Techno Club: A Farewell to the Deep Family

NOLA EDM: For those meeting you for the first time — who is Techno Club, and what role did you play in New Orleans’ underground since 1998?
Techno Club: My involvement in New Orleans’ techno underground predates Techno Club by many years. When I moved here from Miami in 1998, I was already deeply embedded in the culture. At the time, I was working directly with Mike Banks of Underground Resistance, hosting what was then known as Submerge The Show, a fully focused Detroit techno radio program. That show originated as a pirate broadcast in Miami years earlier and came with me to New Orleans as a way of continuing the dialogue between cities. Historically, Submerge The Show was the first sanctioned, official broadcast to represent Detroit and Detroit techno artists in their entirety.

Through Mike Banks, I was introduced to David Garcia, also known as Dave Manic, who had long standing relationships with both Jeff Mills and Mike Banks. That early phase, rooted in Detroit philosophy, discipline, and intent, laid the foundation for everything that followed. What eventually became Techno Club did not appear overnight. It evolved slowly through decades of listening, organizing, and holding space for the music.

Techno Club itself was never meant to be a brand first. It began as a necessity. By 2014, the New Orleans scene was largely house and tech house centric. The city had DJs with deep musical knowledge and strong roots in rave culture, but very few spaces committed to techno as a culture in itself. For years, techno had been treated almost like a dirty word. The aftermath of early rave culture pushed it into a misunderstood corner, while house and tech house became the dominant language of the city.

What we did was focus on a specific sound, and that took time to develop. The early residents were learning, listening, and being exposed to something deeper. We split the nights intentionally. Fridays were Spektrum, created by Otto Orellana, Paul O’Neill, and Tego, a space for broader sonic exploration. Saturdays were We Love Techno, fully committed to techno, and more specifically the Berlin sound and its philosophy of patience, tension, and release. Over time, Techno Club became a recurring place where the music was not explained, diluted, or rushed. It was allowed to unfold at its own depth and tempo.

My role was part curator, part caretaker. I booked artists, built lineups, designed nights, tuned sound systems, and protected the atmosphere. More importantly, I held a line. Techno Club existed to give techno, raw, hypnotic, emotional, forward thinking techno, a home in a city better known for other rhythms. Over time, it became a meeting point for locals, travelers, first timers, and lifers who recognized something familiar in the dark. I took everything I had been a part of since 1989 and poured it into this project. When I created the official brand, I sat with Will Brennan and explained exactly what every detail was meant to represent. In that conversation, I told him this would be the last thing I focused on in this city, and that it had to matter. That intention shaped everything that followed.

NOLA EDM: Looking back, what do you feel Techno Club gave to the community that no other space or collective could?
Techno Club: Consistency, trust, and permission.

Those principles came directly from more than three decades of being an ambassador to this culture. Consistency meant that if Techno Club was on the flyer, people knew exactly what they were walking into. Every flyer looked the same for years, the only thing that changed was the lineup. That visual discipline reflected a deeper one. There was no genre whiplash, no ego contests, no performative underground aesthetics.

The night itself was structured intentionally into three roles, open, peak time, and closing. Each slot carried responsibility. DJs learned how to read, manage, and respect the room based on what the moment required, not what their ego wanted.

Trust meant dancers could surrender, to the sound, to the night, to each other, without fear the floor would be pulled out from under them. Permission mattered just as much. Permission to play long, patient sets. Permission to explore darker and more emotional ranges. Permission to dance without spectacle. Techno Club never asked people to be seen. It asked them to listen. That is why the room was pitch black, always.

NOLA EDM: The phrase die tiefe familie — the deep family has always been central to Techno Club. How did that idea shape your approach to nights, residents, and community?

Techno Club: Die tiefe familie was never a slogan. It was a responsibility.

That concept mirrors the way Detroit treated its own culture, as lineage, not trend. It shaped everything, how residents were chosen, how guests were welcomed, how conflict was handled, how growth was paced. Family implies care, but it also implies honesty and accountability.

Residents were not selected for hype, but for alignment, with the music, the ethos, and the long arc of the night. Community was never something we marketed. It emerged organically because people felt seen, heard, and held within the space.

NOLA EDM: Over the years, countless DJs and voices carried the Techno Club name. Which moments, sets, or nights felt like they truly captured the heartbeat of what you built?

Techno Club: The most defining moments were rarely the loudest ones.

They lived in the 4 a.m. transitions, when the room thinned but the energy deepened. They appeared when a DJ took a risk, slowed things down, stretched time, and allowed silence to breathe. That restraint and patience come directly from the music’s roots.

There were legendary sets, of course. But the true heartbeat lived in repetition, familiar faces, shared glances, bodies moving as one without instruction. That is where Techno Club revealed itself most clearly.

NOLA EDM: After more than a decade of shows, what has been the most challenging — and the most rewarding — part of sustaining Techno Club?
Techno Club: The challenge was endurance.

Techno was never built for immediacy, and neither was Techno Club. Protecting a vision over ten years meant resisting shortcuts, trends, external pressure, and misguided negativity. It required absorbing financial risk, emotional labor, and misunderstanding.

The reward was transformation. Watching people find their sound, their confidence, and their community. Seeing dancers become DJs, DJs become mentors, and nights turn into memories people carry far beyond the room. Techno Club did not just host events. It marked time in people’s lives.

NOLA EDM: What do you hope the next generation of DJs, promoters, and dancers carry forward from Techno Club’s legacy?

Techno Club: Depth over volume. Intention over optics.

Those values did not originate here, they were inherited and carried forward. Sound systems matter. Long sets matter. Listening matters. Community is built through repetition, care, and shared risk, not algorithms.

Holding space is an art. Kindness matters. The music is meant to heal, the space is meant to be an escape. Everything else should be left at the door. Most important of all, honor and respect those who came before you. Ancestry and lineage are who we are as human beings, that is what culture is.

NOLA EDM: And finally — as you prepare for your final gathering in December, what’s next for the family? Will we see Techno Club energy live on in new forms?

Techno Club: Families do not end. They migrate.

This chapter closes in New Orleans with gratitude and clarity. What comes next will not be a replica, because Techno Club was always rooted in a specific place and time. But the discipline, the deep listening, and the lineage continue.

Techno Club was never about permanence. It was about presence, and returning to the source.

I would like to extend my deepest and most heartfelt gratitude to all of the residents who took a chance and embraced what, at times, was a difficult burden. Without the countless DJs who stepped forward and committed themselves to this experiment, none of what took place would have been possible.

This family has evolved through seasons of growth, experimentation, and resilience. From the early sparks of 2015, through the layered expansions of 2016 and 2019, into the silence of COVID and the renewal that followed, Techno Club has always been more than the sum of its residents. It has been an ever changing chorus, with Javier Drada at the helm, joined across the years by Reed Tribou, Tristan Dufrene, Will Brennan, Otto, Rye, Lleauna, Tego, Paul O’Neill, Joe Dismal, Daniel Allen, Conway, Jared Holden, Jarred Monson, Clay Stephens, Marcus Lott, Quickweave, Dave Manic, Bear Linh, Matthew Play, Odd Sundays, Idalia, Wholia, Leisure Muffin, and so many others whose presence gave form to the invisible.

The Deep Family remains.

For Music Lovers By Music Lovers

die tiefe familie