Techno Tease

Pulling from tech-house, ghettotech, and electro, Crenshaw established himself as DJ Claude VonStroke, playing exclusives from the "party crew" — Christian and Justin Martin, plus Sean "Worthy" Williams — while he cultivated his own tracks. The dirtybird gang launched a series of free summer Sunday parties in Golden Gate Park in 2004, starting with 20 people and peaking with a crowd of 600 who came out for an appearance by British-born, Berlin-based producer Jesse Rose. The openness — aurally and actually — at these parties was instrumental in shaping the dirtybird sensibility. The Bay Area had seen its share of postmillennial tech-injected parties — Blasthaus, Filter, Black Market Techno, Auralism Records, and Stap[e were on the scene, to name just a few. Art galleries and warehouses were hosting events, and there were soon venues for martini-friendly, barely-break-a-sweat grooves and crickets-on-tin-oil minimalism. But in the wake of hard economic times, there also seemed to be a real desire for some cheap, dirty funkin'.

Additionally evolving during this period was the minimal techno/avant-house night [KONTROL] — which incidentally celebrates three years at the Endup on June 7. [KONTROL] promotions manager Greg Bird remembers the atmosphere as the dirtybird crew struck out on its own even as he was booking Crenshaw and Martin for opening slots in 2005. "There needs to be that pump, a sound that's both intense and intricate," he concedes. "Justin and Sammy injected silliness into the music. There may have been a more divey, neighborhood vibe to their first gigs at [now-defunct Lower Haight club] the Top, and they got away with playing whatever they liked for friends. And then the dirtybird park parties reinforced the goofy vibe, because it's hard to want to listen to heavy, serious music when you're barbecuing and drinking with friends in the sunshine."

By 2005 Crenshaw was ready to press the vibe into vinyl, so he founded the dirtybird label. From the beginning, response was immediate. The first VonStroke vinyl single, "Deep Throat," sold more than 11,000 copies. Publications from San Francisco's own XLR8R to the UK's DJ took notice. Influential DJs such as techno icon Richie Hawtin caned VonStroke's subsequent tracks, including 2006 single "Who's Afraid of Detroit?" while radio DJs such as the BBC's Pete Tong — who, introducing a recent Claude VonStroke-curated Essential Mix, labeled Crenshaw's debut album "barking mad" — championed tracks. More recently, VonStroke was nominated for Best Tech House Artist in the 2008 Music Awards on www.beatportal.com, the international electronic culture news aggregator of digital DJ music storefront www.beatport.com.

More recent dirtybird releases include the Claude VonStroke and Christian Martin's Groundhog Day EP, Worthy's flatulent banger "Irst Te?," and Style of EYE's "Big Kazoo" (an air raid that blurts playfully along on sounds like a kazoo, natch). Justin Martin even forecasts some hyphy influences in future selections. Even while exploring these new angles, dirtybird continues filtering the deep rumble, atmospherics, and technical precision of '90s drum 'n' bass through tech-house's depths, adding mischief and bass bombs to the 4/4 beat. Interlabel activity has only furthered the breed, drawing increasingly more bodies to the dancefloor at dirtybird's club monthlies at places like Shine.

While dirtybird continues working up its mixture of moody and mental, Crenshaw recently started a second label venture. Mothership, launched last summer, features a roster of dubbier, slower-building Euro-tech. And while Crenshaw refuses to see himself as a tastemaker in the traditional sense, there's something in Mothership's championing of the London's taut minimalists Italoboyz, whose operatic "Viktor Casanova" was turned down by 22 labels before selling 7,000 copies on the label. Watch for an upcoming Italoboyz single on Mothership featuring a John Coltrane sample, blearily drawn-and-quartered surely.

Crenshaw's keen ability to spot talent means it's worth watching for the dirtybird debut later this year of Tim Green, a 22-year-old London producer whose gradually distending track "Revox" sparked Internet interest when it debuted in the VonStroke Essential Mix. The single also goes straight to the point with a swingin' Justin Martin remix. In that way dirtybird continues to draw from its own, adapting without resorting to nasty regurgitation. And the crew continues to happily nest in San Francisco, enjoying this chapter of the city's history as a home base for bassheads.

Read more articles in Listen Up 2008

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