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From:
Chris.Hilker
To:
Ironic Dance Music
Date:
Sat, 5 Apr 1997 10:07:06 -0800
Subject:
Re: (idm) roots of idm
Msg-Id:
<l03010d00af6c42d22d1a@[206.80.181.137]>
In-Reply-To:
<3345A553.2633@snider.net>
Mbox:
idm.9704.gz
quoted 3 lines Grandmaster Flash>Grandmaster Flash >took his cue from Herc and developed cutting skills etc. (There is a lot >more to this but it really isn't my point.)
quoted 4 lines I>I >am guessing that part of the history of hip-hop culture has roots in >the gay disco club scene but this is very difficult to trace since both >DJ cultures are historys that were?are unrecorded.
Flash's cutting skills developed from his rivalry with Herc, apparently. There's an an interview I've read with Flash where he talks about going to one of Herc's parties, where Herc called him out and demonstrated what a *real* sound system was supposed to sound like (Herc's speakers were famous as the loudest in New York's club circuit at that point) - "most of all, you must have BASS." Anyway, Flash went on to say that, thus motivated, he turned to a disco DJ for pointers. That DJ, who either went unnamed or I've forgotten his name, showed Flash how to get the beats to match perfectly every time by cueing up the next record on headphones (Apparently hip-hop DJing was a very much hit and miss style up to this point, at least as far as transitions go). Flash found the sound of moving the record back and forth to find a cue point interesting, and scratching was born. At least, that's how he told the story - there are those who say that Flash's place in the history of hip-hop DJ technique has been overstated in the 'official' histories. C. -- C.Hilker (cspot@hyperreal.com) "He was mesmerized by the light-pictures, and the music sent him right into dreamland"