When DB moved to the Big Apple in 1989, the Brit transplant essentially brought underground-dance and rave culture with him. As co-founder of the infamous NASA parties (some of the first rave parties on American soil), DB established himself as a trailblazer in the scene by being among the first…

At the turn of the century, trance music enjoyed an unchallenged reign in the nation’s clubs — not to mention every tricked-out Acura in LoDo. Thanks to Kimball Collins, there was simply no escaping it. Collins launched his DJ career in 1987, just as rave culture began to sprout roots…

Since he first stepped behind the decks at San Francisco’s warehouse parties nineteen years ago, Doc Martin has helped put house music on the map in the U.S. Having flourished during the heyday of the ’90s rave scene, Doc is a living throwback to that era and will always be…

Before he discovered house music and the rave/club scene, Chicago’s Bad Boy Bill was a hip-hop-based battle DJ. That experience as a turntablist has given him an edge that most dance-music DJs don’t have. Any track he plays becomes his own, as he applies battle-jock techniques — scratching and cutting…

Trance-music don Christopher Lawrence is arguably the best-known name in dance music to come from the United States, a country with no shortage of top-notch DJ talent. Consistently ranked alongside the U.K.’s hottest jocks in DJ Magazine’s annual poll, in 2004 Lawrence checked in at number seven, placing higher than…

Looking like the bastard son of Keith Richards behind the decks, Danny Howells more closely resembles a glammed-out rock star than a superstar house DJ. Howells, a native of Hastings, England, got his start more than twelve years ago and spent his formative years warming up crowds for John Digweed…

Trance music’s massive popularity within the club scene can be largely attributed to the efforts of Miami’s George Acosta. With the release of his first mix CD, 2000’s Awake, both trance music and Acosta experienced a huge surge in popularity within the U.S. dance scene. Suddenly Acosta found himself rubbing…

In 2002, Junkie XL, the brainchild of Tom Holkenborg, reworked an old Elvis cut into an inescapable dance track that shot straight to number one in 24 countries, especially noteworthy for an electronic artist. The track, “A Little Less Conversation,” also exemplified Junkie XL’s signature sound, a potent sonic infusion…

London DJs and producers Ed Rush and Optical teamed up in 1998 for a series of landmark releases on their Virus Recordings label that earned the pair superstar DJ status. Each had achieved moderate success on his own within the techstep drum-and-bass scene; their collaboration proved to be one of…

A relative newcomer to the club scene, Zana Mills made her debut behind the decks at Fevah in London just three years ago. Since that time, she has made strides in her career — such as garnering residencies at Toxik UK and Fevah USA — that would have taken most…

Miami’s DJ Craze is one of the few turntablists to fully embrace dance music as a touring, full-fledged, drum-and-bass DJ. After winning the DMC world championships an unprecedented three times, he retired from competition and turned his attention to the tunes. Recognizing the myriad similarities between drum-and-bass and hip-hop, Craze…

Helmut Geier, aka DJ Hell, is the David Bowie of electronic music — always on the cutting edge, and an icon to those who’ve followed in his wake. From his entry into the early-’90s German techno scene through the current disco-punk fad, Hell (due at Vinyl on Saturday, February 26)…

L.A.’s DJ Hive made his mark on the underground dance scene in the late 1990s with “Ultrasonic Sound,” a catchy little track he produced; it’s got a ferocious breakbeat built around a sample lifted from Bad Brains’ “Reignition.” “Ultrasonic” ended up being included on the soundtrack for The Matrix, and…

DJ Lady Tribe would probably be one of the first to admit that her looks have opened doors. But although her obvious sex appeal may have landed her steady residencies at some of L.A.’s top hip-hop clubs, it’s her turntable skills that have kept her there — and proved she’s…

Judge Jules is a DJ whose involvement in dance music extends far beyond the role of a “superstar DJ.” Since his humble beginnings in 1987, he’s left his stamp on just about every possible facet of the dance-music culture: He’s hosted shows on Radio 1, contributed to many of the…

On Friday, January 28, milehighhouse founder Tom Hoch will host a shindig at Vinyl to celebrate his crew’s fifth anniversary. Barcelona DJ Murray Richardson, whose brand of deep, funky tech house has kept him in demand worldwide, is headlining the party, which will also feature Hoch and his fellow housemates…

Ali Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi, better known as Deep Dish, made their initial mark in the ’90s as deep-house producers and DJs — despite the fact that the two have never aligned themselves with any one specific genre or scene. Although Shirazinia and Tayebi’s productions take on the epic, soulful…

As tech-house has grown in popularity, scads of DJs have begun to do whatever they can to claim the banner as their own — without really coming up with anything that sets them apart from one another. Christian Smith, on the other hand, is unique. Tightly mixing on three turntables,…

Scratching the surface Seattle’s Donald Glaude was playing gigs in Denver long before clubs like the Church (where he’ll be on Thursday, January 6) catered to dance music. Glaude established his national rep as an elite, cutting-edge house DJ at underground warehouse raves in the early ’90s and quickly became…

Carlos D has already made his mark in the music world playing bass in the hugely popular, NYC-based Interpol. And before he played out as a DJ in various bars and clubs in Gotham, he cut his teeth at New York University’s WNYU, where he hosted a goth-specialty radio show…

Drum-and-bass, more so than other genres of dance music, can swing like a pendulum from the melodic and ethereal to the absolutely dark, brutal and aggressive. Mark Caro, who operates under the name Technical Itch, has been pushing drum-and-bass toward the more menacing end of that spectrum since the mid-’90s…

New York, Detroit and Chicago are usually credited as birthplaces of modern dance music, but the sounds coming from Miami over the course of the past decade have done just as much to shape the culture. Take, for example, the output of Miami’s Edgar V, who is slated to make…