Today the Venice Paparazzi “Pass the Spotlight” shines on Michael Jost, a 24 year Venice resident, mainstay on the local music scene, and founder of Radio Venice.

Pass the Spotlight is a transferable interview that is passed from person to person in the Venice community. Whoever is completing the interview gets to choose who the goes next. The purpose is to shine a light on all the positive things being done by the fantastic folks in our town!  Maybe you will be next!

Tell us about your business or art! How you got into it, and why it is awesome.  Music, music, music….always loved it…always have been drawn to it… It is awesome because it brings people from all different cultural backgrounds to communicate & learn about & from each other.  Everybody understands the language of music! Venice as a multicultural place is perfect to meet & make music with people from all over the world.

What projects are you working on now, and what are your goals for the future?  

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Born in Dreieich, just outside of Frankfurt Germany, guitarist Michael Jost (pronounced ‘yoast’), found his way to the bohemian Venice Beach boardwalk, in Los Angeles California, where he now lives and makes music.

Next month we will be lucky enough to welcome Michael to Lennox Head where he will perform his contemporary/classical flamenco style guitar at Shorty’s.

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Open Venice | January 2015 | Westminster Arts Club

When I first agreed to help produce the rollout for guitarist, Michael Jost’s, new album, ZEITLOS, it was scheduled for July 2014 in Venice. We had set the date, booked the venue, created the press releases, and I was furiously working on a documentary in Oklahoma when I got the call that he wanted to wait. It wasn’t quite “there” yet, he said.

Well, of course, the producer in me was like, “What!?”, which was quickly tempered by the artist in me that chastised the piece of my left brain that was barking inside my head about the change. It gently reminded me, something that needs constant reiterating…”great art, takes time”. And, in crafting ZEITLOS, taking the right amount of time has lead to an exquisite album, laced with a sense of traveling through landscapes of both subtle and mythic proportions.

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Venice Beachhead | May 2014 | By Suzy Williams

Have you ever read a review of something in the arts and just wish they could come right out and write whether the artist was great or not? Well, I’d like to try that tack, which is to state the fact that our own Venice-based classical guitarist is a phenomenon – a master, a virtuoso, an exquisite performer. Michael Jost (pronounced like “Yo,” man!) – who has lived on Ocean Front Walk for twenty years, is a respected star in Europe. However, you know the old story: sometimes people take for granted high-end talents like Jost in the States. A prophet without honor and all that.
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The Argonaut | August 2007 | by Betsy Goldman

Looking out of his third-floor window with a spectacular view of the ocean, Michael Jost thrives on the sights and sounds of the Venice Boardwalk. His apartment, part music studio, has been home since 1993.

Originally from Germany, Jost visited here on vacation and was so excited by what he saw that he decided to move here “for up to year” a year later, to seek a challenge in his music career. He couldn’t leave.

“I came to the beach and saw this was everything I always wanted,” he says. “It’s multicultural — people from all over the world. It seems that if they don’t fit anywhere else, they end up in Venice. I was inspired by this.”

It wasn’t hard for Michael to find a challenge.

“I came to Los Angeles to find out that there are many musicians,” he says. “They aren’t necessarily all so good. It was a challenge because there are so many of them.”
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