Column: Dublab celebrates 15 years with party, new projects

Over the last 15 years, thousands of web startups have come and gone. In 1999, Dublab was one of them, a new kind of radio station that only broadcast online. While others crashed, Dublab transformed itself into a nonprofit that earns its keep through listener support, grants and wildly inventive fundraising events.

More than a bunch of coding, the Dublab site has become a thriving community and an essential voice of Los Angeles music. Dublab celebrates these 15 years on Saturday with a typically diverse, typically inspired collection of music, food and art. (See the full line-up here.)

It’s been a busy year, Dublab’s cofounder Mark “Frosty” McNeill told me. The group, which has studio space on the outskirts of Silver Lake, recently revamped its website, and in the process reorganized its vast library of live and studio recordings. Long a proponent of electronic music of all forms, a quick search in their archives reveals DJ sets from an array of artists, including Flying Lotus, Andy Stott, DJ Koze, Daedelus, Hudson Mohawke and hundreds of others.

“We’re coming across things that are really great,” McNeill said. “Maurice Fulton, an old Juan Atkins mix, live recordings of Carl Craig from Winter Music Conference -- we recorded the whole Planet E showcase featuring Rolando.”

Recently the artist Four Tet (also known as Kieran Hebden) made available one of his earliest radio sessions -- a Dublab set from December 2001 -- prompting yet another reminder of the bounty within, as well as confirming the community’s prescience when it comes to promoting music they describe as “future roots.”

McNeill also said Dublab is working on a new micro-site called “Sound Share LA.” Made possible through an Annenberg Foundation grant, the project entails documenting “very L.A.-focused stories, a survey of L.A. music, past, present and future.” Among others, the project features profiles of Van Dyke Parks, Art Laboe, David Axelrod, Lisa Fancher of Frontier Records, Thee Midniters and Ruben Guevara from Ruben and the Jets.

Saturday’s celebration will commence at 4 p.m., 15 years to the minute after Dublab launched on Sept. 27, 1999. The opening sounds will arrive via the same DJ team, I & I Soundsystem, who kicked off the Dublab stream back then. From there, it will present a typically diverse selection of area creators.

McNeill said the goal for the party, which occurs at Bedrock.LA in Echo Park, is the same each year: “We really try to reinvent all the offerings of it, so there there’s always something different on the interactive front, the art front, the music front, the food front, et cetera. It’s all these offerings of what we’re excited about, and things that are related to our creative community.”

Which is to say, a community that helps set a course.

Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit