Matt Harder

MATT HARDER

Matt Harder Style: Funky/Progressive Breaks / Location: Columbus Ohio Growing up in a small town, Matt Harder begin his life unfamiliar with the realm of electronic music. So, he began his musical career in the form of percussion with the emo-rock group Agent Ink. He remained committed to this band for five years, and then he released his ties with the group. This happened around the same time he was introduced to the world of electronica. Knowing that this was the direction that suited his personality, he bought his first set of turntables so he could play the only records he had access to, such as Genesis, Prince, Journey, and Matt’s personal favorite Men Without Hats. After quickly realizing more records were needed, he began purchasing house and breaks. Breaks shortly became the main genre of focus, and Matt recorded countless mix tapes so he could critic himself before entering the public domain. After getting his first public appearance in a small (and I mean small) pizza shack, listeners started realizing that Matt meant business. After a year of scattered shows and events, Johnny Grubb and Matt Harder began organizing their first weekly event at Black Cat in Boone, NC, where they would be the resident deejays. Organic Productions helped with the funding of this weekly, and acted as the main source of promotion. During this time period, Matt entered a hand full of deejay competitions where he won the Grand Prize for “Best All-Around Deejay” at Mike & Willy’s Annual Deejay Battle, and first runner up for “Best Crowd Response” at Rafter’s First Annual Deejay Battle, and most recently received 3rd place for Columbus, OH's dnb/breaks battle. After close to two years of huge success at Black Cat, the weekly was shut down due to speculation of drug activity. Shortly there after, Matt’s performance were concentrated mainly in the Charlotte, Asheville, and Johnson City areas of NC and TN. This is when Matt Harder’s name began to fly. He was quickly noticed by Digital Magic’s founder Vinyl Villain and asked to come board the Digital Magic Crew. He began performing at events with international headliners, where Matt would find them trainspotting his record selections over his shoulder. This is when he realized that a deejay is only a deejay unless he is spinning his own records. So, he began shopping around for used keyboards, and soft-synths for production use, and with his background of percussion and song writing, producing beats and sounds came naturally for Matt. He has completed numerous tracks and a selection of those songs will be released. Matt is currently located in Columbus, OH where he spends most of his days locked up in his home studio creating new synth lines and beats for his next release. Matt Harder’s Top 5 Records of All-Time 1. Big Up The Noise - Soul of Man 2. The Freaks - Uberzone 3. Oblong - Bushwacka! 4. Radiate - Brother Grim 5. Scram - Plump DJ’s 6. Stomp To My Beat - JS-16 *clearly this is number 6 but this track should not be left out of any top 5.* Upcoming Events *Keep an eye out for a new weekly starting up in Columbus, OH

too many to list

(2) MK2 techs; stanton sk-2f battle mixer; (2) alesis mk2 studio monitors; miditech midi controler; roland d2; korg ea-1; reason software