David Alvarado

Beginning in the early 1980s, David Alvarado progressed from DJ duties to production work and eventually helped anchor the house music community across Los Angeles. A lifelong resident of the city, he has issued material through Definitive, Yoshi Toshi, Strictly Rhythm, and Bomb Records, the imprint he founded himself. He has long cited Giorgio Moroder and Masters at Work as decisive influences on both his studio approach and his selections behind the decks.

While attending a largely non-Latino high school, Alvarado and his peers gravitated toward solitary pastimes, amassing records and studying them closely. His cousin, already working as a DJ, observed the growing stacks of vinyl and urged the group to start performing at neighborhood gatherings. What began as casual appearances quickly intensified into a consuming focus that soon occupied Alvarado full-time. By the close of the decade his sets, which fused Latin soul with British new romantic sounds, drew steady crowds and secured bookings at the first East Side parties and raves.

When the early-1990s rave explosion supplanted those smaller events, Alvarado stepped back from the spotlight and turned to studio work. Seeking the close-knit atmosphere he had encountered in New York and Chicago, he joined forces with an associate on the Las Americas project. A chance encounter at a record store where he was employed introduced him to Richie Hawtin and Jon Acquaviva; several months later the pair, then assembling Definitive Records, contacted him regarding a white-label recording they had received during that visit. Drawn to the label’s emphasis on long-term artist development, Alvarado placed a single with the new imprint. Ties to the Windsor-based Definitive and Plus 8 circle soon extended to Toronto’s Stickmen collective, where he contributed multiple productions and thereby accelerated his career behind the boards. Eager to cultivate a comparable sense of community in Los Angeles, he leveraged his growing reputation to launch Bomb Records, which in time became a cornerstone of the city’s house and club landscape.

Alvarado’s profile continued to rise through both his recorded output and his worldwide DJ engagements. In late September 2000 he delivered his first major mix compilation, United DJs of America, Vol. 15, an outing that also inaugurated a collaboration between Mixer and Razor & Tie Records. Unfiltered Sky appeared the following spring.