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Hi, Welcome to Jayondrums, at this time in my life I am enjoying the wisdom of my youth and with my destiny unfolding before my eyes everyday I am a happy soul! I am currently working all over London & UK playing at Club nights to the finest Dance music on the planet.
I have been supplying percussive beats to some independant producers who are very skilled at what they do and I look forward to celebratring their success in the near future
The ROCK CHIC PHENOMENON
NEIL HODGESON of ASTROFUNK
(sample on music player)
& STEVIE D of KOSMETIQ.
I enjoyed some session work with SAMPLEMAGIC.com who brought together some of the best musicians in the London Club Scene to produce ’FUNKY HOUSE GROOVES! a 3cd Multipack with 1,450+ of the freshest, sexiest house loops, licks and samples meticulously recorded in industry-standard 24-bit and I supplied some damn fine percussion sounds for all you budding producers out their! Want a copy? Just get in touch and lets do business!!!!!
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Back again to STEVIE D, what a guy! Luv ya Stevie - He has been very busy producing music on many levels under MUSICJUICED.com Within Music Juiced you have, as I have already mentioned ’KOSMETIQ’ this is the Electro West Coast vibe (sample on music player) (first album mastered by Chris Alexander to the highest degree of badness & is available for purchase). Then we have REDD MOON. A live band bringing together STEVIE D (keys & production), BRUCE LISTER (guitars & production - hawkwind) and finally MARIA ANGELLI (Vocals & Production) who together with some high class session musicians ranging from the brass section from LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHISTRA to JAYONDRUMS on percussion that together creates a smooth, chilling piece of musical excellence! Their first album ’BETWEEN EARTH & AIR’ is also avaiable for purchase (sample on music player) And with a QRITIKAL RECORDS the label now in full swing this outfit is gonna grow from strength to strength and I look forward to working with them all again very soon.
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Finally, I am currently involved in something very new and in its early days but I can already feel the momentum building at amazing speeds! I am proud to have teamed up with two of London’s finest Club Percussionists, MANOS aka BEATSDEVYNE & DEAN ORAM and together we are ’3SPIRIT’
3SPIRIT is all about percussion and introducing the pleasures that we experience from our instruments every minute of our lives to the world on a personal and educational level. Its amazing how many humans grow up without ever having played an instrument! Let alone been close to one! So we are going to be spreading our love of percussion across the world......
Interested?? drop me a message!
I will be back with updates as they happen!
In the meantime, enjoy myspace!
’Dance to the Beat of the Drum. The Beat is the Rhythm of LOVE, LIFE & HAPPINESS!’
PEace&LOve
Jayondrums
HISTORY
Jay Macdonald
36 Years Old
Male
Percussionist - Club / Session / Private Function / Tuition
As a young boy, having a Father who played drums in a band, I spent many hours as my Fathers ’Roadie’ helping him load and unload his drums almost every weekend at gigs all over London. Little did I know that this would be good practice for my profession all these years later; even then, playing on a drum kit, I would turn off the resonator on the snare drum. And play out drum rolls without using the cymbals, only concentrating on the drums themselves to create ’tribalistic rhythms’. Even though I took drum lessons and understood the rudiments behind drumming my attraction to the ’electro’ ’hip-hop’ and ’break-dance’ scene in the late 70’s and early 80’s took me away from the drums on a physical level and into a 100 percent audio experience, listening to music almost 24 hours a day, experiencing the explosion of musical genre’s that have given way to the music scene as we know it today.
Almost every DJ’s biography can remember wanting to mix together music where as I always wanted to express the rhythms that I could feel inside of me, albeit, break dancing, body popping or beat boxing. As I moved through my teenage years and into my twenties I never lost my love for the music but only expressed myself by annoyingly tapping out sounds on almost everything and anything that was close to hand, much to the annoyance of all that were close by...
After a major upheaval in my life in 1994 (and almost 10 years since last playing a drum kit) my brother took me under his wing and invited me to ’Jus House’ the most amazing underground night held under the arches in the Bermondsey area of South London. A weekly night hosted by Sarah H.B with live PA’s. This gathering was at the location called ’Happy Jax’ a club night run by Jeff, Mary and their sons Tommy Ben and George. They renamed their night ’One for You’ and resident DJ’s Amanda and Chris G introduced to us an awesome fix of uplifting house.
It was at this time that a friend of mine, Kelly Chambers bought me some Indian clay bongos and I could be found at the after parties @ ’Horns’ banging away to mixed tapes of the resident DJ’s when everyone was attempting to ’chill out’. It was here that I made my first ever live performance. A pair of bongos brought back from Cuba as a present for Ben from his Mum and Dad (Mary and Jeff} and BONGO JAY was born. After much praise from those around me I saved up enough money to purchase some ’Afro’ congas and proceeded to stand on stage and attempt to be heard over the booming sound system by playing with water bottles and sticks. I would spend hours in a trance like state with my eyes closed just listening to the DJ’s mix endless hours of music together in such diverse ways, whilst enhancing the sound of the music with the drums. Over the next two years, with audiences of 500+ every weekend my confidence grew, especially after playing with guest DJ’s such as Graham Gold, Biko, Luv Dup, Nancy Noise, Dave Lambert, Jon Pleased Women, Pete Wardman and Fat Tony and of course DJ Amanda and Chris G. My talent to play over such diverse music and mixing without taking away the DJ’s set enhanced what was already a truly historic era in the club scene as we know it!
In 1996, a young lady called Louise dropped my name into the Ministry of Sound and recommended me as a percussionist. Within a few weeks I made my debut headlining with Alistair Whitehead and Brandon Block. 4000 University students at their annual union ball on the grounds of Luton Hoo Stately Home. An amazing experience made even more amazing when the decks cut out during Alistair’s set and the M.O.S tent fell to silence. With only two beats missed, I started to boom out some sounds on my drums building the silent tent into a dancing and cheering frenzy until the decks were working again and Alistair mixed in an awesome uplifting house track. ’Bongo Jay had saved the day’. The Ministry team were very impressed and I was asked to accompany them on many tour dates around the UK playing with DJ’s such as Jazzy M, Heaven, Falatio and Paul Jackson. The inspiration I got from playing alongside Jazzy M was incredible and I found myself playing in the ’BAR’ room @ the Ministry of Sound on Saturday nights. Just two congas, bongos and some sticks with no mic’s and the acoustics were amazing!
A truly great experience was my first gig outside of the UK playing in Turkey on behalf of the leading radio/television station Numero 1. The MOS team were flown out to Bodrum’ to perform at an outside club. We were located in a 5 star hotel where the best rooms were at the top of 50 flights of concrete steps to the top of the hotel grounds. And fortunately for the DJ’s we had guys at hand to carry the record boxes to and from the apartments! Anyway, the gig itself was headlined by Stevie P and Gareth Cooke joined by myself and three dancers. On arrival we were told that at midnight the three dancers were to make an entrance standing at the front of a 100ft boat, into the back of the club. That the music would be turned off, and that they would like the drummer to start an acoustic beat as the dancers made there way above the crowd to their podiums. Once they were in position they wanted the DJ to mix in the first record to the drums. On top of all this there was going to be television crews filming the event and broadcasting live across Turkey! The pressure was on, the atmosphere was electric. And when that first record came in with the drums the club, all 2500 people went crazy and it just got higher and higher for 5 hours.
The highlight of my time with the Ministry of Sound was working with CJ Macintosh. We were flown 1st Class to the Philippines. An old 2nd world war aircraft hanger was turned into a warehouse rave for one night. We arrived at midnight to 4000-5000 people and atmosphere was awesome. CJ was in control of three decks I had 7 drums set up on stage. MTV Asia had done a series of interviews with us all and were there filming for future broadcasting. I had never worked with CJ before and told him ’no matter what you do I will keep up’, he smiled and said ’we shall see’. We started our show and for the first 30 minutes CJ worked three turntables with mixes that were incredible. He lifted the crowd up and up and up sending my drumming into a wonderful vibration, with the help of the sound man who was spinning my drums off around the warehouse, until eventually CJ dropped the music at just the same time as I completed some wonderful drum beats. I raised my hands in the air, turned around with a beaming smile and he lent over and shook my hand..! A truly amazing moment in my career to date! Since that wonderful moment I have been working all over London and surrounding counties and as far as France and Spain, as demand for my act grew, I decided to take it up full time in 2001 and as each year passes I have added something special to many great nights within the Dance Music scene.
A full list of my BOOKING HISTORY, CV and PHOTOS can be requested by visiting
my website @ www.jay-on-drums.com