Skills DJ Workshop

I wish there was once in your life where you could actually give a 6 star review.
Anyone who is or was a raver at one time or another in the Bay Area probably went to Skills at one time or another.
Many of those same people also know why my nickname on Unilocal is Tigger.
My first experiences with Skills were back in the year 2000. I used to drive from Stockton all the way to Berkeley just to buy tickets for parties… and get lots of colorful fliers for my walls. This was back when Skills was across the street. Way back then we were still partying at places like the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds and Maratime Hall… parties had names like Popsikle 2 and Cyberfest… it was truly an amazing time for the rave scene in the Bay.
I want to say the first Skills event that I attended was Popskile 2 at Maratime Hall in San Francisco. It was shortly after Serenity 2… early 2000. I always wished I would have been at the first Pop… if I remember right it was thrown at 2^nd and Jackson in Oakland.
When things got a little dicey in the next few years Skills was one of the few places that stuck around and actually seemed to thrive. Call it being in the right place at the right time. Be it a party of a few hundred people in Santa Rosa or a party with 10,000 plus at the Cow Palace, Skills always brought their best. They seemed to find a way to throw parties that others could not throw. They kept their parties legal and safe… that was not an easy thing to do back then.
A few times I even went here on the way to a rave as a map point. Shhhh… don’t tell.
With a decade of raving behind me now I can still say that a Skills party was my favorite party of all time… Electro Teckno Disko Popsile 3.
Thats right, Pop 3.
If you were there and stayed all night you know why the song Imagine was so popular in SF and why the term «raining glowsticks» changed the Bill Graham forever.
Jason, Tom and everyone else did a great job at the shop Hands down.
Thank you Skills for all the amazing memories… I will always love you.
I guess you could say.
Tigger
Loves
Skills.

YOU WILL BE MISSED!
Skills used to be my home away from home. Spent every extra minute and cent I had here throughout my younger years. I remember when it was across the street and called The Trance & Jungle Factory. Man… The good ol’ days!
HOMEBASE anyone?

Get your «uns uns uns uns uns uns uns uns» fix here.
Skills probably has 10 different remixes of the «uns uns» to the «toog toog toog toog» to the «toog –tsk, toog –tsk, waoh waoh, waoh»
If not, you always have
to get your vocal trance, soulful house, breakbeat fix. F8

I will miss the Skills store… now I have no reason to go to Berkeley anymore…

Great store. I loved dropping in as I walked to the lab and browsing the vinyl and CDs. Awesome place for tickets. You will be sorely missed.
I felt bad paying only $ 1 per CD today, but hey, what else would you do with them???
I am looking forward to tonight, and hope to see you in some sense over in the city the first week of October.
So, as was previously stated, gentlemen, RIP, and good luck!!!

oh 2^nd love, I’ll miss you dearly! the first time I stepped foot in here was like heaven for my boyfriend, it calmed him. relaxed him and most of all was the place to get his tickets. It’s the most bombest place you can go if your in love with trace, but now its gone and it’ll forever be in our hearts. But their parties will last a lifetime in our deep hearts as we celebrate their joys @ raves! woot woot!
RIP Skills DJ storefront!

5kills is an awesome place with a lot of bay area rave and DJ history.

Skills=Rocks!
Make sure to get tix to all the Skills shows so you can see the top electronic Djs in the world (& me dancing on stage)!
:-)
Peace & Love
*Sami*Sparkle*

I think I bought my first drum n bass record here when it was located across the street many many moons ago. While I don’t buy vinyl anymore and also don’t have to pay to get into rave shows to much these days, I still have mad respect for Skills as an institution that has put in a ton of work to the dance music scene in the bay area and countrywide. Big ups Skills for years of hard work, here’s to many more.

Skills is a part of my raving history. The hardest working employee here is Juno, the Chihuahua. :-P

Skills throws amazing and unforgettable events with world class talent. They’ve set the highest event benchmark for electronic music parties in Northern California over the past 10+ years, and they’re still going strong.
At their nifty shop in Berkeley you can not only buy records and CDs, you can also find shirts, wigs, fishnets, glowsticks, tickets to their shows and others in the area, a really cute doggie or two (not for sale) and you can chat up with the friendly faces behind all the magic.

I love SKILLS! I’ve been going to their parties for several years now, and I end up having a blast every time. All the staff members here are awesome. Dyloot is sick! I love catching his sets. The shop has a nice variety of vinyl, and I think they even sell some clothing.
I usually come in here to buy tickets for their parties. I was just here over the weekend to get my tickets for the LoveFest Afterparty!!! =D Can’t wait!

Damn, Skills has been around for a long long time. If you’re passing by the shop on Telegraph, it’s probably not very impressive upon first sight. I miss the bigger building they had across the street that is now a dollar store, but their downsizing is representative of the rave scene all over.
Anyways, the actual shop is pretty nifty. Tons and tons of vinyl to choose from, they have tables for you to preview. If you’re not there to buy records, they have CDs and other street gear for you to play around with. They sell tickets to their own parties as well as parties that are being held around the bay area. Most of the times their resident DJs are there running the shop, so it’s a good opportunity to meet them while things are more chill.
They are pretty much one of the only groups in the bay area throwing massives on the large scale that they do. Sure ticket prices are outrageous, but there’s a reason why they are still in business. *cough*
Anyways, they rock! woo! Go support your local DJs and hang out :)

Been going to Skills Parties before they had there store. Back when it was the House and Trance & Jungle Factory and owed by Thomas Trouble. That was many years ago and they have come along way. They now throw multiple world-​class large scale events that put San Francisco on the party map. All the rest of the large scale old skul production crews are gone. Feel Good, Cool World, Clockwork, etc.
There storefront has a selection of new vinyl new releases and regular stock. It’s worth a stop by.

Skills is an awesome place with a lot of history.
All the people that work there are wonderful.
Jason, Timmy, Mirinda, Hayley, you guys rock. Always down to have a good conversation and very down to earth.
I do spin and the Happy Hardcore selection is decent. Nothing out of this world.
However Skills loves Trance and that is what they do best.
Their shows are some of the best in the Bay Area.

Agreed, it is one of the best shops around for all your electronica music needs. Solid Grooves was okay, but that placed closed down light years ago. I’m not into vinyl records or anything because I don’t spin so I usually just come up here to pick up tickets for a rave.
It’s a love-​hate relationship when it comes to raves and Skills. I mean, I love their raves, they’re the only ones throwing massives in the Bay Area. Cool World and Clockwork Eventz are gone (and I didn’t start until ’03 so I wasn’t able to experience Home Base, sucks for me I know). Skills, they throw good parties, but ticket prices are a bitch! They start at $ 40-​$ 45 now. back in the day, they’d barely be $ 40ish at the door! That’s inflation for ya. Just last week, there were $ 45 tickets for Popsicle ’08, by the next day they were gone and it went from $ 55 to $ 65 in less than a week… and the party isn’t for another two months, you gotta be kidding me. Skills has got to do a better job of managing their tickets. On the other hand, best raves I went to were mostly Skills Raves (Imagine 2000, ETD Love ’04, etc.) and Monster Massive ’07 of course.
WE NEED MORE RAVES LIKES 1998, 1999, AND IMAGINE 2000! BRING BACK THE GOOD OL’ DAYS OF TRANCE!

Fine place, with a great little culture that supports it. I am sort of a freak with music, and seem to only find my records in small towns in Austria, Brazil, and Greece. What the hell is that about?
So I can’t find much in the way of music here, but the scene is sick… there are people there that can help and be friendly.
When they are around and feeling up to it.

For awhile I thought I wanted to be a DJ. So I figured out what kind of music I like. Hardcore… otherwise known as hardcore techno. I liked speedcore a little bit also which is even faster than hardcore. I like dark hardcore, not happy hardcore.
Regretfully, at the time Skills was all about the happy hardcore. Although I do like happy hardcore, I much prefer the dark hardcore which they didn’t have much of. What I really like more than anything is gabber or gabba. I asked them what they had and they had a small section. Well the records in thatsection. I listened to them and only a couple of them were gabber, the others were miscategorized. i listened to all the records in the gabber section and nothing was good enough to buy. I did find some other vinyl I liked… but there was a lot of crap. i know Skills says they only sell records the like themselves… but I guess we just like different stuff.
Skills has thrown a lot of great parties over the years. however they kind of killed off the smaller rave promoters with their polished mega raves aimed and young trance and happy hardcore loving e-​tards. Also people who liked Deep Hose woud sometimes shop or mix there like Gianni or whoever else.
Anyways, cool store, cool people. Cool place to pick up flyers for upcoming events.

Not much I can say. One of the best places to get vinyl if you are an aspiring DJ. The have a cool listening station and the staff is pretty cool. Also, I love the events that skills throws. Keep up the good work.
5 Big Red Ones

Walk w/​a big stick…
So i’m standing out in front of «Skills» tell my friend D the break down on my fist fightand thinking to myself how many more times am I going to tell this story (see The Hut and Ben and Nicks) and who should be strolling across the street @ the hypest dj store for electronica but Frog himself. He sees me and crosses the street to tell me that he owes me one. I say «For what hurassing me @ the bar the other day??» He tells me he was drunk. I think to myself «Yaaaa Bitch! get a job!!!» He says that I am too loud and moves on down the street. Funny that he didn’t want to fuck w/​me anymo’.
Skills is a stop to put on any dj’s list. Lots of listening stations and ill tunes. Get down w/​the get down.
All names have been changed to protect the friends, fiends, innocent, guilty, stupid, crazy and down right bad. I also reserve the right to miss spell, phonetically spell and use bad grammar where needed.