Eric San Biography Quotes 21 Report mistakes

Early Life and Background
Eric San, widely known by his stage name Kid Koala, is a Canadian turntablist, composer, and visual storyteller whose career bridges music, comics, theater, and interactive art. He grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he began experimenting with records and tape decks as a teenager, developing a tactile, playful approach to sound that would become his signature. Drawn to both drawing and music from an early age, he nurtured a parallel interest in illustration that later intertwined with his recordings and live work.

As a young adult, San moved to Montreal for university and found a creative home in the city's independent music scene. On campus radio and at small shows, his cut-and-paste collages, deft scratching, and humorous interludes stood out, and he began handing out a homemade cassette mixtape that circulated widely among DJs and record buyers.

Beginnings in Music and Visual Art
That cassette, the offbeat and virtuosic Scratchcratchratchatch, became a calling card. Copies reached the London-based label Ninja Tune, founded by the duo Coldcut (Matt Black and Jonathan More), who invited San to join the roster. The relationship with Ninja Tune launched him onto an international stage while preserving the idiosyncratic, hand-built character of his work.

From the outset, San's art and music traveled together. He designed sleeves, flyers, and comics to accompany releases and cultivated a style that blended the warmth of analog gear with the feel of a sketchbook. The combination helped define his presence in Montreal's arts community, where he intersected with musicians, dancers, puppeteers, filmmakers, and game designers.

Recordings and Label Affiliations
San's debut album for Ninja Tune, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, introduced a wider audience to his turntable techniques and storytelling sensibility. It was followed by releases such as Some of My Best Friends Are DJs and Your Mom's Favorite DJ, each extending his collage methods into miniature narratives and cinematic vignettes. Later, 12 bit Blues paid homage to early sampling and drum machines; its deluxe edition even invited listeners into the process with a build-it-yourself cardboard turntable and flexi-discs, a characteristic blend of whimsy and craft.

Through these albums, San remained closely associated with Ninja Tune's experimental ethos and a community of peers who valued risk-taking and sound design. He toured internationally, refining a performance language that was as much theater as DJ set, often inviting audiences into games, singalongs, and hands-on listening experiences.

Collaborations and Bands
Collaboration has been central to San's career. He became a core member of Deltron 3030, the visionary hip-hop collective alongside producer Dan the Automator (Dan Nakamura) and rapper Del the Funky Homosapien. In that group's dystopian-futurist soundworld, San's turntables acted like additional characters, providing texture, melody, and comic relief. The three artists built a bond that extended over multiple recording and touring cycles, and their chemistry drew a multigenerational audience into left-field hip-hop.

San also worked closely with the Montreal band Bullfrog, melding funk instrumentation with turntable performance, and later co-founded The Slew with DJ Dynomite D. When The Slew took to the stage, they were joined by Chris Ross and Myles Heskett, the powerhouse rhythm section known for their earlier work in Wolfmother. The live format allowed San to push into a heavier, rock-inflected set, with his scratches woven into the thrum of bass and drums.

Books, Stage Works, and Multimedia
San's visual storytelling runs through his books and live productions. He authored the graphic novel Nufonia Must Fall, about a romantically inclined robot, and later adapted it into a touring stage show directed by production designer K. K. Barrett. The production featured miniature sets, live puppetry, and real-time camera work, with San himself performing a score on turntables alongside a small ensemble. Barrett's cinematic eye and San's gentle humor turned the piece into a wordless, universal narrative, and it toured widely to festivals and performing arts venues.

His subsequent book, Space Cadet, became the basis for a headphone concert in which audiences reclined in lounge chairs and listened in intimate, low-volume detail while San performed and mixed the score. The experience, quiet, communal, and contemplative, was emblematic of his preference for inviting audiences into a shared creative space rather than commanding attention with volume alone.

Film, Games, and Commissions
San's crossover instincts led him into film, television, and game projects where sound design and beatcraft meet story. He composed and produced the music for Floor Kids, a breakdance-themed video game created with the animator and director JonJon (Jonathan Ng). The project fused b-boy culture, hand-drawn animation, and responsive music into a title that resonated with players and dancers alike, and San toured with a live version that showcased the soundtrack's rhythmic intricacy.

Beyond games, he contributed music and turntable work to commissions and screen projects, always favoring approaches that leave room for improvisation and the grain of physical sound. His discography also includes the Music To Draw To series, albums and event formats designed for deep work and reflection, featuring collaborators such as Emiliana Torrini on Satellite and Trixie Whitley on Io. Those partnerships highlighted San's gift for creating space around vocalists, trading flash for atmosphere and intimacy.

Live Performance and Community Projects
Onstage, San is known for shows that break the fourth wall. The Short Attention Span Theatre tours stitched together sketches, scratching, and audience games; Vinyl Vaudeville framed DJ culture as a variety show with puppets and dancers; and the Satellite Turntable Orchestra positioned dozens of turntables in the audience, transforming listeners into performers as he conducted loops and textures from the floor. These participatory formats, nurtured in Montreal's open-armed arts community, reflect his belief that music is a social craft.

San's recurring Music To Draw To gatherings likewise emphasize process and inclusion. Listeners bring sketchbooks, knitting needles, or laptops and settle into a slow-blooming set designed for focus rather than spectacle. Over the years he has cultivated a network of collaborators across disciplines, designers, puppeteers, dancers, engineers, who help realize the tactile worlds he imagines. Among the many creative partners who shaped those worlds are Dan the Automator and Del the Funky Homosapien in hip-hop; K. K. Barrett in theater; Dynomite D, Chris Ross, and Myles Heskett in rock; Emiliana Torrini and Trixie Whitley in vocal-driven ambient work; and JonJon in animation and games.

Style, Method, and Influence
San's technique blends virtuosic turntablism with a songwriter's sense of narrative. He favors the feel of physical media, worn records, needle noise, the push and pull of manual tempo, over strict digital precision, and his compositions often unfold like short films. Humor and tenderness thread through his sets, as do nods to blues, lounge music, radio drama, and classic hip-hop. The result is a body of work that is unmistakably his: handmade, humane, and hospitable.

He has also been a thoughtful steward of turntable culture, demonstrating that the instrument can function as melody, percussion, and sound design all at once. His concerts often reveal the mechanics of his craft, inviting curiosity rather than guarding technique behind mystery.

Legacy and Ongoing Work
From the Ninja Tune era that first carried his name across continents to the multidisciplinary projects that followed, Eric San has remained a builder of platforms as much as a maker of songs. He connects comics to concerts, dance floors to theaters, and game controllers to orchestral stages. The people around him, Coldcut's Matt Black and Jonathan More, Dan Nakamura and Del the Funky Homosapien, K. K. Barrett, Dynomite D, Chris Ross, Myles Heskett, Emiliana Torrini, Trixie Whitley, and JonJon, illustrate the breadth of his collaborations and the trust others place in his creative instincts.

Based in Montreal and touring internationally, he continues to compose, draw, and stage experiences that foreground participation and play. Whether cutting a solo set on vintage gear, conducting a room full of turntables, or scoring a silent puppet romance, Eric San has shown how a DJ can be not only a virtuoso but a storyteller, host, and collaborator, inviting audiences into art that feels as personal as it is communal.

Our collection contains 21 quotes who is written by Eric, under the main topics: Puns & Wordplay - Music - Friendship - Funny - Deep.