"No, we weren't the first generation," he duly notes. "We had all these people to look up to. We were the second generation."
Coming out of Chicago in the late 1980s, Mark is careful to give credit where it is due, and acknowledge his influences. Respect is crucial in his philosophy: he draws the analogy between his present position as a "traveling minstrel" and "representing your neighborhood," as practiced in the earliest hip-hop battles from which he derived his original love of tunes and skateboarding.
"Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk was in the first generation of house music DJs. Then it was me, Derrick Carter, Sneak, DJ Heather," he said. And -- perhaps speaking to many of Taipei's DJs, including Saucey, Megan, and Junior, who count him as a major influence – "Now we're into the third or fourth generation."
The last 15 years or so are history. With upwards of 250 gigs a year, as well as being up to number five in his Mushroom Jazz series, Farina has consistently been at the forefront of the West Coast scene. At the moment, he's promoting his new CD, House of Om, on Om Records. It's not for the faint-hearted, and you needn't come here expecting a sublime Sunday afternoon set. It twists and it rubs you up against the wall, and it's not an easy listen. Clickety-deep beats tantalizingly tease back into a two-step on occasion, and screaming vocal samples are buried in and dug out of a mix, taking you all the way -- with no prisoners -- to the Windy City. But it's downright honest.
Tomorrow, Farina takes to the decks at Room 18. It's his first time in Taiwan, and in Asia he's only ever gigged in Japan and Hong Kong. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, there's even a story behind that.
"Hong Kong was dodgy," he laughs. "Years ago. It was in a hotel, but they only put me and Derrick [Carter] up for one night. Then we had to stay on people's floors."
This traveling minstrel doesn't seem to have forgotten where he's been. And he may have a sense of where he's headed in the future. But one suspects that Farina's career, much like his music, has a few plot twists to come.
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