Noctuary SF & DJ Infinite Jess Launch New Workshop Sessions

December 2, 2019

The new community forum will focus on sharing resources with San Francisco and Oakland’s nightlife entrepreneurs

Noctuary SF resident Kudeki performing at Public Works SF

Community organizing and resource sharing is integral to San Francisco’s DIY music scene, especially for promoters and DJs that often juggle multiple roles in order to facilitate weekly and monthly parties. In a city that only takes up 47 square miles with a population of less than one million, like minded people will inevitably cross paths and build connections like neurons forming synapses in the brain.

One of the newest San Francisco synapses comes as the result of the convergence of Noctuary SF and Vinyl Dreams with the announcement of their Workshop Sessions.

Juana (Discwoman) and Lauren Flax (Bunker NY) perform for Noctuary SF in the Public Works Loft; photo courtesy of Noctuary SF

Noctuary SF started as a blog in 2016 under the moniker TechnoClam. Since then it has been organizing and promoting some of SF’s best techno parties, most notably its long running series of intimate Loft parties at Public Works SF. Apart from gaining a reputation as a stand-out club night Noctuary SF is now synonymous with its promotion of female-identifying, non-binary artists, and the “not-dudes of techno”, which is at the core of its undertaking.

The Workshop Sessions will be geared towards women and non-binary identified dance music enthusiasts in San Francisco and Oakland. Topics will include harm reduction, DJ skills, networking, navigating the music industry, dance music history/culture, and more. The Workshop Sessions will be hosted in conjunction with Vinyl Dreams, the Lower Haight record store that has long been a gathering place for San Francisco’s dance music community.

The first workshop at Vinyl Dreams on December 5, 2019 will focus on harm reduction in nightlife spaces led by Justin Talbot, former head of the Bay Area Chapter of DanceSafe and Zendo volunteer. The Workshop Sessions are open for all to attend. Sign up here.

To learn more about the Workshop Sessions we reached out to its main organizers, Alex McGeagh (Noctuary SF) and Jessica Borja (Vinyl Dreams).

Interview

What can attendees expect from this series in terms of content? I see the first workshop covers harm reduction in nightlife spaces.

Alex: We’ve got a lot of ideas in the pipeline on a variety of topics - Q&As with visiting artists/producers, Ableton/other DAWs, marketing yourself, event production, DJ tips and tricks, using hardware, creating safer spaces, and more harm reduction-related ones. We’ve already had some interest from a few super talented people that are interested in leading them, so we’re looking forward to the upcoming possibilities.

Jess: It’s an amalgamation of floating topics that have been discussed and noted as something missing but not hard to achieve. I see the workshops as more of an extension of our scene’s ability to be an open forum, just centralized. While we will be exploring what Alex has mentioned, I don’t believe that will be the only content to expect in the future. I’m hoping the content will breed discourse and action.

What is the format of the workshops? Like a TedxTalk? Interactive sessions? Lectures?

Alex: It will really depend on the topic, some, like the first, will be in a lecture following a Q&A format - ones related to DJing and production will be more hands on. Artist Q&As will be more like interviews, and we’ll ask attendees to submit questions in advance.

Why did you feel now is a good time to have these workshops for the Bay Area? What do you hope these workshops can accomplish?

Alex: Noctuary has always been more than a club event. It’s really important that we use our resources and relationships we’ve built to contribute more to the community than one night every month or two at a party and remain accessible to everyone. It’s also been a goal of mine to spend time outside the club environment and do more in nightlife without having any capitalistic intent or alcohol sales. I’ve been working on this idea for a year or two at this point, and have taken significant inspiration from others in developing the idea with Jessica. Los Angeles Nightlife Alliance has been doing some really cool work around harm reduction and community organizing (particularly around the 4 AM Alcohol Bill). Walking and Falling out of Chicago was the first organized effort I saw around teaching women & non-binary identified people to DJ, along with Pittsburgh’s girlFx, who have a long-running series on a huge variety of topics from visual art to production and much more. Finally, I recently returned home from New Forms Festival, where they had a number of daytime panels with collectives, agencies, event producers like Honcho, and producers like Nene H, Giant Swan, and LSDXOXO on their production & live sets. I really enjoyed attending these and meeting people outside of the club to really dig into their process. Not only are these good learning opportunities for both ourselves and the attendees, but also can grow into so much more - friendship, mentoring, gig opportunities, etc - there’s a ton of possibilities. It’s an easy extension to what we already do, which is creating space for women & non-binary identified DJs, live performers, and visual artists.

Jess: On my end, hanging out Vinyl Dreams has made it so I hear lots and lots of conversations on what’s working and what’s not in our scene. It’s a safe space to unload on our couch — it’s the hub-like [atmosphere] that I hear carried to the smoking area outside the club. As I mentioned earlier, I hope that these workshops will foster discourse, action, and above all mentorship. I want our knowledge to be shared. The way I see it our scene is small, but like a small town we’re all neighbors here. I want us all to cultivate a scene where we can openly discuss issues, and learn from one another in order to inspire the freshman class coming in, while remembering those that laid the groundwork. It’s work, all of it. We should go at it together.

Attend the Facebook event of Noctuary SF’s Workshop Sessions: Harm Reduction at Vinyl Dreams

Listen to Noctuary SF sets on Fault Radio