Guy Pritchkin, a young raver in a puffy orange vest, backwards baseball cap, and oversized yellow sunglasses rides a San Francisco train at the turn of the century. He’s on his way to set up an after-hours party in some far-flung corner of the city. In his lap: a ridiculously large disco ball, which he can barely wrap his arms around. He grins and nods slightly as if to say, “Look, you just can’t have a massive without it.”

This iconic moment in the 2000 movie Groove — one of the few relatively cringe-free representations of the millennial party scene — was instantly immortalized as what would have passed for a meme in pre- social media days. “I saw it wheat-pasted all over every major city in America,” local DJ and producer Dmitri Ponce tells DJ Mag on playing Pritchkin.

“People have dressed as the character for Halloween and sent me photos. I got into [round-the-clock SF dance palace] the End Up for free for 20 years because of that. I think I’m permanently, spiritually linked with the disco ball now.” It’s one story of how the mirrorball endures as an avatar of dance music authenticity, a perpetual symbol of what Ponce calls a “true international House Nation, not about commercial music and streaming numbers... The real underground, the disco ball reflects that”.

READ ON AT DJ MAG