DJ Dan

Daniel Wherrett grew up in Lacey, Washington, and moved to Seattle in the late '80s to study fashion. Instead the clubs there, The Underground among them, pulled him into dance music. In 1991 he moved to Los Angeles and played early events with Ron D Core. In 1993 he arrived in San Francisco and co-founded Funky Tekno Tribe, the collective whose parties helped build the West Coast scene and the psychedelic blend of house, breakbeat dubs and techno that became known as the West Coast house sound.

The records followed. As Electroliners with Jim Hopkins he made "Loose Caboose," which Carl Cox, Sasha, John Digweed and Lee Burridge picked up. Pete Tong gave him his first Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 in 1998. "That Zipper Track," released by Moonshine as DJ Dan Presents Needle Damage, came out on four labels worldwide, sold more than 100,000 copies on vinyl and charted in the UK. Records like "Put That Record Back On" and "That Phone Track" came after it. In 2000 Carl Cox took him on tour, and in 2001 he launched his own InStereo Recordings.

His Red Melon record came out of the 1997 studio push, when he and Dano wrote "The Arrival" together. Released as The Arrival on the label's third record, it holds two long West Coast hard and tech-house cuts. Crash on Mars goes sci-fi, and Dreamweaver goes hypnotic and acid-tinged. It came from the same Funky Tekno Tribe world where Dano was playing warm-up sets.

DJ Dan died on March 28, 2026, at 57. He had been playing for more than three decades and shaped the West Coast sound for much of that time.