Matt Berkeley was exposed to music and poetry at a young age, beginning with classical piano much like his musical heroes Nina Simone, Elton John, and Jackie Mittoo. His mother would play records of medieval and baroque music while his father would spin Bob Dylan. The famed Berkeley High School jazz band, study of Afro-Cuban folkloric music and a steady diet of Bob Marley truly ignited his passion for music. A chance encounter with the Weather Report album ‘Sweetnighter’ shaped his pursuits through his college years…working backwards from Zawinul and Wayne Shorter to Miles, then Charlie Parker. He spent the late ’00s working with popular SF Bay artists: the Jazz Mafia, Joe Bagale, Shimshai, Lyrics Born and others. In 2012 he founded Hot Einstein as an outlet for his original songs, but the financial realities of making it as a freelance musician in the region led that band to pursue work playing covers songs. The experience gleaned playing “everything from Elvis to OutKast” proved an invaluable lesson in songwriting, production and stage presence These days, Matt Berkeley is recording under his own name, along with a crew of like-minded musicians: The East Bay Sound System “We want to take music back from the machines - to get in a room with good friends and let our own collective sounds and rhythms envelop and hypnotize us. When we do that together, we tap into an ancient timeline that earlier humans began millennia ago.”