RIP Dee Swift – A note on his passing

April 28, 2010 by Laurent
Filed under Tablist News, Turntable Radio News

Stretched Animal Skin Drum Ten with Dee Swift by Awkward

From Mr Trick.

Its with real sadness today that I learned of the passing of David Holmes, aka Dee Swift.

Back in 1998 or so I started a forum for turntablists called Snatchcon. Spoofing the Q-Bert/Invisibl Skratch Piklz Scratchcon forum, what started as an attempt by me and some friends to punch a hole in the bullshit and posturing around the scratch scene soon snowballed into arguably one of Europe’s larger communities for fans of the tablist artform. That’s where I got to know Dee Swift, as he soon became the Snatchcon/Team SNIG “resident errant DJ” – so titled because he was a little enigmatic at best with a tendency to vanish for a week at a time, only to then appear in a flurry of posts and online punch-ups that became a humourous lynchpin of the site.

Dee was an enigmatic character in some respects. Incredibly gifted, he rapidly proved himself to be a seminal figure on the tablist scene, mainly via one practice session he’d once posted up called StretchedAnimalSkinDrum, which I’ve posted below for you to hear. The sheer technicality of his cuts soon had DJs the world over talking about him, and in a very short time he became the guy most other DJs wished they could cut like. Even now, listening to this track, it holds up: very, very few people even now could come close to that kind of technical cutting.

Not many people knew that Dee was also a highly gifted guitarist. To my amusement he also held the dubious honour of once being asked to join the British metal group Saxon, making him surely the only guy to ascend the world of scratch DJing and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Dee was a technician; we’d often argue about guitarists (me being a player too), with his all-time great players unsurprisingly including Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai and others, while mine remained in the “vibe” players like Jimmy Page. We’d end up agreeing to disagree, on the basis the argument would never be resolved otherwise.

To me Dee was curious in that he was easily one of the most influential figures in the world of tablism around 2000-2003, and yet never released a proper EP, album, battle weapon or anything else. To that end, there’s a danger he’ll go unrecorded in the world of turntablism, when the truth is many, many DJs who emerged from that period would happily acknowledge his brilliance as a key influence on them. I seem to recall DJ Craze asking him to collaborate. Dave wasn’t interested. That pretty much summed him up though; he steadfastly refused to do anything other than what he wanted. Always a perfectionist, one argument for his lack of recorded material may be that he never felt it made the grade. I guess now we’ll never know.

Any which way, it should go on record that Dee Swift was one of the finest tablists of his time; someone who bucked a trend for battle DJing in favour of musicality. His contribution to a then very-exciting scene shouldn’t be forgotten; without him I wonder how much the tablists of the time would have been pushed to excel in the manner they did. Ironically – in my view anyway – it was after this heyday period that tablism generally got a little dull. Nobody matched the excitement of that time, and Dee contributed to that. He was a spiky character at times and downright difficult at others, but on the whole I’ll remember him as a warm guy with his own demons who was blessed with a true brilliance very few get to achieve.

Rest In Peace Dee

Listen to the files over at Mr Trick’s Posterous.

Tags: Dee Swift, Snatchcon

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Comments

8 Comments on "RIP Dee Swift – A note on his passing"

sasQwax on Wed, 28th Apr 2010 1:40 pm

I’m truly stunned at reading this news. It was only a few weeks ago that I was talking to BL about Dee and I’ve made a point recently of converting all the old realaudio files from SNIG days so that I could bump them on my ipod. I had the pleasure of cutting with Dee a few times round at his place and, as incredible as his recorded cuts are, he was even more impressive in the flesh. He was the first and only guy I’ve ever seen cut whilst sitting down (drum stool style) and he taught me more about open fader cuts in a few hours than I’d managed to learn on my own for months.

Like many people, I couldn’t understand why he never wanted to release material and gain the recognition for the level he was at. Without question he had the kind of ability only literally a handful of tablists in the world could hang with, but I’m sure he had his own reasons for not wanting to put his own music out there and, however difficult that was to understood, I accepted his decision. The community in general has lost a true great and the UK has, in my opinion, lost the best tablist it ever had.

I can’t put into words how tragic his passing is. To say he’ll be missed is an immense understatement.

RIP Dee Swift

cocoB on Mon, 3rd May 2010 9:56 am

Rest in peace David..

Pffff, this really is a shock.

Show em how its done in the after….

PEACE

Swave on Mon, 3rd May 2010 11:34 pm

This makes me really sad. I’ve stayed at Dave’s house for 3 weeks back in 2000 (??? Don’t remember it exactly). He and his mum treated me so well.. Almost as if we had known each other for years. Really fine people. Dave inspired me in so many ways. He had lots of good stories about his life as a musician. Obviously he had his unqiue views on scratching (and life) and he was very very skilled on the cut. Obviously he had his own demons (like we all do) and sometimes I wondered wether he’d be able to cope with it… These days I don’t scratch anymore, but I will never forget those 3 weeks I spent with him in England.

Rest in Peace my friend.

Swave.

jamie on Mon, 10th May 2010 2:28 pm

thanx for the nice comments about our dave,he was an enigma and a legend in his own right,we loved him dearly and he was a great man,and cousin to me,i have been privileged to know him since we were small and we spent a great deal of our lives together,he was talented in so many ways its hard to put it down here…we played together for years but never got around to recording anything!!!,man that sucks big time!,and it saddens me to realise this,but above all there was one thing dee has left us all with,its inspiration!
regards, the pig

Looch on Sat, 10th Jul 2010 7:17 pm

I have literally just found out this news and i am absolutle gutted. I was close friends with Dave 2000-2003 where i used to spend hours with him and tom in his loft room is sheffield cutting and chilling (listening to stevie wonder) I dont know what really to say as i feel numb like having a kick to my throat. Dee was a legend and a great friend. I will miss him like crazy

SWAVE getin touch bro…its been too long

Joseph Thompson on Tue, 10th Aug 2010 10:09 am

Fucking Tragic news. I thought he was a total inspiration and found myself pissing myself with laughter the first time I saw him on the decks, he was so good I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone that amazing on an instrument before in the flesh.. There’s plenty more I can say, but I’d like to thank him for his hospitality at his house, and the random msn conversations. His level of talent and work has impacted on me and I thought Dave and what he did/how he carried himself was profound, really.. Don’t want to say anything else, but wanted to at least say something.. Rest in Peace.

Hi to Looch and Swave. (JoeyLogic… )

Monk-A on Fri, 27th Aug 2010 9:33 pm

Wow, such sad news, I’m sorry I’ve only just found out about this, the man is and remains a true legend. I can’t add to the fine words above, I can merely express my sadness at this huge loss to the world of music.

Witness on Sat, 28th Aug 2010 8:08 am

Dee’s passing has left a very big hole in may peoples lives. He was a true inspiration to cut with and generally be around, and would go out of his way to help anyone. Not religious but spiritual, kind, caring and compassionate. I even remember how he used to insist we didn’t kill insects in his loft so had to carefully put them out through the syklight window.

Perfectionist he certainly was, for years I was telling him to get some stuff out as we knew how amazing his cutting was, he did a few tracks between the late 90s and the early 2000′s but never wanted to make them public. That said heres some practice vids that I’d like to share. We recorded these in the early hours of the morning fueled by coffee and caffeine in his loft in 2001. Uploads courtesy of Stepchild: