John Kelley

Origin: None

John Kelley was supposed to become a doctor. Half Asian. Half Southerner. It was study hard. Meet the expectations. Climb the family far out of the cotton-picking swamp. He was walking down a certain path. 

And then, just before medical school in 1991, he stepped into a rave called Infinity. Everything changed. His detailed hand at drawing, a love since he was a boy, came to the fore. His play of shadow and ink, often made to music, dramatized images with attitude. Years listening to Prince, The Police, Led Zeppelin, De La Soul, Funkadelic, Beastie Boys, Miles Davis, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, all crashed under the waves as he listened to Doc Martin in downtown Los Angeles spin house and techno into majestic masterpieces; DJ Dan tearing it up in Long Beach at Aphrodite’s Temple; the UK’s Michael Cook peeling it back with CJ Bolland’s ‘Ravesignal.’ The lightsaber stabs of Joey Beltram’s ‘Energy Flash,’ the fractal head trip of Slam’s ‘Positive Education,’ the deep Italo house of ‘A Key To A Heaven For A Heavenly Trance,’ the heartbreaking nirvana of Future Sound of London’s ‘Papua New Guinea’ — all informed his diverse tastes. 

It was the mix of all these things that fired his imagination. A Moontribe resident DJ since its first year in 1993, John crafted a sound that was a battle cry to keep ravers moving. Harassed and imploding, L.A.’s underground in 1993 was in dark retreat. While Insomniac and others revived the city, Moontribe took the faithful once a month out into the desert. Every full moon, dancers and seekers drove miles and miles, on freeways and dirt roads to secret locations, on dry lake beds, in winding canyons, in the echoey shelter of crumbling hills. As psi-trance flowered on one side of the moon via fellow resident DJ Daniel Chavez, John sparked a progressive house and breakbeat funk style on the other. Like a Yin and Yang, they spun. 

Continuing L.A.’s electro heritage, from Arabian Prince to Exist Dance, out of that Western ferment came a mixtape trilogy in 1994-1995 that would help set a course for Southern California’s native scene. John’s Initiations, Desert Funk and Lunar Funk put breaks at the core of his philosophy. Desert Funk hit it hardest with breakneck mixing contrasted with patient overlays. Its “2 a.m.” A-side chipmunk’d the speed of Leftfield, dusted it up with The Chemical Brothers, and blazed the neurons with Underworld’s original ’Born Slippy.’ Basking in the morning sun on its “8 a.m.” flip side, he worked in acid jazz and breaky house with Aquatherium and Southside Reverb’s ‘Fuck You We’re From Texas.’

In 1996, on Moonshine records, he sent his sound across the country and around the world with the acclaimed FunkyDesertBreaks mix series, called out by historians Simon Reynolds and Michelangelo Matos as a landmark release: “One of Moonshine’s best-loved mid-nineties titles,” is how Matos remembers the two-volume set. From Uberzone’s squiggling ‘Moondusted’ to Castle Trancelot’s ’Indoctrinate’ to Drably Frond’s searing ‘Scilentific,’ John took listeners on twisting sonic adventures. He followed FDB with the eclectic Knee Deep — spiking DJ Icey’s slasher ‘As If’ with Sven Vath’s dreamy ’Breakthrough’ — a tribal house flavored High Desert Soundsystem 1 and 2, and a deep tech-house edition of United DJs of America. 

In 1999, he toured as the official DJ on the Community Service Tour with The Crystal Method, Orbital and The Lo-Fidelity Allstars. A fixture at Insomniac’s Nocturnal Wonderland and Electric Daisy Carnival events, including Philip Blaine’s historic Organic music festival, he played on the same bills as Carl Cox, Frankie Knuckles, Moby, Underworld, Juan Atkins, Eat Static, DJ Dan, Tiesto, and Groove Armada. At Burning Man, he helped define Black Rock City’s freeform psychedelic sound, alongside his Moontribe compatriots, Bassnectar (DJ Lorin) and others. 

In 2000, a family tragedy forced a careful reassessment of his priorities. While he still toured, playing all over Asia, Australia and the Americas, he took a step back to refocus on studio productions and running his label, Ball of Waxx, co-founded with David DeLaski, formerly of the ambient electronica outfit Electric Skychurch. Through their label, they pushed the original works of Brian Seed, Desert Dwellers, Eastern Sun and Quade. In 2005, he put out his first album of original music, the breaks heavy A Night In The Park, featuring the rolling ‘Force Ten,’ the slamming ‘Desert Days,’ the floaty ‘Dye Sky Drive’ and the warped ‘Chopstix.’ The same year, he co-wrote ‘Rapture At Sea’ with Eastern Sun, a song that KCRW’s Jason Bentley picked as one of the top tracks of 2005.  

More recently, John has played at Lightning In A Bottle, Tropical, and of course, L.A.’s Full Moon gatherings. He’s currently working on a new album, as well as collaborations with his Ball of Waxx cohorts. He also works as a sound editor and music supervisor for film and television. More than two decades after that fateful night at Infinity, John continues to evolve a dynamic personal sound, still walking his own unique path to the future. 

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