Raving About Moby : An innovative New York deejay combines classic disco with his own aggressive rhythms to break into the Billboard dance charts as a genuine techno music star on the rave scene

Moby is a deejay, but not the kind who screams bad jokes on morning radio. Instead, the 27-year-old artist has become the most acclaimed figure in the dance-music revolution known as rave by creating his own pulsating, high-tech beat in the recording studio.

The innovative New Yorker uses technology to integrate classic disco elements with aggressive modern sensibilities, and the combination has made him techno’s first bona fide star.

The first single from his new EP, “Move,” a collection he recorded entirely in his apartment, went to No. 1 on Billboard’s dance chart, a success that doesn’t surprise the trade magazine’s dance columnist and editor.

“If there is anybody that’s going to rise above the rave scene, it’s Moby,” says Larry Flick. “I think of him as a next-generation Prince because he’s that eccentric and creative. Prince changed pop music and I think ultimately that’s going to be what happens with Moby. He’s brave, bold and takes chances.”

Michael Jackson and the B-52’s are among the pop artists who have turned to Moby to remix their dance singles. And his tour with Orbital--which includes a stop Saturday at the “Circa 93” rave (information: (213) 243-4990, (818) 568-5818)--is expected to be a hot ticket.

But it’s the equipment stacked from floor to ceiling in Moby’s East Village apartment that truly makes him feel he’s fulfilled his childhood dreams.

“After watching ‘Star Trek’ and seeing all those buttons and knobs, I decided my goal was to also have lots of screens and buttons around me,” he says.

“I also wanted to be a scientist as a little kid; then around 11 or 12, I wanted to be a musician--now I do both,” Moby adds, a glimmer of pride in his matter-of-fact tone.

Though Moby’s production work has brought him accolades in the centers of the rave culture--the United States, England and Germany--he doesn’t try to shroud his work in mystery as a lot of his ultra-cool peers do. He is straightforward as he explains that he simply set goals for himself and achieved them, leaving out the part about changing the face of dance music in the process.

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In fact, dance-music purists who see the recent breakthrough of rave music as marking the end of the rock ‘n’ roll era may be surprised to hear the king of techno defending rock.

“I used to think rock had really cool beginnings but ceased to be valid,” he says. “Now I think it’s valid in itself. It’s no longer down to the music or its sex appeal. It’s a way for white people to communicate with white people.

“When they write a song, it’s like, ‘Here is the aesthetic I was brought up with and you were brought up with--let’s share it and feel comfortable.’ But there’s absolutely nothing rebellious or threatening about rock ‘n’ roll anymore.

“In the last 10 years, it’s been hard for white people to feel they are the center of the world anymore. I think there is this real desperate trend to cling to familiar icons, which is why rock bands sound like they did 30 years ago. People go back to the last era that was comfortable. To me, James Taylor and Pearl Jam are more ambient and comforting than Brian Eno.”

Moby--whose music on “Move” combines the brightness and melody of Donna Summer hits and the dark and relentless crush of industrial-rock icons Ministry--doesn’t speak about rock as a total outsider.

While studying philosophy for two years at the University of Connecticut, he played in new wave and punk bands. Indeed, the aggressive side of Moby’s booming mixes--with their 140 relentless beats per minute--may be residual Angst left over from his early days in a hard-core scene that largely rejected any form of “wimpy” dance music.

“One of the reasons I was originally so drawn to dance music was that it came from a different cultural place,” he says. “It represented something that was unfamiliar.”

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M oby is not a nickname Richard Melville Hall donned like baggy wear or a wacky hat for the rave scene. It’s actually a moniker the descendant of “Moby Dick” author Herman Melville was given in infancy.

“I was lying in my mother’s arms as a tiny little baby and she thought Richard was too big a name for such a teensy little thing, so my father christened me Moby,” he says. “He smashed the Champagne bottle over my head and I was Moby.”

Moby grew up in Darien, a small town in southwestern Connecticut that he describes as a wealthy, all-white, bedroom community. “It was a weird place to grow up, especially since I grew up poor.”

When Moby was 2 his father died; he was raised by his mom on her secretary’s salary. His grandfather, on the other hand, ran a Wall Street company, so Moby and his hippie mother would move between their own modest apartment and his grandfather’s upscale home.

It wasn’t just Moby’s lifestyle that differed from the way most of his schoolmates lived. There were his musical tastes too.

“A lot of people in school instilled in me that disco was bad,” he recalls. “I felt obligated to toe the party line, but really, disco was something I loved. Sitting in my bedroom on Sunday afternoon, listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40. I still feel Donna Summer is revolutionary.”

He formed a punk band, the Vatican Commandos, in high school and continued in new wave and punk groups while in college. By the end of this period, he says, he was living a hedonistic lifestyle that he found unsatisfying.

The switch to dance music was just one of several changes in his life around that time. He gave up drugs and became a nondenominational Christian.

He got his first job as a deejay in 1986 in a Long Island club. He later began spinning hip-hop at parties in New York and eventually signed to independent Instinct Records, which put out Moby’s first hit single, 1991’s “Go.” The record sold 300,000 copies and hit No. 1 on the U.S. dance charts. He signed with Elektra earlier this year.

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The integrated feel of Moby’s music comes from a life steeped in the formerly conflicting and far-flung realms of pop, rock and dance. But it took the eclecticism of one of New York’s most famous clubs to open Moby’s mind.

“The only dance music I used to let myself like was New Order and other white, Northern English funk stuff,” he says. “I suddenly realized around 1984 that I liked dance music even if it wasn’t by English guys. A lot of it had to do with just going out to more clubs, like Danceteria in New York.

“The club was structured in levels--a hard-core band on the first level, a reggae band on the second, a gay disco above that and then hip-hop above that.

“So I would go there to see a hard-core band and get exposed to all this other stuff.”

Now that Moby has proven himself a master at turning various musical styles and sounds into a pulsing mixture of intellect, aggression and ambience, he seems a bit uncertain about his next step.

“The problem is now that I think I’m too open-minded,” he says, a bit apprehensively. “I was recently asked by (England’s) Select magazine to think of a song I hate and describe why I hated it for a piece they were doing. I can’t even think of a song I hate.

“Ultimately, I think my ability to like lots of disparate styles is a strength, but you can also alienate a lot of people. You can make a record or song with one set of influences and a bunch of people are interested in that, then you do something with a different set of influences, and those people wonder what the hell is going on. There’s a lot of confused Moby fans out there.”

He pauses, then laughs.

“But I like confusing people. It keeps life interesting.”