Martin (real name: Martin Mendoza) started his career 18 years ago in San Francisco, and became a crucial cog in the West Coast rave machine. He's been living large since opening for dance-pop flashes in the pan Deee-Lite on their 1994 world tour. Martin's become one of those in-demand jocks who seem to be perpetually on the road. Besides touring with such big names as Moby, the Prodigy, Grace Jones, and Timothy Leary (?!), he's held residencies at megaclubs like New York's Twilo and Liverpool's Cream. Martin also jets to far-flung outposts like China, New Zealand, and Singapore to bring the house gospel to the ravenous masses. He's been known to rock the decks for eight hours at a stretch (he travels with a special portable toilet that enables him to relieve himself without leaving the DJ booth). This takes monumental endurance and concentration, the kind that only comes through a rigorous regimen of stretching exercises and prodigious quantities of trucker speed... I mean, Red Bull.
What makes Martin one of my favorite house DJs, judging from his many mix CDs and the one live gig I caught, is his knack for injecting liberal doses of psychedelically enhanced funk and acidic textures into his trunk-bumpin' sets (tellingly, Martin titled one of his CDs Unlock Your Mind, and his canny selections do just that). My advice to house jocks: Leave those fluffy "progressive" melodies and grating emotional-diva meltdowns for the clueless; give us the deep, nasty, trippy shit that makes us feel like we're characters from the Kama Sutra on four hits of LSD. Martin's occasional deviations into techno, hiphop, and tribal house also show his keen taste. And the man knows how to connect with and feed off a crowd. At a typical gig, dancers' whoops compete with Martin's selections for headspace.
Martin's no slouch as a producer, either, crafting deep, organic house as Sublevel with Lillia Auzou, which you can hear on his most recent sweet mix for the renowned Fabric series. Fabric 10 delves into melodic, atmospheric techno and tribal house. But Doc really stretches out at his Sublevel parties in L.A., typically taking dancers on a musical journey from 2:00 to 11:30 a.m., stints that would exhaust most DJs' record collections and bodies. Don't expect him to play that long at Chop Suey Saturday, but the shorter duration on the wheels of steel will likely result in a more intense experience. You may want to bring your own porta-potty. DAVE SEGAL
With Peter Christianson of Lawnchair Generals and Wesley Holmes. Sat July 10 at Chop Suey, 1325 E Madison St, 324-8000, 9 pm-2 am, 21+, $12 adv.
