E-Mail This Article to a Friend Dub narcotics Calvin Johnson takes over the wheels of steel BY CARLY CARIOLI

Calvin Johnson, the patron saint of DIY indie punk, the man who founded K Records (the late Kurt Cobain tattoo’d the label’s insignia on his arm) as well as the vastly influential no-fi pop group Beat Happening, will not directly take credit for teaching a nation of shy indie-rockers how to dance. But he did, with Dub Narcotic Sound System — a band whose lo-fi, sideways-soul music was incorporating hip-hop, reggae, and funk at a time (the mid ’90s) when left-of-center audiences showed their appreciation mostly by standing attentively still. If there is now a legion of indie-rockers under a groove — from Le Tigre and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to !!! and the Rapture, indie punk is suddenly something that’s made to be danced to — Johnson is a godfather, of sorts.

This month, he’s embarking on his first DJ tour, for which he’ll be sharing the wheels of steel with Ian Svenonius, the mastermind behind Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, and most recently the Scene Creamers. They’ll spin this Saturday at Start!, a weekly underground-dance night at Axis catering to the indie-punk crowd. "Ian has a night called Spilt Milk in DC," says Johnson over the phone from the K offices in Olympia, "and he’s always asking me to DJ there, but I’ve never been able to. And I’ve had other invitations — Gibby [Miller, of Start!] has been asking me for a while. So we rolled them all into a tour."

Johnson’s not exactly new to DJing; it’s an occasional sideline for him, but mostly in Portland and Olympia, and mostly at house parties. "It’s such a different way to communicate, and I really dig when things are working, and you can feel people are in touch with it and just kinda going with the flow. My DJ name is Selecter Dub Narcotic — I don’t really match beats or blend, I’m just choosing songs in an order that seems to make sense. I’m a big fan of abruptness, too, though. I mix it up a lot. I’ll play some dancehall, some hip-hop, and a lot of funk and soul, punk rock, a few new rock bands. I’ve got a few things — dancehall 45s, the B-side instrumentals — that always seem to get people excited. I have two small boxes of 45s, everything from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on back to Bo Diddley. But on this tour I’m bringing a few 12-inches — mainly, I want to play the new Mr. Quintron album, Are You Ready for an Organ Solo? It’s fucking brilliant. When I put it on, everyone’s first reaction is, ‘What is this?’ But by the time they figure it out, they’re already on the dance floor."

He’s got nothing to pimp on this tour (mainly, he admits, it’s an excuse for him to hang out with his buddy Ian for a week), and don’t expect a Selecter Dub Narcotic mix CD anytime soon, but he may bring along some of the homemade compilation tapes he’s sold over the years on Beat Happening tours. "My DJ sets tend to be very diverse, but the tapes are more themed, like ’70s dub 45s or ’70s power pop. There’s a couple of girl-punk tapes that do really well, and weird new-wave stuff from 25 years ago that no one ever heard, and a lot of old soul and R&B."

Johnson isn’t against throwing some of his own music into the mix, though he knows that kind of move can be hazardous. "One time I went to a dance night Ian did in NYC, at some club I forget the name of, and he was playing all kindsa stuff. He can make anything work — French pop, new punk bands, he’s playing old soul records, he’s just all over the place with it. And then he put on this Beat Happening song. And it just cleared . . . the . . . floor. And then the guy who was running the night, who was uptight, ran over and said, ‘Now you’ve gotta play something modern!’, and he made Ian get out of the way, and another DJ came in and put on ‘Rapper’s Delight,’ which was actually older than most of the stuff Ian had been playing. But they actually kicked him off the turntables. And Ian turned to me and said, ‘I don’t understand it. Usually when I play that song, people go crazy!’ "

Calvin Johnson and Ian Svenonius guest-DJ this Saturday at 10 p.m. at Start! at Axis, 13 Lansdowne Street; call (617) 262-2437.