DJ Matthew Kays

DJ Matthew Kays is a Colorado disc jockey who is a leader in the northern Colorado nightclub, concert, and special event scene.

Disc Jockey (deejay, Disk Jockey)
: one who plays recorded music for dancing at a nightclub or party
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

DJ Matthew Kays incites any crowd to dance regardless of their age group or preference of musical style. Matthew always flavors his sets with genre-bending delights yet sticks to the right format and sound for the moment. It is DJ Matthew Kays’ mission to share the love and connection that dance music is built on while bringing together musical styles that coexist but don’t often mix.

DJ Matthew Kays is currently booking for winter ski-town gigs, nightclubs, concerts, festivals, and raves.

Its Wednesday…find DJ Matthew Kays banging out a high energy mix of the latest top 40, hip hop, 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s at a college bar. Thursday evening he has the arena engaged as tens of thousands of fans ready themselves for the main event. On Friday, enter the downtown club with the dance floor packed, sweat dripping from the walls, and Matthew is working the crowd up to a hands-in-the-air frenzy with pulsating electro, dirty house, breakbeat, fidget, and tribal rhythms. Saturday evening, find him at a private event mixing up funk, soul, disco, hip hop, 80’s, 90’s and current music as young and old make special memories as they sing along and dance together. Later that night at the afterhours party, DJ Matthew Kays keeps the party energized until sunrise with driving progressive grooves, chunky tech house, and womp-womping dubstep. Sunday, he winds down the weekend party animals on the patio with body and soul refreshing deep house and downtempo grooves.

In his youth, DJ Matthew Kays made mixtapes in his bedroom and he DJ’ed at house parties in college at Indiana University. A move to Colorado in 1996 landed him a spot as an on-air DJ at KBUT-FM in Crested Butte that lasted for two years. Then he moved to Denver and went to his first rave party at the City Auditorium in Colorado Springs.

Attending that one event set DJ Matthew Kays on a career path that has continued for over a decade. During the following years, Matthew quickly gained experience with a short gig at KUVO-FM, a job at an underground record shop that only sold DJ 12” records, and was a featured performer at countless nightclubs such as the award winning Soma and underground events in Boulder, Denver, and beyond.

In 2000, Matthew was hired to create a DJ department for a chain of independent record stores, Finest Music and Movies, where he led an operation that spanned three cities and serviced the local hip hop and dance music DJ’s for the next seven years with DJ equipment and music. He also led a team of music buyers and was himself responsible for keeping the stores stocked with the latest DJ gear as well as mixtapes and compilations from the most influential dance music DJ’s and record labels of the time. That job also led Matthew to move to Fort Collins, CO where he resides today.

During the 2000’s, DJ Matthew Kays not only managed to excel at his day job at the record stores, but he held down a mixshow for over two years on KRFC-FM that featured groovy house music and was also a featured guest mixer on KCSU-FM numerous times as well. Through these years, Matthew promoted dance music events in Fort Collins, where he performed with international DJ talent such as Miles Maeda, DJ Funk, Frankie Vega, Jake Childs, and Beatport co-founder Tom Hoch. Matthew also found himself performing with such acts as Grammy Award winners Dirty Vegas, Buckethead, Kan’nal, Signal Path, Eyedea and Abilities, Angel Alanis, Superstar DJ Keoki, Amon Tobin, and many other talented DJ’s and musicians. Going on tour and performing at festivals and concerts became the norm for DJ Matthew Kays during the 2000’s.

DJ Matthew Kays currently holds the longest continuously running house and electronic dance music night in Fort Collins at The Vault, which has been going for 7 years strong.

Recent appearances include performing to over 16,000 at the Warrior Dash in Copper Mountain, CO; the Regal Watering Hole in Aspen, CO with collaborator (and 2010 Westword Magazine’s #1 Dance DJ) Brian Howe; the Zebra Cocktail Lounge in Bozeman, MT; and the Mesa Theatre in Grand Junction, CO.

Always in motion, DJ Matthew Kays is stepping into the Video DJ world in winter 2010/2011, and is currently working on studio production. Matthew also does voice over and audio/video production work for radio, film, and television.

After years of developing his skill of feeding energy to and getting energy fed back to him from the crowd, and racking up the miles, DJ Matthew Kays has finally become the man to call to make them all dance.

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