Jon Gooch started playing around with music when his friend introduced him to drum and bass in 2005 and found he was rather fond of it. From there Jon started experimenting with music software to create his own mixes and tracks, and along with friend Codex were known to skip-off school to continue to work on the music, eventually producing under the moniker ‘Final Reckoning’. Early influences in Jon’s music can be seen in artists such as Hive and Bad Company, and this stage can be seen as a huge progress in Jon’s musical development.
Then came Spor, a name derived from a combination of digital folders of samples he had acquired, along with a piece of artwork created by a friend, is a hard-edged, heavy hitting drum and bass outlet. Spor released a whole handful of tracks, remixes and collections, the result of which has been international acclaim and along with friend Chris Renegade went on to launch ‘Lifted Music,’ a drum and bass record label with a propensity for the avant-garde.
Whilst still continuing under the name ‘Spor' Jon Gooch has in very little time made a big impact under his ‘Feed Me’ pseudonym. Having been signed to Deadmau5’s ‘Mau5trap’ label in 2008 Feed Me has released a whole-host of tracks and albums, from 2008’s split single “The Spell”/“Raw Chicken”, to his first full-length LP “Feed Me’s Big Adventure” in 2010, to his follow up LP “Calamari Tuesday”. On top of this Jon’s relevant choice of remixes including Chase & Status’ “Let You Go”, Gorillaz’s “On Melancholy Hill” and Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” has ensured a high public profile for Feed Me and a consistent tour schedule.
We were lucky enough to have Feed Me announced as a headliner for Synergy Live festival in South Africa this past November. Having just finished uni exams, our group was eager for a party. My brother and I had seen Feed Me already at Electric Daisy Carnival that past July, so we already knew to expect a pretty good set... Well. His performance at Synergy topped that of EDC so hard, and we couldn't think of any explanation for this other than that Johnathan Gooch must bloody love Cape Town, haha. I feel like a lot of the times EDM DJ's perform, they play a mix of other artists' tracks but mix them in their specific style - however, they neglect to drop a lot of their classic tunes that people really love and expect to hear when seeing that DJ live. Dropping the crowd pleasers is especially important in a new country where not everyone may be familiar with your music, and Feed Me did just that in his Synergy set. Through Green Bottle, Josie, Love Is All I Got (which obviousy got everyone all emotional) and the absolute belter Grand Theft Ecstasy, everyone literally danced like rabid gorillas - even those who had never heard his music in their life. A top, top set and testimony to the fact that sometimes smaller festivals can be a better environment to really get into the energy of a set.