DJ showdown: older DJs and today’s crop of Turntablists trade blows
All too often projects fail to prove sustainable. Quite simply without external funding the products and practices developed do not survive. But sometimes they take off and resonate in new ways even without a financial stimulus. So it is with RadioActive. RadioActive was a project funded under the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning project to develop the use of internet radio with unemployed people and socially disadvantaged groups. And although the funding finished over a year ago, projects partners in three countries – Germany, Portugal and the Uk are still producing radio programmes.
Today is London’s turn. At 1400 UK time, 1500 CET the Univeristy of East London present a show entitled “DJ showdown: older DJs and today’s crop of Turntablists trade blows.” Is DJing an art form? With digital tech so easily available and virtually unlimited access to MP3s via a laptop, is everyone now a DJ? And if so does that mean older people who learnt their craft through hard graft have wasted their time? Don’t all the years of physically carrying lbs of vinyl to clubs and then actually mixing records live amount to something? We examine what does it mean to be a DJ in 2016 and how it has changed over the last three decades.
We compare the different styles of mixing music ranging from Geoff Humphries who DJ’d in the house music scene of Ibiza, Rhythm Vandals (mostly playing the clubs in Leeds in the 90s) right up to newest wave of teenage Turntablists where Abrakadaniel beat mixes for us. Tracks include the Sex Pistols, Madonna/Abba, the late Lemmy from Motörhead through to Soulwax. What influence have new techniques and digital accuracy that take account of key and time signatures actually had on mixing? We hear the likes of Titancube, RiFF RAFF, Skrillex, Datsik, Brillz & LAXX and more.
You can listen live at http://listenlive.radioactive101.eu/ . And if you can’t tune in live catch up afterwards with the recording of this and other programmes at http://uk2.radioactive101.eu/broadcast/
