My Music
Already at the tender age of 4 years I harbored a keen interest in musical instruments.
Each time when I visited my grandparents, I took the the opportunity to get my hands on
the Bontempi organ of my grandfather. He was it who supported and encouraged me to
take keyboard lessons at the age of 14. He also bought me a keyboard, which was state of
the art back then: a YAMAHA PSR-SQ16. So it was possible to arrange my very own early
creations with the built in sequencer. Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away in
December 2006 and he will never experience my "breakthrough". This is why I will never
give up this goal and continue to work properly on reaching it.
At the age of 16, I joined a band as their keyboard player ("HTTB://") and gained my first
real experience as a musician on stage. Two years later I began writing my own songs and
texts. Around this time I also began to sing. With 19 I broke up with the band. Until
present day, I have composed over 100 songs and recorded most of them as demos. The
songs range from 80’s Pop, Rock, Rap to Dance and other styles. My spectrum of styles is
extensive. Most of all I personally like romantic ballads and similar.
First highlights of my musical work were my appearance at the AZ-Fun Festival 1998 at
the Karlsruhe Festplatz in front of more than 2,500 spectators, the subsequent invitation
to SkyRadio on the Baden Airpark terrain, my invitation to Radio Big FM in 2000 and other
stations during the years. At the AZ-Fun Festival I called myself Joe Castello. That was the
last time that I went by the name of Joe Castello. Then I called myself Marc JAY until
around 2003.
In between, I taught myself to strum guitar and to play some drums. The “drum thing”
does not work properly during live performances, because I lack the "rhythmic
perseverance" for an entire song. So I only do this for some recordings in my home studio.
I also play a bit Bassguitar, Ukulele and Saxophone. I see myself as a
multiinstrumentalist. Musical instruments are fascinating!
After I was represented as singer in the Karlsruhe Karaoke scene, in which I also hosted
occasional competitions, I joined various Showgroups ("Happy Voice Show", "Every Sing")
at the end of 2003. There I performed sections of GREASE, BLUES BROTHERS, TOM JONES
and several other classics. I also hosted some of the events.
More and more different people came to me and asked me to compose and record a song
for them. Some of them used me shamelessly and others became good friends.
Unfortunately, one guy drove it so far to go to a public talent show on TV and used one of
my titles in his name. Since then I have become more cautious.
Everything went okay, but I missed the time with the band. The music from CD got on my
nerves and I looked around for an opportunity, which I got in 2005 and joined the band
"KARLSGROOVE". But somehow they did not really treat me as a real member. In 2006 I
became aware of another group and so I switched to the Coverband "SISTERS -The Band".
There I sang about three years until I we parted in 2009.
With the Dance Company "DANCE CHARISMA" (from Pirmasens) in their new division in
Karlsruhe, I was integrated for almost one year as a musical performer. Since September
2010 the divison in Karlsruhe goes by the name STAGE CHARISMA. I composed and
recorded the homonymous song for them. They present medleys and higlights from
musicals such as GREASE, MAMMA MIA!, DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES or PHANTOM OF THE
OPERA. We premiered in June 2010. It was an excellent show, which was well received by
the audience and the local press.
In November 2012, I was represented as one of the 8 finalists from Germany, Austria and
Switzerland at the 3rd BOSS Loopstation World Championship (LSWC) in Frankfurt.
Unfortunately, I only made it to the last place. But considering the fact that I just had
bought the RC-300 Loopstation only 2 months earlier, and was selected as a finalist even
though, it was pretty cool. Moreover, it has made lots of fun and I got great people to
meet.
Currently I am rather increased going solo and work alongside the job on my music.
Sometimes I like it to join attractive music projects as a guest singer.
And there is also the very talented Songwriter Avi Rosenfeld from Israel, who produced
three of his Albums with me singing his Classic-Rock songs.
My tracks are produced with Cubase and FL Studio. The whole production from writing
over production (even music videos) and publishing is done by myself. But I reach out to
work with a matchable producerteam / management to get more professional.
I still want to get heard and going to make it someday, so that I can finally live from the
music and my other arts only.
Check out my songs and music videos! Maybe you’ll like them.