Jonathan Toubin / New York Night Train

Jonathan Toubin has become a popular touring DJ without playing any contemporary genre. And without playing the hits. He instead made his name relentlessly experimenting with new ways to spin original exquisite 1950s and 1960s rock and soul 45s in nightclubs, colleges, and festivals everywhere. His Soul Clap and Dance-Off isn’t only one of the 21st Century’s most notable wingdings, but also the world’s most popular and prolific soul party. And his Shakin’ All Over Under Sideways Down is the New York’s longest-running and most popular rock’n’roll dance.

The underdog DJ came from tentative beginnings to turn over 2000 nights globally - headlining hundreds of clubs and appearing at dozens of major music festivals on five continents. In 2007 Jonathan Toubin was a musician/small label owner/graduate student who started turning punk platters for kicks, drinks, and pocket change at the Lower East Side’s infamous Motor City Bar (R.I.P.). Within a year he was making a living doing nightly gigs around New York and throwing countercultural rock shows, multimedia happenings, and dance parties at Williamsburg art spaces. Within two years he was an international touring DJ. While he broke in at rock venues that had never before hosted dancing, and conversely was the odd man out at dance clubs and festivals alongside digital Top 40, electro, hip hop, and celebrity DJs, Jonathan Toubin never compromised his vision. He merely refined it.

His years of wandering into the unknown has led him artistically, commercially, and culturally where no rock, soul, or 45 DJ has gone before and, in the process, brought dancing to 1950s/1960s vinyl to a new young demographic. Accumulating scores of followers and imitators, he’s helped define and proliferate a new cultural role in hipstervilles everywhere, the 7-inch vinyl dance party DJ for emerging underground music scenes. He's also turned his weird wax at concerts by everyone from Jack White, Ty Segall, Black Keys, LCD Soundsystem, and MGMT to Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar, Killer Mike, MIA, and Rick Ross. His own New York Night Train parties have featured DJs from all over and live performances by The Black Lips, Charles Bradley, The Gories, King Khan and the BBQ/Shrines, Mac DeMarco, Nick Waterhouse, Thee Oh Sees, Reigning Sound, Sky Saxon, The Slits, Young Jessie, and many more. Essentially his job is offering a authentic raw passionate alternative to the usual sounds consumed at public events… And transcendence.

Of his many firsts, he’s the first DJ to have an entire night devoted to his own dance party at Lincoln Center and also the first DJ to have an entire official night at Austin’s South By Southwest (five out of the last six years), the first 45 DJ at Bonnaroo Festival (twice), the first 45 DJ at All Tomorrow’s Parties (five times), the first 45 DJ with mix tapes on Burger Records (two), and the first living DJ with compilations on the legendary Norton Records (four). And on December 7, 2011 in Portland, Oregon, he was the first DJ to get run over by a taxi in the privacy of his own hotel room bed. And soon became the first DJ to recover from that and pick up where he left off.

2015 saw the international release of four volumes of Norton’s “Souvenirs of the Soul Clap" LPs and over 150 Jonathan Toubin dance party and festival gigs everywhere from from Melbourne to Istanbul. Toubin was just named the city's "Best DJ" in the 60th Anniversary Village Voice "Best of NYC" awards. 2016 kicks off with two more "Souvenirs of the Soul Clap" LPs, a live recording at Third Man Records, and parties galore - including a residency at Los Angeles' historic 1000-capacity Regent Theater and a return to SXSW, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, End of the Road, and Bonnaroo.