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Two decades ago, Chicago-native Mark Farina began experimenting at his DJ gigs, dropping slower, deeper tracks along the lines of disco classics, acid-jazz, hip hop, and downtempo. In Chicago, which is primarily known as a house music town, his selections were deemed more appropriate for home listening than for the dance-floor. Despite this, Farina continued to develop his sound, which soon after became coined as Mushroom Jazz. A few mixtapes followed, but his experiment-turned-endeavor finally got off the ground in his new home, San Francisco.
Farina juggled between his two residencies of Chicago and San Francisco until he made a permanent move to SF in 1994. He saw opportunities in the city with its vibrant music scene, which featured a slew of promoters catering to fans across a broad spectrum of music styles including hip hop, jazz, house, and reggae to Wicked-style breaks and techno. A couple years before he made his move, he teamed up with Patty Ryan-Smith to throw his own Mushroom Jazz club night.
I’ve done some dumb things in my life. Not going to a Mushroom Jazz event, when I was essentially a very gradual student at Berkeley, has to rank pretty high on the list.