The History
First of all, Basic Beats is always fun and never too serious!
Basic Beats is all about house music and focused on highlighting local talent starting as a free Saturday night weekly in a Simple style. Most of the time the sound system was modest, sometimes it was huge, and it was always free. From the first impression, the simple black and white fliers, and the friendly bouncer, the welcome crew hovering near the door, the simple lighting, $1 Sake shots, the dancing, the sweating, it was all about house music. The DJ's were always accessible, close to the crowd. It was Simply simple. It was Simply house music the way it was intended.
The Basic Beats house weekly started in trendy Silverlake, near Hollywood, CA, at the fashionable, yet struggling Zen Sushi by two DJs, Dr No and Jorel. There was additional promotional support from many friends especially Sarah Yuki. It ran from April 2002 until April 2003 when Zen Sushi had to put a pause on dance events for unrelated reasons. Zen had blown up and was the spot to be. Basic Beats was bumped a few times for the Hollywood elite (like David Spade ha ha ha), that's when it was held at the alternative location, The Garage. The Garage was dirty, dirty, dirty and it was fun to be there... once in a while! The decks were on a stack of old tires! Basic Beats often had 200-300 people and sometimes was even more fun with just 50-100 people! We had surprise visits, not performances, by Richard Vission and Static Revenger and other LA house moguls. Since then the music has not died, it's just not weekly anymore!
Basic Beats has always been accepting of all forms of house music. You never quite knew what to expect, even the DJ's enjoyed surprising their fans with unique sets. The house went from downtempo, to Chicago, from tech to deep, from soulful to funky, from atmospheric to breaky and so much more.
Past Guests included who's who of LA house music:
1. Tony Watson
2. Juan Nunez
3. Jake DeVere
4. Hawkeye
5. Lillyane
6. Lil’ Chris
7. Lawrence aka Foxy Brown
8. John Juster (saxaphone)
9. Scott K.
10. Zach Hill
11. Theory
12. Eddie Barajas
13. David Bacon
14. Roy Ceballos
15. Ann Mentone (vocals)
16. Alland
17. Jordan
18. Oscure
19. Boz
20. Lando
21. Steven Dimitry
22. Kasey Goto
23. Zach Rieken
24. Jesse Outlaw
25. Teddy Q
26. Frank Lara
27. Slick
28. Frescoe
29. Outer.Soul.Sun
30. Aztech Sol
31. Jonra
32. Joplin
33. Aaron Michelson
34. Basskick
35. Emi
36. Warren V.
37. Joey Santa Cruz
38. Brad Kent
39. DJ Blend
40. Eric Allen
41. Dan Levine
42. Vinyl Avenger
43. Craig Parker
44. Adrienne Sanchez
45. Joris
46. Gintares Jones
47. Who’s Your Daddy
Lastly, Basic Beats is fun, so check it out!