Jay Kaufman
I no longer actively monitor this page. For bookings, please make contact via Jay's Facebook page or through Instagram.
Jay’s bio spans twenty-five plus years of DJing in dark rooms with bright lights. Twenty or so of those years have been spent developing a hardened and very pale studio tan. So it goes.
Jay’s early days were spent in his bedroom trying to paste together ‘pause tapes’ of new wave bands he heard on late night Toronto radio. That would all change with the rise of house and techno music in the 1980s from the close-by cities of Detroit, Chicago and New York.
By all accounts Jay was a strange kid. At the age of 13, Jay had already amassed a record collection envious of the most avid adult collector. In 1987, he heard house music for the first time on the radio and it all changed. Early acid house classics like A Guy Called Gerald’s ‘Voodoo Ray’ and LNR’s ‘Work It To The Bone’ laid down an addiction that has never been relinquished.
His early days were spent honing his skills on the job at the various events he helped throw in his native Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada area. Dodgy raves held in loft and empty warehouse spaces, free parties down by the local river, house parties, club nights and even the odd cheesy top 40 nightclub or wedding gig helped shape his sound today. As Jay became more involved with the thriving rave scene in his surrounding area, his love for the sounds of the underground grew. In turn, this saw him rising up through the ranks from a local DJ to a DJ/producer with a more global outlook and reach.
Being a DJ and producer are almost synonymous these days, but Jay's love for throbbing kick drums naturally lead to music production at a time when computers and the Internet were in their infancy.
Jay’s tracks have been released on vinyl, CD's, mp3's and DVD/BluRay. His tracks have been used as backing music for the movie ‘Rolling’ (2008), licenses to DJ mix compilations like UK-charting ‘Slinky Trans:Atlantik’ (2004), and even oddities like a Japanese soft-porn DVD. His productions have had airings from many of the world's better-known DJ glitterati. Signings and remixes for labels like Sonambulist Recordings (UK), Bellarine Recordings (Australia), L2 Music (Germany), Park Limited Muzik (Japan), Unrivaled Music (UK), Endemic Digital (UK), Stripped Digital (UK), Fullbodysoundsystem (Canada) and even his own Tortoise Shell Recordings (Canada) have helped attain recognition for Jay’s music production skills.
His DJ mixes have aired as a featured artist all over the radio dial in places like Canada, Colombia, Germany, Panama, Northern Ireland, Russia, Peru, France, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Aruba and as well as on various Internet radio stations and blogs.
That’s all old news though. After a lengthy hiatus from DJing, Jay Kaufman is back on the decks fusing DJing with live production. His production has started back up as well and you should be able to find his music through all go...