In this series, we profile DJs who spin R&B, soul, and rock music in San Francisco's bars and clubs.

If you want a free lesson in music, step into Monarch on a Friday night. There, you'll find Jacob Peña—otherwise known as DJ Guillermo—playing a boogie, soul, and disco set at Get Down Friday Nite, named for the classic disco tune by The Fantastic Aleems, featuring Leroy Burgess.

For four and a half hours on the third Friday of the month, DJ Guillermo spins his way through the evolution of the style, beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s with the early reggae style rocksteady or the romance-heavy lovers rock, and ending with modern funk artists such as Dam-Funk, XL Middleton and K-Maxx.

DJ Guillermo started Get Down Friday Nite two and a half years ago, when Monarch’s owner asked him to DJ upstairs. “There was no concept, really,” he told us. “I could play whatever I wanted, and I wanted it to be fun.”

He tested different genres, and found what worked best was an extension of Sweater Funk, the popular boogie, two-step, and modern funk night he co-founded with John Blunck at the Knockout in 2008. But unlike at Sweater Funk, “I can get away with dropping a samba or new wave tune” at Monarch, he said.

While DJing a four-and-a-half hour set entirely by himself sounds like an eternity, Guillermo relishes getting to showcase his DJ skills, which have been 16 years in the making. “You can link different types of music together on your own, and that gives the night a continuity that’s different from what a guest DJ brings in,” he said.

That continuity is important when it comes to the dance floor. “It’s harder to keep people dancing when I have a guest DJ, because we’ll have different ways of presenting music ... if you have people dancing, it's a crime to lose that for any DJ.” Every few months, though, he'll bring in a guest DJ to mix it up. 

Monarch, located on Sixth Street in SoMa, attracts people who are ready for a drink at the end of the workweek. While Get Down Friday Nite doesn’t have “a big club atmosphere," it does attract people who know club etiquette, which Guillermo appreciates. “They know not to trip when people bump into you and not to bug the DJ. They know I’m working, and don’t really bug me.”

He describes the crowd as respectful, and says that while he gets the occasional odd request, “a lot of the requests I do get are on point. It shows the person is listening to what I’m doing, and sometimes it compliments what I have.” Though he's somewhat limited by how many bags of vinyl he can carry, he accommodates requests if he can, “because if I brought it, I want to play it anyway.”

Guillermo also values his relationship with the venue, working diligently to make sure Monarch has a good time with what he’s playing. He never forgets that he’s “working for and with the venue,” he said. With house DJs usually spinning downstairs, he tries to complement them without stepping on their toes, getting people in a good mood before they make their way downstairs.