Destructo, a godfather of electronic dance music, is holding court Friday at Bass Camp’s Spring Breaks 3 celebration at Cargo Concert Hall in Reno.
Gary Richards, 46, has been performing as Destructo for two decades. The EDM pioneer got into the mix in the early 1990s as a DJ and producer. He’s still going strong.
Destructo joins Wax Motif at 8 p.m. Friday, April 28, with opening sets by Bass Camp’s own Ranger Bass and The Mener. Tickets are $25 for the 18-and-older show, which is expected to sell out. With the arrival of spring, and summer just around the corner, it’s a board shorts and bikinis party, organizers say.
Rolling Stone lists Destructo as one of the “50 Most Important People in EDM.” He’s also known as a great collaborator, melding hip-hop and other genres into the electronic dance world. His latest EP, “Renegade,” features Pusha T, Starrah, Ty Dollar $ign, iLoveMakonnen, E-40, Too $hort, Freddie Gibbs, Problem, Iamsu! and Wax Motif.
When he’s not tearing it up onstage, Destructo also is deemed an ultimate creator. He forged RaveAmerica at Knotts Berry Farm and founded HARD Events, which produced music festivals starting in 2007 and was acquired five years later by Live Nation Entertainment.
Last year’s HARD Summer festival drew 150,000 fans and a 10-year celebration will return to the speedway at Fontana, Southern California, on Aug. 5-6.
The last half dozen years have been an evolution for Destructo, who has orchestrated the dance floor on his own terms, releasing the highly acclaimed “Technology” EP in 2012, followed by the “Higher” EP in 2013 that featured remixes for artists as diverse as Depeche Mode and Rob Zombie. In 2014, he delivered the “West Coast” EP, producing some top-shelf g-house (where rap meets house music). T Dolla $ign, Too $hort and Problem also contributed to that effort.
In a recent interview with Complex.com music magazine, Richards described his fans: “I think people that listen to my music, they’re different. They’re not put in any one box and they’re kind of like leaders, not following…”
It might be the end of the world as we know it, but Destructo is a survivor and he’s not going to disappear any time soon. He feels fine.
-Randy Hashagen
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