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.

Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #12

Originally aired 22nd December 2002: “This week we have a VERY special show lined up for you all as our Christmas treat for turntablist fans the world over. DJ Happee has recorded a track EXCLUSIVELY for us, and thus this will be a world first airing, just for TTR listeners! We also have 10 or so live freestyles, routines and more that were recorded at last weeks Snatchcon Christmas Party here in London at the Ruby Lounge. Stepping up to the plate are: DJ Whut, DJ 2Tall, DJ Blakey (individually and collectively as Truesicians), DJ Clockwork and DJ Sneakee. Expect sick juggles, snippets from battles sets, one-take freestyle cuts and a lot more! On top of this we have never-aired-before tracks from the incredible Ground Zero crew from Germany, who drop their “Panphobia” track, and DJ Mart-1 from the Turntabl Spirits in France, repping with his “Feel The Bass” track. To keep everyone in high Christmas spirits were also gonna be dropping a selection of tracks that keep the tempo up and the beats hard. This show is one to play loud!”

Sidenote: the Snatchcon Xmas party was, as I recall, the first time me and Monk-A worked on putting a scratch night on. From there we created the Needlework nights, and from that we started the Needlework label and released 2tall’s debut EP and album…

Click here for full tracklisting.

Click here to download the show! (105Mb)