About

A slow-growing (but ever-growing) new website for everything Gavin Varitech…

-below is an old bio that will be updated very soon:

Party music! (a.k.a. TECHNO) From deep & dubby, funky & chunky, to minimal or bangin’, Gavin has been best described as having an interactive presence with the dance floor. Known to friends, Romans, and countrymen as the guy who can put one on you, sending you home with a smile that is unshakable, a prime-time few hours with Mr. Varitech at the helm is unforgettable.

Sometimes relentless hours of bass heavy minimal tribal tech’ness, to the occasions of a more tech-housy, fists in the air party feel, Gavin always carries a full bag of the dopest floor-filling tracks along with timeless classics as well as an arsenal of technical stunts, multiple styles of mixing, and uncanny on-the-fly programming ability.

Nights with Gavin a party-goer will experience “phuntek”; dancefloor friendly West Coast minimal, Gavin’s self dubbed style. Always a unique flavor of that “big room” sound mixed like few others on the West Coast. Not unique for the sake of being different, but for the sake of keeping things fresh. Nothing is more boring to Gavin than sounding like whoever is popular at the time. Gavin’s current vibe could be described as a unique blend somewhere between the sounds of a his idol Marco Carola, Ricardo Villalobos, Stacey Pullen, Carl Cox, John Tejada, Derrick Carter, and even West Coast legend Doc Martin. Having both the skill and courage to go anywhere with the mix, the man is versatile and can quickly adapt to the favor of any dancefloor. The future lies in the studio and techno-house record label “Rareform” that has been building slowly but surely.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area during the eighties and early nineties, Gavin lived the experience only known to those that came up the same way. It’s something that defines him as a person, and an artist. Recording mix shows on a $20 boom box as early as 1986, the pre-teen future deejay would use the pause button on the dual cassette deck to splice, dice, and cut the mixes with his own collection of early and golden age hip hop, electro, Nu-wave, progressive, early hardcore, 80’s disco house, and Detroit techno. It was a huge dedication since a 60 minute tape could take a whole weekend to complete due to the pain-staking task a “pause button” mix tape actually is. Hip hop being his first love, the performance art of deejay was always on top of mind.

Studying the late night mix shows of Cameron Paul (KSOL, KMEL) and then Theo (KMEL) Gavin had little choice but to learn to rock the party himself. But it was not until the strange effect of DJ Premier cutting on just one turntable in a white room on Gangstarr’s “Who’s gonna take the weight” video followed by the ever lasting impression Omar Epps’ character “GQ” in the movie Juice that Gavin could not wait any longer… The first record is still currently displayed in a case in Gavin’s studio. The single “Juice, know the ledge” by Erik B & Rakim.

Remembering that Gavin was only in Jr High school at the time (not old enough to work = no $$$) and had just moved from the cultural mecca of San Francisco to Sacramento, it could be considered amazing that Gavin complied such a vast early collection of the era’s choicest hip hop and B-boy breaks. But to rock a party is really all Gavin has ever wanted to do, so to those that have know him since those day were not surprised.

Some time around 94′or 95′, a 16 year old Gavin used his first of slave wages (AKA Mc Donald’s) to buy $160 Gemini mixer. There was never enough $$$ for turntables, decent headphones, or even carts, so it kind of just sat in the middle of a custom built table just waiting for some 1200’s to accompany it. Which just was not financially feasible so it did not happen. Gavin “borrowed” an old belt driven Sony record player from his parents after some time and the mixer started to serve some purpose. As a pre-amp he was now able to at least listen to the slowly building collection of records, but it just was not enough. It was 3 years later when it all really began. But the now 19 year old was ahead of the game.

Once the first pair of 1200’s was scrimped and saved for, there was already somewhat of a large record collection for Gavin to start with. As the learning curve began those original mixes were creative hip hop and break beat. Soon the hip hop tapes were requested everywhere due to their uniqueness. Never OK with the norm, nearly every track played was an instrumental with an acapella of a different song over-layed.

Shortly thereafter he was on a new path. Big party house and techno.

Since then there has been no looking back. Playing out his first house parties in 99′ and first color flyered shows in early 2000 the man has had a few of the most memorable sets of the last decade in Sacramento parties. The “Metrotechnosexual”, “TribalektrikphOnk”, and “Phuntek” sounds have now been taking the now seasoned jock on frequent trips back to his home of San Francisco as well as other West Coast metropolitan areas like Reno, NV & Seattle, WA.