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I am a southern French born artist from an art and photography family, I have stuck to my dreams and have elctronically entertained since 1982 as a DJ, and since 1990 as a musician/artist/inventor. I have kept a balanced artistic presence in mainsteam and undergound entertainment scenes and have grown to be known as the "Master of live electronic". I'm media shy by nature, but improving. I've managed to create a solid foundation for my work and and gained a strong reputation via numerous 12" singles and CD album releases, and my ever evolving advanced multimedia techno live show.
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I didn't have much money to buy gear when I started making music, I was pretty poor and didn't finish high school. My "real" job was DJing in top 40 clubs and the pay was low but I'd been tinkering with home recording since I was ten or so with whatever junk gear I could find, and I was pretty handy with a soldering iron, thanks to a radio shack childhood, so I had a basic idea of what kind gear I needed to write all this weird music in my head. I learned how a synthesiser worked by hanging out at the local music store of wherever I lived, and by reading all the gear magazines I could find with reviews and tutorials. I bought a used 808, a korg delta and a couple mono cassette decks in 1984. I used the 808 right away for adding drums in my DJ sets and I figured out my own bouncing technique for recording with the two tape decks. It was ugly and really noisy, but it worked, and it's all I could afford for the first few years anyway... But it didn't stop me. |
I bought my first multitrack in 1986 and built my first basement production studio in my bedroom closet. In those first few years my production abilities evolved to include tape edit re-mixes of existing pop music with my own added arrangements and my first commercially playable demo recordings. My DJ experience heped me identify sound combinations that woked on the dance floor and on studio monitors. I continued to work as much as I could as a DJ to finance my career development with new equipement and experimentation and expanded to a midi synched eight track recorder based studio by 1988.
Around that time I had also started to break into the local recording studio circle and landed a job as tape operator for the only studio around with a computerised mixing console, an SSL E series with one of the first computer automation systems, then called a "G" computer. I earned my production chops by trading work for late night hours in the main room. It was there, in late 1989,that I penned & recorded my first local independent single "If I run", sung by Thomas Alexander.
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By 1990 The studio process made complete sense to me. It was also my first recording experiments with an R&B singer, Thomas Alexander, who had a remarkable voice. I was all over the map back then, looking for myself. I was performing background vocals in An R&B band, singing and co-producing in a rap band and recording my first demo album, which mostly contained material that I sang in local nightclubs. I put out an independent pop reggea record featuring Thomas which charted locally. I had my nose everywhere It's around that time that I also started to dream up what was to become my current live "rig". But I needed to get to a bigger city with better resources and a more receptive dance music audience. |
In 1992 I arrived in Vancouver. That year I also released my first sample track, a sample based techno bootleg of "God save the queen" by the sex pistols. It was released on a US Vinyl label called Masterbeats. I built 2 successive recording studios and recorded & produced a series of local acts. In 1994 I released my first solo album, "Rituals:1.0", and the ground breaking album Realms 1.0 under the name Grand Theft Audio. I was the first artist to use the now famous "headphone" logo seen on so many DJ products and records. The whole GTA project was so well put together that the "band", which was entirely made up by me, had a local cult following, rumors and even a 4 page color interview in the US nation wide publication Axess, supposeddly done via fax from Japan. Although my releases did very well, the label I was signed on went under in 1995. So I moved on and created my own label, the notorious VU records, with Jay Sinclair, my best friend. The head office of the label was located in a dressing room of Mars nightclub, which we traded for maintenance of the club's sound system.
| I wanted to make DJ records, so it made sense to build a studio in a nightclub. It was a good relationship. Mars had all this high end esoteric sound gear like servo driven bass speakers that only I knew how to fix and operate. Jay and I completely re-wired the whole sound system to suit electronic music and we "mixed" the levels and overall sound of just about every DJ and act that came through there in the 90s. I mixed everyone from Ritchie Hawtin to Speedy J in that club. Mars was rated as the best sounding sound system in the city for years. In exchange for that kind of performance I got to do whatever I wanted in there. |
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From 1996 to 1998 I released a series of Club oriented DJ dance records which were licenced in 14 countries, and where remixed by the likes of John Debo, DJ Icey, John cage & Chris Sheppard. I then toured across Canada to record the well received and once again innovative "live non stop" 1999 CD release. This was the first album to present a series of live electronic concerts in a DJ beatmixed compilation style. During this period I also designed and built my own synthesizer circuits, DJ effects systems and mixer modifications to complement my live shows. I spearheaded support for North America's First and longuest running live electronic club night during the 90s, "Ginger" at Mars, by providing full technical support, consulting, and performances. I am an original character/player in the development of the original Vancouver live electronic scene.
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I've been supporting the live electronic thing in BC since 92. Mostly by being a behaved member of the scene and by teaching others when I can. There's a few artists that owe their first DJ & MIDI steps to me, and it made me feel good to help them out... And It's important to always put something back in the loop. I've also done special presentations and seminars about live computer music for academia. I also tought music production in school for a year. That's fun too. |
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From 1998 to 2000 I concentrated on developing my live show and tackled a whole new aspect of my career. Audio/video live performance. By expanding my computer system and co-designing innovative video software with good friend & VU Crew member DJ Midnight (who codes the programs), I created a 40 foot wide multi screen computer based & midi controlled video system for my live electronic performances at raves and electronic music concerts that mesmerized audiences everywhere, and quickly gained notoriety. The software specially created for this show was, and still is, nothing less than a revolutionary computer video sampler called Midivid. The music videos on this site where performed and recorded in realtime using this midi triggered video sample technology.
Midivid has been available as freeware since May 7th 2000 as a gift to the electronic culture community, and is used by MIDI visual artists around the world. The new version MidividGPU is hardware accelerated and the beta is available at www.jasondorie.com.
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So what do I do? I keep moving forward. I started with nothing but ideas, now I'm involved in making hardware, software, and records. Innovate or die... Believe it. |
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In 2003 I landed a cool gig in the legendary after hours nightclub "The
world", now called "816".
I currently have a Sunday night weekly 11pm to 6am , and Thursday bi-weekly
12am to 6 am residency where I play club trance, and VU crew member Jess
creates the live visuals. I also maintain and continoulsy improve the
sound/lighting/visual technology in the club. In 2005 I partnered with
the club owners into a production company called "816
Productions", with goals to specialize in 19+ one off electronic
dance events. I keep working on my live show, and am now at the point
of adding midi controlled laser imaging.