Biography
There are multiple artists with the name 'Riverman'
1) Riverman is a 18 year old music producer from the United Kingdom. He makes electronic music with ambient, drum & bass, and acid techno influences. His debut EP, "Sound Colours" was released October 14th, 2012. Riverman's music can be found here: http://rivermanmusic.bandcamp.com/
2) At an early age, Jake "Riverman" started playing music with his parents, who are both musicians. He was a tenor sax player in the school band, and also played in several rock bands while in elementary school. Riverman started young, and he continued his interest by becoming a lover of industrial and hardcore punk music in high school. During this time he also focused more on painting and visual arts in addition to his lifetime passion, music.
During his teenage years, rave parties started popping up everywhere, and each weekend the crowds grew larger in Chitown. These parties seem to rise like a wave of energy that the people here had been waiting for all along. Ever since he learned about the Manchester scene around the early 90's, Jake had been waiting for raves to come to the USA. At that time, there had only been a few on the west coast, but the scene was huge in England. In 1992, Jake, 19, took advantage of this new opportunity, and threw one of Chicago's first massive rave inspired parties, called Monsterave. This event required more than one man, so Riverman was joined by a raving buddy, Cory Cryptonite, as well as a couple of other friends from high school. This event featured DJ Mark Farina, Miles Meada, Mistic Bill, and the original Chitown Junglist RP, Smack! Being quite the entrepreneur, Jake planned on packing the warehouse full of 1000+ party people, and got the space by saying they were shooting a rock video! From the 40,000 watt surround sound system and laser lights, to the 30' tall inflatable Godzilla, the party was set. Jake claims he couldn't have done it without the help from Mark Farina, for bringing his turntables, and Roger P. (Ripe Productions).
At this time, Jake decided to use his huge collection of vinyl from this movement by putting the letters "DJ" in front of his childhood nickname "Riverman," and the world has never been the same since. He started out by playing a few records at his legendary house parties in the south suburbs. From here he moved on to the chill-out rooms at the already full-running raves in the Chicagoland areas. Some of the best parties going on back then were being held by RIPE productions (one of the first promoters to bring out the UK jungle/dnb sound to Chicago), VIBE ALIVE (family style crew), and the DROP BASS NETWERK (hardcore crew), up in Milwaukee. There were many other promoters and styles of parties coming out, making it a scene of traveler/adventurers from all over the enitire Midwest. People from different states were driving out from all ends of the earth just to come to a Chicago rave. In these sick times of wicked parties, Jake was DJ to the chill-out room massive. However, everywhere between St. Louis and Wisconsin, he was always making time to jam on drums in drumcircles as well. Riverman was into dnb parties that were going on at the time and was buying up all the jungle and chillout tunes he could find.
Eventually Jake switched to a full time drum and bass jungle music fan. After hearing Mix Master Morris's set at the Atmospheric Audio Armchair chillout event, he soon decided that this was the sound he had been looking for all along. During these years, Jake had developed a strong relationship with African drumming. The jungle rhythms combined with the psychedelic sound drew this DJ deep into this style of electronic music. Spending every last dollar he had on fresh jungle tracks and dancing away at all the city's drum n' bass events was enough to keep this man on the turntables everyday for years and years, turning him into quite the hardcore DJ freak! Checking out the weekly new releases became an obsession; with limited use of the computer at first, he went down to the local record shops that stocked dnb for mad record investigation sessions instead. At Gramaphone Records, he listened to every single jungle bit that they had kept in the whole shop for many years. Like the mad professor of tracks, he was always seen in this shop for hours at a time.
For 2 years straight Riverman spun at a weekly radio show over at the infamous studio called, "The Lab," with Radio Hiro, from the Burning Man scene. From raves in Chitown, St. Louis, and Wisconsin, to desert parties out west in places like El Paso, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah; bookings started to emerge. Eventually Jake was playing every local dnb night, and even opened for the likes of DJ Micky Finn, Dextrous & MC SkibbaDee. Once Riverman even closed for Aphrodite! Riverman ended up spinning at many of Chicago's larger venues like Crobar, Zentra, and Vision. Bringing that 100% Drum 'n Bass flavor to the masses has been serious business to the mission of the "River." With seasonal appearances on Part Time Sucker Radio 89.3fm (Chicago), and with the occasional jaunts on www.bassdrive.com radio, this bad bwoy has been known to shake some speakers out there!
In 2003, Riverman had his first child, a beautiful baby boy named Alexandro River. Due to this wonderful addition, Jake had to take a break between 2002 and 2004, leaving behind buying new releases to take care of baby and family business for a little while. This period of time allowed the River a chance to look back and reflect on his old record collection. It was at this time that he found himself to be a true hardcore old skool jungle freak; getting down with the old hardcore sounds from '92 to '94 that seem to define the sounds of today's DnB. Riverman acquired many hard to find crates of records, and started working hard at being the old skool master. Now at age 33, Jake can drop a killer set from any given year, and without a doubt tears up some rare b-sides in the mix! He is always bringing a fresh style of mixing and some rare cuts to each and every set! The old skool will always have its place, but as the phrase goes, you just never know what is going to happen next when at the River's bend!
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