Syd is one of the longest running fun creators in the Bay Area dance music and underground arts scene. He’s been called a “Renaissance man of the West Coast scene”, and Spin Magazine recently called him “The man behind the music of Burning Man” . The founder of the legendary Opulent Temple collective, best known for their premiere sound stage at Burning Man, founder of Opel Productions, throwing club events and ‘parties with purpose’ in San Francisco for 14+ years, former producer of the San Francisco LovEvolution before the city of SF squashed it for getting too big, a child psychologist with a Doctorate in transpersonal psychology, occasional music producer, blogger on social issues, and of course – a DJ.
Syd has been organizing events since 2001 when he started throwing both underground parties and benefit events for different charities with Spundae. The following year he started his own production company Opel Productions, intended to be parties with purpose showcasing a range of forward thinking underground dance music with a dash of social activism thrown in the party message. In 2003, he finished his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, founded Opulent Temple, and joined the Board for San Francisco’s Love event. In his current ‘day job’, he works out of a community clinic with foster kids in the Bayview Hunter Point area in San Francisco. As curator of Opulent Temple during their long run of epic years, he’s applied his varied tastes to raise the bar on the music experience on playa while setting his own pace musically to help shape new directions of dance floor musical peak experience.
On the DJ tip, Syd is one of the West Coast’s top talents, playing some of the biggest events in party land including LIB, Outside Lands, Wakarusa in Arkansas, WTF in Oregon, WEMF in Canada, Fabric London, and of course many epic sets at Burning Man where his varied style of tech funk breaks and techno, ballsy house and nu-disco can best be applied. Syd knows what to do in any situation to bring the universal vibe of dance music and continues to show with obvious fervor his love of the music and our scene.
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