Alien Nation

While most South Bitch DJs are resolutely earthbound in their advocacy of the good thug life, Richard “Q-Bert” Quitevis is from planet Mars, a UFO with lightning-quick hands. Since emerging from the Bay Area’s potent hip-hop scene in the early Nineties, Q-Bert has evolved from a dominant hip-hop DJ with three U.S. DMC titles under his belt to the near-iconic auteur behind the terrestrial-sounding Wave Twisters to a traveling ambassador for the underappreciated art of skratch, a genre that celebrates the transmutation of turntable sound through expert needle thrashing into walls of pure noise discernible only to the trained ear. Complex for sure, but thrilling nevertheless.

Thankfully Q-Bert has an amiable, winning personality to front his sonic exploits. The thirtysomething Filipino Buddhist exudes a quiet, Zen-like calm frequently disrupted by a barrage of juvenile high jinks and bizarre in-jokes. (He once released a mixtape titled Wash Yer Butt.) If you venture out to see him this Saturday night — and you should — be on the lookout for Scratchy Seal, his trusty, foulmouthed sidekick.