Jon Dasilva
With a career spanning over 30 years, that began in what many consider to be the most important and influential club of its generation, Fac 51 The Haçienda, and continues with his residency for the award winning I Love Acid club night, few of today’s DJs can boast a pedigree like Jon Dasilva.
Considered to be Haçienda’s most singular resident DJ, Jon Dasilva was fresh to the scene in ’87, finding DJ inspiration in the House and Disco DJs of deepest New York and Chicago, amidst a sea of influences, from Bowie to Dub Reggae to Kosmische Musik to Disco. His broad musical tastes and ability to work so many genres into proper dance floor action mark Dasilva out as a next level DJ.
Jon regularly used to warm-up sets at the Haçienda, this was Dasilva’s first experience of playing in such a major club, and realising the potential to have fun in the first hour or more of the night, he went about mixing up Dub Reggae, Latin, Disco and Post Punk oddities, interspersed with BBC sound effects. Word spread and soon these mixes would become the inspiration for another set of DJs, who later went on to form the backbone of the soon-to-emerge Balearic DJ scene, as well as artists like the The Chemical Brothers, The New Fast Automatic Daffodils, Matthew Herbert, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and many more.
Jon still retains a freshness of approach, and this can be heard in his recent DJ mixes. His penchant for the varied shades of acid, techno and house, as well as his keen nose for sniffing out the most interesting modern producers, are evident.