Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #15

On show 15 we continued our look at the mixtape scene by celebrating the work of the Bay Area’s seminal crew the Bullet Proof Space Travellers. Comprising Eddie Def, Marz, Quest and Cue, these guys were arguably the most prolific crew out there, churning out more mixtapes than most, not to mention dropping sick battle weapons and releasing their devastating “Built To Last” LP. Throwing trends and conformity to the wind, they mashed up metal, cut up over Nirvana, appeared live in avant-garde Shakespeare productions and generally secured their place in history as the fuck you heroes of turntablism. Question is: where are they now? Anyone know? If so, let us know in the comments below. Now, strap on your seatbelts people: this is a wild ride…

Click here to download the show! (105Mb)

Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #5

Originally aired in November 2002 and featuring tracks from Muzik Fiendz, Illtaktikz, Infamous, Nyquist (aka 2tall), Kid Koala, Rob Swift & Bill Laswell and more, this show also took a look at the new Thud Rumble “Turntable Timmy” book & CD. Remember that? My word – now that was an all-time high in the Thud Rumble product catalogue eh?!

Click here for the full tracklisting.

Click here to download the show! (103Mb)

Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #4

Something I always loved about Turntable Radio – and still love about it to this day – is that we got to air a whole bunch of stuff that never saw a proper release. On previous shows that included stuff like DeeSwift’s “StretchedAnimalSkinDrum” piece or (in stark contrast) Weak_Sauce’s priceless “Scrote Shrivla” track. On this show, unreleased gems appeared from SamSaScratch, Mista Ed and someone called Beltdrive Bandit… who frankly I cannot recall at all. Interestingly though, a couple of the tracks marked as “unreleased” later went on to get signed up. I know, because I signed them: Waxfactor’s “Reggaenomics” and 2tall’s “The Rise”.

Also appearing on this show are the likes of DJ Faust, DJ Talkback, Live Human, D-Styles, Rob Swift and more. Oh, and there’s the remake of Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”, feat. Q-Bert, Mixmaster Mike, DXT, Babu, Faust and Shortee… something I’d also totally forgotten about!

Full tracklisting here.

Click here to download the show! (110mb)

Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #3

The reissue of our opening 70 shows rumbles on, this time featuring music from the likes of D-Styles, Bullet Proof Space Travellers, Toadstyle, Shortkut, Craze, Kid Koala, Praxis, The Turntable Monks and – for the old skoolers out there – DJ Cheese, doing his thing at Fresh ’86. Oh and DeeSwift – remember him? Well, here’s his then-infamous StretchedAnimalSkinDrum file that was impressing heads all over various websites.

For the full tracklisting, click here.

Click here to download the show! (110Mb)

Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #2

Show #2 remains a favourite of mine in the entire output of Turntable Radio. Why? Because it was a D-Styles and Shortkut special, in which I sat down with the guys to try and get more info from them. After all, they were never the most verbose people online (no bad thing that, I hasten to add), leaving plenty of scope to ask about, amongst other things, the breakup of the ISPs, the work with Ricci Rucker and more. In addition, we got a sneak preview of the then-forthcoming Phantazmagorea album and exclusively aired two tracks – quite a score at the time!

I also have fond memories of this for another totally unrelated reason, namely D-Styles phoning then-Snatchcon moderhater Big Lee in a bid to get him to come down and meet us. Lee was having none of it, and to this day I’m still convinced he thought it was a prank call or something.

Random trivia: DJ Woody later used the audio of D-Styles saying his name in a BBC Radio 1 session. My “sounds like Prime Cuts” tones were also in there. It was an odd moment.

Anyway – full tracklisting is here.

Click to download Show#2! (113Mb)

Turntable Radio – The Mr Trick Years: Show #1

So: let’s do this: the original 70 Turntable Radio shows presented by me, Mr Trick. Looking back on these has certainly bought a strong whiff of nostalgia back in the place, and hearing the shows again actually made me see them in a different light. To me, Turntable Radio stands as a fine testament to a very niche music scene, and as time has passed its highly focussed area of coverage has made it something of a historical audio document of sorts, because at times it felt like we were airing every damn track out there.

For show #1, I did a special on a guy I later went on to sign: DJ 2tall. Time has shown this to be a good choice too, as 2tall has gone on to become one of the more respected producers to come from this scene, now working with the likes of Dudley Perkins among others.

Alongside 2tall’s work we had other tracks from UK tablists like Timestretch, Rasp and my future Rhythm Incursions co-presenter Waxfactor, not to mention music from bigger names like D-Styles, Mr Dibbs, DJ Shadow, Babu, Radar, A-Trak and more. For the full tracklisting, click here.

So: enjoy the first ever Turntable Radio show, originally aired back in winter 2002. Remember, we will be podcasting these weekly from now on, with occasional breaks for new shows from Laurent too. Spread the word!

Click here to download Show #1 (109Mb)

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!