About DJ Bolivia, aka. Jonathan "Scooter" Clark                        

DJ Bolivia is Jonathan "Scooter" Clark, an Atlantic Canadian DJ and music producer who owns and operates a small recording studio in Sackville, New Brunswick. Jonathan is a classically trained pianist, who also plays the guitar and a few other instruments. Thanks to a career as a nightclub manager for a number of years, Jonathan also became skilled as a DJ. His primary focus when playing internationally is house/trance/techno, especially progressive and tribal house, but he also frequently plays mainstream/top40 sets at venues closer to home. Why turn down a booking at a fun event just because it's not your main style?

Over the years, Jonathan has had a fairly eventful life. In terms of education, he started university working on a degree in math, computer science and engineering. Eventually, he changed focus and finished a Bachelor of Commerce degree, then moved on to finish an MBA. Subsequent to that, while working at Mount Allison University, he continued to take courses and is now just a couple courses away from completing both his Bachelor of Science degree and a Bachelor of Arts, specializing in Spanish and History. Never one for sleep, Jonathan opened a new restaurant from scratch in 2002 and took care of that as the owner/operator (and as one of the cooks) for about eight years, while simultaneously working on his MBA and working full-time at the club. And on top of all that, Jonathan has worked seasonally (every summer) in Canada's reforestation industry for a number of years. Thanks to another of his websites, Replant.ca (which has some great photo galleries), Jonathan has the dubious claim of being Canada's most well-known tree planter. He's a bit of an environmental hippie, and manages about five hundred acres of his own property in eastern Canada as mixed woodlands.

In the summer of 2009, Jonathan decided to shift gears and make some major lifestyle changes. A few months later, he enrolled at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, and is currently working through a pair of Masters programs in Music Theory and Production, in the belief that you can never have too much education. In January of 2010, he sold his restaurant, and a few months after that, he retired from the nightclub management job (although he'll keep working seasonally in the reforestation industry for the indefinite future).

Jonathan's core program of studies at Berklee will wrap up in mid-2012. At that point, his goal is to start working on electronic music production professionally, and to operate the recording studio as a secondary focus. When asked about the future, he'll say, "Everything up to this point has been a hobby, just practice and learning. Once I finish my studies at Berklee and get some more confidence in my own production work, then I can start to work seriously on a career in the electronic music industry."

When it comes to DJ'ing, Jonathan likes to be flexible (as noted above). Although his preference would be to stick to progressive house, that just isn't possible for someone with such a broad background in music. The focus of the DJ Bolivia website is mostly on that type of electronica (house music, with trance and techno influences). Bolivia also has a weekly radio show, Subterranean Homesick Grooves, which is broadcast on terrestrial radio in Atlantic Canada, and is also podcast both through its own website and through iTunes. For the radio show, most episodes are focused primarily on progressive house (with the occasional mainstream/top40 mix or guest mix). But variety is the spice of life, so you'll notice that occasionally that he'll play shows that focus entirely on drum & bass, or hip hop, or classic rock. He'll even do wedding bookings. Incidentally, Jonathan also produces some conventional indie/folk/rock music, both under his own name and under the Creature Of The Marsh moniker. Don't bother trying to google it, since there isn't anything substantial online right now, but there is going to be an album released under that name in early 2012.

When it comes to marketing himself as a DJ, his ultimate goal is to pay more attention to a career as a producer, so DJ'ing becomes just one part of the overall picture. When it comes to the internet, content is king, so you'll see a greater focus on combined video & audio projects in the future, and eventually on optimizing his content for mobile devices. Currently, you'll find DJ Bolivia on MySpace and Twitter, but he doesn't see those as key marketing platforms, so you'll find minimal content there. On the other hand, Facebook has built a huge fan base for him, his YouTube Channel is moderately strong and will be a key area of focus in 2011, and SoundCloud is an established platform which he is going to start taking advantage of with a new account in January of 2011. SoundCloud & YouTube will become increasingly important as he starts releasing more original tracks and remixes throughout 2011.

As a DJ, Jonathan has been asked to play alongside artists such as Danny Howells, Nic Fanciulli, and DJ Dan. He's been privileged to have worked on media/video projects with artists like Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden (formerly of Gabriel & Dresden), DJ Heavygrinder, and Colette (some of these projects are still in the pipeline). And in terms of influences, above and beyond the aforementioned names, he's been heavily influenced by a variety of house, trance, and techno DJ's/producers, such as Max Graham, Armin van Buuren, Sasha, John Digweed, Hernan Cattaneo, Carl Cox, Richie Hawtin, Danny Teneglia, Ferry Corsten, Mark Farina, Solarstone, Junkie XL, Serge Devant, Morgan Page, Dave Aude, Noel Sanger, & Sultan, as well as Atlantic Canadian favorites such as Sean Keating, Jay Vasseur, Jay Hamilton, Sonny D, Logan Hudak, Donovan Morgan, and David Anthony. In terms of traditional /rock artists, Bolivia has been influenced mostly by the likes of conventional rockers such as Neil Young, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Dire Straits, Phish, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, James Taylor, and Pink Floyd. But especially the first five of the classic rock artists.

DJ Bolivia obviously leads a pretty hectic lifestyle. But if you have questions, comments, or suggestions about the website, send him an email at djbolivia@gmail.com. He actually does try to reply to every legible email that he receives! There's no point building a career in music if you don't appreciate the support of your fans. Also, if you're interested in inquiring about booking DJ Bolivia to play a show, contact that same email address. Although he is not actively seeking gigs in the first half of 2011, he would certainly be willing to consider shows up until mid-April. Unfortunately, anything from late-April until October 1st is out of the question because of his commitment to his reforestation job.

Here's a short biography video about DJ Bolivia:

Some Random Photos

So that's where things stand as of the start of 2011. To wrap things up, here are several older photos, covering some of the early parties that DJ Bolivia played at, and showing some of the industry contacts that he started to make during that period. Not all of these are DJ's or producers that he has worked with directly, they're just assorted photos from the years when he was getting established as a DJ in Atlantic Canada. Some of these are from before the days of digital photography, so the quality/resolution is not great.