About Art
DJ Soviet Snack is Art Kliatchko, a DJ based in the San Francisco Bay Area who plays weddings, birthday parties, corporate events and house parties. The music runs from Russian and Eastern European through Latin and South Asian to the standard American wedding canon. He also spent sixteen years running operations, which is why the night is planned and the music is not.
The music
The name is a hint about where the collection starts: Russia, and the songs that get a table of aunts up before the chorus. Growing up in the Bay Area took it through Latin, South Asian, and the American canon every wedding expects and most of them get in the same order.
A Bay Area room is rarely one room. Three or four languages, two generations that have never been to the same party, and a group of college friends with a canon of their own. The set gets built for that room, in the languages it speaks, which is why the questionnaire asks. I would rather play the song your grandmother did not expect to hear than the one every wedding plays at 9:40.
On the mic
Announcements, introductions, toasts handed over cleanly, the timeline kept. Names pronounced the way you say them, which I ask about in advance. One sentence where one will do, then out of the way. I am not the DJ who narrates the party and I do not ask the room to make some noise. The mic is for telling people what happens next.
Before the decks
Sixteen years running operations, so I arrive prepared. The entrance, the toasts, the parent dances, the cake and the last song are on paper with times before I load in. Improvising is for the music. We build the set together before the night, and on the night I watch the floor and change what needs changing.
Where
Based in the Bay Area, playing San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, and anywhere in Northern California for the right event. A travel fee applies past the core area.
Listen
Released tracks and mixes are on Spotify and Apple Music. Those are the evidence that I produce music. The song made for a couple at a booking is theirs and is not published.
Get a quote for your date
Send the date, the occasion and what you know about the venue. I reply with availability and a quote.