-1984
My musical roots began in the Detroit metro area where I was born and raised. I was in a break dancing crew with the kids on my block and I listened to the Wizard (aka Jeff Mills) and the Electrifying Mojo on the radio. I discovered dj music, hip hop and electro music through the elder Filipino kids in my neigborhood. Chuck Alo had a pair of Technics 1200 turntables and the eldest brother of the Dannug family down the block, Lee Antonio, used to drive us around and play Afrika Bambaataa, The Jonzun Crew, Egyptian Lover, etc.

1989-1991
A cohesive picture of what a DJ actually did was put together in front of me by Claude Young who was an on-air DJ at 96.3 WHYT where my brother Joe Santos (aka Joe Mamma) was hosting a radio program. He would shuffle me into to the production studio where Claude was recording his mix onto reel to reel tape, which would later be aired on the radio.

In high school, Brian Gillespie and I hosted a radio show on the Warren School district’s radio station WPHS. My first experiences working behind the nightlife scenes were under the influence of Brian, Nancy Mitchell and Voom (Steven Reaume, Marke Bishkee and Alan Bogl.) 

Nancy, who was my first girlfriend, attended high school with Jeff Mills and arguably booked Detroit’s first rave party with him. Voom was my first exposure to artfully executed underground rave / pop-up parties that featured the likes of Richie Hawtin, Alton Miller, MIke Huckaby, Kevin Saunderson and D. Wynn. One of Steven’s friends, Pam Schechter had a Macintosh and they introduced me to Emigre (design magazine) and really changed the way I understood visual art: before the internet really took off. 

1993
Some day I will have to write a more extensive entry about the (hold your breath) midwest rave scene but I have to hi-light the time I met Todd Sines in 1993 who I shared an affinity for graphic design with. He was an instrumental member of the Elemental Crew who introduced me to analog synthesizer technology and inspired me to further develop a historical sense of electronic music with a broader context (Meredith Monk, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, etc.) Other key members of the Elemental Crew like Ed Luna and Chris Jones really got me THINKing.

1994
Nancy MItchell and I moved out to San Francisco where she was hired to assist the art-director of a fairly new technology magazine called Wired. I landed a job assisting Jody Radzik as a magazine production artist by day. By night, I was a fervent missionary that worked very hard to spread the unfamiliar gospel of Detroit techno. San Francisco was mostly home to space disco and funky breaks: It was all about Sunset and Wicked.

1996
I started going to school at the California College of Arts and Crafts full time and when I could I would help to promote and spin opening sets for music pioneers like Richie Hawtin, Carl Craig, Dan Bell, DJ Funk, DJ Deon, DJ Godfather, Dave Clarke and Juan Atkins – working with crews who were the first to import this sound to the bay. I was a resident DJ at San Francisco’s first weekly techno club Mad at the Bahia Cabana then went on to to DJ and promote for One Track Mind with Kit Clayton, Paul Manley, Nathaniel Hamon and Ruben Fleischer.

1997
I was dabbling with music production and shared a small studio with Devin Fore. We had a home made PAIA synth and a few staple roland pieces of gear: TR-808, TB303, TR909, Juno 106, etc. I produced a few tracks before selling everything to live my life as an art school student in 1996. One track made it’s way onto an EP released by Cytrax titled Various Artists – Wrap It up.

2000
By the time I graduated from, my context for dj’ing was a bit more loosely defined. I found myself dj’ing quite a bit outside of the club with an experimental approach. My sets were more collage and less dance mixed. I collaborated on an ambient/glitch recording project with Mike Martinez (Cars get Crushed) titled Parts:Places which was mostly improvisational.

I performed with Safety Scissors and Atom Heart during the CCA Wattis Institute’s performance series “Rooms for Listening”. By 2002, the venues and context for where I was dj’ing had changed to more warehouses, art galleries, happenings, house parties, etc. I played with artists like Sutekh, Kit Clayton, Twerk, Kid 606, Matmos, DJ Godfather, Gold Chains, Tommy Guererro, Crack WAR and Numbers: I was formatting my sets with more West Coast underground hip hop, IDM and noise music. I had the fortune of sharing the stage in Japan opening up for Claude Young at Tokyo’s Womb club and for Dave Clarke at Osaka’s Rocket club, though my techno purist fervor was beginning to cool off.

2003
I moved to New York City in the winter of 2003 where i became a resident DJ in the basement of NYC’s Tonic Lounge (Subtonic) with Andrew Ingalls, Doug Lee and Jeremy Campbell. 

At this time, I am not a resident DJ but I perform regularly around NYC: Tandem Bar, China Chalet, The Wooly, Santos Party House (et.al) Crossing over from the music world to art and fashion. I have performed in Shanghai for the Asian Fashion Awards and Beijing for I-Dentity: 25 years of i-D magazine and have been DJ’ing for 3.1 Phillip Lim, United Bamboo and An Choi.

I have appeared on Tim Sweeney’s “Beats in Space” radio program and was a guest DJ for Ceci Moss’s “Radio Heart” program which aired on East Village Radio.

@jon_santos