about

This website is a platform for me to feature
(as the name suggests) my “Pun Picks.” 

Videos & Photos that I film/edit/produce of:
–Musicians/Artists who inspire me
-Food
-Life

My goal is to feature musicians that I hold in a great a light & who are interesting.  They can be unknown or well known, but I am not trying to feature acts just because they are popular or trendy.

Have a suggestion of someone I should feature?
Email me at jp@mojamusic.net

Thanks for checking it out, hope you dig!
-Jay Pun
www.punpicks.com
www.mojamusic.net

Special thanks to Britta-Lena Lasko for her editorial help and the homepage photo of “MoJa Quartet.”

Dig what I’m doing?
Consider donating $5 or more
—
[cpDonation id=’punpicksdonationbutton’]

—

A little bit about myself…

I grew up in Charlottesville, VA just 2 hours south of Washington D.C.  When I was 5 years old I started playing piano, but then later moved on to drums at around 13. Somewhere in my middle school years I picked up the guitar by happenstance after our regular guitarist failed to show up for one of our band practices.  The guitar soon became my best friend, accompanying me everywhere.  I grew a big love for old school funk music when I was in high-school (bands like The Meters, Parliament Funkadelic, Mandrill and others), but it wasn’t until my Spanish teacher at the time recommended me to go see a French guitarist named Pierre Bensusan.  I went on a whim to this little acoustic coffeehouse in town called, The Prism and that concert changed my life.  After that 1st show of Pierre’s I would go see him every time he came back to the area, which eventually led me to studying with him at his home study in France during my senior year.  To this day, both funk and fingerstyle has helped me create my own unique style on guitar.

After high-school I enrolled at Berklee College of Music, where I studied theory, songwriting, music business, and performance.  It was there that I met violinist, Morwenna Lasko in a “Music of India” class.  I moved back to Charlottesville after graduation and she soon followed after I told her about the local music scene.  We started a small teaching studio in town called “Fingerdance,” and we both had separate projects (she was in a bluegrass band, and I was doing a solo singer/songwriter project).  After a few months we both realized that those separate projects weren’t fulfilling enough, so we decided to try something fresh.  With no particular style in mind or specific songs to play, we just created music and came up with our own signature sound (that has yet to be defined).  Since then we have released our album Chioggia Beat (2009), toured throughout the U.S. and in Europe, and have shared shows with numerous great artists including Julian Lage Group, Stephane Wrembel, Vusi Mahlasela, Avett Brothers, Toubab Krewe, among others.  We are working on a new CD which we hope to be out later this year.

When we aren’t on tour I also teach private guitar, bass, and music theory lessons in Charlottesville and on the internet via SKYPE.