By Vivian Host

THE 10 MEMBERS of Massive Selector lead double lives.

By night, DJ D-Reel (Daryl Dellera) searches through the crates for classic '80s and '90s hip-hop jams; by day, he's an architect. When Dre Sibayan isn't making the scene with a giant stack of flyers in hand, he's designing and filling orders for Exact-Science, the T-shirt company he cofounded. Desi Danganan has been known to run visuals and book talent but spends afternoons teaching at Emeryville's Expressions Center for New Media. Other members are attending graduate school or working as transportation planners for AC Transit.

If you're getting the idea that the Massive Selector crew aren't career promoters, you're right. Their parties – the Summit monthly at Club Six and the recently revived Word at Milk – are escapes from the drudgery of the workday, places where money and fashion are less important than just having fun and letting loose with your friends.

Of course, it's helped that Massive Selector have friends – lots of friends. The crew are a natural extension of a posse formed by UC Berkeley students Alex Jain, Marco Jastillana, Steve Jang, and Robert Del Rosario, all of whom were active in the school's large Filipino American community. By throwing fundraisers and working on cultural magazine Maganda, the friends got experience in flyer design, booking, DJing, and promoting and made connections around the Bay Area.

By the time they graduated in the late '90s, they were asked to throw a birthday party for a friend at South of Market club Rawhide. The results were so successful that the club owner suggested they try their hand at a monthly, and in October 2000, Word was born. With the outfit already consisting of five graphic designers (Jang, Sibayan, Danganan, Jain, and Paul Aguilar, a.k.a. Miko) and five DJs – Malex (Alex Katzen), D-Reel, 100 Proof (Marky Enriquez), Politik (Paul Cruz), and Del Rosario, who operates under the name Pantyrobber – Massive Selector had the most time-consuming aspects of party promoting, i.e., booking DJs and designing flyers, in the bag. Word, with its affordable $5 cover charge and energetic young crowd, quickly became known as a hot spot for hip-hop and reggae dancehall.

Still, creating the vibe they wanted took work. "We would wrestle with the issue of ethnicity," Jastillana tells me over the phone. "Our first parties were at least 65 percent Filipino. There was always that issue that we wanted a more diverse crowd, but it was hard because these were our friends and our friends' friends."

"You can't fade the support they gave us," Jain concurs in a phone interview. "But a lot of the people that came to us were tired of the strictly Asian party scene as well. I would take my non-Asian friends to certain parties, and they wouldn't feel comfortable. We always wanted a place that would be a comfortable environment whether you were Filipino or not. We wanted a crowd who wanted to hear the kind of music that we liked."

Although Massive Selector's collective tastes were rooted in acts like De La Soul, Public Enemy, and Elephant Man, they were keen to push forward other styles of music that weren't being heard by most hip-hop crowds. "At Word we would play 40 percent hip-hop, 40 percent reggae, and then the rest would be house and '80s music," Jastillana says. "We always made it a point to have it all on the main floor. What we wanted was to have all the nonmainstream stuff seamlessly blended together."

The formula didn't work as well at Rawhide, where Jastillana says younger crowds weren't open-minded to hearing Wham and Lil' Louie Vega dropped next to Beenie Man and Busta Rhymes. So in mid 2002, M.S. switched the club's name and location and started up the Summit monthly at Club Six. The Summit became a launchpad for playing electronic music alongside hip-hop – a party where break-dancers, glow stick wavers, and bedroom-music lovers could all feel at home on the dance floor. "We have to stay true to who our core audience is," Danganan says over the phone. "They grew up with hip-hop, but they're open-minded to other stuff like house and drum 'n' bass and electro. Our audience is getting older, but we try to keep it fresh. It takes some time to open them up. For instance, I'm really interested in the whole '80s and electro movements, but we try to throw it in a little bit at a time."

The Summit also ushered in a new era for Massive Selector, with design playing a bigger role in the overall experience. Members started creating in-house visuals to correspond with the themes of different events, using everything from old movie graphics to members' high school prom pictures.

With 10 members, Massive Selector have their own built-in focus group, where ideas are brought to the table and then decided on by all. The crew concur that there are very few arguments but plenty of heated discussions about branding, graphic design, and themes. "The good thing is we've never argued about money," Jain says. "I think that goes back to the fact that we don't depend on the parties for our livelihood. But we always have creative debates. It's usually that someone has a vision for something and they're trying to convince everyone else to follow that vision."

Del Rosario explains when I talk to him by phone that the system works because whoever comes up with an idea is usually the one who brings it to completion. As a result, they've been able to throw consistent monthlies, along with copromoting shows with Compression, FuMando, Blasthaus, and Flavor.

The crew say that, besides the music, their biggest inspiration has been going out. According to Jastillana, they spent 1997 and 1998 going to the Justice League every week and particularly looked forward to a monthly party called East/West thrown by Mind Motion and Toph One. "It was good energy there, and the music was not just a background for social activity. It was a main focus," he says. They also hold Pacific Sound, Future Primitive, and Flavor in high regard. "Flavor has helped develop the whole b-boy and urban dance scene but also opened up their parties to capoeiristas, ballerinas, and even a clown. Whereas Flavor emphasizes expressing yourself through dance, we emphasize using design to help create or mold people's club experience."

Massive Selector have plenty of ideas for expansion. Three members have recently moved to Los Angeles and plan to continue throwing events under the M.S. moniker. The Web site has begun offering streaming live sets and media from the club's guests, and Massive Selector are pondering ways to keep older crowds interested in the club experience, including adding larger, concert-style promotions to the mix. The outfit will also be celebrating their third anniversary in late October with a blowout party.

In the meantime, they need only to look at their logo – a burning red flame – to remember the reason they're doing this in the first place. "The hardest thing I had to learn about doing this is that events are a complement to your life; they can't be the focus," Danganan says. "Most of us were dot-commers when we started. When the bust came, the parties became our only source of sustenance. When we focused purely on numbers at the door, it kind of lost its sense of purpose. The whole reason why we chose the flame as a logo was because we had a passion for something. When we made that our source of living, it wasn't fun anymore, and the flame went away."

Del Rosario agrees. "It's not about packing the place," he says. "It's about throwing a party that we're going to have fun at and making sure people enjoy themselves."

Summit, with Massive Selector residents and Jazzy Jeff, Fri/12, 9 p.m., Club Six, 60 Sixth St., S.F. $15, $10 before 10 p.m. (415) 863-1221.

Word, fourth Wednesdays, Milk, 1840 Haight, S.F. Call for time and price. (415) 387-6455.

Massive Selector appear at Flavor, Sept. 27, 9 p.m., DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., S.F. $10--$20. (415) 626-1409.