Matt Schiffman

So about me… I was born May 16, 1974 in NYC at around 10:30 in the morning via cesarean section. The story goes something like this or so I’ve been told. My dad used to work for Paramount and would take Lassie (yes from the TV) all over the country for shoots and what not. My mom was with Lassie’s trainer – Lassie #5? Dad please post to clarify – and they were checking Lassie’s poop to make sure Lassie was ok. Then my mom wanted some really weird ice cream flavor and BAM! She went into labor. It turns out the umbilical cord was wrapped all around me and the OB suggested they use this new fangled device called a fetal monitor which was screwed into my head. My mom says I was the first delivery to use the fetal monitor in New York Hospital. If anyone in administration there could clarify I’d really like to put this to rest. Fast forward to 1985. I developed a strange obsession with taking apart transistor radios and trying to figure out what all the parts were. To this day I have no idea how they work but I felt really empowered taking them apart. I also got a kick out of magnetizing screwdrivers with the speakers that I pulled out of them. In summer camp I was always shy at the social events and would hang out by the DJ. The DJ had it so easy. All he had to do was play music and people thought he was cool. No social skills needed, he just had to press the play button on one of his six tape decks and the whole room would scream affirmation. I wanted to be the DJ. Education. 1989… For my first year of High School I went to a yeshiva in Providence RI and became incredibly proficient in then use of nun chucks. Yeshiva didn’t last more than a year. Next was public high school – The Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities. There I joined the stage crew at the beginning of my sophomore year and developed a serious interest with live sound mixing – must have had some to do with that DJ envy. During that summer I became even more obsessed with sound. One of my mom’s friends in advertising got me a list of every major recording studio in Manhattan and I started cold calling asking if they need a young eager slave to do whatever was asked of me. Most studios had no idea how to respond. Then I found 39th Street Music. 39th Street Music was owned by Michael Karp and managed by Jack Malkin. Jack took me up on my offer of indentured servitude in exchange for an informal education in sound engineering. Michael was a little apprehensive about having an inexperienced 16