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Third-year business-economics student Andy Park beats a drum during the World Beats Concert at th

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Classical musicians perform with Oakenfold.

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Paul Oakenfold incorporates visual elements into his DJ performance.

Electronic music is often associated strictly with the subcultures surrounding it, from hip-hop clubs to raves to basement turntable parties. But, particularly in Los Angeles, growing respect is being given to electronic and dance music as art worthy of attention in its own right. It’s getting attention not as a subculture, but as high culture. DJ styles are being accepted into more traditional arenas in Los Angeles’ art world, and spinning and DJing is starting to occur in museums, prestigious music halls and the top music schools. KCRW’s World Beats Concert held earlier this month placed the electronic music pioneer Paul Oakenfold on stage with world music acts including UCLA’s Samulnori Drumming group, creating more of a multicultural outdoor concert than a rave or club show. Oakenfold’s performance was the first time rave-style music was performed at the venue, which previously kept away from most kinds of electronic music. “The Hollywood Bowl is like a museum,” said Jason Bentley, who hosts KCRW’s electronic music show “Metropolis” and also hosted the World Beats Concert. “It’s usually reserved for classical music and the people there are really selective about who performs, so it’s saying something that they would have a DJ like Oakenfold play. It was definitely the most civilized rave I’ve ever been to.” Electronic music is also finding outlets in Los Angeles museums and art houses. The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art has been regularly featuring DJs at its exhibit openings. On July 26, MOCA is bringing in hip-hop DJ Z-Trip for its Boo-Hooray art and music festival. This summer, the Getty Center’s music and performance-art series is dominated by DJs, from Algerian-born DJ Cheb i Sabbah, who mixes ragas and electronica, to conceptual artist DJ Spooky who, according to publicists at the Getty, specializes in “electro-modern funk.” The Hammer Museum in Westwood has also recently brought turntables through its doors. As part of the exhibit for multimedia artist Christian Marclay (see sidebar), the Hammer is hosting a series of DJ and experimental music performances in their center courtyard, usually set aside only for traditional world music or jazz performances.

A Changing of the Guard This increased artistic attention to electronic music can partly be attributed to two trends: The artistic establishment is reaching out to audiences that are younger, and electronic music fans are getting older. You don’t have to look farther than the ubiquitous Hollywood Bowl advertisements around the UCLA campus to see that Los Angeles’ artistic institutions have recently become more interested in attracting teenagers and twenty-somethings. By embracing electronic music, with its associations to cutting-edge experimentation and youth culture, institutions like the Hollywood Bowl and the Hammer Museum can make a stronger bid for younger patrons. But while electronic music helps the arts community reach out to younger audiences, electronic music fans themselves are getting older and looking for outlets where they can play and enjoy electronic dance music or hip-hop beats, but in a more adult atmosphere. “I still play rave events, that part of it is still important to me,” said Bentley. “But I’m getting older. A lot of the people who listen to electronic music want to see a future for the music that goes beyond just the underground scene.” As electronic music fans grow up, they are also becoming more influential in the art community. “I know there’s at least three ravers on LACMA’s Graphic Arts Council,” said Bentley. “As our generation gets more influential, you’re going to see (electronic music fans) becoming city council members and public figures and more of a part of the artistic establishment, which is going to make electronic music a more important part of the art scene.”

... And the Rest Will Follow Though it would seem that to perform in such traditional art institutions would require DJs who are used to performing at pulsating clubs to tone down their set for the more low-key setting, playing in art houses and museums seems to actually fuel many electronic musicians’ creativity. The more traditional artistic outlets tend to be more receptive to experimentalism than the often picky club floor. Performing in a museum allows DJs to explore different directions with their music without having to worry about keeping the audience moving. “Usually when I’m performing, I have to provide some specific ambiance,” said Daedelus, an L.A. DJ who performed last month at the Hammer. “With the Hammer show I could go a little crazier, I didn’t have to worry about what beat would come next.” Unlike a typical club show, the DJs perform with the audience focusing all their attention on them, often not even dancing but quietly sitting and appreciating the music’s complexities. “When you’re writing music for the dance floor there’s a whole different set of criteria,” said Steven Webber, a professor at the Berklee School of Music. “You have to keep the bodies moving and you have to keep a direct emotional link between the DJ and the audience.” Oakenfold’s show at the Hollywood Bowl also revealed the freeing aspects of playing in a more traditional venue. Oakenfold brought in different elements of a club set, a rave and a world music concert without being restricted to a single performance style or structure which would have been the case had he been performing at a more typical electronic music venue. “The music scene has been great recently, and I put that on our art scene,” said Daedelus. “It gives us overground avenues to play our music, rather than weird raves or parties where you just don’t get the same sort of treatment.”

“Old School” in the Classrooms Perhaps more telling than electronic music’s growing importance in the artistic establishment is that it is being embraced by the academic establishment as well. Several top universities, including UCLA, have begun offering courses on the social and artistic facets of DJ culture and electronic music. For the last few years, UC Davis Professor Michael Cagley – also known as DJ Destiny – has been teaching DJ culture and hands-on techniques to students, covering everything from hip-hop, to house, to drum and bass. Boston’s Berklee School of Music, one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the United States, has begun holding sessions to decide whether it should add turntablism to its course options. Berklee Professor Steven Webber is the chief advocate for bringing turntables into the conservatory. “So far, spinning has been ignored by music colleges,” said Webber. “But it is clearly an art form in and of itself, and we’re going to see a real shift in the paradigm as this kind of music gains more credibility.” Webber has taken steps to further establish the turntable as a credible instrument through his book, “Turntable Techniques: The Art of the DJ.” In the book, Webber translates scratching, cutting and beat-matching into standard musical notation that is used for any other traditional instrument. “When the Beatles were first performing, they never wrote down their songs,” said Webber. “Just how we saw that transition in rock, we’re seeing it now with DJing. It’s just taking the style one step further.” It might seem that putting spinning into such a standard format wouldn’t sit well with DJs who value creativity and unconventional styles. But these efforts to turn electronic music into a traditional art form have been embraced by electronic artists. “People who are really serious about this music aren’t going to complain about this kind of shift,” said DJ Destiny. “Some of the top DJs, guys like DJ Qbert, have used that kind of schematic approach to spinning for awhile. Anything that pushes this culture forward is going to be accepted.” This is by no means the first time such debate occurred over whether a music style was truly an art form. In the 1950s a similar dispute was circulating at conservatories trying to decide whether to incorporate jazz into their curriculum, and a decade later they came around to the idea of treating rock music as an art in itself. Now, as electronic music follows in the path of these established music styles, its growing acceptance may come as a surprise to some, but for others, wide respect for DJing seems like an inevitability. “I feel like we all knew this was coming,” said Webber. “It’s just such a huge movement, there’s so much energy around this culture that this style of music was going to be accepted no matter what.”