Several years have passed since Los Angeles’ John Kelley made his name as the man who brought funky breaks to Moontribe, the underground dance-music troupe/community best known for throwing massive desert raves. So those just catching up to him will probably be surprised to see him shift to a tough and steady hard-house beat on his latest mix for DMC’s United DJs of America compilation. It’s no offense to the breakbeat posses, Kelley explains, but a “logical progression” to another sound that excites him more nowadays.

“The only difference [between breaks and a 4/4 beat] is that the rhythmic elements are a bit different,” Kelley believes. “Texture-wise, I still like stuff that’s on the dark side. I still like stuff that has a lot of beats in it. I play a lot of tribal techno, tribal house. You still have to have the rhythms groove. And even now, I’ll drop in one or two breaks that I really like. It’s just a question of working it rhythmically and having it flow.”

Even as a relative newcomer to tech-house, John Kelley enjoys an active DJing career that pits him in clubs and parties throughout the world. And while he insists he doesn’t necessarily program according to region, he does concede, “Certain areas, they’re going to be more on the progressive side; certain areas, they’re going to be more on the house tip. I try to keep my crate versatile enough and filled with stuff that I’m into, but can hopefully deal with a crowd that’s more on the trancey end or house end so they’ll still be into what I play.”

Kelley will also bring headphones, a flashlight and earplugs to protect his hearing when he’s not playing. He works with CD mixers on occasion when playing tracks he and some of his production collaborators haven’t had time to press onto acetate. And he prefers Rane and Vestax mixers.

As for production, Kelley is just now putting together the final touches on a home studio with production partner Dallas Swendeman. Both are staunch Digital Audio producers, funneling their sounds into a Macintosh G4 with a MO2 card. “It has enabled us to work faster and quicker, working from one track to the other, since we have everything on the digital end,” says Kelley. “We have a Mackie mixer, but we just use it for its bandwidth, and once we get stuff that we like, what we do is sample it as quickly as we can and try to get the best conversion we can out of it and mix it in there.”

Kelley and Swendeman possess a great deal of outboard gear as well, including Roland units like the TR-808, TR-606, TB-303, JV-880 and JD-990. Kelley, in particular, crows about the Avalon Design pre-amp compressors he’s just purchased. “We’d like to run our whole [studio] through it and actually sample stuff running through it,” he says. “It just has a nice warm sound and really good compression. Those are two of the nicer boxes in our studio.”

Despite the changes he’s made over the years, Kelley has a very clear notion of the DJ he is and the audience that would appreciate him the most. He names DJ Dan, Doc Martin and Carl Cox as his top three DJ inspirations and points to Montreal as his favorite place to spin. And at this point in his career, he feels an older crowd understands his style best. “[Those are the people] who have been into it for a while and have a bit more refined taste music-wise. People who are older also have a longer stand on the dancefloor. They’re willing to be more patient and work with you and be on for the longer ride. Some of the young crowds, you play one song or sound that’s not the trance they want to hear and they wander. An older crowd is a little more open-minded about different kinds of music. They’ll be OK with hearing something progressive, something housey, something straight-ahead techno in the same night. And I like to play lots of different types of music, rather than get trapped in one style. So that’s my ideal crowd.”