think about the mixing factor but at that time, the only other group when we started was Sound Explosion and then we started about the same time as a group called Non-Stop Boogie. We did a high school dance for Lowell, we landed a high school dance…and they gave us a review in the paper, like “these guys were great, but they ran their music together and we never got a chance to break.” Because they were so used to DJs that talked and took breaks and all that. And we were pushing the non-stop music and then it blew up right after that. We started doing the high school circuit and other high school kids thought, “we could do that too!” and that’s when it started getting more popular. But at the time we first started, for at least almost a good year, there were only three groups that I knew of: there was one more group in Daly City that came out shortly after us called Unlimited Sounds.

OW: Especially in those early years, a lot of your business came through garage parties, right?

RA: Our mainstay in the beginning was garage parties. Being from a Filipino background, as far as our group, we always had weekly garage parties in the City. So we started hitting ‘em up, [offering], “hey, we’ll do it for free, we’ll do it for 25 bucks here, 50 bucks here, just to get in and show it.” And our focus was how much could we make the garage live, like in a club, we got lights, we even put fog machines in the garages and that was our mainstay in the very beginning. When we first started, we didn’t even have a mixer! Our very first gig, we used two separate stereo systems, we equaled the sound level and we were mixing from one stereo to the other. We were having such a hard time landing the mixers that we came up with that idea. Then shortly thereafter we finally landed a Numark mixer. At the beginning, maybe the first two gigs, we were using two different stereo systems.

OW: When did you see the mobile scene start to take off?

RA: It’s funny because the rise probably began, I would say, in 1980, I mean, it jumped real fast. We did it for less than a year and there were groups starting to pop off in our high school. And as far as thinking how much we influenced them, I knew we influenced them some but I didn’t know how much we did. Because there were groups saying, “oh yeah, you influenced us” but I never thought twice about that because we were just having fun. It was just a group of guys wanting to make a party live and to be honest, until Melanie [Caganot Kong] called us, I didn’t know how much of an impact we had. Even my cousin, Q-Bert, keeps giving us credit and I didn’t realize that.

I would say in ’80, ’81, shortly thereafter, they started having battles. Just seeing that there were groups popping out of Daly City that we knew, I didn’t think, nationwide or out of the Bay Area yet. I think it didn’t really blow up ‘till like ’83 yet, when they started having this thing called Imagine. Then that’s when all the DJs started having showcases. We were having battles back in ’81, ’82 but again, it was such a small crowd, it was always the same groups. But when Mark Bradford came along, all of the sudden, all these Dj groups started popping up from different parts of the Bay Area and they were trying to be part of that battle. It was a total different thing from turntablists. They judged you on your sound set-up, on your presentation of lights, on your sound and then the mixes. It was straight mixing then, that was the big thing. It’s funny because the story about me and Q-Bert…I remember when he first started, he started learning how to scratch before he learned how to mix. And I always used to tell him, “hey, when you learn how to mix, come back to me because then you’ll be really good.” And then I went to the Air Force and I came back and was like “oh my god”. He was like, “look, look, look at me now.” I said, “you win.”

OW: What were the standards on which “a good mobile crew” were judged?

RA: It evolved. At first, it was the whole show. I mean, we won a battle one time just by seeing how outrageous we could get. We had explosions, we had flame. They made me take off my shirt, DJ without my shirt. It was just how crazy you can get and get the crowd to go. And then as the battles evolved, it started getting more evolved to sound, mixing and lights. But at the beginning, it was just a show that you could put on. Who could get the crowd to get the wildest. Even up to ’84, ’85, that was still a big portion of it, getting the crowd wild. But then people started getting more knowledgeable about the mix. They knew what a good mix was and what a bad mix was and that started coming into play more.

OW: What kind of mixing styles are we talking about?

RA: Cut mixing and all that – it was there but that still wasn’t the popular thing at that time. It was a slow, blended mix and how long you could hold that mix. That, to me, was the big thing back then. Non-Stop Boogie had a DJ named Dino and he started cut mixing and then Ultimate Creations, and then speed mixing came in. That was just part of the evolving process, people were trying to get faster than the other DJs, see how could put on more songs than the other DJs.

OW: How long did Electric Sounds last for?

RA: I went on my own after ’82, Electric Sounds went out of business because one of my friends [Tiger Tapia] got shot and killed at a garage party. So that was the end of Electric Sounds. I was still kind of a rogue DJ, helping out other DJs here and there. And I never lost the love. I would say, ’87, everybody and their mother…it was pretty saturated. You had guys doing free gigs and the money was going down the tubes. Everybody was like, “oh, I’ll do it for cheaper than him…” there were still parties to be done, you always had weddings, you always had proms and private parties and christenings. I think if anything, we started cutting in the professional DJs action and they would start trying to boast and look more professional. And by then, the kids, they were getting backed by their parents. When we started there was not too many lights stores and DJ stores so we would like stealing lights off of those construction stands, making our own lights.

When we first started, we weren’t very professional, we didn’t even had a mixer. As we went along, we patterned ourselves after Sound Explosion. Sound Explosion was professional and we wanted to be like them. And as soon as got all our equipment and we got all our rules down as far as who can go – at one point, we had an entourage of 24 people going to our gigs. And we were like, “no, no, we got to get down to the original six and when the mixer’s mixing, only one person on stage and the light man.” I would say, when we first came up with the concept, it was just to party but once we landed a high school gig, it was over, it was professional from there on.

OW: How did the rest of the Filipino community respond to the mobile crews?

RA: You are the star, you were the star of the party and you were known. I mean, it evolved to like all DJs were players and all this. Girls would be more interested or whatever. I mean, let’s face it, one of the main factors we got started was “ok, we can meet a lot of girls.” But as far as the Filipino Americans (FA), it just took off with the FA community because every week, there was a party, there was always business for us. You look at all the different high schools then you times that by 2 or 3 as far as kids having parties every weekend and that’s how many parties there were for DJs, going on. And when you were known as a DJ, that was our little Hollywood. It literally was, back then. That was a pride that we took, we wore our little jackets. One time, we were wearing our jackets on 24th St. and we were getting chased because they thought we were a gang. I mean, we were running but we wore it with pride. That was our way of being our star within the community and as far as the Filipino parties, they took it to adult things like the Filipino American Culture Day. They really incorporated it into our culture as far as what we did.

Postscript: One of my favorite surprises that came about in interviewing Rene was discovering, quite by accident, that his wife - Daphnie - was one of the founding members of the only all-female mobile crew I came across, The Go-Go’s. I had heard about them through Orlando Madrid but didn’t have any contacts for anyone in the crew and I happened to be over at the Anies’ house, interviewing Rene. Daphnie helped with some of the anecdotes Rene was trying to remember and she clearly knew a lot of the folks in the early scene so I asked her how she was acquainted with everyone and she replied, matter-of-factly, “I used to be in a girl crew called The Go-Go’s.” I’ll have to post up their interview soon.

LEGIONS OF BOOM: NOW ON FACEBOOK

2009-01-14T12:49:00.001-08:00

Legions of Boom has a Facebook group for those who want to network with other members from the mobile scene. Join us!

SF DANCE SINGLE DISCOGRAPHY

2008-07-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Thought this might be of interest to some folks. It's a discography of SF dance singles from the 1980s, put together by the late David Diebold for his out of print book, Tribal Rites: The San Francisco Dance Music Phenomenon 1978-88.

SAD NEWS: LOU MIGUEL PASSES

2008-06-15T14:59:00.001-07:00

From Dino Rivera:

"The true founder of SPINTRONIX has passed away. Luciano "Lou" Miguel or known to many as simply "Mr. Miguel" passed away on June 5th, 2008 at the age of 69. He passed away at Seton Medical Center (formerly St. Mary's Help Hospital) in Daly City where he retired as an employee in 2002. He is survived by his wife, Leona, his son Chris, his daughter Lucy, and 2 grandchildren, Ella & Lillie. Mr. Miguel is the true Godfather of SPINTRONIX. His son Chris was one of the original DJs for the group and his home was the training ground for SPINTRONIX and today is still the headquarters for SPINTRONIX LLC. Mr. Miguel funded the group's early equipment and drove Chris to every gig/event in the group's early years. He also acted as a 2nd Father to group's many members and kept everyone in check. He will surely be missed by all who knew him."

TAKING IT BACK TO THE '90S

2007-12-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

Ninoy Brown brought to my attention some vintage mobile era videos pulled out the archives by Dave Dynamix. It's fantastic that this is material is out there.

Oakland's Ladda Sounds at the DJ Extravaganza (1992)

Not mobile but the right era with the right folks - FM 2.0 from back in the day, before the Piklz came into being.

Check the rest.

LATINO MOBILE CREW CARDS

2007-12-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

A special treat, thanks to Hugo Gomez of TheGomezBrothers.com. He scanned in several business cards from the Bay Area's Latino mobile scene. Keep 'em coming Hugo!

Click for a bigger array.

NEW ARTICLE ON THE FIL-AM DJ/HIP-HOP SCENE IN L.A.

2007-08-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

From the LA Weekly: "The Fil-Am Invasion"

INTRO TO THE MOBILE CREW

2007-06-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

The folks at Spintronix put together this excellent, short documentary on both their own history but it also serves as a great intro in the world of mobile DJ crews as well. Highly recommended.

RATHER UNIQUE: CATCHING UP WITH UNIQUE MUSIQUE

2006-07-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of interviewing two of the main members of Daly City's storied crew, Unique Musique. I first got in contact with Henry Geronimo though Jay De La Cruz from Spintronix and when I met him at his new townhouse in Oakland, UM's old DJ Patrick Salvatin (aka DJ Whiz) was busy at the turntables that had been set-up in the garage.

Unique Musique formed in Daly City in 1983 (largely out of El Camino H.S.). Technically, I'd describe them as a "late 2nd gen" crew as they followed other Daly City crews like Futurstic Sounds (actually, they were an off-shoot of FS), Fusion (Westmoor H.S.) and Unlimited Sounds (Jefferson H.S.) and were contemporaneous with crews like Ultimate Creations who formed around the same time.

Peter Salvatin (Patrick's brother) was the main force behind its creation, though he turned over business affairs to Henry a few years down the line when he got out of the DJ game. Patrick/Whiz was one of the main DJs for the crew throughout its lifetime. I had heard the name, "Unique Musique" many times in my previous interviews with other SF/DC crews and their name just jumps out at you on fliers and business cards but I never was able to track anyone down. (Trivia Note: Ray Viray, of Midstar Productions, was an original member of UM and left the group, early in its formation, with a few other folks to form Midstar).

Apart from having an excellent interview with both men, Henry had done an amazing job of documenting many of the crews various fliers and photos, going back over 20 years. He was gracious enough to lend me some of these to scan and I've put up a select amount for public viewing. I chose these ones in particular because I feel like they illuminate key parts of the larger DJ history, including a very, very rare Imagine 1 flier (the first I've ever seen), a great MC Fly Productions flier, an AA Productions flier, etc. Great history captured here and I want to thank Henry for his permission in letting me scan and share these. Seriously, it's a real treat. Check 'em out (click image below):

CAMERON PAUL LIVES!

2006-04-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

After years of being off the radar, the legendary Cameron Paul, arguably the most famous club DJ that San Francisco ever saw, is back...and blogging.

http://mixx-it.blogspot.com/

He's retelling his life story, installment by installment. This should prove to be VERY interesting, especially based on the interviews I've done with him and other things I've heard in the course of my research.

Though Paul was never a mobile DJ guy (not in the same sense as the crews I study), he was instrumental in inspiring an entire generation of Filipino DJs to learn how to mix, especially during Paul's tenure at Studio West. Act like you knew.

TRIBUTE 2 THE MOBILES

2006-02-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

Last night, at the Beat Lounge (Social Club) in S.F., they hosted a "Tribute 2 Bay Area Mobile DJs" night. It was cool: DJ Dynamix (3 Style Attractions, San Jose) brought up his lighting set-up, including truss, two beacons, two oscillators, a Vertigo, a dual, and a dice light. PLUS smoke machine; gotta have the smoke machine. On the tables was Shortkut (Just 2 Hype, Daly City), Apollo (Unlimited Sounds, Daly City), and Swift Rock (2DX-TREME, Daly City). All freestyle, electro, old school and other '80s dance faves. The flier for the evening is above (click on it for a larger image).

Also, there's an album of photos from the event here.

Peep out the DJs for the evening:

SAN FRANCISCO/DALY CITY BUSINESS CARDS

2005-12-23T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here's the first in a series of different business card scans I've acquired. I need to give a huge thanks out to Dino Rivera (Spintronix) who scanned these for me. There's some really amazing history encapsulated here: many of the crews represented were amongst the biggest in the 2nd and 3rd generation of mobiles (~1981 - 1986). These are mostly SF and DC crews though there are some crews from other parts of the Bay too, notably Skyway Sounds from UC/Fremont, South City's Sound Sequence (big up Burt Kong) and Ladda Sounds from Oakland.

Click on each of these cards for bigger arrays of cards.

DECEMBER UPDATE

2005-12-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not updating sooner but I have some big news:

Duke University Press is offering me a book contract to turn "Legions of Boom" into a formal book. Provided, it will be on an academic press (and therefore, academic) but this will give me the incentive and opportunity to do more research.

I'd especially like to talk to crews in any of the following areas: Vallejo, San Jose or Union City/Fremont since these were all gaps in my original research. 2006 will be a busy year with all this new research but it should hopefully be very worthwhile to helping broaden the scope of the history.

If you were part of a Filipino mobile crew in any of those cities, holler.

ABOUT OLIVER WANG

2005-09-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach and before that, I did my graduate work at UC Berkeley in Ethnic Studies.

I first started "studying" the Bay Area DJ scene back in the mid-1990s. At the time, I was both a DJ myself (radio) as well as a music journalist. Naturally, I ended up writing about the Bay's rich scratch DJ scene and that's when I first learned about the mobile crews of the 1980s.

I didn't move to the Bay Area until 1990 and so, wasn't really aware of the mobiles until well-past the point of their overall demise. However, I was struck, in talking to people like Q-Bert or Shortkut or any of the many turntablists in the Bay, how they all traced their beginnings back to the mobile crews of their high school years.

When it came time to pick a dissertation topic, circa 2001, I knew I wanted to explore the role of music in the lives of Asian Americans but it was my advisor who suggested I focus specifically on the Filipino American mobile scene. The timing couldn't be better since, right when I was developing my interest in the topic, including an early newspaper article on the scene, Melanie Caganot (now Kong) had been setting up her "Tales of the Turntable: Filipino American DJs of the Bay Area," exhibit at the San Mateo History Museum. That exhibit and related events allowed me to meet some of the key players in the mobile scene and from there, my research began in earnest.

By 2004, I had completed my dissertation, "Spinning Identities: A Social History of Filipino American DJs in the Bay Area." I'm currently working on adapting that into a book for Duke University Press, with the tentative title of "Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile Disc Jockeys in the San Francisco Bay Area" and hope to have the manuscript completed shortly.

However, in 2005, I created a "street history" of the mobile scene, based on my research, to share with both the people I interviewed and anyone else who was interested. That informal history is available upon request (all rights reserved for material contained therein). Email me.

The point in doing all this research is partially to help pull this community of people back - to share stories, to help fill in the many blanks in the history of the scene. My interviews only comprised a tiny fraction of all the people I could have spoken with and there are some major gaps in my research: Vallejo and San Jose scenes for example.

I absolutely welcome people contact me to help add more information and for those of you on Facebook, please join the Legions of Boom group there.

WELCOME TO LEGIONS OF BOOM

2005-09-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

This site is meant to be a resource for developing a community history of the Bay Area's mobile DJ history, especially the contributions made by Filipino Americans.

I first began the research behind Legions of Boom (LOB) back in 2001 and between then and 2004, interviewed appx. 30-40 pioneers and innovators within the Filipino mobile scene. In 2004, I wrote a PhD dissertation based on this work and then edited it back down into LOB, a history-in-progress that seeks to widen and deepen what I've already collected.

In other words, this site exists to share what I've already collected and to gather more information and resources for those interested in this history.

As you can see, this site is still very much in its infancy but in the weeks to follow, I will be adding several libraries of resources including:
-Fliers and photos from mobile parties
-Crew business cards
-Interview transcripts
-An interactive map identifying key neighborhoods and high schools.
-As complete a list of crews as possible.

For those who have not yet had a chance to read Legions of Boom, I'll be making copies available soon, most likely through PDF.

In the meantime, if you have questions or feedback, holler at me at legionsofboom@gmail.com.

Oliver Wang
September 2005