Community Skratch Tour 09 – The video

We return to this side of the pond with a brand new video from the Community Skratch collective, this time summing up their recent 09 tour which saw the crew, and friends, take to various pubs and live venues up and down England for some serious skratch action.

The tour rolled through the country in August, at the height of England’s summer (ie. it wasn’t raining), with the following skratchers packed into a van: Grandeurs of Delusion, Blam and Plato (from Norway), Blood One, Discuss, Clockwork, Lone Wolf, Vince Mack Mahon (from Ireland), Fluins and Crkrik (from Germany) and Fidel Cutstro. As you can imagine it was a rather messy affair, and they captured it all on tape and edited it down to 30 mins of madness, and music, for your enjoyment. So if you missed it this is the perfect chance to see what the fuss is all about, and if you were at any of the dates it’s the perfect way to remind yourself just how much fun you had.

2tall and myself went down to the last date, in Brighton for the BBQ event, and it was a blast to say the least. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed myself at a skratch event like this, and this is most likely due to the fact that it wasn’t a ‘skratch’ event as such, which is where the guys have really hit it on the head for me. They’re there, doing what they love, for nothing more than the love of it, and that translates with the crowds. Others need to take notice.

As mentioned the video is a 30 min edit of what took place during those 6 days, with plenty of live footage, including the superb live show by Jimmy the Penguin, behind the scenes and crowd reactions (that dude talking about dj battles has a point).

You can download the video below and preview a small part of it above (the excellent ‘Chestpiece’ track by G.O.D). It comes in at 218mb, .m4v format optimised for iPod and iTunes viewing, but will work with all standard media players as long as you have the latest codecs.

Big big thanks to the Community Skratch crew for their love and support. Shouts to Rich and Kirky for the video/photo work. Remember you can buy the latest releases from G.O.D and Vince Mac Mahon over at the Nozl shop, and look out for audio from them and more in the next podcast. And thanks to Mark at Skratchworx for the photo!

Download the video here (right click and save as)

Community Skratch Tour – dates announced!

The Community Skratch collective are going on the road this summer, in full baller status with a mini-tour of some of the UK’s finest haunts where they’ll deliver amazing sounds and showcases never before seen by the indigeneous population. Or something like that. More accurately, the guys will be touring this summer bringing the Community Skratch experience to fine cities up and down the UK – expect some great scratching, challenging showcases and most important of all a great party vibe and some serious good times.

Hitting the road will be Grandeurs of Delusion, Blam and Plato (from Norway), Blood One, Discuss, Clockwork, Lone Wolf, Vince Mack Mahon (from Ireland), Fluins and Crkrik (from Germany) and Fidel Cutstro. Dates are as follows:

11th August – Leeds @ Jakes Bar
12th August – Nottingham @ Jam Bar
13th August – London @ The Victoria, Bow
15th August – Lewes @ The Landsdown
16th August – Brighton @ The Gladstone (Community Skratch BBQ)

Peep the flyer above for more details and the myspace as well. And if you missed it check the videos from this year’s Community Skratch Games in Galway for a taste of what to expect. We’ll be at the London and Brighton shows so come say hello!

Community Skratch Games 2009 part 2

We continue our series of video podcasts looking at the recent Community Skratch Games 09, held in Galway, Ireland in April this year.

Part 2 picks up where 1 left with more live footage from the events as well as footage of various practice sessions. Featured in this video are Lone Wolf, Clockwork, G.O.D, Blam and Plato and Vince Mack Mahon.

More videos are incoming as well as a special guest mix from our man Clockwork and other tba specials. For now though, sit back and enjoy.

For more info on the Community Skratch Games check their myspace. Be sure to also check the NozL shop where you can pre-order copies of the forthcoming Vince Mack Mahon and Grandeurs of Delusions releases.

Many thanks to Rich Nozl and all those involved for letting us air these videos and doing all the hard work.

As with all our video podcasts the file is optimised for iTunes/iPod and viewable on all platforms with standard players including WMV, Quicktime and VLC.

File type is .mp4, 71mb, 10 mins.

Download the video here (right click and save as)

Community Skratch Games 2009 part 1

As promised we continue our series of video podcasts courtesy of the Community Skratch collective with the first part of the 2009 Community Skratch Games, which were held in Galway, Ireland, in April this year.

The four day event saw showcases and workshops take place in various venues of the city with artists from Ireland, the UK and Sweden including Vince Mack Mahon, Nozl, Grandeurs of Delusion, Blam and Plato, Tuki, Gem and more.

The guys filmed the entire proceedings and very kindly put together some short edits of the weekend for us including a couple of exclusive bits just for the Turntable Radio viewers and listeners. This is part 1 of a three part series of video podcasts which will then be followed by some more special podcasts, details of which will be announced soon.

In the meantime enjoy ten minutes of skratch action from some of Europe’s finest at what looked like a very lively event.

For more info on the Community Skratch Games check their myspace. Be sure to also check the NozL shop where you can pre-order copies of the forthcoming Vince Mack Mahon and Grandeurs of Delusions releases.

Many thanks to Rich Nozl and all those involved for letting us air these videos and doing all the hard work.

As with all our video podcasts the file is optimised for iTunes/iPod and viewable on all platforms with standard players including WMV, Quicktime and VLC.

File type is .mp4, 68mb, 10 mins.

Download the video here (right click and save as)

EDIT: I’d mispelt GOD as Delusions of Grandeur not Grandeurs of Delusion. Note to self: working when tired results in stupid mistakes.

Community Skratch BBQ video

We start our very long overdue series of podcasts on the excellent Community Skratch collective with a video from their Community Skratch BBQ event, which was held in the summer of 2008 in Brighton.

I was first made aware of the Community Skratch collective by Jim Manipulate from Brighton, one third of Grandeurs of Delusion and a long time TTR favourite and friend.

The short history behind the collective goes like this:

The Community Skratch Games High Rollers Bonanza came into being Easter weekend 2007 in the Bierhaus,Galway. It’s purpose is to further the art of turntable manipulation and raise awareness of HipHop DJ culture,a riposte to the increasing commercialisation and creative cul-de-sac of modern DJ battles.The centrepiece of the weekend is the Games themselves, taking place amid a backdrop of workshops/seminars, skratch music showcases and a barrage of funk, hiphop, electro and sweaty dancing folk….

And this in so many words is exactly why the Community Skratch Games and collective is a great idea and one that has our full support here at TTR.

Due to my own move back from Japan to Europe, a hard drive failure and various other fun things we haven’t really had the time to sit down and arrange something properly with these guys, even though we’ve been trying to get some podcasts hooked up for about a year now. But I’m very happy to say we’re about to remedy this.

First up is this video from last year’s event, which has been available on the NozL site for a while. It’s a 30 minute run down of the BBQ with some of the best bits from the day’s showcases including G.O.D, Vince Mack Mahon, Blam & Plato, Blood One and more.

Up next we’ll have some videos from this year’s Community Skratch Games, held over the bank holiday weekend in April. And following this we’ll also be airing some exclusive audio podcasts with various members of the Community Skratch collective including G.O.D, Blam & Plato and more. This all leading nicely up to the release of the new G.O.D and Vince Mack Mahon EPs on NozL recordings in the summer. And by the way we’ll be airing tracks from these releases and other bits in an upcoming TTR podcast.

For more on the collective check their myspace. You can also visit the NozL website and shop to purchase music from many of the artists featured in the video.

Many thanks to Rich Maroon for his help in sorting this out as well as Lewis and Jim for alerting us to this in the first place and trying to arrange for various podcasts over the last year. We will get there somehow. If all goes to plan we’ll be attending the next event and bring some additional footage and audio too.

For now though, just sit back and relax.

As always with our video podcasts the file is optimised for iPod and iTunes, but will work fine on all standard players. If you have any issues check your codecs.

File type is .mp4, 197mb, 30 mins.

Download the video here (right click and save as)