\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n\tYou can\u2019t talk about West Coast dance music history without talking about Doc Martin. <\/p>\n
\n\tBorn Martin Mendoza in San Francisco, the artist started his career spinning on vinyl, helping define the early \u201990s rave scene in Los Angeles when he relocated to the city. Here, he was not only a scene stalwart alongside SoCal comrades like DJ Dan and Marques Wyatt, but a sort of archivist, putting the house, acid house, techno and other underground sounds he was hearing and playing onto wax, cassette and later CD and digital with the launch of his label, Sublevel. <\/p>\n
\n\t30 years later, the imprint is still running strong, as is Martin himself. Talking to Billboard<\/em> over Zoom from his place in Oceanside, Calif., Martin is on the verge of a summer run that included the Om Records Retreat, a campout celebrating three decades of the San Francisco label, this past weekend. He\u2019ll play an all-vinyl set at Flash in Washington D.C. on July 11, dip back to SoCal for the Love Long Beach Festival 2026 the following weekend, then head north for British Columbia\u2019s beloved Shambhala before crossing the Atlantic for the U.K.\u2019s Houghton Festival. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tHarry Styles’ Sister Gemma Paid Tribute to Singer During Final Night of Historic Wembley Residency: ‘I’m So Proud of Who You Are’\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tShakira Teams With FIFA To Earmark $500,000 to Support Earthquake Relief in Venezuela\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tEngland Soccer Superstar Harry Kane Loses Voice Singing ‘Wonderwall’ After Epic World Cup Win, Liam Gallagher Responds\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tExplore\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tBillboard\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHe says promised himself long ago that if he ever lost his enthusiasm for this peripatetic lifestyle and the music he shares with it, he\u2019d quit. Speaking to him now, there\u2019s certainly no indication his enthusiasm is waning. Here, he talks about raving in the \u201990s, opening for Deee-lite and his recently deceased friend, DJ Dan. <\/p>\n 1. Where are you in the world right now, and what is the setting like?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019m in Oceanside, California, and it\u2019s 70 degrees year round, and by the beach \u2014 less than two miles away from the water.<\/p>\n 2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOh boy, that\u2019s a tough one. It\u2019d probably be a 7\u2033 record. It would have been in the \u201970s, so I would say maybe \u201cBoogie Oogie Oogie\u201d by A Taste Of Honey.<\/p>\n 3. Where did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do, or did, they think of what you do for a living now?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tGood one. My mom was a hairdresser for Vidal Sassoon and Paul Mitchell, she taught at his school and also sang backups for a couple of local bands like Paul Revere & The Raiders in San Francisco. My dad was an upholsterer, unfortunately he\u2019s passed, but my mom, up until five years ago, was still in that mode of \u201cWhen are you going to get a real job?\u201d Now she kind of sees the light, finally, after 35 years.<\/p>\n 4. What is the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tProbably a car. It was when the Lexus first came out, and I got a GS 300. Then after that I just went to Toyotas. I realized it wasn\u2019t worth spending a lot of money on. <\/p>\n 5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into electronic music, what album would you give them?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI would say the first Future Sound Of London record, [1992\u2019s Accelerator<\/em>.]<\/p>\n 6. What\u2019s the last song you listened to?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI think the last album was The English Beat\u2019s Live at US Festival \u201982 & \u201983<\/em>. I listen to tons of promos every day, but my friend Harry Romero did a remix of \u201cHouse of God\u201d by DHS, and that was probably the last thing I really got into. People like Harry Romero and Maceo Plex, they make these bootlegs, and they\u2019re just for us to play. There\u2019s like three or four people that have them, which kind of sucks for everybody else, but great for us.<\/p>\n 7. What gigs on your summer schedule are you most looking forward to?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019m going to England for all of August, and the Houghton Festival is one for sure that I\u2019m looking forward to. It\u2019s my fourth time, and always extremely great, and going to Berlin again for Heidegl\u00fchen, which is a great club, and also doing Notting Hill Carnival in London and doing Shambhala in Canada. There\u2019s been a lot of good things this year. I can\u2019t really complain. San Francisco is always a treat as well.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tHow Organic Made History As Southern California\u2019s First Legitimate Dance\u00a0Fest\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 8. There\u2019s so much lore about the Los Angeles dance scene in the \u201990s. What was it really like?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThe underground was really renegade in a lot of ways. There were a lot of warehouse parties because of the vast warehouse district at that time, and I think a lot of warehouse owners really need to make some extra money, so there was a huge underground as far as locally grown spaces. A lot of acts from England would come. In early \u201986 I was still in San Francisco and booking people like Inner City, Liz Torres, D Mob, and it was just a crazy time.<\/p>\n \n\tThe clubs in L.A. were great as well, because you had what was known as the Brat Pack, and all these celebrities mixing with people. The first gig I ever did in Los Angeles, I turned around [and] Nicholas Cage, Charlie Sheen and James Spader were in the booth with me. And there were a vast majority of different people and styles, and that\u2019s kind of what made L.A. really pop in the \u201990s. You would have gothic people, people dressed like rockabilly next to punks, normal college kids. That made things really interesting.<\/p>\n 9. Was it as fun and epic as everyone paints it out to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt was in a lot of ways, because it was done by people like us, using our own money. It wasn\u2019t done by any corporate entities at all. When people would do theme parties, they would actually make the props themselves. There was a lot of love and effort put into it, and that made things really special. You would go out and it would be opening and closing night at the time time, so you didn\u2019t want to miss anything. <\/p>\n 10. When did you feel things start to change?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI would say in the mid-to-late \u201990s. 1990 to \u201994 was a really good run. I think people saw there was money to be made off this, and investors started coming in. We were doing shows at places like The Palladium, which is a big club [in Los Angeles] that holds like 2,500 people \u2014 which wasn\u2019t a bad thing, but there were corporate entities getting involved. We did a party for 10,000 people in downtown L.A. for a movie called Strange Days<\/em>, and Deee-Lite performed live, Aphex Twin DJ\u2019d, I DJ\u2019d, which was great, because I became Deee-Lite\u2019s tour DJ after that show.<\/p>\n 11. What was it like being Deee-Lite\u2019s tour DJ?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt was amazing for me, because we got along extremely well and were on the same wavelength. I also got to see the whole United States from a tour bus, which was never going to happen any other way. It was just a really good growing experience for me as a DJ, coming out of the L.A. scene and being able to see the entire country and also Canada\u2026 That gig was kind of like a baptism by fire, because I was with a lot of heavyweights of that time and just got thrown into the middle of it, and in the middle of the lineup as well. I didn\u2019t open, so it was just kind of like, \u201cOkay, here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tThe 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time: Staff\u00a0List\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 12. What did you learn from the experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWhat a great sound system can do for a crowd. I think that was the first time I played on a sound system with that level of prestige, and I was just a little kid in a candy store. I was so excited and happy. I wouldn\u2019t have cared if there was two people dancing or the 1,500 that were there. It was incredible for me. <\/p>\n 13. You\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. To what do you attribute your longevity?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI told myself that if I ever lost the vigor or got complacent, I would just give up, because it really isn\u2019t fair to the crowd that pays to see you. I\u2019m still a music fanatic. I listen to music three hours every day. I\u2019m surrounded by it, immersed in it. People are like, \u201cWhat are your hobbies?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWell, this is it.\u201d<\/p>\n 14. What does music do for you, that you\u2019ve devoted your life to it?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI just love the way it makes other people feel when you\u2019re playing certain songs you believe in and are championing, and there\u2019s that connection between you and the crowd. It\u2019s like the most addictive drug. <\/p>\n 15. What do you think the biggest problem currently facing dance music is?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a lot of saturation right now, and a lot of people going the social media route, as opposed to maybe spending more time in the studio. Maybe not every record you make needs to come out in the current state it\u2019s in. I will put stuff away for six months and come back to it and finish it. I just did a remix that took me almost a year and a half.<\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019re on a very quick timeline. Things are in for one minute, out for the next. People are constantly looking for the next big thing. There\u2019s very little cultivation of music or artist development at the labels. It\u2019s really hard. A label will sign someone with a million followers instead of the person who\u2019s super talented with a thousands followers. With our label, I tend to go the other way \u2014 because in the end it\u2019s going to be about music that sticks, and the person with a million followers, in most cases their records probably won\u2019t stick.<\/p>\n 16.<\/strong>If you weren\u2019t a DJ and producer, what would you do for work?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBefore music I was training to be a chef and working in some very high-volume restaurants. I found it very stressful, to be honest. Especially the higher-end restaurants, four and five stars. Everything has to be perfect, and everyone has a complaint about every dish, and it was a lot of being yelled at by the head chef constantly and doing 200 dishes a shift. It was insane to me. When this [music career] happened, having always been obsessed with music \u2014 not so much DJing, but having record collections and buying everything from reggae to underground new wave to early hip-hop \u2014 it was just a natural fit. Thank God it worked out.<\/p>\n 17. What\u2019s the best business decision you\u2019ve made in your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI have a label, Sublevel, and I have a night, and we have a clothing line as well. The best decision was probably to start doing my monthly parties in L.A., and at different venues every month, bringing in unsung heroes. We\u2019ve had Craig Richards, we\u2019ve had Josh Wink, we brought the Secretsundaze guys from England\u2026 I kind of took myself out of the international DJ circuit [for awhile] by doing that, but I helped cultivate a different kind of scene here in Los Angeles, which was great. I\u2019d just moved back from England where I\u2019d been a resident at Fabric, and the music I heard there wasn\u2019t getting played over here, and I really thought that was a shame. There was so much great music coming out of Berlin, London, Japan, and it just wasn\u2019t getting played. <\/p>\n \n\tI was like, \u201cLet me do an experiment and try to put a night on that focuses on all this stuff, along with American music that wasn\u2019t getting played in America.\u201d It really caught on. I think when you go somewhere and you\u2019re welcomed and they have food, candy, free water and coffee and people are like \u201cDon\u2019t drive home like that\u201d \u2014 putting that kind of caring into events makes a difference in people feeling like they\u2019re a part of something.<\/p>\n 18. The West Coast scene lost a legend this year when DJ Dan died this past March. Did you know him?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI did, actually. The last year and a half we were really close in a lot of ways. We\u2019d talk for hours on the phone, and as I was getting my stuff more in order with my label \u2014 my press and things like that \u2014 I was trying to help him as well, because I felt like he was in a spot where he didn\u2019t want to be anymore. He wanted to elevate. I was like, \u201cYou have the reputation, and you have the following, you just need a few tweaks here and there.\u201d We would talk for hours about this and exchange ideas. I\u2019d go to his house and hang out. We were confidantes.<\/p>\n 19. I\u2019m very sorry that your friend died. Do you want to tell a great Dan story?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThe last festival we did together was in Alaska, in the middle of nowhere, and we shared a house. It was probably one of the more fun weekends we\u2019d both had in a very long time. We just sat on the couch most days and talked for hours and exchanged stories and memories of each other\u2026 It was a very special time for us, and that bonding needed to happen, because for years we didn\u2019t see each other. We were on different tour schedules while I was really focused on Europe and New York and other places. <\/p>\n \n\tIt was good to get back into each other\u2019s, I would say, good graces, because we hadn\u2019t seen each other. We hadn\u2019t talked, we hadn\u2019t been there. It was a good time to come together again, especially at that point in our careers.<\/p>\n 20. What\u2019s one piece of advice you\u2019d give to your younger self?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tTry to block out the noise a lot more, and just stay focused. Advice I give to other DJs is to always have your personality shine through your music. Don\u2019t hide who you are for anybody.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/music\/music-news\/doc-martin-20-questions-interview-1236288185\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/BB_Doc-Martin-1.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard You can\u2019t talk about West Coast dance music history without talking about Doc Martin. Born Martin Mendoza in San Francisco, the artist started his career spinning on vinyl, helping define the early \u201990s rave scene in Los Angeles when he relocated to the city. Here, he was not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-2030037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2030037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2030037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2030037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2030037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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