Watched Doug Pray’s brilliant documentary Scratch last night. It’s turntablism 101: mixing, blending, digging, break beats, beat juggling, and of course scratching. As one of the DJs says, and I’m paraphrasing, “Before we started scratching you’d put the record on the turntable and walk away from it. Your Mom would always say, ‘Don’t touch the record. Don’t touch the record!’”
Predictably, I’m fascinated by the materiality of the vinyl, the way DJs use stickers and tabs to push the needle into a certain groove, the way a good DJ can read the grooves to see where a break begins. I was also intrigued to learn that scratching has its own notation system. Scratch would make provacative viewing paired with Craig Baldwin’s older Sonic Outlaws, which I also adore.
Posted by mgk at November 8, 2003 08:20 PMI've got a lot of other books and film on turntablism (especiallly the seminal Style Wars of the early 80's). IT's a fascinating new artform, served extremely well by Scratch. If you're interested in learning more, especially in regards to the real materiality issues of the movement and the basic structure of reading vinyl (as you've noticed, there's an almost prerequisite set of cuts that a DJ must learn-- from these all other readings are extrapolated, let me know and I'll pass them on to you. Glad you enjoyed the film.
Posted by: Marc at November 9, 2003 07:23 PM | Link to CommentWould love to see some of that stuff, particularly anything on "reading" vinyl. Thanks--
Posted by: MGK at November 10, 2003 10:19 AM | Link to Comment"offscreen" showed that movie last year here at uva, but, unfortunately, i didn't get to go.
i'll have to make sure to watch it some time on video or dvd.
uhh. after i pass my orals.
Posted by: eric s. (from kf's blog) at November 10, 2003 05:33 PM | Link to CommentThese documentaries look really interesting. I'm also intrigued by the fascination with vinyl, although I only know a little about the issues you've mentioned.
Posted by: chuck at November 17, 2003 11:55 AM | Link to Comment