This week at Killswitch: Craig Kuna ( [KONTROL] ), Razvan (Black Market Techno) & David Marks (Soft Target)!
===============================================================
About Craig Kuna:
Hailing from the once industrial city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Craig found his early tastes in music heavily influenced by the environment that surrounded him. Being brought up on a diet of heavy metal and classic rock, he found himself wielding the proverbial axe at the age of 12. Throughout his teen years, Craig played guitar, bass, and drums in many local Pittsburgh metal and punk bands. In 1993, at age 15, he attended his first rave, and the rest is history.
His influences of hard-edged music initially turned his ears towards the gritty sounds of D'n'B and Detroit Techno as his passion for the beat flourished. Within a few years, Craig sold his guitar, bass, and amps to buy his first set of 1200's. He started off playing breakbeats and D'n'B, but soon after found his art in techno, due to it's complexity and his ability to create longer mixes with more minimal tracks. Soon after, in the wake of a burgeoning rave scene, he decided it was time to introduce other people to the music he loved and played, and in 1998, at the ripe old age of 19, he threw his first event.
In the years to come Craig continued to host events, from small club after-hours to 5000 person warehouse raves, bringing the likes of Green Velvet, The Stickmen, Mike Dearborn, Marco Carola, Funk' D'void, Slam, and H-Foundation to name a few. After relocating to San Francisco in 2001 in an effort to broaden his horizons, he realized that techno was just about a dead art on the West Coast, and started to get more into house music, or as people so often call it, he became "San Francsicanized". After getting burned out on the music and the scene and taking a brief break from it all, Craig turned to what was happening in Europe and, more specifically, Germany for inspiration.
As he puts it, "I realized that with minimal techno and house I could play with the sounds that I loved and was used to with traditional techno but with the swing and groove of house, which ultimately appeals to the older and more mature crowds." Now, with a renewed fervor and a fresh style, Craig has dove back into the world of DJing and promotion along with the rest of the Kontrol crew, and is once again turning other people on to the music he loves.
About Razvan:
Razvan was born in Bucharest, Romania but grew up halfway between Detroit and Chicago in Grand Rapids, MI. A DJ since early 2004, Razvan began spinning deep, dark, after-hours friendly minimal techno and moved to the Bay Area in 2006. Soon he began collaborating on various underground parties and in 2007 launched Black Market Techno, a monthly party at Oasis in Oakland with friends dCOY, IXD and Farzana. After a year and a half of successful parties at Oasis with out of town guests like (Todd Sines (Planet E, NYC), Rich Korach (Paxahau, Detroit) Eric Johnston (Esperanza Detroit), Brian Kage , Luke Hess (Berretta, Detroit), Sassmouth (NBFC Chicago) and local guests (Alland Byallo [kontrol], Limaçon (Poker Flat), Dave Aju (Circus Company), Clint Stewart (Auralism), Monty Luke (Mothership) and Christian Martin (Dirtybird) Razvan took a short hiatus from promoting to focus on djing and exploring new music. Recently, his musical tastes took him in a housier, more dance floor friendly direction, while retaining his preference for deep, interesting melodies and heavy baselines.
Plus David Marks (Soft Target)!