DJ Frank Padilla transforms the Salty Seal into an electronic music dance venue on a weekly basis.

The Bear Flag building is an integral part of the community in John Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row. And it was the characters there who helped out during times of scarcity.

Frank Padilla, a manager at the Salty Seal Brewpub and Sports Bar – housed in the same historic building – is attempting to do something about a different kind of scarcity by bringing weekly electronic and dance music nights to the venue every Wednesday.

Padilla is an electronic dance music DJ and former break dancer who goes by the stage name Edison Tesla. In the mid-1990s, Padilla, along with his brother and his brother’s friend DJ Blur, began mixing music on vinyl, eventually finding their way to the Las Vegas EDM community.

He moved to Monterey for his current manager position in 2022, and quickly noticed the lack of venues for dance and EDM. After a stint as a resident DJ at the now-1-year-old Compact Disco, he shifted his focus to the larger back patio of the Salty Seal. Padilla coined the evening “Hops & Drops.”

The humble bar doesn’t boast any laser lights or psychedelic special effects you’d see at a rave, but the nascent crowd drawn to his beats and mixes align with his values about EDM. “It’s all inclusive – there’s no kind of segregation at all and everybody from all walks of life are welcome,” Padilla says. “There are no offending lyrics and it’s something that everyone can relate to because it’s all about the beat.”

Club music may not be for everyone and Padilla acknowledges this, realizing that some don’t like the repetitiveness. But there’s a way for almost any DJ to find a way to get people moving. And igniting that spirit is what grows the community, according to Padilla, who hopes to get more people accustomed to it. “I want to introduce them to it so that they can enjoy the music for the music,” he says.

He also wants to defuse another stigma of EDM, which is the perception that it is only enjoyed when drugs or alcohol are involved; Padilla is sober.

Padilla reached into his own pocket to upgrade the subwoofer for the back patio, making for a cleaner sound and better bass drops. As a manager of the venue, he felt the timing was perfect to take advantage of the back patio for the summer season.

Salty Seal Brewpub and Sports Bar, 653 Cannery Row, Monterey. EDM night every Wednesday. 920-2327, saltyseal.com