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When it comes to electronic music, Jay Kaufman has lived it for most of his life. Buying records before he paid rent and staying up two days straight to finish that essential tune for a gig haven’t been uncommon occurrences over the years. Jay’s bio spans twenty-plus years of DJing in dark rooms with bright lights. Fifteen 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 radio – where he’d remix tracks on the spot using a dual cassette tape deck. Soon, he found himself with the largest record collection in his Grade 6 class and was DJing his primary school's dances not long thereafter. By all accounts Jay was a strange kid. By the age of 13, Jay had 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 was never to be relinquished. A pair of belt-driven turntables soon followed and soon a career path in music was born. Jay’s future as a DJ was cemented. His early days were spent honing his skills on the job at various events he helped throw in his native Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada area. Dodgy raves held in loft spaces, free parties down by a local river and even the odd cheesy top 40 nightclub or wedding gig all factor into Jay’s early resume. As Jay became more involved with the thriving rave scene in the K-W and the Toronto areas, his distaste for the mainstream music scene grew. In turn, this saw him rising up through the ranks from a local DJ to a DJ/producer with a more global outlook. His love of music saw him soon learning the ropes of music production at a time when computers and the Internet were in their infancy and outboard gear reigned supreme. Jay’s tracks have seen placement in movies (‘Rolling’), licenses to DJ mix compilations (Slinky Trans:Atlantik, San Francisco Love Parade, etc.) and oddities like a Japanese soft-porn DVD. His production has had plays from the biggest DJ names out there. Nick Warren, Anthony Pappa, Danny Howells, John Digweed, Graham Gold and many others from the DJ glitterati have all at one point or another played a Jay Kaufman track. Signings and remixes to labels like Sonambulist Recordings (UK), Bellarine Recordings (Austrlia), L2 (Germany), Park Limited Muzik (Japan), Unrivaled Music (UK), Endemic Digital (UK), Stripped Recordings (UK), Fullbodysoundsystem (Canada) and even his own Tortoise Shell Recordings (Canada) have helped attain recognition for Jay’s music production skills. Somewhere in all of this mess, Jay has managed to write for several music publications, A&R for labels, write press releases for record labels, hold down a 3-year residency at a club he ran/promoted and host a FM radio show for around the same time. His DJ mixes have aired all over the radio dial in places like Panama, Northern Ireland, Russia, Peru, France, Aruba and as a guest on various Internet radio stations and blogs. That’s all old news though. After a hiatus from DJing, Jay Kaufman is back on the decks (or rather, laptop and MIDI controllers). His production has started back up as well and you should be able to find his music through all good digital download retailers like Beatport, iTunes and Amazon. Jay Kaufman can be booked through emailing: bookings at jaykaufman dot ca