20 Questions With Doc Martin: What the ’90s L.A. Rave Scene Was Really Like & Remembering His Friend DJ Dan
Categoria: Musica
The legendary DJ/producer has upcoming dates at events including British Columbia's beloved Shambhala and the U.K.'s Houghton Festival.
Por Billboard | 06/07/2026
You can’t 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 ’90s 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. 30 years later, the imprint is still running strong, as is Martin himself. Talking to Billboard 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’ll 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’s beloved Shambhala before crossing the Atlantic for the U.K.’s Houghton Festival. He says promised himself long ago that if he ever lost his enthusiasm for this peripatetic lifestyle and the music he shares with it, he’d quit. Speaking to him now, there’s certainly no indication his enthusiasm is waning. Here, he talks about raving in the ’90s, opening for Deee-lite and his recently deceased friend, DJ Dan. 1. Where are you in the world right now, and what is the setting like? I’m in Oceanside, California, and it’s 70 degrees year round, and by the beach — less than two miles away from the water. 2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium? Oh boy, that’s a tough one. It’d probably be a 7″ record. It would have been in the ’70s, so I would say maybe “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by A Taste Of Honey. 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? Good 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’s passed, but my mom, up until five years ago, was still in that mode of “When are you going to get a real job?” Now she kind of sees the light, finally, after 35 years. 4. What is the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist? Probably 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’t worth spending a lot of money on. 5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into electronic music, what album would you give them? I would say the first Future Sound Of London rec