Fresh Beats: Meet Hudson Valley DJ Jams Bond

By Sal Cataldi | June 23, 2025

Unlike his namesake, David Cruz (aka DJ Jams Bond) keeps no secrets about where his love of spinning records emanates. The Bronx-born, Florida-raised DJ began honing his curatorial chops early on with a toy Fisher-Price turntable gifted by his mom.

Like many of the Hudson Valley DJs we are spotlighting, DJ Bond got serious about his profession during college, when his school’s radio station acquired a mobile DJ set-up for events.

Today, DJ Jams Bond is one of the busiest party spinners in the Hudson Valley, using diverse tastes in sound to keep things hopping at popular venues like Skate Time and Kingston’s newest hot spot, Assembly.

Read on to hear more about his life and musical loves, which span from classic rock staples like Fleetwood Mac to Brazilian funk to the groundbreaking electronica of Aphex Twin.

DJ James Bond spinning at Skate Time

INSIDE+OUT: When did you first become interested in music, and how did you start your DJ career?

David Cruz: As far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved listening to music. As a kid, I had a Fisher-Price turntable my mom gifted me, and I’d play her records on it. My favorite album was Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. “The Chain” and “Dreams” were songs I loved to listen to repeatedly. One of the first songs I was ever hooked on as a three-year-old was “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega.

In childhood, I was also really inspired by the energizing and lush MIDI compositions in the video game Final Fantasy VII, composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Those songs still get me amped and feeling the emotions of the game’s storyline. Then, as a teen, I got my first acoustic and electric guitars and learned rock and Nu-metal songs by artists such as Slipknot, Korn, Incubus, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. From then on, learning how to play songs has always been a way to understand music and artists’ intentions and a more profound way to connect with the songs that I resonate with.

My interest in DJing began when I went to the University of South Florida for acoustic and electronic music composition. When I worked at the college radio station around 2010, they acquired a mobile DJ set-up for events. I thought my colleagues had crappy music taste that they were playing out (ha-ha). So, I took it as a chance to be better than them at DJing. I learned how to scratch, spin, loop, and play with cues early on with timecode vinyl to be the leading mobile DJ rocking college parties, playing the genres I preferred and thought would work for college crowds.

After college, I moved to New York City and commenced DJing at swanky hotels, figuring out my sound and how to play to nightlife crowds. I eventually got residencies at Latin and world music-based bars and nightclubs, digging further into an eclectic range of styles and genres.

One day, I played a small expo, then met a private events band/agency that I had some synergy with, and eventually left my day job to work with them and start managing that collective. That got me more into the wedding circuit. To this day, I’m still playing weddings – that’s what’s allowing me to be a freelance DJ, playing weddings and club gigs in between.

Describe what makes you unique in the DJ space, your favorite music to spin, and your favorite kind of place or event to work.

Being an open-format DJ helps me to know as much music as possible, and I’d say my library is vast because of it. I’ve played at so many different parties and events and listened to so many different styles in my free time that it’s easy for me to weave in and out of various genres. There are a lot of specialist DJs who stick within a couple of genres, and that’s also fun to experience. It’s hard for me to stay in one place for too long, and with how ADHD everyone is these days and social media’s influence on attention span, I’d say my drive to keep it moving keeps my parties fun. It helps to be able to read a crowd and play with the folks who are dancing in front of you, too!

I get the most hyped playing electronic styles like house, techno, and drum and bass. I love electronic sounds and want to hear synthesizer sounds all day. I’d love to exist in that realm most of the time when playing out. I also love Latinx and world music genres with live instrumentation and beautifully sung vocals, so these styles all get infused into my hybrid sets.

Throwing rave parties is my absolute favorite. It’s the most liberating and fun while not feeling restricted by what I have to play. Also, house parties are, admittedly, some of the most fun. But I genuinely love playing everywhere – from Skate Time rocking for the skate community, upstate lodges, and boutique hotel spaces playing vibey B-side and lounge tracks to weddings where I can get everyone dancing and hopping like crazy together. They all have their perks.

What have been some of your favorite experiences DJing in the Hudson Valley?

The Hudson Valley needs more dance spaces! And outdoors, too! I’m certain a dedicated club would be welcomed. I was stoked recently to play New Year’s Eve at Assembly, which just opened up this year. We had silhouette screens that folks could dance behind, so their dancing shadows were illuminated by the crowd. Assembly feels like a new HV home for live music and DJs, offering a professional space, sound system, and ample dance floor dedicated to concerts and dancing.

Big Cat, which was open for a solid one-year run, was also near and dear to my heart. The folks that ran that raw, DIY marina space are good friends, and when throwing events there, they just gave me and my Kingston Techno creative partner Adriana Wong the key to the place to set up art, sound, and visual installations. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to have an experience like that again, and I’m forever grateful for opportunities like that to collaborate on ideas and bring them to life in the context of a club dance party.

What is your go-to song to spin when you need to pump up a crowd that’s not feeling it?

Enur’s “Calabria 2007” featuring Natasja. That groove, vocal, and sax line will get any crowd moving! I’ve got plenty of remixes of it based on energy and venue contexts, too – jazzy, laid-back remixes for the lounge, Brazilian Funk remixes, EDM, and big room remixes, you name it. It’s a certified banger.

DJ James Bond spinning

What are your three favorite desert island discs?

Oh man, don’t make me whittle it down to just three! That’s really tough. I’ll choose based on overall album cohesiveness and loving many of the album’s tunes.

Voodoo by D’Angelo. I could listen to this album every day, and it also helps to calm me down. It gets better with every listen and is a textbook on groove and feel.
Drukqs 1 & 2 by Aphex Twin. This one influenced my electronic music tastes and what I strive to hear from composers/producers. Richard D. James is super intellectual with his process and is nitpicky in every note choice. He set the bar high (in 2001!) so that producers aspire to make this level of complex electronic dance music to this day. This one has several electronic music masterpieces on it.
Good Kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar. This album takes me back to a transitional chapter in my life. I look back fondly at living in Brooklyn and New York City. There’s some lyrical, poetic mastery in there, killer production with a unique style, and those R&B harmonies make me melt while nodding my head.

Give us a mini-biography – where you were born, where you live now, and what you may do outside of DJing.

I grew up in the Bronx and lived in Red Hook, New York, for a quick minute. I lived in Tampa, Florida while in high school and college. After graduating in 2011, I moved back to New York City and then in Brooklyn for ten years. So, I’m a born and raised New Yorker, but Florida watered that down a bit (ha-ha).

Admittedly, I’m a COVID-19 transplant to Kingston. I came to help fix up my sister’s house, which she had acquired in pre-pandemic times and then decided to move up in 2020. I love it here and plan to be here for a while. Kingston feels like a home with big-town vibes, an accessible and like-minded community of artsy folks, and a place where I think I can make a positive impact vs. being in a more saturated city.

Honestly, music is my main thing! I love playing with my Eurorack synthesizer and recording music. I aim to release some of my original tracks and some work with a friend and fellow DJ, Nicer Days, sometime this year. Otherwise, I enjoy being a padded-up 36-year-old, occasionally skateboarding at skateparks in the area, soaking up nature when I can, traveling to tropical places, and hopefully finding small waves to surf. And, of course, practicing on the turntable decks for the next dance party.

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