On July 29th from 11am to 8pm, Soulsational Festival will be celebrating music and wellness for its 7th year at Veterans Park in Bayville, NJ. This free community event will feature "live music, local health and wellness businesses and practitioners, giveaways, a silent auction, and lots of opportunities to give back and unite the Jersey Shore community." The sound technician for Soulsational's pavilion stage this year is JASON PORTIZO. Enjoy this interview with Jason below:
Photo by Jeff Crespi.
What's your name, where are you from, where are you based now, and what do you do?
My name is Jason Portizo. I'm a musician and sound engineer, making my full-time living as an in-house and freelance audio tech. I'm a NJ native born in Bergen County, lived most of my life in Ocean County and recently just moved to Asbury Park to be closer to where the audio work is.
What's your background? What would you like people to know about you & your work?
My background includes work as a guitar instructor, studio engineer, live engineer, and performer with some side work as an event emcee and DJ. I've been a freelance guitar instructor for 14 years now. I've been with my cover band Don't Know Jack for 8 years as well as some solo cover work and a handful of original bands throughout my career. I owned a recording studio for 4 years which then led me into live audio which is how I now make my living. Currently I'm working as an in-house engineer for The Saint and as the Lead Production Tech for The Asbury Hotel while still working for myself as JTP Audio. It's under this name that I get to do some of my favorite events like Art in the Park, Pork Roll Fest, and of course Soulsational.
How did you hear about Soulsational? What can we expect to see/hear at the festival, and what are you personally most looking forward to?
I've been involved with Soulsational since the first event when I was helping with the poetry stage (I think I performed as well). In 2014 and 2015 I was asked to emcee the main stage and make sure each band had a proper introduction. Those years I was also lucky enough to perform on the main stage with the band I was in at the time. 2015, we actually used our status as headliners to make Soulsational our farewell show. 2016 and this year I now work as the sound tech for the pavilion stage.
How can people connect with you online? Do you have a website? Are you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, etc.?
My live sound services can be found at jtpaudio.com. If anyone wants to see me perform, you can check out dontknowjack.net and jasonportizo.com.