January 7, 2003

By Vivian Host

AT FIRST MEETING , DJ Ellen Ferrato seems so "San Francisco" she could be a character from Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Inside her Potrero Hill home, she perches her athletic, North Face-clad frame on an overstuffed chair and tells me she's a Virgo with her Venus in Leo. Next to her, on a massive bookshelf, is a row of 20 astrology books. The row beneath boasts volumes on GHB and drug experiences, hinting at a wild past. Ferrato's girlfriend brings her throat-soothing tea: she's lost her voice after back-to-back New Year's Eve gigs.

In a town where the dismal economy has hit the electronic music scene hard, Ferrato's funky, sexy house music continues to be in great demand. Her brand of hypnotic, highly percussive grooves – influenced by classic S.F. house DJs like the Wicked Crew's Markie and Garth – moves mainstream crowds as well as it does underground kids. On New Year's Eve, Ferrato dropped it funky for the pinup babes at Club Bas, thumpy for old- and new-school house heads at 1015 Folsom, and jazzy for the Burning Man crowd at Anon Salon, before a cold forced her to bow out of another gig from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at Kelly's Mission Rock.

Ferrato's success probably has as much to do with her energy as with her musical selections. In a profession oddly dominated by dour-faced vinyl junkies who take the dance floor as seriously as they do their new promo white label, Ferrato has two important accessories: a smile and a pumping fist. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a picture of Ferrato DJing in which she's not drenched in sweat, a huge grin on her face.

Ferrato's infectious energy is part of the reason she's come in third on Nitevibe's yearly poll of the city's best DJs. The votes – cast by visitors to the Web site – lean overwhelmingly toward the popular house and progressive ends of the spectrum. And it's no mean feat that in a town teeming with house DJs, Ferrato has placed just behind Mark Farina and Miguel Migs, two DJ-producers with publicists, record deals, and big names on the international club circuit.

In the last eight years, Ferrato has preferred to keep it local, making big noise in the Bay Area but rarely traveling out of town for gigs. She's taken up a few offers, but unlike the Migs's and Farinas of the world, she's content with in-city success, playing regularly at Spundae at 1015, 2nd Sunday's popular monthly at Mission Rock, and her residency, Sugar at the Stud, as well as store openings and corporate parties.

"[A friend and I] were talking and he was saying to me, 'Yeah, you're only big in S.F.,' " Ferrato says. "In his perspective, big means international. Big has to have happiness to it for me. I'm quite comfortable and happy with my local status. I don't need to be one of the top 10 DJs in the world."

Ferrato may not be knocking at Paul Oakenfold's door, but that didn't stop U.K. club mag Ministry from calling her "San Francisco's best-kept secret" when it visited the Bay in July.

Keeping the day job

Unlike many DJs, 41-year-old Ferrato actually likes her day job – so much, in fact, that she's chosen it over a gamble at the potentially glamorous life of a full-time DJ. By day, she works as an account manager, selling the services of technology consultants to companies. A self-professed workaholic, she loves the job, which she says is both competitive and good for a "people person." "I love having such a black-and-white lifestyle," Ferrato says with a laugh. "It's fun going between the corporate life and the druggy, underground culture." The job also supports her record habit – Ferrato says she spends between $100 and $200 a week on vinyl, a lot of it produced by fellow San Franciscans such as Migs, Dano, and Garth.

Ferrato's down-to-earth manner and resolute nonhippieness betray her non-Californian roots. Growing up in various suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, Ferrato was the eighth child of 12. She says belonging to a big family taught her how to be a mediator and diplomatic. "Having never had my own room and sharing everything, I had to earn everything I got," she explains.

She says she always knew she wanted to live in either Colorado or California. After getting married, she landed a job with Sprint and moved out to the Peninsula. She was 24. "I loved it out here," she says. "When I first moved to California, every day was like a vacation day. I was high on life. I was really surprised at how different people were. They did things at such early ages. Of course, I quickly adapted. I learned that working hard is good, but playing hard is good too."

Fast-forward five years, and Ferrato's life has gone through drastic changes. She explains to me about her "Saturn return," a period between 29 and 32 in which her life was transformed. "I went from living in the Peninsula, owning a house, being married, and never doing a drug in my life to divorced, getting involved with women, and doing ecstasy for the first time."

Call of the wild

That period coincided with the Bay Area's famed Wicked and Come-Unity rave parties, where Ferrato found her calling. "I've always loved dancing and music, but sometimes something just has to bring it out in you," she says. "Every Ferrato was so into music. We used to just dance in our den and pretend we were the Beatles and stuff. And we would always dance alone. So when my brother took me to my first rave, I had always been like that. But then it created a monster. I went every weekend."

A friend convinced Ferrato to go halves on a turntable setup and promised he would teach her to spin. At the age of 32, she ended up with the entire outfit and the record collection, and another friend asked her to spin at a party he was putting together at the Holy Cow. The Endup's Lewis Walden saw her spinning there and swooped her for a few dates at the legendary S.F. nightspot, and soon she was opening for Mark Farina on Tuesday nights at the Beer Cellar. In 1997 she and promoter Kevin Afuso started Sugar at the Stud on Saturday nights. For the last five years, Sugar has been one of the city's few queer nights where you can count on an up-for-it, unpretentious crowd and funky house music that steers clear of disco-diva vocals or circuit-party trance clichés.

Ferrato has been one of a few S.F. DJs to cross fluidly between the gay and straight club scenes. "In the beginning my music didn't fit into the gay scene. Now, [people's] musical tastes have evolved more in both places. But the party is always best mixed. It's always better to play for a crowd that just gets the music. A crowd that is so humble. They're not eyeing how you're mixing or your records; they're just carefree and with great dancing energy.

"Even with all the different parties that evolve, I still want to be true to myself," Ferrato says. "I always want to satisfy myself. You hope that by doing that you will also satisfy a crowd. Sometimes I think it would be nice to stop playing. Working full-time and DJing every weekend, it's hard to have a normal life. Luckily, I burn at a very high rate. And it's hard to say no when you're wanted. Just the little things, like people coming up to you and saying, 'Man, that was an amazing set' keep you going.

"The only constant," Ferrato says, sighing, "is change."

Ellen Ferrato plays at Nitevibe's annual Top 10 DJ Showcase with Mark Farina, Miguel Migs, Jenö, David Harness, David Coleman and Sensei, Julius Papp, Garth, Dimitris Mykonos, and Charlotte the Baroness, Jan. 15, 8 p.m.-1:30 a.m., Fillmore, 1805 Geary, S.F. $20. (415) 346-6000 or (415) 421-TIXS.