The undertones of the city

One of Los Angeles’ most vibrant subcultures started with the simplest of urges: Mark “Frosty” McNeill wanted to play records.

From that seed grew Dublab, an Internet radio station that survived the dot-com crash and stamped its influence all over L.A.’s underground arts scene. If you’ve never heard the eclectic fare webcast at www.dublab.com, perhaps you’ve run across one of the group’s resident DJs at a nightclub or an art gallery opening -- or anyplace else ears are being bent and boundaries are being stretched.

“At the core, we’re just Internet radio,” McNeill, 28, says of the experimental-minded group of artists and DJs who are part of the Dublab collective. “But it’s evolved into all these other things.”

The creative sprawl grew from the cutting-edge listening offered on the website -- a mix McNeill has described as “future roots,” which includes hip-hop, electronica, avant-garde classical, soul, dub, jazz, reggae and indie rock. Tune in and you might hear the work of obscure noise merchants, or you might hear an ancient Cuban work song.

As willing as they are to embrace the new and explore the unfamiliar, those in the Dublab collective predictably have fingers in myriad slices of the Los Angeles cultural pie. They mount nightclub promotions. They set the tone at art gallery openings. They write and produce music of their own.

“Dublab seems to have made some kind of imprint on almost every scene around town,” says Ben Rogers, the manager of new media for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, explaining that McNeill and crew transcend the notion that “DJs are just there to make people dance.”

The museum hired Dublab to entertain at its January installment of First Fridays -- a monthly promotion that fuses art and clubbing while ostensibly helping the institution attract a wider audience. That evening’s success prompted the museum to invite Dublab back in April.

“What they’re capable of doing is creating a whole ambience, a wide range of feelings, with their soundscapes,” Rogers says. “They create the atmosphere.”

Dublab’s club nights attract a loose but loyal following of music nerds, with sundry Rastas, jazz heads, avant-garde aficionados and hip-hop fanatics. Even so, the name Dublab doesn’t enjoy wide recognition. Recently, a woman who was dancing to Dublab DJ Tom Chasteen’s mix of reggae classics at the Echo nightclub’s Dubclub was asked if she had heard of the Internet radio station. “No,” she answered, furrowing her brow. “Have you?”

Yet the Dublab brand is earning wider exposure, in part because of the collective’s other artistic forays.

The “Up Our Sleeve: The Dublab Covers Project” art show has made the rounds to galleries in Tokyo, Belgium, Holland, New York City and Chicago after opening in the summer of 2003 in Los Angeles. The project, which drew work from more than 400 artists, posed a simple challenge -- use a blank record sleeve as your canvas. It’s a visual feast for vinyl junkies.

Then there are the “Dublab Presents” CD compilations, as well as the vinyl 12-inch series “In the Loop.”

Freelance journalist Alec Hanley Bemis, whose work has appeared in the New York Times and LA Weekly, says the music on this series is blazing a new sound. “It’s soulful, psychedelic dance music,” he says of the mix of electronica, rock, hip-hop, folk and Latin produced by the Dublab DJs. “It’s not new per se. But they somehow combined them in a way that no one had done before.”

And, perhaps, in a way that is distinctly L.A.

“People say they’re sorry when I say I come from L.A., because they think Los Angeles doesn’t have any culture,” says Chris Manak, a.k.a. Peanut Butter Wolf, owner of Hollywood-based indie label Stone’s Throw Records. Dublab has “helped put L.A. on the map. They created their own subculture.”

Not that McNeill and crew have gone unnoticed. A host of Dublab DJs have either won or been nominated for LA Weekly music awards. They’re also one of three Internet stations archived at the Museum of Radio and Television, based in Los Angeles and New York City.

“It’s a modern version of underground radio,” said Monique J. Fortune, the radio curator for the museum. “If it wasn’t for the underground radio stations, college and public radio, a lot of music wouldn’t have been able to grow, like Public Enemy, R.E.M. and Patti Smith.”

As it turns out, subculture only goes so far toward paying the bills.

Most of the DJs on the station do not draw a salary from dublab.com -- instead, their association with the collective earns them record-spinning gigs around town. More than just the music, however, Dublab seeks to commodify its culture, as described by its mantra: “positive music driven lifestyle.” Slowly, clients are plugging in.

The station itself requires about $2,000 per month to operate, McNeill says, and is supported by listener donations and a modest battery of advertising on its website.

Stationed in a studio above the Little Temple nightclub in Silver Lake, Dublab attracts about 300,000 individual hits per month to its audio stream, says co-founder Jon Buck, 33. Though that’s a long way from its meager beginnings -- McNeill once lived in the cramped and sometimes cockroach-infested space of Dublab’s first headquarters near Paramount Studios in Hollywood -- the enterprise was once on the precipice of being so much more.

McNeill’s first radio experience came in 1998 as manager of KSCR, an unlicensed, student-run FM station operating from the USC campus. The Federal Communication Commission shut it down.

Undaunted, McNeill made KSCR an Internet station. Buck, a Philadelphia transplant who quit a more lucrative job as an advertising sales executive to start his own Internet radio station, heard KSCR, cold-called McNeill and asked if he wanted to collaborate.

The first steps, in 1999, were easy. Buck financed the station through a modest investment from his parents. He and McNeill recruited top DJs from college outlets such as KXLU-FM (88.9) and public stations such as KPFK-FM (90.7). Their recruits’ talents gave Dublab an extra jolt. One of them, Allen Avenessian, started the label Plug Research, which releases many Dublab projects. Another, Carlos Nino, produced shows for the Temple Bar nightclub in Santa Monica.

Money was always a problem. In 2001, Buck was on his way to securing a $1.5-million investment in the station. Yet moments before grasping his dream, Buck received an unnerving call from the investor. “I think I’m going to have to reconsider the nature of my investments,” he remembered his financial angel saying, as newscasters jabbered about the Nasdaq crash.

That should have been the end. Buck and McNeill agreed to shut down the station in April 2001. But the next week they returned, because they believe Dublab’s sounds and cultural services can become a viable business someday.

“We’re not limited to any creative venture,” McNeill says on a break from his webcast. Then, with a humble smile, he goes back to the simplest part of his vocation. Playing records.

Times staff writer Kevin Bronson contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Dublab

On the Web

www.dublab.com

www.upoursleeve.org

Who’s who

A partial roster of contributors in the Dublab collective:

Mark McNeill, a.k.a. Frosty: Dublab co-founder; co-curator of “Up Our Sleeve”; part of the duo Adventure Time; co-

resident at Give Up, the monthly sad music night held in the fall/winter at Bigfoot Lodge.

Jon Buck: Co-founder and business/technical wizard.

Carlos Nino: Host of KPFK-FM’s “Spaceways” show (8-10 p.m. Fridays); produces soul-jazz group Build an Ark; co-founder of Little Temple Records; co-manager of Temple Bar, Little Temple and Zanzibar.

Jimmy Tamborello: Makes music as Dntel; one-half of gold-selling duo the Postal Service; co-resident of Give Up.

Elvin Estela, a.k.a. Nobody: Third album just out on Plug Research; touring with the Mars Volta and Prefuse 73; gigs regularly at Little Temple and other L.A. nightspots.

Ale Cohen: Member of the dream-rock quartet Languis, which is recording new songs.

Tom Chasteen: Host DJ at Dubclub (Wednesdays at the Echo); producer of acts such as Skull Valley and Future Pigeon.

Jose Salguero, a.k.a. Hoseh: Hosts KXLU-FM’s “Headspace” show (10-11 p.m. Tuesdays); founder of traveling series called Version to promote emerging DJs/artists; DJs at nightspots throughout L.A.

Justin McNulty, a.k.a. Kutmah: Visual artist who hosts Sketchbook (Tuesdays at the Little Temple); resident DJ at Firecracker at the Grand Star and Soundlessons at Larchmont.

Farmer Dave Scher, a.k.a. Megafarmer D: Former member of All Night Radio and frequent collaborator with local musicians.

Alfred Darlington, a.k.a. Daedelus: Part of the duo Adventure Time; released albums on Plug Research and Ninja Tunes labels; DJs throughout L.A.

Simon James, a.k.a. Projections: Hosts parties at Moonshadows in Malibu; released album on Guidance/Rong Records.

Derek McNeill, a.k.a. Derelict: One of the original Dublab DJs.

Eric Moss, a.k.a. E. Moss: Part of the underground duo Backyard Bangers.

Allen Avenassian: Founder of Plug Research label.