Current Location :: London, UK 

Real Name :: Joanne Joseph

Music Genres :: Tech House 

Jo's story began in 1991 when after attending many of the early raves and illegal parties she noticed a distinct lack of female DJs. As a massive fan of this exciting new music that was sweeping the nation, Jo decided to buy some decks and started mixing…

While working in the Gaultier shop in London's Soho, Jo made her first mix tapes and gave them to friends and customers to gauge their response. The reactions were better than expected and her first gigs quickly followed at fashion after-show parties and in no time at all at club events. Taking her stage name from the boxer Smoking Joe Fraser, Jo felt it provided ambiguity over an obviously feminine name as at the time it was seen as a novelty to be a female DJ (how times change!) It’s thanks to women like Jo that these shifts in attitudes have taken place.

In the early nineties, Jo was given a chance to play at London’s legendary after-hours party Trade at Turnmills. Seizing the opportunity she smashed the club, blending a mixture of deep house and techno and as a result was given a residency that lasted three years. The gig was the basis for her winning such accolades as DJ Magazine’s highly coveted DJ of the Year Award (she is still the only female DJ to have ever won this award).

Jo has been spinning in Ibiza since 1993 playing at Amnesia, Privilege, Space as well as infamous secret beach and villa parties. In 2004/5 Jo was rocking the planet as one half of the dance floor phenomenon that was NastyDirtySexMusic. The parties were ultra-underground, word-of-mouth affairs with the ethos heavily geared towards cutting edge music and not making profit. The success of the NDSM parties saw it become We Love... Sundays at Space’s newest resident that year, introducing the electro-house sound to an unsuspecting Ibiza crowd (not bad considering it started life as an illegal rave!) By late summer 2004 NDSM were playing in Space’s The Red Box; fast forward to summer 2005 and NDSM were fully-fledged terrace regulars, a massive achievement in an incredibly small space of time. A full tour of Asia and Australia in the winter of 2004 also cemented NDSM's status as did a double CD mix compilation, released through Ministry of Sound in June 2005. MOS also played host to NastyDirtySexMusic nights on a bi-monthly basis which were among the busiest nights at the club for some time. After a whirlwind couple of years the guys decided to call time on the project on New Years Eve 2005.

Jo was signed-up by Storm Model Agency in their Celebrity Section and was the face of a major billboard campaign for the Sega video game Mortal Combat. 2002 saw Jo become the centre point of Pioneer’s advertising campaign for their HDJ 1000 professional headphones. And on top of all this in 2002 Jo entered into the world of television and made her debut as a presenter for MTV: Dance in Ibiza as well as presenting for Radio One at Mardi Gras and in Ibiza in 2002. Jo was also assigned to do a ‘postcards from Ibiza’ report on Pete Tongs Essential Selection on Radio 1 in 2002 and 2003. As Jo has been frequenting Ibiza for 15 years, she was perfectly placed to give weekly reports of all the latest club news and goings on there. In addition Jo was asked to do an Essential Mix for Radio 1 as part of their 'Ibiza Heroes' series, which was broadcast on 20th September 2003.

Jo mixed the Terrace CD for the Space Album that was released on Azuli Records in 2003. This followed on from the other successful compilations Jo had under her belt such as ‘Defected Sessions 14’, ‘DEF Com 2’ and ‘SJ01’ released through Trust the DJ. Jo also mixed a cover-mount CD for Muzik magazine in the summer of 2001 and in 2006 she mixed the cover-mount CD for Mixmag which was hugely popular.

Jo's international credibility has led her to work alongside numerous iconic figures in the world of music and fashion. She has DJ’d at The Pet Shop Boys end of tour party, a Grace Jones concert, Skunk Anansie's album launch party, Jamiroqaui's South African tour parties, as well as at fashion events for the likes of Alexander McQueen, Michiko Koshinos and Julian Macdonald.

More recently, Jo has focused on the production front and has been making serious waves through her moniker TRNSSTR (Transistor) alongside Pete Gleadall. After the success of their first single ‘Sausage Dog’ which was premiered at the WMC with remixes from Davide Squillace and Plasmik, ‘As You Like It’ followed which received glowing praise and support from the likes of Danny Tenaglia, Luciano and Anja Schneider. ‘Shuffle Scuffle’ and ‘Wild Sound’ are recent releases, and 2008 also saw Jo and Pete go live with their set pulling out all the stops, jammed packed full of visuals, effects and of course, exceptional technical and vocal talent.

One thing’s for sure in 2009, with bags of energy and a wealth of experience to draw upon, it seems Jo still has plenty up her sleeve for the months and years ahead!