Mastermix Crew (Esp & Johnnie Freeze)

Ode to the Vinyl Mastermix, Vol. 2

2012-01-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

Second edition of bits and pieces of vinyl
megamixes

For all the vinyl mix collectors.

http://www.mixcrate.com/mix/107021/ESP-Ode-to-the-Vinyl-Mastermix-Vol-2

Bits & Pieces '86

2011-12-29T20:25:00.000-08:00

Bits & Pieces '85

2011-12-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

DJ Howard Thomas

2011-06-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

DJ Howard Thomas was born on November 22, 1962. He was a former dj on KMIX 106(located in Oxnard, California) who was abruptly killed in an automobile accident on August 14, 1988. He made the classic mix HT-On the Wheels of Steel.

Tribute Video/Audio

HT-On the Wheels of Steel

2011-06-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

This mix was done Howard Thomas in 1984.

Tracklisting
Ledernacken-Amok!
Sexual Harrassment-I Need A Freak
Double Vision-Clock On The Wall
Newcleus-Jam On It
Divine Sounds-What People Do For Money
Hashim-Al-Naafiysh
Michael Jackson-Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel - White Lines
B-Boys, The - Rock The House
Midnight Star - Freak-A-Zoid
Nuance Featuring Vikki Love - Take A Chance
Prince - When Doves Cry

Cameron Paul DJ Legend Series

2011-06-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

DJ Cameron Paul was a Bay Area pioneer in the mix world. Even before his radio gigs, he was a dominating force on the SF club scene. In this mega mix, I compiled and mixed some of his radio mixes on KSOL and KMEL, mix releases on Hot Tracks and Mixx-it, Tandem records and a nice interview intertwined in the music.

Enjoy with multiple listening. Feedback is welcome.

Dedicated to DJ Cameron Paul and his fans.

http://www.mixcrate.com/mix/55535/ESP-Cameron-Paul--DJ-Legend-Series

Gee I Joe-This Is A Test

2011-06-14T20:46:00.000-07:00

thanks OSM

Tracklist
TBA

Latin Rascals : DJ Legends Series

2011-04-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

Back when Big Apple Production 2 was released in 1984, I always wondered who made this musical opus.
Later, I found that the Latin Rascals were responsible for this influential megamix.

Check this nice write-up by Johnny Freeze about this amazing duo on our blog:
http://mastermixcrew.blogspot.com/2008/11/latin-rascals-edits-in-mix.html

In this
megamix, I chose some of their commercial production, radio edits and some of their mastermixes along with a recent interview with Albert Cabrera.

Dedicated to all the edit heads out there.

Special mentions to the Edit Kings(aka the Latin Rascals) and DJ Paco for the intro
http://www.mixcrate.com/mix/42998/ESP-Artist-Profile-SeriesLatin-Rascals

Ode to the Vinyl Mastermix, Vol. 1

2011-01-18T23:53:00.000-08:00

In this offering, I have taken the liberty to take some bits and pieces from these vinyl masterpieces to create this retrospective
edit Megamix.

Respect to the Bay Area Mixmasters: Dj Efx & Mind Motion ,Dj Juanito,DJ Prince Ice, Cameron Paul, Michael Erickson, Alexander Mejia as well as the Latin Rascals, Double Dee & Steinski, Dj Blend Daddy, Dj Deryck D , Debonaire, Dj Howard Thomas(RIP) , Dj Antron and countless others.

For all the vinyl mix collectors.

MP3
Ode to the Vinyl Mastermix, Vol. 1 by ESP

DJ Deryck D-Miami Rumble Mix '89

2011-01-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Side A-Miami Rumble Mix
Side B-Bonus Bounce Mix

Tracklisting
Deryck D Intro
Tricky D-Take It To The Max
Public Enemy-Bring the Noise sample
Antoinette-Make It Boom
Egyptian Lover-And My Beats Goes Boom
Vanity-Nasty Girl sample
Time sample
JJ Fad sample
Attitude-We Got the Juice sample
Techno Bass sample
Midnight Star-No Parking on the Dance Floor Sample
Vicious Bass-Shake That Thang
NWA-Something To Dance To
Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock sample
DJ Rob Base-It Takes Two sample
Salt & Pepa-Push It sample
Afro-rican-Give It All You Got
Kano-I'm Ready sample
Jonzun Crew-Pac Jam sample
Dial-A-Freak-Uncle Jamm's Army instrumental
Deryck D rap
Clay D-Get Funky
Kraftwerk-Tour De France sample
Freestyle-It's Automatic sample

mp3(courtesy of DJ Deryck D)

Side A-Miami Rumble Mix

Miami Rumble 89' by DJ Deryck D

Side B-Bonus Bounce Mix
Deryck's Bounce Beats by DJ Deryck D

Streetbeat

2010-09-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Cameron Paul put out this masterful mix in 1984. It was later released on his own Mixx-it record label.

Ttacklisitng
Unknown intro
West Street Mob-Mosquito
Herbie Hancock-Rockit
Hip Hop On Wax Vol.1-Dj Chuck Chillout
Egyptian Lover-What Is A DJ If He Can't Scratch
Bar Kays-Sexomatic
I Want To Be Real-John Rocca
Eve -Take A Bite
Hall & Oates-Out Of Touch
We're Rockin The Planet-Hashim
Shannon-Give Me Tonight
Arthur Baker-Breakers Revenge
Hashim-Al Naafyish
Egyptian Lover sample
The Bird-Time
Dial A Freak-Uncle Jamms Army sample
Stone-Time
Run DMC-Hard Times
Planet Patrol-Play At Your Own Risk
Egyptian Lover-Egypt, Egypt
David Van Tieghem-These Things Happen
Art Of Noise-Beatbox
Dial A Freak-Uncle Jamms Army sample
Twilight 22-Siberian Nights
Twilight 22-Electric Kingdom
??
Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock
Kano-I'm Ready
File 13-Taste So Good
Guru-Who You Stealing From
The Jackson-Torture
Debbie Deb-When I Hear Music
Pretty Tony-Fix It In The Mix
Diana Ross sample
Sylvester-Rock Box
File 13-Taste So Good

MP3s

2010-09-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

With the exception some related links, this site does not store any mp3s. To listen to some of these mixes, please take a look at other sites on the net or some of the posted Youtube links. This site is meant primarily for information of these vinyl mixes.

Thanks for looking,
Mastermix Crew

DJ Bacon-Universal B Boy Mega-Mix

2010-06-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

This mix was done by DJ Bacon in 2008.
Limited release of 300.

Tracklisting-TBA

MP3
Universal B Boy Megamix by DJ Bacon

Video

Shout out to DJ Bacon for providing several copies.

DJ Bacon

2010-06-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

DJ Bacon has proved his versatility, mastering different styles of blending, quick mixes, juggling and cutting within different genres. Old school hip hop and b boy anthems are where he is most passionate - rocking the party with original hip hop style and a funky approach to DJing. DJ Bacon's scratch style is unique - with the ability to tear it up with equal precission on both turntables with funk and technical ability. Bacon has proved his ability within the club, festival, and live DJ environments as a turntablist and crowd rocking DJ.

DJ Bacon is one of only a handfull of Australian Dj's to release vinyl. Support independent artists, buy their music!! Bacons debut Vinyl release is out now!! Check out the "Universal B Boy Megamix" in all good Oz hip hop stores or contact me here for a copy. DJ Bacon has been influenced by listening to early hip hop records and admiring the pioneers like Jam Master Jay, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DST, Jazzy Jay, Bambaata, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Too Tuff, Mr Mixx and countless others that pioneered the genre. After puchasing his first 12" vinyl "It's Tricky" by Run Dmc at the tender age of 12 (1987) his passion and knowledge of hip hop culture and music has grown continually.

Growing up in Brisbane It was hard to source a lot of the early US hip hop, however local radio show 4zzz (Phat Tape w DJ Katch) proved to be a source of ever inspiring hip hop jams. Another local - DJ Cybex had amazing hip hop and electro mixtapes too, that continued to inspire.

After years of passionate DJing and collecting, DJ Bacon formed a partnership with longtime friend Shazam - starting an instrumental project "Briztronix" in early 2000. With Jazz, hip hop and electro influences the band has now released an EP and two full length LP's. Remaining independent has allowed the band to explore and manufacture a truely unique sound - featuring on countless compilations and winning the Q music Q Song award in 2007 (hip Hop category) for their electro hip hop anthem "Beats From the East".

Briztrronix latest offering "Structures Of Canyons" is out now (including a vinyl 12" ) - this will be the album you're still talking about in 10 years time.

After relocating to Melbourne in 2004, DJ Bacon inserted himself in the Melbourne club scene, holding down several residencies and Djing on the b boy circuit.

Club residencies in Melbourne since 2004 have included :

Revolver

First Floor

Black Cat

Laundry

E55

Workshop Bar

North Bazaar

DJ Bacon has been heavily involved in many community youth arts projects , DJ performances and tutorials over the past decade - teaching and travelling throughout Australia and spreading hip hop culture to the next generation.

DJ performances, battles, workshops and releases have been many since the late 90's. Gigs around the country and overseas include the Australian DMC competition, Oz B Boy championships, Wicked Force 20 year anniversary Jam, Livid Festival, Big Day Out, Brisbane festival, Woodford Folk Festival, Stylin Up, and more. Some supports of note include Grandmaster Flash, Ugly Duckling, The Roots, Anticon, Hilltop Hoods and DJ Dexter. DJ Bacon ripped many shows supporting international acts as DJ for legendary Queensland B Boy crew Gravity Warriors throughout the early 2000's.

After a five year DJ holiday in Melbourne, Bacon is now a Brisbane resident again, and will be doing similar things with turntables up here in 2009. For bookings and community workshop inquiries contact :

scottebarker@hotmail.com

Read more: http://www.myspace.com/therealdjbacon#ixzz0rK0bNZqF

Visitors to the site

2010-01-30T23:48:00.000-08:00

Please give us a shout out in the Cbox and let us know what you would like to see in this blog.

If you have any other info on any vinyl mixes or have vinyl mixes not reviewed on the site, please let us know. If you need to contact us, email us at
mixcrew1@gmail.com

Thank you all.
Mastermix Crew

James Brown-The Payback Mix

2010-01-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

This mix was done in 1988 by Various djs.
A1 The Payback Mix (Keep On Doing What You're Doing But Make It Funky)

A2 Payback (The Final Mixdown) 5:53

DJ Mega-Mix Vol. 1

2009-12-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

Thix mix was done by Norman Cook. This was released in 1986.

This record was really well ahead of it's time! This was released when Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), was still in Indie group The Housemartins, and this influenced hundreds of turntablist cut-cup records (such as Coldut's Beats + Pieces).

The reason this never got released was due to the heavy amount of samples in it (dialogue from Doctor Who, Batman, The Jungle Book, and lots of familiar bronx breaks samples), and got bootlegged to death (under the name of Norman Housemartin!).

On to the record itself. In my ears, the main part sounds a heck of a lot like the Inspector Gadget theme, and Norm incorporates loops of him doing some turntablism (a thing that he almost dosen't do nowerdays), and the other side features the same track, but with Norm himself rapping (badly) with future Beats International member, MC Wildski!

Source:
http://www.discogs.com/Norman-Cook-DJ-Mega-Mix-Vol-1

Italian Ice-Mars Re-Pumped

2009-11-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Debonaire in 1988.

The Strange World of the 12"

2009-11-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

DJ Juanito-War of the World

2009-11-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

Double Dee & Steinski-Lesson 2

2009-10-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

This mix was done by Double Dee & Steinski in 1985.

Tracklisting(not in order)
Fiorello La Guadia's Reading The Comics sample
James Brown-I Got You(I Feel Good)
Sly & the Family Stone-Dance to the Music
James Brown-Mother Popcorn
James Brown-Sex Machine
James Brown-Make It Funky
James Brown-I Got Ants In My Pants
James Brown-Get On the Good Foot
Rufus Thomas-Itch and Scratch Part 2
Incedible Bongo Band-Apache
Tweety Sample
James Brown-Get Up Offa That Thing
Mutiny-Funk N' Bop
Frankie Smith-Double Dutch Bus
Fab 5 Freddy featuring B-Side-Change The Beat(Female Version)
Dirty Harry sample
Junior-Mama Used To Say
Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force-Looking for the Perfect Beat
Malcolm McLaren-World Famous
G.L.o.B.E& Whiz Kid-Play that Beat Mr. DJ
B-Boys-Rock The House

and other samples

Samples

DJ Rectangle-Vanilla Dope EP

2009-10-10T11:22:00.001-07:00

This mix was done by DJ Rectangle.

Tangle Mix

Dj EFX Freshmix Volume 2

2009-10-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Luke Skyywalker-Bass Waves Megamix II

2009-09-18T19:15:00.001-07:00

This megamix was done by Chep Nunez in 1987.
Megamix II Tracklist
MC Shy D- We Don't Play
MC Shy D-Gotta Be Tough
J.D.C.-Jealous Girls
Anquette-Throw The P
Ghetto Style-Throw The D

Todd Terry Megamix By Double Trouble

2009-09-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

This mix was done by Double Trouble in 1988.

The Todd Terry Megamix

A1 Todd Terry Project, The Bango
A2 Todd Terry Project, The Weekend
A3 Todd Terry Project, The It's Just Inhuman
A4 Todd Terry Project, The Back To The Beat
A5 Todd Terry Project, The Just Wanna Dance
A6 Todd Terry Project, The The Circus
A7 Royal House Can You Party
A8 Swan Lake In The Name Of Love
A9 Jungle Brothers I'll House You

DJ Deryck D

2009-09-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

Engineer/Producer Deryck D is not new to the game. He has been recording and producing for more than 18 years. Deryck was an intern at Moon Studios in 1987 and sat in on sessions with Jay King. He has taken classes at the California Recording Institute where he learned to record and mix with the best. He has recorded and mixed some of the hottest hip hop acts in northern cali, including E-40, Keek Da Sneak, San Quinn, Jay Tee(N 2 Deep), Doey Rock and a host of others. Starting out as a DJ in 1985 Deryck D paved the way for many Sacramento Disc Jockeys in the Sacramento area. Doing mix shows for KSFM 102.5 and 97 KROY in 1990, Deryck has a well trained "ear" for music and knows how a good radio mix should sound. In the mid 90's Deryck D had recording contracts with dance labels-Cutting Records and Underground Construction, that released several of his 12" dance records.

Source
http://www.myspace.com/ediblesoundsrecording

DJ Renegade-West Coast All Stars

2009-08-30T21:21:00.001-07:00

Samples used
LA Dream Team-Is In the House
LA Dream Team-Rockberry Jam
X-Men
Whodini-Five Minutes of Funk
Rodney O
Egyptian Lover-Girls
WCWC-Surgery
WCWC-Juice
Unknown DJ-Let's Jam
Uncle Jamm's Army-Roach Is On the Wall
Uncle Jamm's Army-Dial-A-Freak
Dynamix II-Give the DJ A Break

DJ Juanito-Move Your Feet(Don't Stop Now)

2009-08-17T19:35:00.001-07:00

DJ Juanito-True Colors

2009-08-14T18:43:00.001-07:00

This mix was done by DJ Juanito in 1988.

DJ Juanito-Cold In Effect

2009-08-07T22:13:00.001-07:00

DJ Juanito-Don't Stop The Mix

2009-07-19T13:57:00.001-07:00

This mix was done by DJ Juanito in 1987.

DJ Juanito

2009-07-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Official Website
http://www.djjuanito.com/

Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/djjuanitofx

Interview

Dopemix 1

2009-07-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

This mix was by DJ Prince Ice in 1988.
Tracklisting:
A Dopemix Volume 1 (8:30)
B1 Bass Groove '88 (3:47)
B2 Funkygitdown (2:36)

Partial Tracklisting-Dopemix Volume 1

Shooting Intro
ROdney O-Everlasting Bass
BDP-Criminal Minded
LL Cool J-I'm Bad
Ice T-Colors
Kool Moe Dee-Wild Wild West
LL Cool J-Rock The Bells
Audio 2-Top Billing
LL Cool J
EPMD-You Got To Chill
Salt & Pepa-Shake Your Thing
Public Enemy-Rebel Without A Pause
DJ Polo & Kool G Rap-Poison
Big Daddy Kane
Roxanne Shante
Rob Base & DJ EZ-Rock-It Takes Two
Eric B & Rakim-Paid In Full
Run DMC
DJ Polo & Kool G Rap-Poison
Kool Moe Dee-Let's Go
Kid & Play
Eric B & Rakim-Follow The Leader
Break

Dopemix 2

2009-07-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

This mix was done DJ Prince Ice in 1989.
Tracklisting:
A Dopemix Vol.2
B1 Freestyle
B2 Masters At Work

Partial Tracklisting-Dope Mix 2
AWB-Pick Up The Pieces sample
EPMD-Strictly Business
DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince-Brand New Funk
Stop The Violence Movement-Self Destruction
Stetsasonic-Talking All That Jazz
Rob Bass-It Takes Two
PE-Bring The Noise
De La Soul-Say No Go

Michael Jackson Megamix

2009-07-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

The mixer is unknown. This Swedish record was released in 1988.

Tracklisting

Side A
Megamix
Bad samples
Bille Jean
Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
Wanna Be Starting Something
Thriller
Bad
Just Another Part of Me

Side B
MJ Rap
Billy Jean instrumental w/Eric B & Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul"

MJ Special Effect
instrumental loop

Thanks DJ Fred for the scans.

Scratchmatic

2009-06-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

This mix was done by DJ Antron in 1984.

Info
http://www.westcoastpioneers.com/artists/antron.html

Myspace
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=136383727

Tracklisting
Kraftwerk-Numbers
Soul Sonic Force-Planet Rock
Indeep-Last Night A DJ Saved My Life(acapella)
Michael Jackson-Thriller sample
Owner Of A lonely Heart-Yes
Cindy Lauper-Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Bedrock-Glass(scratching)
Culture Club-Miss Me
Dazz Band-Joy Stick
Hashim-Al Naafyish
Cybotron-Clear
Uncle Jamm's Army-Yes, Yes, Yes
Twilight 22-Electric Kingdom
Uncle Jamm's Army-Dial-A-Freak
Run DMC sample
Art Of Noise-Beat Box
Davy DMX-One For The Trouble
Cameo-Strange
Newcleus-Jam On It
Herbie Hancock-Rockit
Malcolm Mclaren- Buffalo Gals

Turntable Talk-5 Fingers of Death

2009-06-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

Mixer is unknown.
This mix was released in 1984.

Tracklistng
Jive Rhythm Trax-122 BPM(playing throughout the mix)
Ice T-Reckless sample
Twilight 22-Electric Kingdom sample
Nuance-Take A Chance sample
Pretty Tony-Fix It In The Mix
Run DMC sample
Kraftwerk-Tour De France sample
Hashim-Al Naafyish
Newcleus-Computer Age
Marvelettes-Mr. Postman

Mix Madness #1 The Beat

2009-06-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

The mixer is unknown. This mix was released circa 1989.
Tracklisting
L'Trimm-Cars That Goes Boom
Clay D-Get Funky
PE-Bring the Noise Sample
Felix & Jarvis-Flamethrower Rap
Salt & Pepa-Push It
Unknown DJ-Breakdown
IgorRx 15 instrumental
??
Audio Tech-I'm Your Audiotech
Bass Patrol-Do the Alph
Cybotron-Clear
??
Sleeze Boyz-Robocop
WCWC-Juice
Debonaire-Get Silly
Kraftwerk-Tour De France

Bits & Pieces 88

2009-06-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Carlos Berrios

2009-05-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Carlos Berrios
Interview by Francis Tanneur

Could you tell us a little bit more about you?

I was born in Bogota (Colombia) to a Colombian Mother and a Peruvian father. Apparently my parents, who were already living in New York at the time, thought it would be a good idea if I were born in South America. Soon after I was born, we all came back to New York. That’s where I was raised. In Flushing, New York. My father left us when I was about six years old. When I was 15 years old my mother, stepfather and brother moved a few miles away to Rego Park, where I’ve been ever since. I have a small studio in my apartment where I do most of my work now. But in the early days I spent most of my time at the world famous Unique Recording Studios in Manhattan.

How and when did you start in the music business?

My love with music started when I was very young. Do you want to hear the story from the beginning?

Yes please!!!

Well, one of my earliest memories involves attending a Boys Club dance in Flushing, Queens. I was about twelve or thirteen years old and I was handed a flyer for the jam in the street. When I walked into the gym, which is where the dance was held, I realized that I was the only non-black person in the room. Except for this one old white man in a white, Saturday Night Fever, three piece suit. He was dancing in the middle of a circle of hoods, which were having fun with him. They weren’t hurting him or anything. They were just laughing and having a good time. The old man was having a great time too. I walked over to the DJ area and noticed that they tried really hard to block him off. But I was able to see enough when he slipped on a record called “Super sperm” by Captain Skyy. He started spinning back the break and it was the first time I ever saw anything like that. I stood there for several hours watching him spin. I also noticed that he had certain records where the label was blackened out. This was so that no other DJ could get that record if they didn’t already know what it was. I learned later how competitive DJ’s could be.

This experience led me to want to be a DJ myself. Especially when I started to go to house parties where the DJ’s always looked so cool to me. I always wanted to touch the platter. But I had to learn how to DJ first. So I begged this guy who was a few years older than I was, from the neighborhood. Rick used to have a crew called “Maximum Force”. I would beg him to teach me how to DJ, but he would wave me off because I was just a punk kid who was being annoying. But I got him one day when he wasn’t doing anything and convinced him to take me up to his apartment, where he kept his equipment. That was my first experience with a turntable. I was pretty good too. After that I begged and begged my mother to get me turntables, which was pretty selfish of me because we never really had money. After my father left us we even had to go on welfare for a while. But somehow, my mom managed to keep our place nice and we never went hungry. After my mom got her first job with decent pay, my brother and I became latch key kids. That’s a whole other story.

But one day my mother walked in with two Technics boxes. SL-5100’s. The first quartz lock model that Technic’s made. They were incredible turntables. So of course, I paid my mother back by cutting out of school in order to practice on my new turntables. I used to practice at least eight hours a day. Then when I got really good I was asked to play at parties. This was always exciting for me because it always felt as though I was performing. The house parties in my neighborhood were always a bit dangerous though. They always ended in a brawl or worse. One night I was playing a house party when I realized that someone had stolen one of my Pizo tweeters. At the same time, one of the leaders of a gang called the “20 Crew” strolled in and saw that I was upset. I told him what had happened and he started a melee that ended in a shootout. I was only fourteen.

Later when I had moved to Rego Park. I only had one friend left. Rick, the guy who taught me how to DJ. One late night we decided to check out my new neighborhood, when we came across a group of guys as we tried to cross through a schoolyard. One of them stood up and asked what we were doing in his neighborhood. When I explained that I had just moved into the neighborhood, he looked at my jacket, which said “After Dark Crew” and asked if it was a gang. I said no. It’s the name of my DJ crew. He asked me if I had protection. I said no. He asked if I wanted some. I said okay. He stood up, took a can of spray paint from his back pocket and wrote “After Dark Crew” on the back of his jacket. “I’m with you now”, he said. Jesus Sanes was the toughest kid I ever knew. With the biggest heart. He was killed years later by his girlfriend’s uncle, shot in the head.

But “After Dark” started on that night. Before that it was only a name. After that it became a family. At one time we had about forty members. And no one could fuck with us. We got into all kinds of scrapes and we never lost a fight. And the music was always good. We even had groupies. A crew of girls that would take care of us that we called “The Krizzles”.

It was about this time that I started wanting more excitement in my life. So I started stealing cars for kicks. Just to joyride in and then leave them somewhere. When my best friend Rick found out he yelled at me. He was the older brother that I didn’t have. Then my mother felt that she couldn’t control me anymore and asked my father to take over. At that time he was working for a company called “Morrison Knudsen” based out of Boise, Idaho. The largest construction company in the world. They had jobs going on in different countries around the world. My father’s next job was taking him to Barranquilla, Colombia. The country where I was born. So both my Mother and Father thought it would be a good idea for me to leave New York for a while.

I went kicking and screaming. Crying. I was in love with my first girlfriend and “After Dark” was my family. But leaving New York was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was in Colombia that my music career started.

What did you do exactly in Colombia, before going back to the United States?

Well, my experience in Colombia was extraordinary. From the moment the plane landed I knew that this was going to be a very different existence. As soon as we landed, the plane was escorted on both sides by jeeps with machine guns on tripods. We learned that we were going to be staying at the largest and oldest hotel in the city, “El Prado”. The hotel was huge and even had a concert hall by the pool in the middle of the courtyard, where they held concerts. While we were there, we got to see Julio Iglesias and Gloria Gaynor. We were warned not to travel outside of the hotel at night because it was dangerous. Eventually we met the other American families staying in the hotel and became friends with the other kids. We would all take turns buying meals for the group and signing the checks to our rooms because the company was paying for everything. It took several months before the company and our parents caught on and stopped it. We ate real well for a while. When the time came to go to school I learned that my brother and I would be attending a college prep school called Karl C. Parrish. I might as well tell you right now that I was a terrible student. But a big part of that was my rebelliousness at the time. I just felt so out of place. Only rich Colombian kids went to this school. So you would see things like the kids being driven to school by chauffeurs in BMW’s and Jaguars. The American kids were all picked up by a company school bus. The whole thing was weird.

Jumping ahead about a year. I eventually made friends with people and found that I wanted to experience Colombia a little more. So I started to change as a person. After the first school year I went back to New York for summer vacation and found a different place than I had remembered. Some friends had died, been killed, some friends were still on the path to nowhere and my best friends, the other leaders of the After Dark Crew, had moved on with their lives.

When I left New York again, I had a different purpose. I didn’t want to take my real turntables so I bought two new ones and a clubman mixer. I took a suitcase full of the newest records with me. When I got back to Colombia I found the most popular nightclub and went there on a Friday night. I sat at the bar and watched the dance floor all night. I saw that they weren’t mixing the records at all. They would just let one end and the people on the dance floor would applaud and then the next record would play. The next night I went early in the hope that I might speak to the manager. I sat at the bar for a while and this guy comes up to use the phone. So I ask him if he was the manager and he asks me, why. So I tell him that I’m from New York and that I’m a DJ and how I was there the night before and that the music was terrible that the DJ was terrible and that I had all the newest records and DJ equipment back at my apartment. So he asks me if I wanted to bring the stuff to the club that night. I said sure. I asked him who he was and he tells me he was the DJ. I was so embarrassed. But to his credit, he wasn’t offended, he was curious. We went and got the gear and records and carried it all into the nightclub, which was already open for business. I set everything up and had to switch the system. I waited until the record that was playing ended. Then I unplugged their system and plugged mine in.

I played for several hours with my new friend watching in amazement because he had never seen anyone blend records before. The dance floor was packed for hours until finally people started jamming the DJ booth asking for the tape that was playing. It created quite a scene, so the club owner came and asked what was going on. So my friend explained to him what we had done. He looks at me and offers me a job on the spot. I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes so I said that I would teach Tony and help out, but that all I wanted was to come and go in the club whenever I wanted and he agreed. He offered me full access to the club with drinks on the house for me, and any guests that I may want to bring. I was 14 years old. That started my nightclub life. And to top that off I found out that my new friend, Tony Jimenez, was the music programmer for the biggest radio station in that city; Universal Stereo. We had a great time playing the clubs and eventually Tony became a great DJ. I told Tony about the Latin Rascals and how they edited tape and did master mixes for the original KTU radio station in New York. He convinced me to try and edit tape at the radio station. But what he did was to borrow a reel to reel from the radio station on loan and ordered an edit-all edit block from Miami. And that’s how I learned how to edit. I made my first edit mix in Colombia. Tony had it aired on the radio station and it was just like a New York weekend mix party. I was in the music biz!

Even though, you had already produced some songs, you did a lot of editing. Why did you make that choice?

I don’t remember making those kinds of decisions at that time. I wasn’t in the position yet where I could turn down any work. But most of the work that came my way was for editing because that’s how I had made my name, initially. My entire career was built on whatever happened to be available to me at any given moment. I took advantage of it all. A time for me to learn. At the age of 21 I married a girl from Laredo, Texas. I had gone to Texas after my time in Colombia because I wasn’t ready to go back to New York. My family wasn’t as supportive as it could’ve been at that time because all they remembered were the troublemakers that my little brother and I were, before we left to Colombia. They thought we were the same little hoods from before. But my experience in Colombia definitely changed me. I had ambition now. I decided that I wanted to go to college, and it was decided that I would go Texas where my uncle was a professor of Sociology at a junior college. I figured I would study for two years there and then transfer to Texas A&M. But I was side tracked when I found a break-dance troupe at the mall and ended up joining them and then touring Texas. We won a lot of trophies. In year two I moved out of my uncles home, because he was too strict, and I moved in with a Puerto Rican family originally from Chicago. I became one of the older brothers in a family of five. I had chores like mowing the lawn and fixing the truck. I almost killed myself doing both. I was dating a lot but ended up falling in love with a Mexican girl. I married her in Chicago on the way back to New York. I didn’t tell anyone until I arrived in New York and introduced everyone to my wife. I was 20 years old.

When I got back to New York I had to get a job to start supporting my wife. My first job was sweeping LaGuardia Airport. All of it. My friend’s father in-law was the night crew boss; so trust me, I did as little work as humanly possible. My wife and I had to live with another one of my friends until I could get on my feet. I eventually got a job at a Steel Company as a manager in the expediting department; even though I didn’t have a clue as to what I was supposed to be doing. I managed to hold on to that job for about six months before I was exposed and then fired. I had the most well organized file cabinet when I left though. Then I managed to land a job as a bank teller in Citibank.

Around this time I was hanging out with another DJ, Louie Martinez, who was working as an assistant at “Sync Sound” in Manhattan. Sync Sound is the top mixing studio for film and television in New York. From the moment I walked into that place I knew that I wanted to get in that business. This in turn convinced me to attend the “Institute of Audio Research” in Greenwich Village and this is where I met Norty Cotto. I used to show up to class with a hang over and copy all of his homework. Because I never did mine. I didn’t graduate because I got into a fight with the editing teacher; but Norty did. Norty was the first person to offer me paid work, first as an editor, then as a producer. He had met a bootlegger that wanted to put out some mixes. So I put together a mix that ended up on vinyl as “Bits & Pieces 86”. I also did “Bits & Pieces 87”. Norty and I never got paid for them.

But this opened other doors for me and I found that could make a small living editing. It wasn’t until I met Omar Santana that I got the bug to create music. Watching him work was a fantastic learning experience. Spending time with him in the studio. This of course affected my marriage. My wife from never really understood what I was trying to do. So after several breakups, we parted ways for good.

Omar & I started “The Hit Squad”. Together we edited many records for artists like, Duran Duran, The Rolling Stones, Samantha Fox, and of course several Freestyle and Hip Hop acts.

Could you tell us what the work of editing entails?

Editing is a technique that has many functions. The most important is the structuring or restructuring of a song or track when it’s necessary to extend it to a club version that a D.J. can play or to shorten it so that it doesn’t go over the 4 minute limit that radio stations insist on. It also is a way of piecing together a coherent flow from different kinds of mixes. Editing was different when I first started. We used to edit on 1/2 inch tape with a razor blade and an “Edit All” edit block. We were hired by producers who would hand us as many as twelve reels of recorded tape with very different mix variations of the same song. Each reel had about 4 songs on it so if you do the math…. We did a lot of listening before we cut.

How would you define the importance of your job?

Before the advent of ProTools it was the only way to alter the structure of a mix. The editor had to physically handle the master tape with his hands. So record companies only trusted a select few with these masters that cost sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce. If you think about it, it seems significant that the editors who made their mark innovating the art of editing were all Latino: Santana, Nuñez, Moran, Cabrera, Berrios, etc.

Do you think that there is any particular reason that the Latinos seemed to be more innovating and interested by “The art of editing”?

I think that it was an extension of the times. The whole Hip Hop movement was under way and radio was exciting in a way that is impossible today. There was a creative renaissance happening that Blacks and Latinos were on the cusp of. That’s because the hippest clubs at that time were the urban clubs like The Roxy, The Funhouse, Disco Fever, etc. Scratching, break dancing, graffiti. It was a time when we were coming up with all kinds of ways to express ourselves. It really says a lot about where we were at that time. It was a very creative time for us. It’s almost impossible for that sort of thing to happen again in the same way because the culture won’t allow it at the moment. Radio is stagnant and boring, clubs are boring everything is boring.

Am I right if I say that an editor could be considered as a kind of musical composer? I mean, technically, you compose different sound effects!
An ordinary editor’s job was simply to arrange pieces of recorded tape so that changes would occur, if it was called for, every 4, 8, or 16 bars. The thing with us is that we weren’t ordinary editors. Between us, we edited just about every record that came out in the 80’s. Along the way we added more and more of ourselves until finally, we were allowed to perform as artists. Special bonus beats comprised of little slices of tape, pasted together to create a sonic rhythmic pattern that was far from the producer’s original intended musical vision. We performed little editing masterpieces.

How do you decide the moment in the song where an edit or a series of effects will take place?

After a while it becomes instinct. Like when you compose a song. You can say, “I think the bridge should go here”. And then you try it. It’s all feel and instinct after a while. Sometimes the producer knows exactly what he wants. It depends on what the song needs. Sometimes it doesn’t need anything.

You already worked on more than 80 singles. How and where did you find the inspiration? And most importantly what is your secret to avoid repeating yourself, technically speaking?

My inspiration came from different places. I was inspired by Arthur Baker’s work, Chris Barbosa’s work, Omar’s work. The Rascal’s, Joey Gardner, Andy Panda. I loved all those guys. They were the era. I don’t remember the majority of the records I’ve worked on. But that’s because I was learning as I went and I was more concerned with not fucking anything up. So all my work was inspired by whatever I was doing at the moment. My entire experience as an editor and as a composer-producer was the learning process. My goal was to try and make it better than the last time, but always on my terms. I’ve always been known for experimenting. I was always creating weird and moody tracks that no record company wanted to sign. If it wasn’t for Brian Chin, who was working at Profile Records at the time; if he hadn’t signed “Make Noise”, both Lisette Melendez and myself would probably not had the careers that we did. It all started with “Make Noise”. The fact that it got picked up gave me the encouragement to continue to experiment, to try and find my voice.

As an editor, which important factors determine your choice of working on a song?
I don’t think that I was ever picky. I worked on some big Artist’s records. But I also worked on records that never came out, with terrible vocals and ridiculously bad mixes. I remember looking at it as a sacrifice. Paying my dues. Also, I had to take every job that came my way in order to finance the demos for my later productions. I survived gig to gig.

You sometimes teamed up with other professionals such as Henry Santos, Luis Martinez, Norty Cotto, Owen “O.S. Soba, Omar Santana, Tomax, to name a few. How is it possible to work with somebody who does the same job as you?

I think that it’s very difficult to work with other people. Whenever I worked with other people I always felt that they were doing it wrong and I was doing it right. But that’s because I had such a strong impulse when it came to music. I knew where I wanted my music to go. It didn’t always get there but I knew what I wanted. Or at least what I didn’t want. A lot of people base their feelings on what they know, based on what they’ve heard before. I based mine on what I wanted to hear. What I thought was right. And in a collaborative effort, this is the perfect recipe for conflict. And I’ve had conflict with just about every one of my partners. The two people I had the least conflict with was Omar (because I trusted him) and Franc. Reyes (because he trusted me).

Could you give us a few examples of how it works?

I’ll give you a few examples because they’re all different. Henry Santos was a kid from the neighborhood who wanted to edit on records. I heard his tape and thought it was pretty good. So I started using him on some of the records that I couldn’t do myself and made sure that he got the proper credit for it.

I also worked with a writer/artist named Tomax. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things but he’s the one that introduced me to Lisette Melendez. He wrote the lyrics to Make Noise and I also produced his record that was released on Fever Records called “Regrets Only”. I was hard to get along with at that time and we fought a lot.

Lisette and I were released from Profile and then we did “Together Forever” as a demo. “Together Forever” was originally created for Frankie Cutlass, who I met when he was in the group “& More”. I loved their song “You’ll never find another love” and when they recorded “Materialistic Girl” they hired me to mix and edit that single. We had always wanted to work together again and Frankie came to me with the idea of using the “Sing Sing” loop since I had already been experimenting combining Freestyle Beats with Hip Hop loops. The song was written by Franc. Reyes, Frankie Cutlass and myself. But after the song was written, Frankie realized that it was a girl’s song and he suggested that Lisette Melendez sing it instead.

How do each of you decide their tasks on the same project?

I always want to do everything myself. It’s a terrible habit that I’ve never been able to break. I have a terrible need to know how everything works and I want to be able to do everything myself if I have to. I have no idea where that comes from. But I think that it may have started when I was paying $30.00 an hour to rent a small studio in lower Manhattan to create demos. I remember getting frustrated with the engineer because he was always trying to correct me. I hated it and I didn’t know how to work around it. I always let it get to me and sometimes I would just give up. But when I started to make money, what I did was I asked this guy to teach me how to use his computer. Then I bought it from him. I never saw that guy again. That’s when it occurred to me that I should just put together my own studio and learn how to do everything myself.

In the span of your career you have edited and mixed a few tracks with Omar Santana who is considered by many fans as one of most talented and famous editors in Freestyle music. How did you meet him? Why did you decide to work with him?

I forget what year it was, but there was a summer that I had decided to teach myself how to edit more like the Latin Rascals. So I bought a small “Akai” reel to reel and an “Edit All” edit block and started splicing away. Eventually I had a few mixes that I transferred to cassette and handed out to my friends. They had a label in red letters that read “After Dark”. Well, one of these tapes ended up in Omar’s hands and he somehow tracked me down.

He sat in my room for about half an hour listening to me talk shit. He had come over with an acquaintance of mine but never bothered to introduce himself until he was almost out the door. I asked him, “what’s your name again”? He said, “Omar”. And I remember my instinct pushed me to ask, “Omar what?” And he said, “Santana”. I said, “Get the fuck out of here!” And he laughed. I never forget that. In that moment he said he loved my work and then asked me if I wanted to be his partner. I said, “Okay”.

Why did you say “Okay” immediately? You didn’t really know him at that time and you weren’t very familiar with his work were you? Any particular reasons?

I was very aware of the up and coming editors and he was the best of the unknown at that time. I had heard his work on Leather and Lace’s records and I remember having feelings of envy because not only was this new guy already doing what I wanted to do but he was good, and he had that cool fucking name. So when I met him, I knew that he was someone that I could learn from. And I did. I learned not just about editing but I also learned how to produce records from him. I also learned the value of self-promotion from him. He was great at coming up with ideas on how to make people talk about him. It usually meant challenging someone talent to talent.

Do you know what happened to Omar Santana? Why did he quit the Freestyle business for Hardcore/Techno genres? Because one of his last Freestyle productions (maybe it was the last one?) was “Back in tyme” (available on the compilation “After Dark Freestyle vol.1)” on your label. Once again, he did an incredible editing work.

I’m asking you this question because many fans especially the Old School Freestylers wonder what happened to him.

Omar was always into noise, loud chaotic noise. It was natural for him to go the way of Techno. Especially since many feel that the editors were part of the inspiration for Techno. The harsh insert style of editing was a predecessor to hard stabbing style of Techno. The other reason I think Omar likes Techno is that he doesn’t have to work with singers. Where the singer will get credit for a song’s success. In Techno it’s all about the producer. And of course, the world of freestyle changed dramatically over the years. Omar is the type of person that likes to reach a lot of people. You can’t do that in freestyle anymore.

Could you name other editors that you respect in the Freestyle business? And why?
I have to respect all of them because we were all a part of an art that to this day goes unknown to the public. It was truly a thankless job. We did it purely for the passion of it. Whenever I talk about the editors I always find it strange that at the peak of our reign in this business, the most important ones were all Latino and specifically from New York. Albert Cabrera and Tony Moran who started it all, Omar Santana who everyone credits with pushing the envelope whenever it got stale. And finally Chep Nuñez, rest in peace, was probably the hardest working of us all. He was incredible as an editor and as a person.

How did you start your first edits?

When I was a DJ, I was obsessed with taking my mixes to the next level. Since I didn’t have any point of reference, except for the Latin Rascals’ work on the radio and on records, I went and bought a small “Akai” reel to reel and an “Edit All” edit block. I also bought an Effectron digital delay. With these pieces of equipment I started mixing onto the reel. Then I started experimenting, sometimes taking simple edits and playing them onto a cassette so I could play that back and overdub back onto the reel. It was crazy. Sometimes, because I was working with 1/4 inch tape running at 7 1/2 inches per second, the edit tape would melt in the heat of my apartment. So after I figured out what I wanted to do, I would have to re do it all over again from scratch before the tape could melt.

Now, what equipment do you use to edit your productions?
I don’t edit any more. But the first piece of gear that I learned on was the Mac. I started out with Performer on the first Mac ever released. They had one at Sync Sound. It used to crash all the time. Louie Martinez was allowed to go in on the weekends when they were closed and he would bring me in. There was a composer by the name of Chuck Hammer that had a room there. On his equipment I created Corina’s “Out of control” and Jasmin’s “On the loose”. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing but I ended up playing everything because I thought that this was the way that everyone was doing it. I didn’t know that everyone else was hiring professional keyboard players.

As far as editing goes, I don’t do it any more because it’s not worth the effort anymore. And the art has all but disappeared. After a while I got sick of cutting so much tape and not being appreciated for the incredible amount of hours that it takes to create those complicated patterns. I decided that I would quit editing after “Together forever”. That’s the last Berrios Beat I did. That was 11 years ago.

I have, however, experimented recently, doing multiple edits in ProTools. I was inspired by the first Bad Boy Joe CD that came out. So I did a Berrios Beat on computer, but I didn’t tell anybody because I was a little ashamed of doing it on a computer instead of tape. As far as I’m concerned you’re not an editor if you can’t cut tape. But that’s because I’m old school. Still, Joe inspired me to give it a shot. And then I learned about a website called “Hip to The Game” where all these fans of editing have kept the style alive. There are editors from all over the world. And now, Joey Altura and his boys have a website called “EditsGoneWild.com”. What they’ve done is great because the craft has survived through them. I like that. I produced a track for Safire titled, “Eyes of a Stranger”. The Single version was never released but it features the first Berrios Beat in 11 years, cut on ProTools. As far as I know, it’s never going to be released.

It’s funny that you are talking about this site “Editsgonewild.com” (this is one of the best sites dedicated to the work of editing) because I was talking the other day with some friends about this site, and we thought that it would be cool to see some of never-released-before productions or old productions you did on this site. For instance, I’m sure that many people would be delighted to hear the great “Berrios beat” of “Eyes of the stranger”! Don’t you think it could be a great idea?

I already submitted that edit to the site called “Hip to the Game.com”. I actually submitted it anonymously. But an editor that was from, I believe, Germany wrote that he recognized the style and asked if it was me. That was cool. That’s how I learned about all the other editors out there. He only thing that I noticed about many of the edit works is that they’re not restricted by commercial structure. In other words, when we edited, it always had to fall within the structure and style of the song we were hired to edit. If the song was mellow the edits could me mellow. If the song was loud the edits could be wild. So there were aesthetic considerations that the street editors don’t have to adhere to. So sometimes I hear incredible edits that have been jammed into a song without a disciplined structure or form. That disciplined structure is what was hardest to learn in the business because we were creating it along with the record producers as we worked. You don’t know the incredible amount of yelling and screaming we had to do whenever a record company wanted to remove a new edit because they simply didn’t understand it. As a matter of fact, Omar and I were thrown off a job once because we wouldn’t change a mega medley we did for Mantronix. They said it was too crazy and we said “Fuck you”. So they fired us and hired Chep Nuñez.

In 1986, you started your career in the music business as a DJ/mixer with a series of medleys “Bits & Pieces”. How did you get involved on this project and why did you accept this job?

I’m probably not supposed to talk about this but, when I was a young D.J., “Bits and Pieces” was the name of one of the best bootleg mixes on vinyl. That and Deadly Medleys. When I met Norty Cotto he suggested putting out a bootleg of one of my mix tapes and calling it “Bits and Pieces”. I loved the idea so we did it.

Did you DJ to start off your career as an editor and producer?

I wasn’t aggressive enough to go out and beg for a shot at playing in a club. I didn’t get a club gig until I was in the middle of working on “Out Of Control”. One of my After Dark Brothers introduced me to James Streppone who owned a concession stand at the Whitestone Lanes Bowling alley in Queens, New York. He wanted to throw a party at an old Rock palace called “L’Amour East”. They rented it to him for $1,000.00. He came to me and asked me to become his partner. I turned him down because I wasn’t interested in running a club, but I introduced him to someone who was doing club promotions for Hot 103. Together they decided to hire 12 of the hottest acts at that time. I still have the original poster. This place had the biggest stage of any club you’ve ever seen. The party was so successful that they opened L’Amour up as a Dance club and I ended up as the main DJ. Everyone loved performing on that stage. The place was huge.

What is the first Freestyle song that you edited? Is it “On the loose” by Jasmin (Southway/Easy Street records-1987)?
“On the loose” was the first record I ever produced. Actually, I forget which one came out first but I produced “Out of Control” and “On the loose” at about the same time. The first edit I ever did was with Omar on a record by a Rap artist called Fat Larry. The song was called “Tina Tina”.

During the span of your career you have had the opportunity to produce or to work with famous Freestyle singers like Corina, Lisette Melendez, Charlie Rock, Coro, Rockell, George Lamond, Safire, etc. Any other artists that you would love to work with?

Corina and Lisette Melendez are probably the most important people I worked with because we started out together. I gave them both their first shot when I didn’t know what I was doing, and eventually when we did know what we were doing we all had the biggest records of our careers with each other. I always wanted to work with the other Freestyle artists but I didn’t get a chance to work with them until after they had their hits. It’s funny because they always say that they wanted to work with me but didn’t know how to ask. I guess I’m not very approachable.

Well, I’ll share a secret with you; I’ve waited a few years before I decided to contact you. In fact, it’s Bernie Rosenberg who pushed me to get in touch with you.

I always thought: that’s because you became so popular and respected in the Freestyle world over the years that people (even artists) hesitated to “disturb” you. You stayed so humble and discreet all those years that indirectly you’ve gotten a certain reputation because of this respectability and discretion which certainly frightened many people from approaching you. (Wink).

I’m just shy.

What are the most important reasons that pushed you and gave you the envy to work with one artist more than another?
I don’t really have any guidelines. I like working with different singers, especially the established ones.

But as far as new artists go, I don’t really have any patience for stupidity so first and foremost they have to have a professional attitude. Be on time, be prepared, that sort of thing. There have been many sessions that I’ve walked out on because I realized that the singer couldn’t sing or he/she wasn’t prepared or the situation just wasn’t right.

Among your own Freestyle productions, what are your three favorite ones?
“Together Forever”, “Temptation”, “Make Noise”.

During your career as an editor you used “nicknames” such as “Creativity”, “Homeboy” & “The Man” before to finally opting for Carlos “After Dark” Berrios? What is the meaning of those “nicknames” and especially of “After Dark”?

Those were names given to me by Producers or Executive Producers I edited or remixed for. We always have a good time in the studio and the nicknames, I suppose, are a refection of the fun we had while working together.

“After Dark” is different because the name represents my street family. After Dark is a brotherhood. It’s where I come from.

Do you disown those nicknames or do you simply really don’t care about this Producer’s choice? LOL.

The only name that matters is After Dark because that’s where I come from. The After Dark Crew.

It’s an excellent transition for me to talk about After Dark records that you owned from 1993 to 1996! Why did you decide to create your own label?
Because I wanted to continue making Freestyle records my way. I figured with my own label I could do whatever I wanted. I started the record company with Will Socolov who used to own Sleeping Bag Records. He was also partners with Todd Terry and Frankie Cutlass on their labels. At the time, R&B and Hip Hop were starting to dominate radio. None of the record companies could justify paying top dollar for a Freestyle record that probably wouldn’t get radio play. So it was my last effort to keep Freestyle on the radio. It didn’t work so I shut down after two years.

What is the most successful single that you produced on After Dark Records?

“Promise me your heart” by Joei Mae. Written by Franc. Reyes, it was the only single that was picked up by Priority Records for distribution.

Although you started to work with Franc. Reyes in 1990 (on “Together forever” track interpreted by Lisette Melendez), he has been very productive on many After Dark Records’ songs. How did you meet him and why did you decided to work together?

One day Franc. called me and asked if he could come over to write with me. Well, he came over that day, and stayed for three years. We wrote a lot of songs before “Together forever”. And then after it hit Franc. ended up writing 99% of the album.

Could you tell us who Franc. Reyes is? He always stayed extremely discreet in the Freestyle business in spite of his talent and fame.

Franc. was a choreographer for Corina when I met him. When we started working together he was known for his skill as a dancer and choreographer. But he loved writing songs. He was always good at melodies but I taught him structure. The way Omar taught it to me. We had a good chemistry, my tracks, and his lyrics and melody. I taught him structure and he taught me about the Beatles. One or the other got us both publishing deals with EMI Music Publishing. I’m still not sure which.

What happened to Franc. Reyes, is he still in the music business?
Franc. has moved on to making films. His first Movie “Empire” was released in December and did well. The movie was filmed for 3.5 Million dollars and made close to 20 Million. That’s an incredible profit margin for a movie that Hollywood didn’t even want to know how to market. It doesn’t hurt that I have a song on the soundtrack. He’s starting production on his next movie called “The Ministers”.

Unintentionally, has Franc. inspired you or given you a bigger impulse (with the release of his 1st movie “Empire”) to put all your forces in making movies and to embrace this new career?

I remind our readers that you haven’t shot a movie yet.

Franc. and I have a long relationship based partly on competition and mostly on respect for each others work. He was incredibly supportive when I was at the top of my game. So it’s only right that I support him now that he’s at the top of his game. I’m going to film my first feature this year, that’s a given. But what Franc. has accomplished will definitely make it easier for me now.

How did the New School beat (that you created on “Together forever” by Lisette Melendez) come to mind? Do you know that you created one of the most popular genres of Freestyle music?

The specific combination of the “Sing Sing” loop and my beats was the idea of Frankie Cutlass. But “Together forever” was not the first record that I combined a loop with my Freestyle beats. I did it first on “Make noise”. The difference between the two was that “Make noise” was a DJ track and “Together forever” was a song. Even though it turned out to be a very commercial record, I had a lot of problems getting “Together forever” signed. No record company liked it and dismissed it as just another Freestyle record. And when the record was finally picked up by RAL/Columbia the first thing they wanted to do was remix it so that it would be more radio friendly. They hired Tony Moran to do the mix. I wanted to die. Not because Tony did a bad mix, but because it had nothing to do with what I was trying to do. So I fought against that and any other mix. In the end, Andy Panda fought for the record to stay untouched. That’s what hit.

My mistake Carlos, I forgot “Make noise”! Why didn’t you build “Make noise” as a song? Many people think that Berrios New School genre was born with “Together forever”!

“Make noise” was my experiment with samples at that time. I wanted to use every single sample that I could think of over a beat. But every sample that I used means something to me. From Planet Rock, which started it all, to Depeche Mode’s “It doesn’t Matter”, which always touched me with it’s hauntingly sad lyrics. “Make Noise” wasn’t structured like a regular song because I knew that I would never get away with all those samples in a regular song. Plus that record was about the samples. But what ended up happening was that Cory Robbins, the owner of Profile Records at that time, changed his mind and wanted a lyric inserted in the track. Well I went in with Tomax, who wrote the melody to a string arrangement that I did, and we recorded a version with Nayobe, who was my girlfriend at the time. But because she was signed to Fever Records, she couldn’t get a release. Then Tomax brought me Lisette who I didn’t know and she sang the simple verse for $200.00. We didn’t like each other very much and I couldn’t wait for the session to be over. Two months later Profile calls to let me know that the record is a club hit and that booking agents were calling to hire the group. I said what group? It’s a DJ record! They said well put a group together other wise you’re going to miss the boat. So I called Lisette, who like I said I didn’t like very much, and asked her if she wanted to perform the record on stage. She said she wasn’t sure. She gave me a hard time. And what I said to her was, “look, I don’t know what I’m doing but we have an opportunity to make some money and possibly make another record”. So she agreed. And that’s how we ended up working together. She went from someone I didn’t like, to someone that I care very much for, and together, with Franc., we had a good run.

As a Freestyle producer how would you define your style?
Freestyle is freestyle. I learned that the hard way. As much as I wanted to try and experiment with the genre I was never successful after the “New School” thing died down. You have to remember, the style wasn’t a gimmick, it was my style. It took years to cultivate it. But once it hit, it became a gimmick and as far as I’m concerned, it was the end for that style. Over the years I’ve taught myself how to produce everything from Rock to Hip Hop. But I’ve really relaxed the music thing. It’s not that important to me anymore. I’m moving into the film world. I have a passion for all the technical aspects of filmmaking.

You are always experimenting with new sounds meanwhile most of the other Freestyle producers stay in the same style that made their fame. Do you think that their lack of creativity and the use over and over of the same beat, keys, vocals, etc, is the reason of the death of Freestyle music?
Absolutely.

What is your personal definition of Freestyle music?

I couldn’t define it in words. But I could do a track. (smiles)

What do you think of the present Freestyle scene and market?

I don’t really follow it anymore. I’m out of touch with the whole scene. Sometimes I’ll go to one of the web sites and hang out for a few days but I don’t really have the time anymore.

In the 80’s, this music was called “Latin Hip-Hop”. In your opinion, who named it first “Freestyle music”?

I don’t know.

Do you think that this change of name was a benefit for the music?

Obviously if the name changed it was for a reason. What that reason is I don’t know. But a name doesn’t make a style. The style makes the name. I learned that when we were thinking about changing Lisette’s last name to something more generic because we were aware that her Latin last name might work against her. But then I realized that if she were to have a hit record, it wouldn’t matter what her name was. That name would work in relation to the hit record. So we left her name alone.

What is your favorite Freestyle genre(s) (Electro, New or Old School, Progressive Freestyle, etc.)? Why?

I like the new Electro stuff that’s coming from the south.

Could you be more specific? Any references to give us?

I occasionally hear songs that I like but I have no idea who sings or produces them. The last song that I cared to find about was, “I do both Jay and Jane”. I loved that record so much. I heard it when I hung out in Orlando a few years ago and every time I heard it I wanted to battle on the dance floor. And I did. I haven’t done that since Texas.

What is your “all time favorite” Freestyle song?
It’s a toss up between “Tears may fall” by TKA and “Let me be the one” by Safire.

I might as well confess here that I patterned the drums to “Make noise” after “Tears may fall”. If you play them together, the beat is identical, except for the James Brown loop.

What is your “all time favorite” Freestyle remixer/DJ”? Why?
I never really had one. When I was coming up. There were so many doing incredible work. I was influence by all of them. But my favorite radio mixers were The Latin Rascals.

What is your “all time favorite” Freestyle female singer”? Why?
Judy Torres, because she was the first. She set the standard for all the female singers. All the girls wanted to sing like Judy.

What is your “all time favorite” Freestyle male singer”? Why?
George Lamond was definitely the best male Freestyle singer ever, but there’s a demo version of “Give Your Love to Me” that features Frankie Cutlass singing lead, and had George Lamond, Chrissy I-eece, and Marc Anthony singing adlibs at the end. Marc did an adlib that just sent chills up your spine. We all knew that he had an amazing talent. I’m still begging Cutlass for a copy.

Who has been your main influence?
I think that I’ve had so many influences that it would be impossible to list them. I’m still constantly influenced by other people who do what I want to do. Now, it’s happening in the film world.

What would you change in the Freestyle industry today?

Is there an industry?

Don’t you think that your short reply risks to hurt many people, especially the fans? You seem to be very disappointed by the industry?

Okay, since you insist that I talk about it. Freestyle is no longer a part of the music industry. It’s a music that’s looked down upon because the people that created it are looked down upon. And what I mean by that specifically is the Latino. It was a racist situation when I was doing it and it’s racist today. Let me give you an example. Nothing bothers me more than when I stay up late at night and watch TV. There are commercials for CD compilations for the 80’s and now for the 90’s that never include one Freestyle record. And we had huge records in the late 80’s and early 90’s. But I know the reason why were not included. The reason is that MTV had a policy to not play anything Black or Latino at that time. People like Russell Simmons changed all that for the blacks but we didn’t have anyone to step up to the plate for us. So we were not included in MTV’s driven pop culture. We filmed music videos for our records but they were never played. Ever. So even though we had huge records, no one knew what we looked like. So if you ask the average Joe if they’ve ever heard “Let me be the one”, chances are that they’ll have heard the record. But they won’t know what Safire looks like because they never saw her on MTV. They can’t connect a face to the music. So as far as I’m concerned, racism has kept us out of pop culture. It minimized all the hard work that we did and kept us out of the running for anything as Pop Cultural as the Grammy. Now, with Marc and Jennifer it’s different because Ricky Martin changed everything. Now, the “Latin Thing” is an accepted expression on MTV. But it’s too late for Freestyle because it is now seen as music from the 80’s.

Do you have any upcoming projects in music?

No. I only want to do music for my movies now. When the time comes, that’s what I’ll do.

What happened to your documentary on Freestyle music project?
I still want to do it. I want to tell the story from the point of view that I expressed a moment ago. It’s important that everyone realize that most of what was considered pop music at that time was created by us. Then it was taken from us. I really want to do that right. Which means I need a decent budget. Galley Molina from the West Coast is doing one. I’m in that one.

Where did this passion for Cinema come from?

I’ve always loved movies. I just never dreamed that I might one day make one. But all it really takes is the idea that you can. Then that drives you to “how”. Then that drives you to “when”. And so on. I’m past the “how”. I’m up to the “when”.

What are your goals in the cinema industry?
Right now my goal is to get in. It’s really like starting over again. The screenplay is the director’s currency. So I had to teach myself how to write. It’s not easy and I’ve had a hell of a time doing it. But it’s finally coming together.

Is it true that you took some acting lessons during few years?

Yeah. When I realized that I was losing interest in music, I reached for anything that I thought I might be able to learn from. I was in class at the same time that I had the record company.

Why did you take those lessons?

For what I know, you want to be a director not an actor! Am I right?

I wanted to be an actor before I wanted to direct. When I took class, I realized how humiliating it is to put your self in such a vulnerable position. I never imagined that it would be that way. I had to re-evaluate how I saw singers after that because to a certain extent, it’s the same thing. So I had a chance to feel what it’s like to be on a stage in front of people; Butterflies in the stomach, the whole nine. I had a lot of fun but it was humiliating. After two years of that I picked up a video camera and started shooting.

Did you already play in some movies?
I get my ass kicked in a movie called “Home Invaders” starring Yancy Arias, the star of NBC’s “KingPin”. It hasn’t been released yet. I did a few stage things. That’s it.

When will “Home invaders” be released? Any idea? I can’t wait to see this. LOL
I have no idea.

Could you talk about your most important “stage things”?
Important? If you’re asking if there’s anything that you’ll ever see the answer is no. Although I still want to act I think that my place is behind the camera. I love the challenge of it. I think that everything I do is important in the sense that I learn from it. Every time I do something different I learn from it. If I don’t think I can learn from something, I won’t do it. Acting is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. I hope I can still fit it in somehow.

What kind of movies do you go to see in theatres or enjoy watching on TV?
I love all kinds of movies. I watch movies to match my mood. Or if I want to change my mood. I love movies that challenge you. That makes you think. But I can also enjoy Austin Powers. I tell you though; the history of movies is so interesting. I think I can study that for the rest of my life. The way that modern cinema has settled into a pattern that was set by the maverick filmmakers of the past. It just very interesting.

Do you have any particular message to give to the Freestyle community, and especially to your fans?

Keep hope alive!!!

What are your favorite hobbies?
I read books. Usually the same books. Over and over again. I have no idea why. Ever since I was a kid, I always felt that I was the only one in the world who didn’t get it. Get what? Who the fuck knows. I just knew I didn’t get it. It wasn’t until later on in life that I realized that no one gets it. I’m using the term “get it” because I actually went to an EST seminar when I was a teenager. My family tried everything to try and straighten me out. And at the end of it, everyone was walking around saying “I get it”. Well, I didn’t get it and it really pissed me off. The one thing that I was able to walk away with from the seminar was the concept of taking responsibility for your actions. That’s stayed with me all of my life.

Anything else you want to talk about?

I think you covered everything. Is there anything left to talk about? If there is just let me get a cup of coffee first.

Okay. Have you finished your cup of coffee? Can we continue the interview…I have another 50 questions to ask you. LOL.

Ha!

Well, this is the end of your interview. Before leaving you to your duties, I just want to thank you for accepting this interview. You know that this interview really meant to me.

And even if you have other priorities now, I hope that one day you will come back to Freestyle music. Your fans will always be here for you!

This is the longest interview I’ve ever done but I had a lot of fun. Thank You.

THE END

Source
http://www.freestylemusic.com/Interviews/carlosberrios.htm

Bits & Pieces 86

2009-05-23T15:16:00.000-07:00

Bits & Pieces 85

2009-05-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

Bits & Pieces 87

2009-05-23T03:20:00.000-07:00

On The Beat 1-2

2009-04-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

This mix was done by Alexander Mejia.

Tracklisting: One for the money

Tony Toni Tone-Little Walter
Guy-Groove Me
Malcolm McLaren - World´s Famous
Art Of Noise-Beat Box
MARRS-Pump up the Volume
.
Gwen Guthrie-Can't Love You Tonight
Madonna-Who's That Girl
.
Morris Day-Fishnet
Bee Gees-Staying Alive
Bee Gees-Jive Talking
Bee Gees-Saturday Night Fever
Kurtis Blow-Christmas Rappin
Parliament-Flashlight
Jacksons-Can You Feel It(intro)
Herbie Hancock-Rock It
.
Jellybean-The Mexican
.
Kraftwerk-Trans Europe Express
Whistle-Just Buggin
.
Full Force-Alice
.
Rick James-Fire It Up
Vaughan Mason And Crew-Bounce Rock Skate Roll
Cameo-Back And Forth
Roger-So Ruff, So Tuff
Herbie Hancock-Ready Or Not
Johny Kemp-Just Got Paid
Indeep-Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
.
Instant Funk-I Got My Mind Made Up
Marrs-Pump Up The Volume
Herman Kelly -Dance To The Drummers Beat
Jackson-Shake Your Body
Bar Kays-Holy Ghost

Additional samples after the mix

The Show Tracklisting
Masterdon Committee
Al B Sure-Rescue Me
Mantronix-Who Is It?
Roxanne Shante
UTFO-Roxanne Roxanne
Janet Jackson-Nasty Girl
.
Ice T
Joe Ski Love-Pee Wee's Dance
Paula Abdul-Right Stuff
.
Zapp-More Bounce To the Ounce
.
Salt& Pepa-Shake Your Thing
Salt & Pepa-Get Up
.
Cash Money and Marvelous - The Mighty Hard Rocker
Liquid, Liquid
.
George Lamond-Bad of The Heart
Sweet Sensation-Take It While It's Hot
.
Stevie B.
Seven Wonders-Cross My heart
.
GT-I Need You
Egyptian Lover
Rodney O-Cooley High
Alexander Robotnick-Problemes De Amour
Fast Eddie-Yo Yo Get Funky
Rockmaster Scott-THe Roof Is On Fire
Eddie B-Time To Rock The House

On The Beat 3-4

2009-04-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

Four to Go Mix

Intro
Soul Sonic Force-Looking For the Perfect Beat
.
Shannon-Let The Music Play
Freeez-I.O.U.
Soul Sonic Force-Looking For The Perfect Beat
Arthur Baker-Breakers Revenge
Felix And Jarvis-Flame Thrower Rap
LA Dream Team-In The House
Rock Master Scott -The Roof Is On Fire
Soul Sonic Force-Frantic Situation
Hashim-Were Rockin the Planet
ABC-That's Right
Dynamix-Give The DJ A Break
.
Sinitta-Feels Like The First Time
Shannon-Give Me Tonight
Grandmaster Flash-White Lines
Rob Base-It Takes Two
MC Malika Love-She's Bad
Human League-Fascination
Paul Hardcastle-19

Git Phonkee & Just Freakin'

2009-04-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

Thix mix was done by DJ EFX in 1988.
Git Phonkee is a first pressing of the Just Freakin' megamix.

Tracklisting
Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock
Set It Off
Hashim-Al Naafyish
Salt & Pepa-Push It
NWA-Panic Zone
Kraftwerk-Numbers
.
Criminal Nation-Put the Needle To the Record
Rodney O & Joe Cooley-Your Chance To Rock
2 Live Crew-Throw The D
Bose-Rock The World
ATC-This Beat is Def
2 Live Crew-Get It Girl
2 Live Crew-Throw The D
Rakim
Anquette-Shake It(Do the 61st)
.
LL Cool J-Going Back To Cali
2 Live Crew-We Want Some P*ssy
Fatboys-Wipeout
.
Freestyle-Don't Stop the Rock
Original Concept-Pump That Bass
Freestyle-It's Automatic
Funkadelic-Sh*t,..Get off Your *ss and Jam
MC Shy D-Bust This

Mega-mix 86

2009-04-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

MFSB-Love Is the Message

2009-03-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

Remix by Danny Krivit done.

Davy G

2009-03-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by UK DJ Davy G in 1988.

From Discog
This is one of my favourite records of all time. Where do I begin with a review! OK...I first heard of Davy G on Chiltern Radio back when I was a teenager, he used to send in cut & paste style mixes to DJ Louie Martin, who did the soul show. I would wait each week, enjoying Louie play the soul stuff and occasional Hip Hop tune, waiting to hear these incredible mixes by Davy.

Davy not only had a knack for some great blends, he could also scratch really well too and I'd say this guy's mixes inspired me to DJ as much as any US DJ's at the time like Jazzy Jeff, Cash Money or whoever else was big then. On one show I remember Louie announcing that Davy G would be releasing a 12" and he played 'Dynamix III' on the show, a tune he couldn't really not play as Davy sampled Louie at the end of the mix saying 'D-D-D-Davy G' and 'What a brilliant, brilliant mix'!

The next time I was in Bluebird Records (Luton) I picked up the 12" and was so excited to hear Davy G on wax. I listened to Dynamix which features Davy mixing up Dynamix II's 'Just Give The DJ A Break'(hence the title)along with other great tunes of that era and a real memorable part was him cutting up the intro to Nitro Deluxe 'Lets Get Brutal' note by note (you gotta hear it to appreciate it and don't forget this was years ago, it was really fresh at the time! You know say I tried to learn that with the same record, but Davy just smashed it with that mix.

The flip was just as dope, starting off with Davy mixing the Elephant marching song off The Jungle Book over a drum break and tearing into Roxanne Shante's 'Have A Nice Day'. This is an incredible 12" and would be instantly loved by anyone who enjoys hearing a good DJ mixing and scratching those late 80's Hip Hop/Soul/House tunes so seek out a copy and check out the legend of my youth that is Davy G!

Side A

Side A
Selected Tracklisting

Dynamix II-Just Give the DJ A Break
Hashim-Al Naafyish
Nitro Deluxe-Let's Get Brutal
Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock
B Boys-Rock The House
Prince-Kiss
Egyptian Lover-What Is A DJ If Can't Scratch?
3d-Tommy Boy Megamix(that's my man throwing down sample)
Dynamix II-Just Give the DJ A Break
Hanson-I'll Take You On
Hanson -Hungry For Your Love
WCWC-Juice
The B-boys-2,3 Break
GrandMaster Flash and The Furious Five - Scorpio
Original Concept-Pump That Bass(Get a Little Stupid sample)
The Jacksons-Can You Feel It?

Side B

Side B
Selected Tracklisting
Coldcut-Bits & Pieces
I Like Percussion sample
Schooly D-Saturday Night
Kid & Play-Last Night
LL Cool J-Jack The Ripper
Roxanne Shante-Have A Nice Day
?
Rakim-I Know You Got Soul(Pump Up the Volume sample)
Stock Aitken Waterman - Roadblock
?
Public Enemy-Rebel Without a Pause
James Brown sample
UTFO-Swat
LL Cool J-Rock The Bell
Derek B - Get Down
Alexander O'Neal-Hearsay
CJ Mackintosh And Einstein - The Tables Are Turnin'
?
Levert-Casanova
Public Enemy sample

A Night At the Edit Block

2009-02-28T23:28:00.000-08:00

According to Freddy Fresh, this mix was done by done by Juan Kato and Joe Barrion of the Bladerunners in 1988.

Tracklisting:
A Blade To The Rhythm
B1 Money Off The Table
/ - Laura Lee
Uncredited - O'Jays, The
B2 For The Love Of Money
Uncredited - O'Jays, The
B3 Crumbs Of The Table
Uncredited - Laura Lee

Tracklisting for A Night At the Edit Block mix
Information Society - Running
Nitro Deluxe - This Brutal House
Soul Sonic Force - Looking For The Perfect Beat
Kraftwerk - It's More Fun To Compute
Adonis - No Way Back
Liz Torrez - Can't Get Enough
The Force-It's Ok,It's Ok
TKA - Come Get My Love
Nayobe - Second Chance For Love
Latin Rascals - Macho Mozart
Cover Girls - Show Me
TKA - Come Get My Love
Tina B - January February
Monet - My Heart Gets All The Breaks
Judy Torres - No Reason To Cry
Cover Girls - Show Me Dub

Danny Krivits

2009-02-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

Condensed Interview Version
Source
http://bangtheparty.wordpress.com/category/danny-krivit/

How did you get into the editing?

My first mix was ‘Chill Pill’ on Sleeping Bag. Will Socolov I’d grown up with. We did this and during the session, I knew what I wanted but the engineer kept saying, ‘oh we’ll fix that in the editing’. And towards the end he started to do an edit, but he couldn’t do it. I had a reel-to-reel at home, but I’d never done any editing. I was getting frustrated with this guy, literally half the session was this guy trying to do this edit. We salvaged it. I walked out of there thinking I know how to edit, just from seeing what he did wrong. Same thing happened next time; oh we’ll fix it in the editing. A good friend of mine Jonathan Fearing, who was into editing and working at WBLS, I was telling him about it and he finally just gave me a quick pep talk and said it’s really just about the ear. I went home and I edited ‘Funky Drummer’ and it ended up being ‘Feeling James’. I gave it to this guy who bootlegged it.

What the thing on Tommy Boy by Fresh Gordon?
No, it was a bootleg. That may have sampled it. Anyway, there was this guy Tim Rogers at Polygram, he was hanging around the Garage, instead of being a big record exec, he was actually into all this editing and bootlegs and stuff. He found out that it was me from David Steel and he said I’m working on all this stuff and I want to put out ‘Funky Drummer’. Do you wanna do a mix? Whenever I’d do an edit it would turn into a legitimate job. Like I did one of ‘Touch And Go’ and Claudia Cuseta was working at Sunnyview at the time, gave me a job to remix the song.
T

he second edit was ‘Rock The House’, which wound up becoming ‘Put The Needle On The Record’. I knew Arthur [Baker]. I’m just a DJ and I’m doing something that just ends up being a bootleg, so I can’t call anyone a thief. But basically, he took ‘Rock The House’ and he had Gail King play it over this drum beat. That’s all it was. When I saw him in a club, I came over to him and said: ‘Oh is that your record?’. He says, ‘Yeah’. ‘I did ‘Rock The House’. He got so defensive. ‘You did ‘Rock The House’? You’re a thief anyway, who you calling a thief?’ I said, ‘I’m not calling anyone a thief, I’m just letting you know that I did ‘Rock The House’. After that I got a few jobs with him.

You did the MFSB bootleg as well didn’t you?

Well there are two and they both sample Gli Scot-Heron. I did the white one that has ‘My First Mistake’ on the other side. It’s on T.D. Records. It’s just basically ‘Love Is The Message’ and ‘Love Break’ put together. The other guy that did the other one, this guy who worked at Vinylmania. Speak to Charlie about him. I’ve done a lot edits for that guy, though. By then those were the two main ones. Mine was after the other one, but they were close: early Eighties.

When David was playing MFSB was he playing the ordinary version?

Right from the beginning he was probably playing the quad mix on the album. The original album also came in quad. I collect quad and usually since quad wasn’t a big hit, they had to make things a little different so that even if you played it on your regular stereo you knew it sounded different. Sometimes it was a different version of the song. ‘Rocksteady’ Aretha Franklin, instead of ending at a different version of the song. ‘Rocksteady’ Aretha Franklin, instead of ending at the fade out, it goes on for another two minutes and slows down to a complete stop. It’s got a completely different horn part in it. Apparently in ‘Love Is The message’ there were a lot of loose keyboard parts that they edited out of the final mix because it was sloppy. In the quad mix, they put them in to make it sound different. Played that till the Tom Moulton Philly Classics mix came out, then played that.

Which other edits have you done? (If you wanna do this off-the-record that’s fine by me.)

I’m not in the bootlegging business. I did edits; I got paid for that. And I also stuck to things that were either long gone. As far as other ones: ‘Just Us’ by Two Tons of Fun, ‘Sugar Pie Guy’, ‘Bra’, ‘You Got Me Running’ Lenny Williams, ‘Let’s Start The Dance’, I had a version that never came out.

Is that ‘Let’s Start The Dance III’?

I think it was II. The one with the rapper over it. I did a version without the rapper on. ‘My First Mistake’. I was really proud of that.

I assume that you were doing them to make them better for DJs to play?

Yeah. I’d do something that I knew Larry was into, like ‘Family Tree’ [by Family Tree]. I have the original here, it’s one of the most rare records. It’s one of the first 12-inches. Something Larry played and it was such a rare record that even if you owned it you didn’t want to play it in case you scratched it up. When I brought him that he was happy. Also it was a really good edit.

What do you think was the first 12-inch?

It was ‘Dance Dance Dance’ by (I think) Calhoun. Definitely. Warner Spectrum. It was a terrible record. It was a bad way to try and get into the market. I remember immediately after that, the second 12-inch I got, because the Ninth Cirlce, I was getting a lot of stuff in the mail. And at that time I was getting a lot of 7-inch 33s, before the 2-inches. Seven minutes version on a 7-inch. All of a sudden I started getting these 12-inches in the mail. And I started hearing that this was the new thing. The next song was Floyd Smith on Salsoul, very Barry White sounding, but it wasn’t a big hit. This was a better example of something sounding good. Then there were a few 12-inches. Motown, 20th Century.

Tom Moulton says he did one that he thinks is the first? Al Downing.
‘Dreamworld’? If he did that and that was the first 12-inch, then I’ve never even saw that to this day. The thing about Tom Moulton is, for instance ‘Free Man’, he made a couple of 12-inches himself. Because they weren’t going to. I’ve a feeling that if he did a 12-inch of Al Downing, I don’t know, it could’ve been something that 20 copies were made. If it was the first, it was kind of unheard of. These things were promos, but you’re still talking about 100 copies at least. They got around the US. I’m an avid record collector and I’ve never seen Al Downing. Atlantic’s first one was ‘Mellow Blow’ by Barrabas. People weren’t impressed to start because they really weren’t putting the best stuff on them. Everyone was well, there are a lot of hits out there, why are putting these songs on there?

It was a marketing ploy, basically.

Definitely. This was the age of promotion and this was how to promote these records. Soon after it was almost like 12-inches were going to be laughed at, so they started putting some good songs on there. ‘Ten Percent’ etc.

You know when Junior started Bassline, what was the reaction to him. Was he seen as a Larry copyist?

Definitely that, but kind of like the way I was describing David at the Garage. Junior was taking it a step further. He had nothing to do with the Garage and yet he was just playing this hit parade. Junior was playing some great music, but it was rehashed in a time when people really weren’t rehashing music. It was not about retro then. When you heard retro then, it was like what’s wrong with this picture? It was only because the Garage had closed and people were still hanging on to that that it seemed okay. They were good songs and he was mixing. I thought it was fad, and it would fade away, but it kept getting bigger. But then it slowly changed. He was always friendly with me, but he was out of the loop; I crossed a lot of circles and he wasn’t in any of them.

What do you think the legacy of these DJs is?

There’s a lot of marks that they made that might go unnoticed but are just there. Certainly, I think that Mancuso is one of the main ones. The thing that David expressed, and came out in Larry, Nicky was playing a positive vibe in the club. When I went to other places I was always amazed at how negative the vibe was. Weaving a message, rather than wandering all over. David made people realise the DJ was important. Before that most people thought a band or DJ: what’s the difference?

Do you think they turned records into musical instruments?

Totally. And also broke ground. They didn’t take the new hot record and break it (when it would have been broken anyway). They broke a record that would not have been otherwise. They educated people.

Can you think of any examples?

With David there was such a long line of them. Things like ‘City Country City’ or ‘Woman’. Those were Loft records. Without the Loft, they were just records. People would scream when they heard a record for the first time, not the tenth. One of the legacies they left is that fever for hunting down the records and finding them. These are records that were rare the moment they came out. There was this guy Tony Smith, from Barefoot Boy, there was a record store on 8th Street, Daytons. I met him because we’d always be looking for those kind of records. A lot of jazz-funk. They’d play something, and if I liked it, it always seemed that Tony would want it too. It was underground even then. Forget about now, back then some of these records were hard to track down too.

Has your version of MFSB ever come out legitimately?

No. But MFSB is probably the quintessential bootleg mix.

Biography
http://www.dannykrivit.net/biography.html

Feeling James

2009-02-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Danny Krivit.

Big Apple Production Vol. 5

2009-02-21T08:55:00.001-08:00

Big Apple Production-Vol. 3

2009-02-21T07:55:00.001-08:00

Record Review

Big Apple Production Vol. 3 originally released in 1987 credited to Genius at Work, Volume 3 is actually produced by Danish DJ Duke. Combining live mixing and cutting with tape edits producing a classic B-Boy jam. Combining and contorting elements of "The Mexican", "Funky President", "The Champ" and "It's Just Began" this edit is a dance floor killer. As a bonus for the DJ's the flip side contains Pump Me Up by Trouble Funk.

http://www.soulseduction.com/reviews/default.php?labelid=26249

Cameron's Beat

2009-02-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Cameron Paul in 1984.

Tracklisting

DJ Debonaire

2009-02-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

Written by Miami bass historian: PappaWheelie

Our generation began with Funk, which later coexisted in the clubs with Disco, but then a revolution happened in the streets. As the 80's dawned, the Hip-Hop movement inspired Rap records and after the advent of affordable Drum Computers, Electro was born! South Florida, along with NY and LA, was one of three breeding grounds for Electro. As the novelty of early Rap records and breakdancing wore off in 1985, South Florida gave birth to a new style of music: Miami Bass.

Debonaire first made a mark in 1986 when founder Claudio Barrella joined the Florida Record Pool and became managed as a club DJ by Bo Crane of the fledgling Pandisc Records. Pandisc had just signed the legendary Maggotron and they needed a DJ. Hiring Claudio for the role, Pandisc released "Welcome to the Planet of Bass" in 1987, which largely featured Claudio's groundbreaking work. He followed this when he and rapper Tricky D constructed the timely track "Get Silly with the Muppet Bass". Although it may seem dated to young bucks today, during the height of 80's Hip-Hop, this was considered a classic. It caught the attention of former members of the band The Florida Players, an act from the renowned TK label. They released the song on their new Coomack Records, which in turn sparked a vision.

Claudio began to idealize Debonaire not just as a stage name, but as one of the pillars of golden era Miami Bass. Setting up Debonaire Records in early 1988, he and Tricky D came back stronger with "Take it to the Max", and an EP for the group Rock & Fizz. However, the next record would make history as it introduced new programming techniques by Claudio, as well as introducing the world to the celebrated rapper Breezy Beat MC. The resulting single, "Shake the Joint", was and is considered one of the top classics of the Miami Bass genre, and caused a great deal of attention for Debonaire Records. The success could've easily ended there.

After working further with Tricky D, Debonaire signed more acts and released more singles to a very warm response, but his next project would prove Debonaire to be a giant in the field. After Dynamix II left Bass Station Records and underwent a change in personnel in 1988, Claudio and founding Dynamix member Scratch-D joined forces and together in 1989 produced the classics "Bass Generator" and "Ignition", which remain among the cornerstones of Electro Bass globally.

One of the great mysteries surrounding Claudio since the early days of Debonaire Records is who or what is behind the record "Sonic Boom". The track was briefly released in the 90's under the group name Omega II and it connected Dynamix II, Breezy Beat MC, DXJ of Maggotron, and Claudio. This record was illegitimately released on Claudio's Showroom Records, a relative label to Debonaire Records, and became a global cult classic selling for hundreds of dollars worldwide through auctions, beyond anything known in the U.S. Since then, a mysterious Electro act has taken it upon themselves to make their version of the song, which confused the buying public. As a result, Debonaire was found to be in the center of one of the biggest controversies in Electro history, which is a testament to the strength of the production.

Since then, both Dynamix II and Breezy Beat MC have gone on to earn their status as titans in the trade while Claudio has continued forward in his own right. When the burgeoning new beat Techno sub-genre first was imported into Florida in the early 90s, Claudio spearheaded a project well before it morphed into the now known "Florida Breaks" scene. As the car audio Bass cottage-industry blossomed into a national phenomenon, Claudio fronted many projects successfully in that vein also. All of these ventures certainly proved to be forward thinking and thriving, but letting a legend become forgotten is to no one's advantage. As the golden era Miami Bass revival began picking up steam in the 2000's, Debonaire Records was one of the first two record labels to return to the scene that birthed it.

Source
http://www.debonairerecords.com/history.php

Italian Ice-Masonary Megamix Volume Five

2009-02-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

Italian Ice-Like A Prayer

2009-02-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Nicky Fish in 1989.

Big Apple Production Vol. 4

2009-02-01T23:10:00.000-08:00

Review From Turntable Lab
"Genius At Work(Vol. 4)is a little more on the early house/dance tip than some of the others in the series. It utilizes the "I'll House You" and "Big Fun" beats as the foundation for assloads of vocal clips and snippets (some of which are little naughty, word to the delicate flowers out there) from sources as diverse as Gwen McRae singing "took my love away" (from "Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent"), to Al Pacino in Scarface exclaiming "hokay!"

The b-side is an obscure Pal Joey' re-edit of MFSB's "Love Is The Message(1)," which throws some nice 808 claps & rhythmbox nastiness under this NYC dance classic.

Visage-Pleasure Boys Remix

2009-01-28T20:11:00.000-08:00

The mixer is unknown.

Tracklisting
Intro
Hashim-Al-Naafyish
Afrika Bambaataa-PlanetRock
Visage-Pleasure Boys

Beat Scratch and Boogie

2009-01-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Rutger "Rutti" Kroese in 1982.

Tracklist
A1 G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid Play That Beat, Mr D.J.
A2 Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force Looking For The Perfect Beat
A3 Jonzun Crew, The Pack Jam (Look Out For The O.V.C.)
A4 Jonzun Crew, The Space Is The Place

B1 Planet Patrol Cheap Thrills
B2 Soulsonic Force Planet Rock
B3 Planet Patrol Play At Your Own Risk
B4 Planet Patrol Don't Tell Me

Italian Ice Pizza Boy A Re-mix

2009-01-26T17:33:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by DJ Debonaire in 1988.

Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/debstudio

Italian Ice Mars Re-Pumped

2009-01-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Debonaire & Nicky Fish in 1988.

Samples used

The Bar-Kays "Holy Ghost" from Holy Ghost, 1978 (12")
Criminal Element Orchestra "Put The Needle To The Record" from Put The Needle To The Record, 1987 (12")
Eric B. & Rakim "I Know You Got Soul (Acappella)" from I Know You Got Soul, 1987 (12")
George Kranz "Din Daa Daa (Trommeltanz)" from Din Daa Daa, 1983 (12")—US 12" remix
Graham Central Station "The Jam" from Ain't No 'Bout-A-Doubt It, 1975 (LP)
Ofra Haza "Im Nin'Alu" from the Coldcut remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full", 1987[2]
Fred Wesley & The JB's "More Peas" from Doing It To Death, 1973 (LP)
Jimmy Castor Bunch "It's Just Begun" from It's Just Begun, 1972 (LP)
Kool And The Gang "Jungle Jazz" from Spirit Of The Boogie, 1975 (LP)
The Last Poets "Mean Machine (Chant)" from This Is Madness, 1971 (LP)—UK remixes
Pressure Drop "Rock the House (You'll Never Be)" from Rock the House (You'll Never Be), 1983 (12")
Public Enemy "You're Gonna Get Yours (My 98 Oldsmobile)" from Yo! Bum Rush The Show, 1987 (LP)
Run-DMC "Here We Go (Live at Funhouse)" from Here We Go, 1983 (12")
Introduction to The Soul Children's "I Don't Know What This World Is Coming To" from Wattstax: The Living Word, 1972 (LP)(this is the same sample as Public Enemy's Rebel Without A Pause)
Stock, Aitken & Waterman "Roadblock (7" Version)" from Roadblock, 1986 (12")—UK versions
Tom Browne "Funkin' For Jamaica (N.Y.)" from Love Approach, 1980 (LP)
Trouble Funk "Pump Me Up" from Drop The Bomb, 1982 (LP)
Lovebug Starski & The Harlem World Crew "Positive Life" from Positive Life, 1981 (12")—UK remixes

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_Up_the_Volume_(song)

DJ Mirage- "2" Devastate "U"

2009-01-18T17:59:00.002-08:00

This mix was done by DJ Mirage.

NWA-Something 2 Dance 2
Debbie Deb-When I Hear Music
Unknown DJ-Basstronic
Chilla Frauste - Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose
Soul Sonic Force-Planet Rock
Hashim-Al Naayfish
Clay D-Get Funky
MC Shy D-Shake It
JJ Fad-Way Out
Dynamix II-Feel The Bass
SOS Band-Take Your Time
Rob Base And DJ E-Z-Rock-It Takes Two
Layizon-The Ride Inside
MC Shy D-I'm Not A Star
Laid Back-White Horse
Segment Two-Pump That Body
Kano-It's A War
Freestyle -Automatic
Unknown DJ-Basstronic
Soul Sonic Force-Planet Rock
File 13-Taste So Good
DJ Juanito-War of the World
Domino-Cuties Get Connected
SoulSonic Force-Looking For The Perfect Beat

Bronx Electro 1

2009-01-18T17:41:00.000-08:00

The mixer is unknown.

Intro
Timezone-Wildstyle
Herbie Hancock-Rockit
Globe And Whiz Kid-Play That Beat Mr. DJ
Tom Browne-Rockin Radio
Shannon-Let The Music Play
International Music System - Run Away
New Order-Confusion
Captain Rapp-Bad Times
Captain Rock-The Return Of Captain Rock
Hot Streak-Body Work
Gary's Gang-Making Music
Lovebug Starski-You've Gotta Believe
Dimples D-Sucker DJ

Alexander and DJ King Tech-Nations Mix

2009-01-18T11:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a really rare one. Before becoming the hosts of the Wake Up Show, Sway and Tech were recording artists on Giant Records. And before they signed to Giant, they were known as The Flynamic Force, and released a classic EP on their own label, All City Records. Sometime between the Flynamic EP and Giant record came this odd, little 12".
Titled "Wild Style" (or maybe that's meant to be the name of the record label; who knows?), is a 12" single of mixes by Alexander (no, I don't know either) for On the Beat Productions. The catalog # is OTB001, which suggests the label is actually On the Beat, and that this is the first and - presumably - last release on that label. They're three instrumental mixes, blending instrumentals of its time like Heavy D's "Somebody for Me," Twin Hype's "For Those Who Like To Groove" and Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam." And they're actually quite good; dude has mixing skills. And, notably, one track features some slick scratches by King Tech.

Which brings us to the real jewel of this 12"; an all-new Flynamic Force song called "Truly Funky." The song starts out as a mock radio show interview, with Alexander, Sway and Tech being interviewed by Michael Erickson, who hosted his own show on the same station as the WUS. But this isn't an actual radio freestyle pressed on wax, this is definitely a fully produced, original song. He starts out by asking them about their new movement, FFORM, Fighting For Organized Rap Music (I guess that idea didn't last very long, since I never heard it mentioned anywhere else), then Sway starts rapping as the instrumental kicks in. When you think the song's about to end, Michael Erickson comes back on, "yo yo, man, that was truly funky, but uh... that was only three minutes. I paid you for five." Tech says he ran out of beats, so Sway rocks it over a human beat box. Then a fresh drum track blends into the mix. This is just a really good late 80's rap record, at least as good as anything on the Flynamic Force EP, maybe even a little better. The instrumental for "Truly Funky" is also included.

Because I'm utterly unable to break away from my own insignificant traditions, here's a link to Sway and King Tech's myspace page and their official Wake Up Show website. If you haven't checked my main page (and why haven't you, may I ask?), you might be interested to learn that this blog entry is being posted in conjunction with a brand new artists' page I made for the Flynamic Force, so you can see their complete discography (note: I didn't bother including any of the mix CDs and freestyle albums they host, since they don't actually feature music by Sway and Tech).

Permission granted by John W. McKelvey from http://wernervonwallenrod.blogspot.com/search/label/Sway%20and%20Tech

Big Apple Production-Vol. 1

2009-01-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

The mixer is credited as Ser & Duff in 1982. This was just an alias.

Tracklisting
Human League-Don't You Want Me(Dub)
Sharon Redd-Beat The Street
Heaven 17-Let me Go
Rocker's Revenge-Walking on Sunshine
Planet Patrol Play at your own risk
Modern Romance-Can You Move
Bohannon-Lets Start to Dance
Clash-Magnificent Dance
Nancy Martin-Can't Believe
Pressure Drop-Rock the House
Soul Sonic Force-Planet Rock
Nairobi-Soul Makossa
Jonzun Crew-Pack jam
Man parrish-Hip Hop Bebop
D-train-Keep On
Barbara Norris-It's Heavy
Silver connection-Get Up and Boogie (thats right)
Aretha franklin-Jump to It
Madonna-Everybody
Howard Johnson-So Fine
James Brown-Sex Machine
Jive Rythm Trax 108 bpm
Rockers Revenge-Walking on Sunshine
Yaz-Situation
Warp 9-Nunk
Edwin Starr-Contact
Yaz-Don't Go
D Train-D Rrain Dub
Toney Lee-Reach Up
Micheal Jackson-Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
Gap Band-You Drop a Bomb on Me
Steve Miller-Abracadabra
ABC-The Look of Love
Carol Jiani Hit n Run Lover
Divine-Step by Step
Bobby O-She has a Way
Paul Parker-Right on Target
Pat Cowley-Megatron Man
Divine-Shoot Your Shot
Donna Summer-I Feel Love
Village People-YMCA
Ronni Griffith-Best Part of Breaking Up
Lime-Baby We're Gonna Love Tonight
Pat Cowley-Menergy
Sylvester Do You Wanna Funk
Lime-Come & Get Your Love

Info
Article from Disco Patrick
-BIG APPLE PRODUCTION VOL.1

A lot of bootlegs medleys were copied from tapes recorded from radio shows or from acetates.
So the names on a medley are mostley never from the real creator of the mix.
There are two stories about the creators of the Big Apple 1.

The first story is about DJ Mikey D'Merola (the creator of the Bits and Pieces 1 and 2).
In a interview he mentioned that he made an acetate of his mix for use during his DJ gigs.
Than he told that someone pirated a copy and released it without giving Mikey any credit.

The second story is: Albert Cabrera and Tony Moran (The Latin Rascals) made a lot of mixes for the radio shows which were originally aired by WKTU in New York.
Somebody recorded it professionally and made a bootleg of it.
If you listen to the style of the mixes which are from Tony and Albert back then it will clearly state them as the creators of it.
It has all their trademarks in it.
I heared from someone who knows Albert, that he had seen the original mastertape of this one (Albert owns it, with the stickers still visible !).
I also heared the story that people who worked at the radio station copied the mixes on 1/4" tape and if the quality was high enough they provided them to the guys who presses bootlegs.

So with this information i'm personally for 100 % shure the mix was made by the Latin Rascals.
It could be that Mikey have been involved with pressing it on vinyl and took all the credit of it.
As far as i know, all the mixes crediting "Ser & Duff" were made by the Latin Rascals.

The second part on JT records (Original Big Apple II) is also credited to "Ser & Duff" and is also exactly in the Latin Rascals style.
JT Records stands for Julio and Tuta (the brazilian guys) bootlegs.

Condensed Article from Discomusic.com

The Big Apple Mix
Many people besides the dancers took notice. Eventually this led him to creating the infamous "Bits and Pieces 1 and 2" DJ mix plates. Shortly thereafter, he cut an acetate with edits of late 70s/early 80s songs for use during his DJ gigs. Well, someone pirated a copy and released it without giving Mikey any credit. This bootleg release was to became the legendary Big Apple Mix. DJ's everywhere were playing it on the dance floor. To everyone's surprise it would be so popular that it was even played by radio stations, especially WKTU in New York City.

Being that Mikey was well known, most industry people were aware that he was the original creator of the Big Apple Mix. Unfortunately some had erroneously assumed that he was also the one who released the bootlegs in the first place and didn't want to work with him. What's interesting is that the many record labels of the day refused to release similar mixes even after seeing the huge success of the "Big Apple Mix." In the end, the most important thing to Mikey is that he knows that everyone enjoyed his work and "that's worth more than money or fame."

In 1982 Mikey married and a year later they both had a child. He continued mixing, but says around 1985 or so that the music was getting tired and was just empty. He kept busy with a family business while playing every now and again. About a year or two ago, Mikey met up with some of his old acquaintances from the golden days of Disco. One of them was Joe Causi who was now back on the air on the newly resurrected WKTU radio which was playing Disco and todays dance sounds. That was it, Mikey was reenergized and after a month was back into the music as if nothing had ever happened.

Source
http://www.discomusic.com/people-more/46_0_11_0_C/

History of Hip Hop-Lesson 1, 2 and 3

2009-01-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Lesson Three Tracklisting

0.00-0.03 Otis Reading "Good to Me" from Live at
the Whiskey A-Go Go
0.03-0.10 - John Bonham/Led Zeppelin - The Crunge
0.10-0.14 - John Fitzgerald Kennedy Inaugral Address
0.18-0.25 - Putney Swope Quote 1969 "Got to have Soul!"
0.25-0.42 - Herman Kelly & Life "Dance to the Drummers Beat"
0.43-0.49 - Mars Needs Women Trailer over "Scorpio" by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band
0.54-0.58 - Buchanan & Goodman "The Flying Saucer"
58 - "Listen to me" by Baby Huey 1.13-1. - Ralph McDonald "Jam on the Groove"
1.46-1. - Incredible Bongo Band Apache , JJ Johnson - "Willie Chase"
1.48- - Hernandoes Hideaway Musical and Ralph Mcdonald
2.04-2.06 - Incredible Bongo Band "Apache"
2.05-2.13 - Newcleus "Jam on it" / Ed McMahon
2.15-2.26 - Dynamic Corvettes "Funky music"
2.30 - "Listen to me" by Baby Huey 2.48-2.58 P-Funk Allstars "Pop Generation" over Ralph Mcdonald
2.58-3.02 - Otis Redding "I've been loving you too long" from Live at the Whisky A-Go Go
3.03- - Afrika Bambaataa "Planet Rock"
3.10-3.21 - Lauren Bacall from "To Have and Have not"
3.23- Human beat box Disco 3
4.04-4.10 - Groucho Marx from "Duck Soup"
4.31-4.40 - Fiorella LaGuardia reading comic strips

Double Dee & Steinski-Payoff Mix

2009-01-10T23:32:00.000-08:00

Another milestone in megamix history. Double Dee & Steinski took sampling to another level with this superb collage of sound and music done for a Tommy Boy record remix competition.

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Tracklisting

Globe and Whiz Kid - Play That Beat Mr DJ
remixed with
Malcolm Mclaren-Do Ya Like Scratchin'
Funky Four-That's the Joint
Incredible Bongo Bands-Apache
Culture Club-I'll Tumble For You
Little Richard sample
Humphrey Bogart sample
Peech Boys
Elvis sample
Herbie Hancock-Rockit
Supremes-Stop In the Name of Love
Grandmaster Flash-The Adventure on the Wheel of Steel
Trouble Funk sample
Chic-Good Times

Info
In the fall of 1983, the aggressive indie dance label Tommy Boy tried to put some legs on a less-than-swift 12-inch by sponsoring something called "G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid's 'Play That Beat Mr. D.J.' Mix Context!" The idea was for club DJs to doctor the G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid record after the manner of Kiss-FM's Shep Pettibone, whose exclusive versions of the hits exploited an old club technique by intermixing hot dance tracks with hooks and breaks from other hot or classic dance tracks. The grand prize was $100, the Tommy Boy catalogue, a Tommy Boy shirt, and, oh yes, airplay and club distribution for your mix. For most of the contestants, that last was basically a career opportunity--a chance to get out of the clubs and turn into the next Jellybean Benitez. But in the public arts, distribution is power--aesthetic power. Tommy Boy certainly didn't realize it then and possibly never will. But by offering to expose a single mastermix to listeners all over the country, the label was putting into motion a set of artistic, ethical, legal, and political contradictions far beyond the power of an indie dance label to resolve.

Pettibone and Benitez were part of a blue-ribbon panel who downed pizza and beer at a listening party where the winner would be chosen from 10 finalists. The hot dance track of the moment, Shannon's "Let the Music Play," saw heavy action in the early going--since both songs are addressed to DJs, there was even a thematic connection. But the ninth entry didn't come from a DJ, and it didn't dip into Shannon's well, either. It did glance off hot dance tracks by Yaz, the Peech Boys, Herbie Hancock, Culture Club, and Indeep amid rap, disco, funk, and rock and roll classics too numerous to mention--as well as less melodic material from Humphrey Bogart, Dr. Saint, Betty White's dance instructor, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. When the tape was through, the judges broke into applause. They knew instantly that Double Dee & Steinski had taken mastermixing into new realms--or appeared to, which was good enough for openers.

On the dance floor, the aesthetic charge of any kind of mix--be it the reshaping of a single song's trajectory by repeating key passages and adding filigrees and sound effects from other records, or the cross-referential interweaving of different pieces of music--has always been what literary ideologues refer to as sensationalistic. It's not just that it's perceived kinetically, without passing Mind, which though bad enough is reluctantly recognized as inevitable in some lower forms. Even worse is that in most cases it never goes upstairs for processing, because each thrill-packed improvisation is designed to be obliterated by the next--in an environment that is not, let's face it, conducive to cogitation. Once the mix is preserved on tape or disc, some sort of considered perception becomes possible, but even then meanings are hard to grasp, much less define, because they're so often purely body meanings. The mixer looks for rhythmic relationships that provide an invigorating surprise rather than an alarming shock--a love bite that doesn't unswitch the pleasure circuits, a popper that doesn't kick off a coronary. Sometimes there'll be lyrical links, but rarely will they do more than throw one DJ or fire or I-will-survive reference smack against another. Less showy but deeper are strictly musical connections, likely and unlikely. It's one thing to know that James Brown begat George Clinton begat Rick James begat Grandmaster Flash, or that "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll" and "Another One Bites the Dust" have the same papa, another to put those genealogies into practice. And when a pancultural visionary like Afrika Bambaataa follows a hip hop medley with a percussion break from Grand Funk Railroad's "Inside Looking Out," it can really change your worldview, in a small way.

Double Dee & Steinski--for Doug DeFranco, a 27-year-old engineer at a small commercials studio, and Steve Stein, 32-year-old producer of TV spots for Doyle Dane Bernbach--went over the top with both kinds of meaning. Fast-talking hip hop junkie Stein had gotten r&b fan DeFranco hooked at the Roxy a few months after they'd met that summer, and soon they'd evolved into a natural team, splitting roles like a rock group--funky technician DeFranco the reliable bassist/drummer, a regular guy whose tastes ran to the latest dance records, idea man Stein the mercurial singer/guitarist, a record-collecting media nut with global-village tendencies. "The Payoff Mix," as their tour de force came to be called, was pieced together in DeFranco's studio in 12 or 14 hours over two days. What was most striking about it wasn't the plethora of quotes, 24 in all--most of the contestants went for quantity, though few got over 20. It was the specificity and catholicity of their references. This was underlined by the spoken-word stuff: in the middle of a record whose chief lyrical motif was "play it on the radio," "play it for the punk rock," etc., here was Bogie rasping out "you played it for Harry, play it for me"--on the one.

But the record's underlying kick was somewhat subtler. "Play That Beat Mr. D.J." is almost designed for mastermixing--with the DJ importuned to play that beat after almost every line at times, new musical phrases can be substituted constantly. At first, "The Payoff Mix" sticks with scratching on the original, using quotes as brief bridges or pointed interjections, such as the abrupt but perfectly timed self-promotion by a rival crew, the World's Famous Supreme Team, after "play it on the radio." Midway through, however, the original is reduced to bridgework, as the mastermix, having respectfully pointed out G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid's virtues, goes on to show who's boss with a series of 10- or 15-second dance collages comprising, say, "Apache," "I'll Tumble 4 Ya," and "Starski Live at the Disco Fever." One of them even incorporates "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" the first (and still damn near only, as we'll see) mastermix ever commercially released. And for an epilogue there's a comment from Fiorello LaGuardia: "And say, children--what does it all mean?"

By asking itself that question--and inducing a populist hero to equate this arcane dance record with the Sunday comics he loved to be baffled by--"The Payoff Mix" finesses the answer. This doesn't mean there isn't one, though. It's just that as in so much speculative art, question and answer are all but identical, complementary functions of a very contemporary, self-mocking, quasi- parodic tone--a tone you could call postmodernist if it weren't so unpretentious and optimistic, so pop (and maybe populist). The mix's cognitive dissonance comes from the voluble Steinski, it's heartening synthesis from Double Dee's hands-on groove, which endows the absurdist bits and pieces with a logic as ineluctable as a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Half deconstruction and half celebration, this is a message of brotherhood for the age of media overload, disarming "postindustrial" capitalism with humor, know- how, access, and leftfield panculturalism. And like so much optimistic art, it's more utopian--hence more trouble--than it knows.

Hardcore dancers were never wholly convinced by Double Dee's groove--they admired "The Payoff Mix" as a novelty and did their thing to less nerve-racking backing tracks. But on dance radio, which like all radio is for listening, there were no such hitches. Though their only obligation was to air the contest winner once, many stations put the promo cassette into serious rotation, thus sparking sales of "Play That Beat Mr. D.J." Perhaps not quite as much as might have been hoped, however--there was discernable consumer demand for the mastermix itself, and Tommy Boy thought seriously about turning it into a retail item. According to the label's Rick Dutka, these fantasies were quashed by the company's attorney. The problem was simple: releases for those 24 absurdist bits and pieces, almost every one copyrighted. Getting them would obviously be an administrative nightmare. But putting the record on the market without them would be a legal one.

This was cautious advice from a music-biz lawyer whose priority was keeping a modestly capitalized client out of litigation, which threatened from two classes of plaintiff--music publishers and record companies. Legally, you see, my use of the word "quote" has been misleading, because Double Dee & Steinski don't quote, they reproduce, electronically. Not that this is anything new. The homey glow of interpretive approximation that once surrounded the notion of quotation was blown away in 1956 by "The Flying Saucer," a "crazy novelty" in which Brill Building eccentrics Buchanan & Goodman lifted dialogue directly off hit records that they pretended were platters from outer space, e.g.: Newsman: "We're about to hear the words of the first spaceman ever to land." Spaceman: "A womp-bom-a-loo-mom, ba-lom-bam-boo." "The Flying Saucer" rocketed into the top 10 and stimulated sales of such one-and two-year-oldies as "I Hear You Knockin'" and "Earth Angel" before lawsuits from less good-humored copyright owners led to a royalty agreement. Quotation is more like the Ritchie Family's "The Best Disco in Town," a maxi-medley in which Jacque Morali's studio group strung together phrases of a line or two from more than a dozen songs and ended up owing full statutory royalty on all of them, which is why Jaap Eggermont negotiated fractional payments before marketing his Stars on 45 studio group in 1981. The publishers could sock Morali because his record was a fait accompli; when Eggermont threatened to withhold release, they dealt. Why not? As Jay Lowy of Motown's Jobete Music (long notorious for its prohibitive lyric reprint rates) told Brian Chin in Record World: "Medleys have acted as a very positive force: they act as good demos. There's not enough on a medley to stop anyone from recording the whole song again. It's found money."

As a publisher, Lowy fails to draw the rather far-reaching conclusion that would seem to follow from this estimably realistic assessment: if medleys are so "positive," what entitles the copyright owners to their "found money"? Quiet as it's kept, the rationale of copyright law isn't that private property is the highest philosophical good. It's to provide economic incentive for the spread of ideas and information, incentive that would presumably be vitiated were works open to unlimited reproduction and resale. Historically, copyright has been circumscribed by the doctrine of fair use, designed among other things to permit criticism, which is often impossible without examples. In non-critical discourse, the chief test of fair use is whether the use impairs the potential market value of the appropriated material. And as Lowy acknowledges, Stars on 45 no more cut into Stevie Wonder's sales than "The Flying Saucer" did into the Penguins'--or than "The Payoff Mix" did into Culture Club's.

But demo or no demo, Lowy wouldn't have been as sanguine about Double Dee & Steinski's electronic reproduction as he was about Stars on 45's medley of quotes, not in an era when the home taping flap has occasioned attacks on "rampaging technology" like this one from RCA president Robert Summer: "Our defense of copyright, while rooted in this industry's struggle for solvency, is part of an overall defense of what is so fundamental to living society--its cultural foundations." And who can say what a judge would have made of "The Payoff Mix" had Tommy Boy released it and (by no means a certain consequence) gotten sued. Aesthetics and law mesh poorly if at all, and while I say the mix qualifies as parody and discourse and for that matter criticism, a more literal soul might well conclude that Double Dee & Steinski grabbed a piece of "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" because it has a good beat and you can dance to it--and be right. So no manner of parallel--the increasing dependence of the visual arts on appropriation techniques, or the untroubled experience of WBAI's Peter Bochan, a significant influence on Steinski who sells duplicates of his spoken-words-and-music Shortcuts tape collages--proved encouraging enough to give the ordinary consumer access to "The Payoff Mix."

The biggest push came in England, at Polygram, Tommy Boy's well-staffed U.K. distributor. It was a nightmare. After a month of form letters and phone calls, legal assistant Sally Bevan left for A&M believing she'd landed almost every release. But Island's Clive Wills, who took up the job after Tommy Boy moved to his label, found that many of Bevan's contacts denied having granted clearance. In two significant areas, however, Bevan's and Wills's experiences were identical. First, indie labels were pleased to help, while majors balked. (Bevan says she was down to two acts on one major--"Labels always tell you it's the acts." She declined to name either; my guess is CBS, corporate home of Culture Club and Herbie Hancock.) Second, nobody expected money--all clearances were granted gratis, with no royalties at issue.

Meanwhile, Doug DeFranco and Steve Stein proceeded with their lives. Delighted with their newfound renown even though they'd long since gone through the prize money, the did a James Brown mix called "Lesson Two" in the spring of 1984, shortly after Stein got himself canned at Doyle Dane. DeFranco had a career objective: he wanted to build his rep as an engineer and mixer. Stein's basic motives were tribute (to JB, to Bambaataa's "Fusion Beats," to Fiorello LaGuardia) and "personal satisfaction," the chance to apply his professional skills and global vision to what he loved most--and then, if "The Payoff Mix" was any example, have people hear it. "Lesson Two" was distributed to DJ and radio stations in a pressing the duo financed themselves. Soon DeFranco had moved into Stein's Brooklyn apartment, where they set up their own eight-track studio. Stein was working as a free-lance cable consultant; DeFranco quit his job and began to organize his own free-lance gigs, including board work and a little mixing at Tommy Boy. By early 1985 the label had something else for them.

And thus Double Dee & Steinski wound up with one more tour de force and one more administrative nightmare. Hip-Hop--The Album, the centerpiece of both, was an exemplary venture for an aggressive indie dance label: a compilation of six long-out-of-print indie dance hits that hip hop DJs had been buying used and bootlegged for 25 and even 50 bucks ever since they'd revealed their funky break beats to mixer-shamans like Kool Herc, Bambaataa, and others. Tommy Boy's licensing included the right to create a single out of all this groove, and Double Dee & Steinski were commissioned to mastermix one up. In fact, they did two--one constructed from nothing but the six album tracks, the other incorporating their usual plethora of references. But neither was ever commercially released, and neither was Hip-Hop--The Album. Seems that ownership of Herman Kelly & Life's "Dance to the Drummer's Beat," which as it happened provided the mastermix's recurrent theme, was, shall we say, in dispute. Dance music is a rough business. Tommy Boy shelved the project.

I have a cassette of the album, and it's too bad you can't buy it--a more user-friendly gathering of strange percussion bits and unselfconcious James Brown imitations would be hard to duplicate, much less make up from scratch. But the real mastermix you couldn't have bought in any case. My tape begins with the commercial-release version, a virtuosic piece of mixing that masks the slight tempo shifts between break beats with refrains and intros also lifted from the six records. In its subtle way, it shows a lot of wit, but this time subtlety isn't the big prize. The proof is in the three-song promo 12-inch of all Double Dee & Steinski's mastermixes that Tommy Boy graciously mailed out after Hip-Hop--The Album died. "Lesson 3," as the full-length hip hop mastermix is called, has the pizzazz of a full-fledged administrative nightmare. It begins with spoken words from Otis Redding--"We gonna do a song that you never heard before"--and goes on to JFK announcing that "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans," Lauren Bacall inviting the Human Beat Box to pucker up and blow, Ed McMahon jamming Johnny into Newcleus, the castanet break from "Hernando's Hideaway," a Groucho Marx joke, a "Flying Saucer" quote, applause from the Whoopi Goldberg album ("We wanted something polite," Steinski explains), and Fiorello LaGuardia taking his second curtain call. Also, perhaps, his last. For in the course of 1985, DeFranco fell in love, took another job doing commercials, and moved out, no longer inclined to pursue the nocturnal habits of a hip hop junkie. He took the equipment with him--Stein his hardly the first media nut who can't work a board--and Double Dee & Steinski are no more.

The split seems completely congenial, and both artists will pursue their own careers, as the saying goes, but you know what's lost when a group breaks up: synthesis. The spoken-word interjections on Double Dee's hot dance remix of downtown composer Peter Gordon's "That Hat" share the cut-up surrealism one hears on other arty remixes, and I suspect a certain aura of abstraction will linger when he gets mainstream assignments, as he surely will. Steinski's "Technical Difficulties," a medley drawn from indie phenom Steve Gottlieb's hit compilation of TV themes and set over a functional "Planet Rock" electrogroove, is more overtly satiric (hence less complex tonally) than any of his Double Dee collaborations. Yet though both pieces diverge discernably from their common heritage, they do continue on all too familiar tradition: neither seems likely to achieve commercial release. The head of CBS Masterworks was so baffled by "That Hat" that he had to be talked into pressing up white-label DJ copies. And though Gottlieb had been warned that Steinski did better on radio than in clubs, he was disturbed by the mastermix's "fragmented" groove and commissioned a substitute.

After dozens of hours and several thousand dollars, Steinski is also nearing completion on another piece you won't be able to buy: a mastermix of JFK's assassination that he compares to Paul Hardcastle's "19." One keystone of the concept is a specific newscaster: "Walter Cronkite is the national daddy. I don't want anybody else. You want the thing, you don't want the almost-thing." But CBS, fearing "trivialization" of Big Daddy's wholly owned vocal cords, refused clearance on Cronkite's 1963 coverage. So Stein is settling for more personal satisfaction. He'll get Cronkite-included cassettes out to interested parties when he's done, and as long as he's not taking money for them, the law will protect him. But the law is an ass. Profit isn't the issue for Steinski, and except in a speculative way (will "trivialization' reduce Walter Cronkite's market value?), it's not the issue for CBS either. The issue is who gets to use this stuff, and for what--whether the public has any claim on the output of public artists whose creations would mean nothing without it. In an age when all products of the mind have been commodified, the freedom to sell equals the freedom to disseminate. It means access, control. That's what's really at stake in Steinski's work.

I wouldn't claim Steinski is any kind of rad; disarming "postindustrial" capitalism is a sideline for him. He's just a perpetually disillusioned optimist who still assumes that the sounds and images rippling through the American consciousness are, forget copyright, every American's birthright--that we're all free to interpret and manipulate them as we choose. His disillusion, I should say, didn't begin with his recent disappointments--it goes back at least as far as JFK's assassination, and it's what activates his absurdist, quasi-parodic tone. A rad like me could even wonder whether his disillusion isn't a little corny, but--especially but not exclusively when it's turned around by Double Dee's freewheeling natural optimism as well as Steinski's own--it's clearly too much for the information barons. The keepers of the copyright at CBS wanted to protect the physical and intellectual property called "Walter Cronkite" from "trivialization" because they didn't want it sullied by Steinski's absurdist disillusion, or his lowlife pancultural optimism either. They didn't want it criticized --not as a judge is liable to understand that concept, with its traditionally forbidding baggage of essay form, but much more sensationalistically, and much more potently and directly for that.

I don't mean to single out CBS, although I do suspect that the more information one controls, the less one worries about other people's information deprivation. And I should make clear that neither Stein nor DeFranco, media pros both, fully agrees with me. But I think this is censorship, and I think it's reprehensible. Appropriation art isn't even the parallel, because appropriation art's primary purpose is undermining images. Double Dee & Steinski only recontextualize, as in that quintessential 20th century genre, collage, thus achieving a cool tone that's more affectionate, more irreverent, and more distanced, than, say, a Weird Al Yankovic takeoff. Maybe G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid or James Brown can legitimately claim partial credit for the vitality, meaning, and commercial value of their respective mastermixes. But to make the same kind of claim for Culture Club or Ed McMahon is like forcing Tom Wesselmann to get a clearance from House Beautiful, or wherever he cut out the gardenscape you can see through the Great American Nude's window. I'm not saying there isn't a kick to hearing Culture Club or Ed McMahon changed utterly--to hear the thing, not almost-the-thing, subjugated by a rival culture and vision. And I'm not saying they should like being taken over by hip hop's new generation of Americans. But they shouldn't be able to stop it by administrative fiat. As long as the copyright is a weapon of censorship, "postindustrial" capitalism will remain armed.

Village Voice, Mar. 25, 1986(thanks to CPB)

More info
http://www.littlevillagemag.com/content/2008/10/mix-it-up/

Coldcut

2009-01-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

Coldcut first came together in the autumn of 1986. Computer programmer Matt Black carried a tape recording that featured the inception of "Say Kids, What Time Is It?", a track he had made for a Capital Radio mix competition, whilst he browsed in the Reckless Records store on Berwick Street, in London. Ex-Art teacher Jonathan More, who worked in the store at the time, listened to the mix, suggesting a separate edit be made of the Jungle Book's "King of the Swingers" - Black had mixed this with the break from James Brown's "Funky Drummer". Using his contacts from his Meltdown Show on Kiss FM and his club night, in January 1987 this mix was released on a white label and "Say Kids, What Time Is It?" became their first single.

Later that year, spurred on by an enthusiastic rep from Island Records, they released their influential remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full," which made the top 20 and was voted best remix of the year. Featuring a prominent Ofra Haza sample and many other vocal cut ups, it is now regarded as both a hip hop classic and a breakthrough in the remix field. The looped rhythm at the heart of the remix can be seen as an early precursor to the Breakbeats genre (one has merely to speed it up to note the similarity). The tracks "Beats and Pieces" and "That Greedy Beat" were soon to follow on the duo's self-run "Ahead Of Our Time" label (a forced acronym results in "AHOOT", and the duo wittily catalogued one release as "AHOT 14U"). All of these tracks were made by the painstaking assembly of spliced tape edits that would sometimes run "all over the room". The duo showed originality and resourcefulness by sampling Led Zeppelin as well as James Brown.

In 1987 Matt Black joined KissFM with his own mixed based show, the pair eventually joining forces, More and Black produced their own radio show, Coldcut Solid Steel.

Their first major hit as Coldcut was the top 10 hit "Doctorin' The House" in 1988, featuring singer Yazz. It was also their biggest hit overall, reaching #6. In the same year, under the guise "Yazz featuring The Plastic Population", they released "The Only Way Is Up", a cover of a Northern Soul gem which brought the song into the House Music era. The record reached no.1 in the UK charts, and the success of this funded more studio equipment for the duo. Their other most well-known hit single was the UK top 20 hit "People Hold On", released in March the following year. It featured singer Lisa Stansfield, whose band Blue Zone UK had been creating a mild buzz with the single "Jackie", and whose charismatic video presence was getting noticed within the industry. She would go on to have a UK chart number one in her own right later that same year, with "All Around the World". Prior to that major hit, Coldcut and Mark Saunders had produced the single "This Is the Right Time", which appears on her debut album "Affection".

The subsequent 1989 album "What's That Noise", released on Ahead of Our Time and distributed by Big Life records, featured reggae vocalist Junior Reid, the fictional George Jetson (on the single "Stop This Crazy Thing") and Mark E Smith. The United States version was distributed by Tommy Boy Records and featured Tommy Boy artist Queen Latifah rapping over the (previously instrumental) track "Smoke This One". Latifah's rap was decidedly anti-drug, while Coldcut's reggae dub-ish instrumental had tongue-in-cheek connotations of marijuana appreciation by virtue of its title.[citation needed] Its UK follow-up, "Some Like It Cold" released in 1990, also featured a collaboration with Queen Latifah.

In 1991, whilst touring Japan, they conceived and started their second record label, Ninja Tune, which continues to release diverse music by a small army of like-minded artists. In 1997 the duo unveiled their own real-time video manipulation software, VJamm. Coldcut's current live and DJ sets rely on video as much as records, taking the concept of multimedia performance into largely uncharted territory.

Conceptually, Coldcut owes as much to the ideas of beat writer and cut-up theorist William S. Burroughs, 1970s art / industrial group Throbbing Gristle, and the religious writings of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs as they do to Hip Hop originators like Grandmaster Flash or later innovators Double Dee and Steinski.

Recognizing the power inherent in Burroughs' cut-up technique and its presence in hip hop music, Moore and Black have relentlessly pushed the D.I.Y. ethic and an understanding of play as a means of fostering greater interaction with and understanding of the world. The similarities between this ethos and that of hacking need hardly be stated. Ninja Tune uses a corporate facade to communicate via the marketplace itself, an idea first implemented by Throbbing Gristle via their own Industrial Records imprint.

One of the key aspects of the Ninja Tune ethos, Stealth, implies that their following of DJs and listeners are "agents" in a Burroughsian sense, propagating the D.I.Y. ethic of play as an essentially subversive act by replaying and manipulating media under the radar of mainstream culture. In 2003, Black worked with Penny Rimbaud (ex Crass) on Crass Agenda's Savage Utopia project. In 2006, Coldcut released the album Sound Mirrors which has helped build up a massive underground audience thanks to the popularity of the single True Skool. The song itself features an Indian sample from a cult Bollywood era making the track incredibly popular on the bhangra and desi scene and with much of British Asian urban culture.

Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldcut

Coldcut-Beats + Pieces bw/That Greedy Beat

2009-01-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

This mix was mixed by Coldcut in 1987.

Beats & Pieces

DJ Maestro-Cali Cuts Dance Kraze

2009-01-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

DJ Maestro - New Dance Kraze Just A Sample

2009-01-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

Ths mix was done by DJ Maestro in 1988.

Rodney O & Dj Joe Cooley-Everlasting Bass
Rodney O & Dj Joe Cooley-Nobody Diss Me
Sir Mix-A-Lot-Posse on Browaday
Joeski Love-Pee Wee's Dance
Sweet Tee & Jazzy Joyce-It's My Beat

World Class Wreckin Crew-World Class Mega Mix '89

2009-01-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by DJ Battery Brain in 1989.

CJ Mackintosh

2009-01-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

CJ Mackintosh Intro: Without a doubt, CJ is one of Britain's most prolific and successful remixers and when it comes to DJing, no other can touch his supurb mixing abilities.

His musical education started spinning on his older brother's decks. After a year of refining his art, CJ secured a residency at the renowned Film Flam club. This in turn lead to creating mixes for Serious records and then in 1987 CJ became the World DMC mixing champion.

Soon afterwrds, CJ hooked up wilh Dave Dorell and joined his group Nasty ROX taking over from Nelle Hooper (Soul II Soul/Massive Attack). With Dorell and two members of Colour Box, they created the seminal House track "Pump Up The Volume" by M.A.R.R.S. This was an international hit and was responsible for opening up the pop market to Dance Music as we know it today.

With his background of scratching, hip hop, house and garage and his mastery in the recording studio, CJ gradually progressed to more remixes, feeling more at home behind a 48 track desk than two technics. Coldcut, D-Mob, De La Soul, UFO, Innercity and Loose Ends are just some of those who have benefited from his genius. The word was out that CJ Mackintosh was a remixer with a unique style beyond reproach. His services wculd be demanded by some of the finest musical talent in the world. Projects followed for Sounds of Blackness, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson and D'Angelo.

CJ is also one of the best know DJ's on the Garage scene, gaining the respect of his peers on both sides of the Atlantic

Source
http://www.outlar.com/artist.php?id=288

Myspace
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=61680733

DJ CJ Mackintosh-Upfront 3

2009-01-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by CJ Mackintosh & Tosca in 1986.

Tracklisting
Robbie B & Jazzy J - Rock The Go Go
UTFO - Split Personality
Ultra Magnetic MCs - Ego Tripping
Jewel T & LTC - Believe It Or Not

DJ Chad Jackson- Upfront 2

2009-01-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by DJ Chad Jackson in 1986.

The Real Roxanne - Bang Zoom Lets Go Go
Eric B - Eric B For President
Salt & Pepa - Ill Take Your Man
MC Boob aka Steady B - Bring The Beat
Steady B - Yo Mutha

DJ Evileddie- Upfront 1

2009-01-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

This megamix was done by DJ Evileddie in 1986.

Cutmaster DC - Brooklyns In The House
Spyder D - I Cant Wait
Ice T - Ya Dont Quit
MC Boob - Do The Fila
MC Boob - Pee Wees Dance

Summer Breeze-Mastermix 89

2009-01-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

Tracklisting

Side A
Effects
Acapellas
Samples

Side B
Bits and Samples 89
Juiceapella

Summer Breeze-Mastermix 88

2009-01-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince-Megadope Mix

2009-01-02T15:59:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince in 1987.

Tracklist
Didn't Even Try It
Just One Of Those Day
Girls Ain't Nothin' But Trouble
Just Rockin'
The Magnificent
A Touch Of Jazz

DJ Spin Kut -Rapp Mix Master No. 2 & 3

2009-01-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

This mix was by DJ Spin Kut circa 1988-1989.

Tracklisting
Kool Mo Dee-Wild Wild West
Poetry 'N' Motion - Killer Daytons
Audio Two-Top Billin'
Cash Money And Marvelous-Ugly People Be Quiet
Eric B & Rakim-Paid In Full
?
Kid Flash-Hot Like Fire
Sweet Tee-It's Like That Y'all
Public Enemy-Bring The Noise

Hip Hop Madness

2009-01-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

The mixer is unknown.

DJ Spin Kut-Rapp Mix Masters #1

2009-01-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by DJ Spin Kut circa 1988-1989.

Rapp Mix Masters #1
LL Cool J I Can't Live Without My Radio
Z-3 MC's Triple Threat
Symbolic Three No Show
Boogie Boys You Ain't Fresh
Dana Dane Nightmares

I.B.P. Just Rockin'

2009-01-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Lil Rockin G in 1988.

Tracklisting
Awesome Foursome-Funky Soul Makossa
Where's The Beef
Royalcash-Radio Activity
Section 25-Looking Over A Hilltop
Captain Rapp-Bad Times
Planet Patrol-Play At Your Risk
Twilight 22-Electric Kingdom
Public Enemy sample
Unknown And Three D-Beatronic
Gucci Crew-Sally
Divine Sounds-What People Do For Money
Uncle Jamm's Army-The Roach
Man Parrish-Hip Hop Bebop Don’t Stop
Reggie Griffin-Mirda Rock
Melle Melle-Survival
Newcleus-Jam On It
Newcleus-Jam On Revenge
Egyptian Lover-Girls
Funkadelic-One Nation Under A Groove
Yes-Owner Of A Lonely Heart

Information
http://www.westcoastpioneers.com/artists/little-rockin-g.html

Victor & The Glove-Breakmixer(part 1)

2008-12-28T22:22:00.000-08:00

This mix was done by Chris "The Glove" Taylor and Victor Flores in 1983.
Part 1 and Part 2 are the same mix.

Tracklisting
Ice T - Cold Wind Madness
M.C. Fosty and Lovin C - Radio Activity Rapp
Funkmaster General - L.A L.A
Magic Mike Crew - Magic Mike Theme
Formula V - Killer Groove
Ronnie Hudson & The Street People - West Coast Poplock

More Info
http://www.westcoastpioneers.com/index.php?id=404

Dj EFX Freshmix Volume 1

2008-12-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

DJ Mega-mix Vol. 4

2008-12-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

In Full Effect - Master Done It (DJ Megamix Vol.3)

2008-12-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

DJ Mega-mix Vol. 2 Very Interesting

2008-12-26T14:58:00.000-08:00

DJ Norman Cook

2008-12-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

Norman Cook has been recording music for almost 20 years. He has been in several bands, used countless aliases, played a variety of instruments and shown that he masters numerous genres. He has had Top 40 hits with six different names. The most recent of his aliases is also the most famous and the most succesful one: Fatboy Slim. This is story of Norman Cook's life.

Quentin "Norman" Cook was born July 31st 1963 in Bromley, England and grew up in Redhill, near London. As a teenager he got excited about punk and already played as a DJ in youth clubs. Later his interest shifted into black musicians' danceable music. Norman's first band was Disque Attack in which he was the drummer and the singer. After a year of playing he and his schoolmate Paul Heaton founded a new band, The Stomping Pond Frogs. Norman played guitar in it. The group split when its members moved elsewhere to go to college, Norman including. He moved to Brighton where he started DJing in clubs using the name Ox.

The Housemartins
In 1985 Norman got a phone call from Heaton who asked him to join a new band called The Housemartins. The original basist Ted Key had left and Heaton wanted Norman to replace him. At first Norman hesitated because The Housemartins played britpop and he was listening to hip hop and soul. But eventually he agreed and moved to Hull where the band was. At the same time he changed his name Quentin - which he had always hated - to Norman. The Housemartins had earlier played as a warm-up band for Billy Bragg and gotten a record deal with his help. By the time Norman came along they were just releasing their first single "Flag Day". Success came instantly. Their third single "Happy Hour" went to third in the UK charts and they got a number one with an acapella song "Caravan Of Love". The first LP "London 0 Hull 4" also reached Top 10 and the group got to tour the world. The second longplayer "The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death" offered Top 20 hits as well but soon after its release the band split. Apparently there was friction between Norman and Heaton about their music style. Norman wanted to try dance and Heaton jazzpop. In the end of 1988 a collection by the name of "Now That's What I Call Quite Good" was released.

After the group split Norman went back to Brighton and started making the kind of music he liked - dance. He had already before The Housemartins release a song called "The Finest Ingredients" with the name DJ Megamix which had been a small hit. Now he made four songs with his own name: "Invasion Of The Estate Agents", "Blame It On The Bassline", "Won’t Talk About It" and "For Spacious Lies". All of which he later used on Beats International's records. They got some attention in the music industry and Norman was able to start a remixer's career. He still also did DJ gigs.

Beats International
Norman's next venture was a mixed and variable assembly by the name of Beats International. Beats International's music used a lot of samples from others music like Fatboy Slim nowadays does. Their debut album was called "Let Them Eat Bingo". The album gave them a number one with "Dub Be Good To Me" (cover of S.O.S. Band's "Just Be Good To Me") and made it to Top 20 itself. In 1991 was released their second record "Excursion On The Version". Unfortunately it wasn't succesful and when Norman's first wife left him, he had a nervous breakdown. It lasted two years during which he didn't make any music - excluding the music he made for The Smurfs videogame when he was in financial troubles. Even medicines prescribed by doctors didn't help. Finally Norman found his inspiration again with the help of Robert Owen's song "I’ll Be Your Friend" and ecstasy given to him by his friends. He then stopped caring about chart positions and things like that.

After recovering Norman founded Freak Power with his friend Ashley Slater. Slater had previously performed on Beats International's gigs and on their second album. Freak Power's music was inspired by the 60's psychedelic music and the 70's funk. "Drive Thru Booty" album in 1994 consisted mostly of material Norman had originally made for Beats International's third record. Its single "Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out" caught itself number two chart position when Levi's snatched it for a commercial. After a year of gigs another album was released, "More Of Everything... For Everybody". However the record company didn't believe in the new LP and Freak Power withered away. In 1997 and 1998 a new single "No Way" was put out but a whole longplayer never followed. A collection was released in 2000.

In addition to Freak Power Norman made a new album with a new alias. The album was "Pizzamania" and the alias Pizzaman. The record's singles such as "Trippin' On Sunshine", "Sex On The Streets" and "Happiness" sold nicely. At this time Norman was busy as he also recorded with several other names (for example Mighty Dub Katz, Fried Funk Food, Son Of Cheeky Boy and The Feelgood Factor) and even founded his own record label, Southern Fried Records. At first Norman only released his own music with other aliases through Southern Fried but nowadays it releases music by several different artists.

In 1995 Norman helped Damien Harris found Skint Records and started to make music for it himself - this time big beat. Since Loaded Records (where Harris, too, had worked) owned the name Pizzaman he once again adopted a new alias, Fatboy Slim. At first Fatboy Slim was just a joke to help Skint get started and Norman wouldn't even admit he was the one behind the name. But then the first single "Santa Cruz" unexpectedly got a lot of attention in clubs. More songs were released and they were succesful. Finally Norman shut himself to his attic which he had named The House Of Love. The result was "Better Living Through Chemistry". The name refers to an American slogan from the 50's suggesting that hyperactive children sould be calmed down with Valium and was also a thank you to The Chemical Brothers who had encouraged him to make the album. The record received a lot of enthusiasm and Norman was often asked to DJ in clubs in London such as The Heavenly Social and Big Kahuna Burger. Eventually he got tired of the continuous trips between Bighton and London and founded with Damien Harris and Gareth Money a club to Brighton called Big Beat Boutique which became the new sanctuary of big beat. Fatboy Slim's music received so much attention that Astralwerks Records started marketing the name in America because Skint only operated in Europe. This and a contract with Sony help Skint considerably.

Inspired by Fatboy Slim's success Norman made new music with his old aliases as well. He got more reputation with hit remixes such as Wildchild's "Renegade Master" and Cornershop's "Brimful Of Asha". The last-mentioned was even number one for several weeks. He made both remixes for free but because of them requests for remixes started pouring in. Many of which he declined and among others Madonna, U2 and Robbie Williams were left without a remix.

Soon Norman started work on a successor for "Better Living Through Chemistry". "You've Come A Long Way, Baby" was released in 1998 and it finally hurried him to world-wide fame. The record was sold over four million copies and it was number one all over the world. Singles such as "The Rockafeller Skank" (chart 6), "Gangter Tripping" (chart 3) , "Praise You" (chart 1) and "Right Here, Right Now" (chart 2) were heard everywhere. Fatboy Slim was the biggest British artist in the US.

Zoë & Norman
In an interview for Radio 1 in Ibiza Norman met TV and radio personality Zoë Ball. They started dating and were engaged on Valentine's Day in 1999. They got married the same year on August 22th and got a son called Woody in 2000. They were Brighton's celebrity couple.

After the immense success of Fatboy Slim's second album Norman didn't just want to repeat himself but to do something that had more power and soul to it. The Chemical Brothers convinced him to have visiting performers on the third Fatboy LP. Macy Gray, Ashley Slater, Bootsy Collins and Roger Sanchez appear on the record. The first single "Sunset (Bird Of Prey)" represent a slighty different Fatboy Slim but however reached number three chart position. Norman used a sample from Jim Morrison's "Bird Of Prey" in it. All in all "Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars" (even the name tells about Norman's situation) was a different kind of an album although it did include a couple of big beat rumbles as well. It wasn't a big sales hit even when the second single also reached Top 10. But Norman didn't mind. He didn't enjoy the celebrity life anyway but thought it was stressful.

In July 2001 Norman arranged a free Fatboy Slim DJ gig in his hometown Brighton's beach. The event was a hit and 40 000 people came to see it. As a result a CD was released and the party was arranged again the next year. This time Big Beach Boutique II nicknamed Normstock II got 250 000 people to cram themselves into Brighton when the expected amount was 60 000. The town was completely jammed and eventhough the beach party was once again a success it couldn't be held in Brighton anymore. However in March 2004 a third Big Beach Boutique was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Other similar gigs have also been planned.

In 2005 the fourth Fatboy Slim record was released and the first one to have a short name, "Palookaville". Excluding a couple of songs the new album wasn't the familiar danceable Fatboy but more of a home listening. The style was drawing away from dance and approaching rock. Much like the previous album there were many quest vocalists like Lateef, Damon Albarn and Bootsy Collins. "Palookaville's" sales were the worst of any Fatboy Slim album as it only quickly dropped by at the charts. Despite of this many of the promotion gigs were sold out. His own music was more chilled but Norman still played quaranteed dance tunes as a DJ. Even at the moment he is touring the world.

from http://www.thearitu.com/ebio.html

Rap Graffiti

2008-12-25T17:15:00.000-08:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Tracklisting:
A1 B-Side Une Sale Histoire
A2 Fab 5 Freddy Change The Beat
A3 Phase 2 (2) The Roxy
A4 Grandmixer D. ST.* & Infinity Rappers, The Grandmixer (Cuts It Up)
Producer - D.ST.

B1 B-Side , Grandmixer D. ST.* , Phase 2 (2) & Smurfs, The Krush Groove
Producer - D.ST.
B2 Smurfs, The Smurf For What It's Worth
Co-producer - Bernard Fowler
Producer - Steven Brown (2)
B3 Futura 2000 The Escapades Of Futura 2000
Producer - Clash, The

Note: Krush Groove is a megamix of the other tracks in this compilation

Battle of Roxanne

2008-12-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

Battle Raps The Crew

2008-12-24T13:20:00.000-08:00

I Like Percussion

2008-12-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Mixer is unknown. This mix was released circa 1985-1986.

First Choice-Double Cross
Kraftwerk---We are the Robots
Kraftwerk-Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk-It's More Fun To Compute
Doctors Cat-Feel The Drive
NV-It's Alright
T Connection-Saturday Night (screamin)
Gino Soccio-It's Alright
James Brown-Body Heat
Pressure Drop-Rock The House
?,
Evelyn Thomas-High Energy
Raw Silk-Do It
??
Bumble Bee Unlimited-I Got A Big Bee
Bootsy Collins-Body Slam
Skatt Brothers-Walk The Night
Visual-The Music Got Me
Loleatta Holloway-Crash Goes Love-Love Sensation
Martin Circus-Disco Circus

Youtube

Clap Your Hands-Mixbuster Mix

2008-12-22T16:46:00.000-08:00

Gangsta/Hype Mix

2008-12-22T16:45:00.000-08:00

Tracklisting
NWA-Gangsta Gangsta
Ice T-I'm Your Pusher
K9 Posse - Ain't Nothin' To It
Ice T - G.L.G.B.N.A.F
James Brown - Funky Drummer
Public Enemy-Don't Believe the Hype
MC Hammer-Let's Get It Started
Salt & Pepa-Shake That Thing
True Mathematics - For The Money
Rick James - Loosey's Rap
Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock
MC Hammer-Let's Get It Started
Rockmaster Scott-The Roof Is On Fire
Vikki Love - Take A Chance
Janet Jackson-Nasty
MC Hammer-Pump It Up
Cybotron-Clear
Tone Loc-Wildthing
Hashim-AL Naafyish
She Rockers - Give It a Rest
Rockmaster Scott - The Roof (inst beats)
Rodney O-Yeah Boy
Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock-It Takes Two
Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock-Get On The Dancefloor
Aleem-Release Yourself
Captain Rock - Captain Rock To The Future Shock
Big Daddy Kane - Raw
Bobby Brown-My Perogative

thx to CPB and EZK for the tracklistng

The Mafia-The Scene of the Crime

2008-12-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

Underground Posse-Master Mix '89

2008-12-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

Dope Side

Long Cassette Version(3 parts)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Freestyle Side

Long Cassette Version-Freestyle Side

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Beta Test Samplers D-Lite

2008-12-21T15:01:00.000-08:00