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As a second wave
Detroit techno musician with a long musical background, it's safe
to say that Jay Denham has been around the block a few times.
At
fifteen, he picked up his first instrument, a bass guitar. Jay said
he wanted to play electric guitar, but it had too many strings.
By the time he was seventeen he was playing in a rock band with
friends at high school parties. He developed a taste for punk and
what Americans refer to as "new wave", and then moved
on to the funk sounds of "Parliament", "Cameo",
"Zapp", and "The Time" as the Eighties had arrived.
In
1982 Jay's musical taste shifted to Chicago house music, when a
friend of his started bringing home "Chicago Hot Mix"
tapes from radio stations, wgci and bmx and hot mix radio shows
from his trips to Chicago. This opened his ears to the revolutionary
sounds of "Hotmix 5", "Farley Jackmaster Funk"
and the deep sounds of "Frankie Knuckles".
Immediately
blown away by this new sound, Jay started making expeditions to
the Windy City to find records and tape the local radio shows he
couldn't pick up in his home town of Kalamazoo. A chance meeting
in Chicago with early house producer Chip E and after hearing Chip
E's new record called "Time To Jack" implanted the idea
that he might actually try making this music himself.
The
next step for Jay came when he met up with DJ and producer Shake
aka Anthony Shakir, who started Frictional Records with Claude Young.
Shakir had a korg poly 800 keyboard, Jay had a Roland Tr909 drum
machine and it wasn't long before the two of them were making fierce
Detroit music. When Shakir got to know Derrick May, he would pass
some of Jay's demo tapes on to Derrick May. Mays' favorable reaction
to Jay's demo's led to Jay moving to Detroit to record for Derrick's
label Transmat\fragile records, and releasing his first record "Ritual's"
as Vice on the Techno 2 Next Generation album and then the classic
track "Insync" as Fade II Black on fragile records.
Frustrated
by Transmats' low output, and not being paid record royalties, Jay
started recording for Kevin Saundersons' KMS label and the Burden
Brothers' 430 West label, before returning to his home town Kalamazoo
in 1992, to get back to his roots and where it all begin for him.
Back
in Kalamazoo, Jay continued to quietly developed the sound he started
to develop in Detroit, while working with local producers and DJ's,
and amassing a stack of tracks, despite the fact that he had no
way to release them. Late in 1993, Jay took the plunge and started
his own label, Black Nation Records, beginning with the "Birth
of a Nation" EP (- also the title of an infamous early 20th
Century Ku Klux Klan propaganda movie - fan facts) which featured
tracks by himself and friends like Fanon Flowers, Tony Ollie, Brett
Dance and Chance McDermott. Labels philosophy was to produce "funky,
rhythmic, driving underground grooves for the funk conscious record
buyer"!
Moving
on to the Europe scene Jay developed his sound as a DJ and a producer.
His DJ-ing took him all across Europe, had him playing at most major
European events and then, around the world. Recording for "Disko
B Munich" and "Tresor Records Berlin" led to his
first album with Disko B Records Germany; "Escape To The Black
Plane"", followed by second album release "Synthesized
Society" with the hit track "Pride It's Time".
Jay
Denham's newest album project "The Truth" shows Jay's
diversity in music other then the "banging techno" he
is known for. This album has house, electro, and some funky techno.
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