RIP Dee Swift – A note on his passing

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.

Ken One – Live at Skratch Evolution 2 videos

Quick one – our roving, globe-trotting skratch reporter Yoshi from Beat4Battle TV recently finished some edits of Ken One’s set at the Skratch Evolution 2 party which was held in Tokyo last December. You can view all the edits in the youtube playlist above, or by clicking right here.

We’d originally planned to do a joint series of audio and video podcasts for Skratch Evolution 2 but unfortunately we couldn’t due to various technical issues so instead we did a joint podcast series on Turntable Radio and Rhythm Incursions – which you can catch here (TTR mixes) and here (Rhythm Inc mixes) in its full glory if you haven’t yet. The mixes feature Ken One, XLII, Ichiro_, DJ Duct and more. Think of this youtube playlist as the late cherry on the cake.

Yoshi will be returning shortly with his Beat4Battle TV series. More news when we have them.

Enjoy!

Beat4Battle TV:UK – Episodes 4 and 5 bonuses

To go hand in hand with the last Beat4Battle TV:UK episode we have some more bonus cuts (pun kinda intended but not really cos it’s quite bd) from episodes 4 and 5, available for streaming now on Yoshi’s Vimeo channel. I’ve embedded them below for easy browsing or you can head straight to the channel page where you can stream every episode so far including bonuses.

As announced in the podcast for episode 6, the UK leg of the Beat4Battle TV series is now over. Coming up next is a one off China episode and then a new series focusing on Japan. Until then, there’s plenty more for you to get stuck in below and keep an eye out for the next episode which should be hitting the site and feeds in early September.

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Episode 4 part 2 and 3
Featuring: Discuss, Maroon, Manipulate and 2tall.
Filmed and Edited by Yoshi at Discuss’ house.

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Episode 5 part 2 and 3
Featuring: DJ Clix
Filmed and Edited by Yoshi.

Beat4Battle TV:UK – Episode 3.2

Yoshi’s on holiday this week, so we’ll be taking a break from our weekly Beat4Battle TV episodes. To keep you going though here’s a stream of Episode 3.2 continuing from where the last one left off with the talents of Brighton-based Blood 1, Fidel Cutstro and Ideal.

We’ll resume regular broadcasting shortly.

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Episode 3 part 2
Featuring: Fidel Cutstro, Blood 1, Ideal

Beat4Battle TV:UK – Episode 2 (parts 2 to 4)

Slight change of plan to the previously announced additional parts of Beat4Battle TV:UK episode 2. Instead of releasing them weekly we’re giving you all remaining 3 parts as Vimeo only embeds/streams exclusive to this here site!

So without further ado, see below for the video goodness, and stay tuned for part 3 which will be online tomorrow. Bit late but I’m on holiday and have better things to do! (ok so I’m doing this, but I’m also sitting in the shade with a glass of pastis so it’s ok).

As usual all videos edited by Yoshi for Beat4Battle TV.

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Episode 2 part 2, 3, 4
Featuring: Muzzell, Tigerstyle, Mr Brown, Silk Kuts
Sponsored by: Dephect Clothing

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Apologies all for the lack of shows…

As many have noticed, we’ve been a little quiet with the podcasts of late. Our apologies for this, but as Turntable Radio remains a strictly non-commercial site run by myself and Laurent, it can sadly fall foul of the rest of our lives getting in the way. With the Mr Trick & Wrongtom show taking off, Rhythm Incursions more busy than ever and Laurent’s forthcoming Original Cultures project readying for launch, its taken all our time just to juggle everything and sadly, now and again something falls by the wayside. Rest assured though that we are back on track now, and have three “The Mr Trick Years” podcasts in the bag – one of which is live now, the others following at 7 day intervals. Enjoy!

New site live – mind the paint!

If you’re a regular visitor to both this site and our sister show Rhythm Incursions then this probably won’t be that much of a surprise to you. Regardless welcome one and all to the brand spanking new Turntable Radio site. Mind the paint while we finalise things here and there.

While it all looks different everything else is pretty much the same: you can now access all the latest shows from the front page, as well as the latest videos. Feeds from all our other sites are the right hand side as well as various other handy navigation bits. Our Soundcloud dropbox is on the right side too, so if you’re an artist, label or PR person and want us to hear your music just use that or drop us a line via the contact form (top menu).

That’s about it, hope you enjoy and let us know your feedback below. Next one is the Trick & Wrongtom site and then after that it’s Spin Science and we’re all done for 09. Now excuse me I have to get back to some xmas related programming… more on that soon.

peace

Laurent & Mr Trick

Let’s be friends… in a web 2.0 kind of way

As some of you may have noticed in the last few weeks we’ve added some handy icons on the right hand side of the site to all the various social networking sites and similar web 2.0-y sites that Turntable Radio rolls on. So don’t be a stranger and add us. I’ve also finally taken the plunge and created a Murdochspace page for TTR, which was well overdue, like really… let’s just say neither Trick nor I have much love or patience for myspace hence the delay. Anyways, we’re there now, and over on Facebook and Twitter and various other bits.

Something else I’ve just added is a SoundCloud dropbox, also located on the right hand side (just a little further down from where you’re reading this). Use this to send me your music for the show.

Below is a handy rundown of all the sites you can find us on, as well as Rhythm-Incursions, our sister radio show. Or just use the icons on the right hand side like I said.

Now stop wasting so much time on the internet and go do something productive!

Myspace – Turntable Radio / Rhythm-Incursions
Facebook – TTR Facebook page / R-I Facebook fan page
Youtube – Turntable Radio / Spin Science youtube page
Twitter – @turntableradio / @rhythminc / @laurent_fintoni / @mr_trick
Last.fm – MrEurope (Laurent) / Turntable Radio / Rhythm Incursions
Flickr – Laurent’s Saw You on the Flipside photos

Starting tomorrow: Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years

Some time ago we hinted that we might do this, but we have finally decided (after some serious audio preparation work) that it is time to podcast the original 70 shows presented by yours truly, Mr Trick. We’ve had no end of emails asking for us to do this and now that sufficient time has passed I think its right that we do, as much for reasons of archiving and history as anything. Arguably, Turntable Radio has been something of a document of turntablism’s development over the years since we began back in 2002. On that basis then, I think its important to release these shows as MP3s to ensure they get downloaded and passed around. When you consider that a good number of the tracks featured never even saw a release, I’d go as far as to say that Turntable Radio may be the only remaining document of them. The 2tall tracks featured on show #1 are a fine example: never released properly, whilst the man himself has gone onto much greater heights including his fine collab with Dudley Perkins…

So, here’s how its gonna work: we will be releasing these shows at a rate of one-per-week for you to enjoy. The only time we will break from that is when new shows and videos go online courtesy of Laurent. So to clarify: the new shows will continue as normal – this is basically bonus content for you all!

Finally, I’d best point out that the video podcasts from Laurent that were due to go online have been delayed. Why? Well, YOU try uploading a massive video file from the wilds of Borneo. No, I’m not joking either – go peep Lo’s exploits on his blog for proof!

Turntable Radio: The Mr Trick Years begins tomorrow at 12 noon GMT. Podcast subscribers will receive the shows as usual, and a download link will be here for everyone else. Enjoy!

Fresh for 2008

As you can see if you’re a regular visitor to the site, we’ve somewhat freshened things up round here. It was long overdue and just in time for the inauguration of our new podcast series ‘The Mr Trick Years’, where we’ll be podcasting all 70 original TTR shows once a week for well… you do the maths. I know some of you have been waiting for these and they are just around the corner. Two more videos from our Shibuya Sessions coming this week and then it’s on baby.

The new redesign brings us right in line with our Rhythm-Incursions family too, so now you have even less excuses for not checking both sites on the regular. Also look out for some forthcoming joint podcasts between the sites, starting with a very exciting offering from the man like Waxfactor.

In the meantime get your browsing on and let us know here or via the contact page if you see anything wrong, broke etc… there’s only so much cross browser testing one or two men can do (especially on holiday).

We’re so fly the new design even allows you to customise the layout to your preference, you can click and drag any floating box around and re-arrange as you see fit or even collapse. Changes will stay until you clear history/cache/cookies etc…

Oh yeah and happy birthday to Mr Trick who’s celebrating another return today!

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