Mark Farina interview: 5 minutes with the deep-house legend

By Jen Boyles Fri., Sep. 23 2011 at 9:00 AM

Categories: DJ Q&A

Farina in his record room

If you love house music, you know Mark Farina. The jazz-house pioneer got his start in Chicago and San Francisco in the late '80s and has stayed true to his funky flavors of mellow house, downtempo and hip-hop ever since. He self-released the seventh installment of his famous Mushroom Jazz series last year after ending a career-spanning run with Om Records that pretty much made the imprint and defined its character.

A chill dude with a quiet demeanor, Mark and Gimme Noise had a quick conversation before his headlining set at Bassgasm, the ravetastic City Pages-sponsored party on its 5th incarnation.

What's the future of Mushroom Jazz? What approach did you take for finding the tracks for this latest release?

It's ever changing, we'll see when we get there. For MJ7, I got in touch with producers to get the latest promo stuff they thought had the MJ vibe. I'm always searching for future classics.

What is one of your all-time favorite samples?

Ramp's "Daylight" sampled in A Tribe Called Quest's "Bonita Applebum"

Minneapolis loves your visits, so conversely, I'm wondering what you like about visiting our city.

I love the Midwest and have been coming to the Twin Cities. I enjoy walking around town when it's not too cold. There's some very similar architecture to Chicago there.

As someone who's a purveyor of soulful music, I've got to ask your take on dubstep (which one could argue is not soulful at all but still very popular). Like or dislike?

I'm not really into it for personal listening pleasure, but anything that gets a younger crowd into electronic music is great by me.

What is one thing you most certainly want to accomplish as a musician and have not yet?

Play in the main room at Bassgasm!

I remember you being a bit of a sports fan - what teams are you watching this year?

Chicago Bears - NFL
Arsenal - EPL
Barcelona - SPL
*I have DIRECTV Sunday ticket and soccer package, so I don't miss many games.

Where are the most lively EDM scenes in the world right now, from your touring experience?

LA, NYC, Chicago, Australia, Brazil, Washington DC, Belgium, Japan, and Austin.

You can purchase Mushroom Jazz 7 through Mark's website.

Read about another Bassgasm 5 headliner, DJ Shortee.

One of our favorite Mushroom Jazz tracks: