Mark Farina

Known primarily for his downtempo method of mixing jazz, home, and hip-hop — a method he dubbed “mushrooom jazz” — DJ and producer Tag Farina played a significant role within the building of San Francisco’s home music scene. Originally from Chicago, Farina began DJ’ing at age 15, greatly motivated by his city’s main contribution to underground dance music. A couple of years afterwards, while at close by Northwestern School, he produced his creation debut with “Disposition” (KMS, 1989), made as one-third of Icons & Equipment beside WNUR radio partner Derrick Carter and Chris Nazuka. Farina eventually relocated to SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA and established “mushroom jazz,” an audio that grew from an area residency into global gigs, in addition to an extensive group of like-titled combine albums that started in 1996 and ongoing into the last mentioned fifty percent of the 2010s. Also minus the Mushroom Jazz amounts, Farina’s discography of commercially released DJ pieces would be comprehensive, including Periods One (Local, 1996) and United DJs of America (DMC, 1998), a distributed discharge with Carter entitled Live at OM (OM, 2004), and Fabric 40 (Fabric, 2008). Farina’s creation discography is relatively brief, highlighted by “Wish Machine,” a cooperation with Sean Hayes which was certified for use because the lead monitor on Stéphane Pompougnac’s Hôtel Costes 8.