DJ Mahf’s second Thursdays at Atomic

One of St. Louis's most dedicated crate-diggers is back at Atomic Lounge on Thursday, Nov. 12, pay what you can.

Ask St. Louis record-store regulars about DJ Mahf and you'll probably hear about a guy who spends hours in the bins, sometimes with a portable record player along so he can listen before he buys. The Riverfront Times opened a profile of him that way, and it's still the best introduction: the records come first. Next Thursday you can hear what he's been digging up.

DJ Mahf plays Atomic Lounge at Atomic by Jamo, 4140 Manchester Ave., on Thursday, Nov. 12, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. It's 21-and-up and pay what you can, with a suggested $10 on TicketWeb.

If the date sounds familiar, it should. Mahf has had Atomic on the second Thursday of the month all year, with nights on Aug. 13, Sept. 10 and Oct. 8, and another already listed for Dec. 10. A monthly night like that is how a DJ builds a room. People come back because they know he won't play the same set twice.

Our records count 23 St. Louis shows for him, more than anywhere else, and his story is a St. Louis story. Dan Mahfood started spinning in high school. His brother, the cartoonist Jim Mahfood, went off to college and mailed him cassette tapes, and the RFT traces his calling to the night he got into Blueberry Hill's Science of Hip-Hop with a fake ID. Hip-hop and visual art have run side by side in the family ever since. The RFT headlined that profile "Last Collector Standing," which tells you how the city sees him.

The records come first.

He's also a technician. The RFT has described him as walking a line between artistic turntablist and party-rocker, and he has competed in Red Bull's Thre3style, the competition built around DJs cutting across genres on the fly. Locally he's known as an IndyGround DJ, and he was part of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation's 2025–26 DJ residency cohort at Sophie's Artist Lounge, where he brought back his Motown Throwdown night.

That range is why a Thursday at Atomic is worth leaving the house for. You don't need to know the records to enjoy it; you'll want to ask about them afterward.

Pay what you can means exactly that, but if you've got the $10, the DJ who just played you five hours of records has earned it.

St. Louis has plenty of DJs who play the hits. It has few who treat the night like a record collection opened up for the room. Second Thursday, Atomic, 9 p.m. Bring a friend who thinks they don't like DJ nights.

Sources: TicketWeb – DJ Mahf at Atomic Lounge (ticketweb.com); Riverfront Times – Last Collector Standing: DJ Mahf (riverfronttimes.com); Riverfront Times – Your Guide to the Bands of RFT's Music Showcase (riverfronttimes.com); Riverfront Times – The 10 Best Shows in St. Louis This Weekend (May 2016) (riverfronttimes.com); Kranzberg Arts Foundation – Sophie's Artist Lounge (kranzbergartsfoundation.org); Kranzberg Arts Foundation – Motown Throw Down: The Return (kranzbergartsfoundation.org); DJ Mahf on SoundCloud (soundcloud.com); DJ Mahf (Songkick) (songkick.com)