Episode 103: Oliver Wang Show/Hide Search
Oliver Wang is a writer, critic, audio blogger, and DJ. He is best-known among hip-hop fans for his features and reviews for LA Weekly, Urb, NPR, and basically everywhere else. We discuss his new book Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The fascinating book looks at a previously unexplored and nearly forgotten scene from the late 1970s through the early 90s. Young people in the Bay Area, almost entirely Filipino, were inspired by the disco craze to form DJ crews and start throwing parties. At its height, there were scores of crews throughout the entire Bay. Some of the scene’s most prominent alumni were QBert, Mixmaster Mike, and Apollo. The three of them would form the Invisibl Skratch Piklz and go on to invent an entirely new kind of DJing, where virtuosic scratching took center stage.
Tracks featured in this episode:
- Mission High School (SF) 1986 JROTC Girls Drill Team 91ST DIVISION COMPETITION
- DJ QBert/D Styles, Skratchcon 2000
- Early SF DJ - Cameron Paul
- Non-stop 70s-80s Disco Mix Vol1 by DJ Costas
- Francis Grasso
- SKYWAY SOUNDS 1988 MIX BY JAZZY JIM
- DJ QBert - DMC World Champion! Performing @ DMC World Finals 2012 - 27/28 September
- The Very First DJ band: DJ QBert, Mix Master Mike, Apollo in 1992
- The Invisible Scratch Piklz Live
- Jocelyn Enriquez, “Do You Miss Me”
- People Under the Stairs, “The Outrage”
- Louis Logic, “Fair Weather Fan”
- Jean Grae, “You Don’t Know (Freestyle)”
- Al Green, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”
Show notes: