JD Samson

JD Samson is best known for being one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band and performance project Le Tigre. After joining the band in 2000, JD's career in the music industry has landed her in many diverse areas of the music, art, LGBTQ activism and fashion worlds, and she doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.

In 2007, MEN began as the DJ/remix/production team of JD Samson and Johanna Fateman, both of the band Le Tigre. Eventually, MEN became a live band and art collective, focusing on the radical potential of dance music, with lyrics speaking to issues such as wartime economies, sexual compromise and demanding liberties. MEN's debut, full-length record was released Feb. 1, 2011 by IAMSOUND records in the U.S.A., and through Sony/Columbia in the U.K. Since their inception, the band has played Coachella 2011, toured internationally, whether it be at museums or dance clubs, and supported bands such as The Gossip, Peaches and CSS.

JD Samson also created the iconic 2003 conceptual art calendar entitled, "JD's Lesbian Calendar," with collaborator Cass Bird. The calendar was intended to create visibility for butch lesbians through a photographic journey of JD in several "butch" occupational scenarios. In 2006, JD followed up the 2003 calendar with "JD's Lesbian Utopia," a calendar launched through Deitch Projects Gallery in NYC in the fall of 2005. JD also played keyboard for Peaches on her "Impeach My Bush" world tour, and acted in John Cameron Mitchell's amazing film Shortbus.

Throughout the years, JD has been photographed for many magazines and other fine art projects, as an androgynous sex symbol and "icon of nerdy-cool" (The New York Times). Most recently, JD was photographed for a seven-page spread by Maciek Kobielski for the September 2011 issue of Vogue Hommes International.

JD Samson has been DJing internationally since 2001 and has found her way through many different party scenes and music genres. Whether she is playing at a museum, for the queer group at a college, at a wedding, a huge nightclub, the beach, or at a dive bar, JD likes to focus on "creating spaces for rad people to dance and smile and hold each other." JD is a people-pleaser DJ and can swing as many ways as needed to make an amazing night.