THE MAN BEHIND THE TURNTABLE
Meet
Goyo.
Record collector. Musician. DJ.
Perpetual student of the groove.
Twenty-plus years of Bay Area dance floors, built on a record collection that never stopped growing.
HOW IT STARTED
It started with somebody else's records.
Goyo grew up in San Jose in a house where music was always on—his parents' records, his older cousins' tapes, whatever the radio was playing on the drive to school. He started buying his own records before he had anywhere to play them.
A job at a record store turned a habit into an education. Eight hours a day surrounded by people who knew more than he did, filing records into sections he had never heard of, taking home whatever he could afford at the end of the week.
He played bass in bands before he ever played a party.
That matters more than it sounds. Playing in a band teaches you what a room feels like from the stage—when to hold back, when to push, how long a groove can run before it needs to change. He brought that instinct to the turntables and never let go of it.
A LIFETIME IN MUSIC
The collection is the résumé.
Thousands of records, gathered from shops, estate sales, flea markets and other DJs' castoffs across four decades and several countries. Soul, funk and jazz at the center of it; Latin, disco, rock, boogie, Afrobeat and plenty that resists a category around the edges.
Those records aren't decoration. He plays them.
How he actually works a room.
01
He reads first
No two crowds want the same thing. The first half hour is listening to the room, not performing at it.
02
No canned sets
Vinyl when the moment calls for it, digital when it needs to be exact. The plan bends to the night.
03
Musicians welcome
Bass, percussion or guitar playing live over the records—something few DJs can offer.
STILL A MUSICIAN
He never stopped playing.
The bass never went in a closet. Goyo still plays, still sits in with other musicians, and still books them for events—which is why a live player over a DJ set sounds like a band rather than a novelty.
Explore live musicIN A CLIENT'S WORDS
"He read the room all night. People are still talking about the music."
★★★★★
FROM HIS CRATES TO YOURS
Buy records
from Goyo.
A collection that size means duplicates, and duplicates go up for sale. If you want your own copy of the record that filled the floor, it is probably in the shop.
Buy records on Discogs
