Nicholas L.A. Polit

aka Nick Bishop, Macheen, Fantos Keen

Sampling and remixing is the backbone of everything that Nick Polit does. Whether its deejaying as Nick Bishop, writing stories as Nicholas L.A. Polit, or producing music as Nervous Nick, it’s always about taking elements that don’t seemingly belong together and making it so  you never want to see them apart.

 

TL;DR

Based in Hartford, now makes comics, writes graphic novels, illustrates using photographs made in his studio, and is starting a record label.

 

  • Signed dozens of artists and tracks to legendary NYC house music label, Nervous Record

  • Learned DAW black magic, Adobe mastery, and Nerdcore appreciation at Tekserve NYC

  • Deejayed to thousands, and all over the US, all the time, during the late 90s and early 2000s

  • Has been a lifelong photographer and fashion stylist.

Nick Bishop’s career and life are as multi-faceted as a d20, but the weave holding it all together is his passion and obsession for art.

 

Currently, he is running a publishing label that prints periodic issues of a comic called Ducky Dog Cake (written by him, drawn by his daughter). He is co-writing a media-spanning genre-bending sci-fi/fantasy/romance for adults with a novel series planned, short stories already written, and an illustrated story printed and published. Experimenting with the freestyle medium that is comic books, he designed, drew, photographed, and colored the entire first issue.

  

Career Highlights:

·       Mixed CD release on Nervous Records, singles released on Nervous as well as other labels

·       Deejaying professionally as a traveling artist since 1998, incl main stage at Austin’s first ever Electric Daisy Carnival

·       Lifelong photographer and graphic designer. Many of his shots have been used for album covers, singles, commercial packaging, promotional materials, and corporate applications.

·       Visuals Artist/Lighting Tech for countless EDM acts

·       Helped start a label for Romanthony (Daft Punk’s vocalist on One More Time)

·       Stylist and wardrobe design for editorial & boudoir

·       A&R talent scout for several labels; signed countless acts, both music icon and icons-to-be

·       In his spare time, he is actively involved in the Central Connecticut grappling/MMA community, sponsoring several local fighters through his business.

·       He is an active Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner, formerly having trained in Chin-Woo Kung Fu.

 

Career Timeline Summary:

2023                             Opened Unstable Studio, a photo and art studio  in downtown Hartford

2022                             Published two comics under his own Unstable Studio label

2020-present                Partnered with technical writer and psychiatrist on novel development

2017-present                Partnered with a Psychiatrist to start a Trauma-based Practice

2014-2016                    Visuals Artist and Lighting Tech, Hartford area events/clubs

2013-2015                    Club event promotion based in Hartford, CT

2013-2015                    Manager and Agent of EDM artists

2007-2012                    Nervous Records NYC – licensing and media manager, A&R house and EDM

2004-2009                    Various NYC-based Record Labels, Promotion Companies.

2005-2007                    Tekserve NYC, senior Logic Pro/Ableton LIVE trainer, lecturer

2002-2007                    New School University alum; Interned everywhere possible

2001-2002                    DJ and Rave/EDM concert promoter in Guadalajara, MX

1997-2001                    DJ and Rave/EDM concert promoter in Austin and Dallas, TX

Pre-1997                      Event Promoter and Party Planner since the Eighth Grade

 

 

Nick Bishop History:

Born in Colombia to an Ecuadorian diplomat’s son and a lawyer’s daughter from Bogota, his parents sought their fortunes in America. It was the 80s and Baby Nick soaked up every bit of music and culture into his little brain. He wouldn’t speak English until he was five, but already knew most of the songs on the radio. Sales jobs took his father and the family all over the United States, settling for a while in Las Vegas and then Fairfax, VA, ending up in Dallas in his late teens. While studying there, he was constantly clubbing or raving as part of a breakdancing crew. Immediately upon landing in Texas, he had to make his pilgrimage to Austin ultimately drawn to its magic in his early twenties.

 

As a DIY 90s rave promoter, he had to learn a lot of skills on the job, such as graphic design, marketing, team organization, audio engineering, talent security and management, to name a few. It was the love of throwing parties, that drew him further into deejaying. Up to that point, he was more interested in theater/acting, dancing, and modeling. Then he found the 90s Dallas club counterculture. A few raves later, Nick Polit took his Nick Bishop alter ego more seriously, and moved to Austin to pursue life as a professional club and rave DJ.

 

It took a matter of months for him to quit school in Austin. The dance music scene there was on skyward trajectory.

 

By the end of ’98, the number of Texas based deejays and promoters had reached critical mass. Parties were weekly in every city. Often, there would be international and national acts competing at one of the several thousand-person capacity clubs in Austin, plus a mid-sized rave just outside of town at our crew’s own venue, Pulse ATX. Then there were the 4,000 plus capacity events at Austin Music Hall, where many promotional companies vied to get a piece of the nation-wide electronic music fever that was boiling over in late 90’s/2000’s. The most successful promotional companies, such as Ark Entertainment and System 7, were producing major events, then known as Massives, requiring a high degree of coordination, planning, and funding. And through all of this, Nick Bishop was an integral part of it all.

 

It wasn’t long before he was booked five or six nights a week all over the state, and soon outside his Texas home. The scene at the time was so big that it was common for him to play twice in the same night, in across town gigs, or have to play a set and then pack up before hurrying to a late night set. Three gigs on a Saturday night were the norm during the busy times of year.

 

It was the quintessential coming-of-age for him. He learned everything he could, blessed to be around elite mentors, many of which would go on to become mavens in their respective endeavors. From humble beginnings in his eleventh grade lunch room mixing tapes and CDs using a Radio Shack mixer, to opening for international acts on stages with crowds that stretched into the horizon, he got to experience it all on so many different levels.

 

He didn’t know it at the time, but he would go on to help many other artists achieve their dreams.

 

9/11 was a day that brought unexpected changes to American life. Based in Guadalajara, Mexico at the time, he felt that it was time to go to New York. The rave scene after 9/11 was forever changed, decimated by laws and attitudes towards raves that the industry wouldn’t recover from for a decade. In that time, Nick Bishop once again became Nick Polit and left it all behind to make his mark in New York City. Once again a student, this time at the renowned New School University, he studied everything he could for a career in music. Audio engineering, graphic novel writing, advertising, were just some of the courses he was able to take with elite professionals in their respective industries.

 

Soon, he found himself interning at record labels, recording studios, working in pro audio sales, before he landed his dream job at Nervous Records.

 

Nick’s nearly six year tenure at Nervous Records saw him do it all from get coffee to sign records.  After nearly twenty years in the dance music industry, Nick Bishop took a years-long hiatus from deejaying and the publishing industry to learn new skills, and use what he’d learned to further the careers of others.

 

In Hartford, he would work with local restauranteurs and club owners to develop his ideas in live art performance, dance, photography, and most of all, live visual mixing. He would spend the next few years getting inspired by the talented local artists. As a note, Audrey Hepburn is from Hartford, Mark Twain lived blocks from where Unstable Studio is based today. With his partner, he began to develop an entire story world, from which a series of novels was planned.

 

The changes that the Pandemic of 2020 brought to Nick Bishop were profound, like they were for many. For him, it meant the rebirth of a DJ set he toyed with in mid 2010s New York’s Lower East Side. Everything he had learned from his days as rave DJ to his time as an Ableton Live trainer and then his visual/lighting tech days, he took that and made a DJ set that blends pieces of every decade of recorded music with modern tech sounds into a audio-visual medley that blows the mind of EDM new comers and salty old-skoolers alike.

 

He still dreams in film, photo, and music video.