Photo: Ethan Barry | Social: @mrjessewalker
Jesse Walker: Shaping Underground Culture for Over Three Decades
Jesse Walker has spent three decades building underground dance music, community, and culture at the "Crossroads of the West." From his formative years in Idaho and Salt Lake City to his current base in Vancouver, BC, his work blends disco, house, and techno with cultural innovation.
Walker started DJing in 1993 in Idaho, teaching himself on two mismatched home stereo turntables and a rock-and-roll line mixer. At 16, he organized a sold-out alternative music festival with his high school bandmates.
As founder of New City Movement (NCM) in 1998, Walker has championed Salt Lake City's underground, turning an overlooked city into a beacon of creativity. He has been featured in Vice Magazine, 5Magazine, Rinse.FM, Music Is 4 Lovers, Out Traveler, SLUG Magazine, The Advocate, Sassy Planet, FADER, SPIN, and MTV, among others. Alongside key partners like Matthew Fit, NCM has built a global reputation for house music and cultural connectivity.
Walker's DJ sets are immersive journeys: driving, soulful, unapologetically dynamic. He's played the Sundance Film Festival, the 2002 Winter Olympics, Treefort Music Festival, Neon Rodeo, and more Pride festivals than he's kept count of, sharing stages with Empire of the Sun, Green Velvet, Bonobo, Flight Facilities, Horse Meat Disco, Crystal Waters, En Vogue, and Chromeo, alongside underground legends Victor Simonelli, Doc Martin, Eddie Fowlkes, Mark Farina, Eris Drew, David Harness, and the late Mike Huckaby. His early career was shaped by stalwarts of the Utah scene: Chris Sick (Mechanized), Nick Hammer, Stephen "Bam Bam" Santoro, Sean Phillips, and Kaskade, who gave him his first residency and mastered his debut mixtape.
Beyond the decks, Walker's creative work runs through the wider arts community. He's designed for non-profits, built soundscapes for site-specific installations, and collaborated with the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), Utah Arts Festival, and NOW-ID. He helped bring Neon Rodeo, a creative conference sponsored by Intel and the University of Utah, to life, and he co-organizes the Bunny Hop, a charity event that over 15 years has fun-raised for homeless youth shelters, family planning, queer safe havens, and trans and non-binary assistance programs.
Now based in Vancouver, Walker keeps bringing his touch to dance floors and creative spaces worldwide, cultivating new talent and building nights around storytelling and connection.
For booking and other inquiries, please use the contact form, or find him on Instagram and Soundcloud.
Featured Mixes
PRESS
2025 “Into The Third Space With DJ Matthew Fit” (SLUG Magazine)
2022 “New City Movement’s Jesse Walker Talks The Future Of SLC’s Dance, Art, & Culture Scenes, Forward-thinking Ethos, & More” (Volume Utah)
2021 "Queer Lives: A new book, Sassy Planet, looks at the LGBTQ scene in 40 cities and here we focus on just two of the most exciting – Berlin and Salt Lake City" (The Scotsman UK) [Available at Sassypla.net]
2019 "Salt Lake Is Probably Cooler Than Your Dumb City" (For Bottoms)
2019 RINSE.FM Huntleys + Palmers: Salt Lake Special with New City Movement & Choíce
2017 SUPERNATURE! Celebrating Individuality, Gender and House Music (SLUG Magazine)
2017 "Why Utah Pride Is So Surprising — and Important" (The Advocate)
2016 "Hometown Heroes: Mr. Jesse Walker from Salt Lake City" (Music is 4 Lovers)
2015 "Jesse Walker On Beats Booze and Bunny Ears" (SLUG Magazine)
2015"How Salt Lake City Became an Unlikely Gay Mecca" (Take Part)
2013 "Say ‘I do’ to Salt Lake’s newest dance and arts company" (SL Tribune)
2013 "5 Profiles of People Who Love Salt Lake" (Downtown Magazine)
2013 "100" Reader nominated 'Catalysts' in the community. (Catalyst Magazine)
2010 "Bonkers geodesic futuristic homes of Idaho Falls" (Boing Boing)
1998 "Local DJ Sends a Message to Utah's Electronic Scene" (MTV.com)
