DJ John Thomas

I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 I first began listening to experimental electronica in middle school. Groups like Dead Can Dance, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Kraftwerk all became part of my pre DJ electronic rotation. I loved the music, but was also very into the jam band mentality and listened to the Dead, Jimi, Santana, Phish. I also grew up listening to Jazz and Soul blues fusion. These random genres were afloat and still are today in my mind, but when I saw the video of "setting sun" by the chemical brothers on mtv, my high school mind knew something amazing was in this music that was never on the radio. I started immersing myself into anything experimental and electronic. Older friends would take me and sneak me into clubs where I began to hear names like Frankie Knuckles, Junior Vasquez, Frankie Bones, Mark Farina, Crystal Method, Death in Vegas, Future Sound of London, etc. I began soul searching, and found a bit of myself in the trip-hop arena, with portishead and hooverphonic. The music blew me away and touched my soul like nothing I had heard before. Something about it made me feel so alive. My first few mixed cds were from JV, MF, and the Swedish Egil. I introduced the music to anyone who would hear and soon had a few close conglomerates stuck on it, like my best friend DJ Zane M. Then during a speech class a friend presented a speech on turntablism and used me as his guinea pig. I bothered him for three months after to go play on his turntables, and soon surpassed his knowledge, and begin doing parties quickly. I had a blast, loved the music, and found it was a way to help a stranded generation feel at home. It was a community. A community of diverse souls that simply wanted to dance and listen to good music. I took a four year break and completed my BA and MA then came back to the CDJ generation. This allowed my music much more diversity and also much more experimentation. I fell in love with the thought of DJing once again and set out to begin playing all around Chicago, with another close DJ friend, Joe Ruggiero. The rest is simply history....