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Crisell, Luke ON THE RECORD ISBN 13: 9780312531249

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9780312531249: ON THE RECORD
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In the three decades since Kool Herc first put the same record on two side-by-side turntables, DJs have moved out of city parks, house and block parties, and the darkened booths of nightclubs, and onto center stage, performing before admiring crowds of thousands. They have not only given rise to hip-hop and house―DJs have influenced fashion, film, TV, and more.

With On the Record, Scratch DJ Academy, the premiere institution for DJ education, brings together years of training and expertise to create an authoritative guide to the dynamic art of DJing. More than just a "how-to," this is a sonic adventure, guiding you through forty years of music, creativity, and culture. From beat matching to body tricks, Grandmaster Flash to Fatboy Slim, the Bronx to Ibiza, On the Record is an all-in-one guide. So whether you're learning the ropes, considering going pro, or just want insight into a broader range of music, this book is for you.

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About the Author:

Scratch DJ Academy, cofounded by Rob Principe, is the world's brand in DJ education and access, with studios in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. Phil White is a freelance writer based in Kansas City. Luke Crisell is the deputy editor at NYLON magazine and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

The Early Days of the DJ

Today’s superstar DJs are household names who command a hundred thousand dollars or more per gig, crisscross the globe to play, and exert as much influence in fashion, film, and television as they do on the dancefloor. But the DJing profession has not always been as glamorous—just seventy-five years ago the term “disc jockey” didn’t even exist.

A thorough understanding of the history of the DJ will not only provide you with a better appreciation of music in general, it will also give you perspective on the role of the DJ as it moves into the future. From the inaugural radio broadcast to the first discothèque to the birth of hip hop and house, this chapter will give you a comprehensive understanding of where DJs came from and, just as importantly, where they’re going.

In the beginning...

If we’re going to define DJing at its most fundamental level as the art of controlling music, then the most important DJ-related technological advance occurred in 1877 when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph—the first device capable of recording sound and then playing it back by making indentations in a cylindrical sheet of tinfoil. Ten years later, German-American Emile Berliner patented the Gramophone, the great-grandfather of the modern turntable, along with the discs to play on it.

We’re tempted to delve into geeky technical details here, but rather than bore you and embarrass ourselves by revealing the extent of our nerdy knowledge, let’s fast forward to 1906, when the wonderfully bearded Canadian Reginald Fessenden broadcast the first ever spoken AM radio program from Brant Rock, Massachusetts, earning him the title “The Father of Radio Broadcasting.” This was the advent of radio, and soon enough people would be able to hear music—mostly swing, jazz, and classical—from the comfort of their homes instead of attending live performances.

While Fessenden’s brief debut was only picked up by a few U.S. Navy vessels puttering around the New England coast, it marked the dawn of a new age in entertainment, one in which radio DJs would eventually become kings.

In 1921, electronics company Westinghouse established the first commercially supported radio stations in Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago, and New York, and many other media companies soon entered the market. In just a few short years, the radio business was to become as cutthroat as piracy in the waters around the West Indies, but with fewer rules of engagement. A year after Westinghouse’s first stations went on air, the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, made its first broadcast from its London studios, marking the start of commercial radio in the U.K. Five years after that, in 1927, Christopher Stone, dressed in a dinner jacket and tie, became Britains’s first disc jockey when he started his BBC radio show, playing jazz records to a fairly small audience that quickly grew to encompass much of the radio-owning British public.

But while radio technology was advancing apace, the audio equipment itself quickly was becoming outmoded. Gramophones and early turntables were unwieldy, using huge, noisy motors that delivered power inconsistently and, thanks to their thick steel needles, quickly wore out records. Most of the early discs played on the pioneering radio stations were equally hard for the radio DJ to handle—made of hard rubber, shellac, or other dense materials that were not easily manipulated and produced a lot of distortion.

These early records could hold only a few minutes of music at 78 rpm (revolutions per minute), and were worn out after a hundred or so plays, meaning that many radio shows were forced to rely on live performers. But things began to change in 1930 when RCA Victor introduced the first long-playing (LP) records.

The prototypes weren’t commercially viable at first, but record label executives quickly realized that the new discs were cheaper to produce, lighter, and more durable. And, as vinyl records rotated at 33rpm, there was less friction against the needle and therefore less hissing. Vinyl LPs were to the earlier records what CDs were to cassettes (and what MP3s are to CDs).

Record companies were quick to adopt the new format. Columbia Company took several years to build up a catalog of its most popular artists’ recordings and, in the process, further refined the vinyl that RCA Victor had introduced and the duplication process required to effectively distribute records nationwide. Columbia also partnered with stereo system manufacturer Philco to produce a turntable for playing 33 rpm records which was priced at just thirty dollars. For the first time, the turntable became a viable home entertainment option for American families.

When Columbia released the first selection of LPs—primarily recordings of classical music—in 1948, both the records and the Philco stereos sold fairly well. Not to be outdone, RCA came back with the introduction of 45 rpm records and a thirteen-dollar turntable. These also sold fairly well, but because consumers were confused by the different speeds (think Blu-ray versus HD-DVD), neither format became dominant until 1954, when record companies settled on the 45 rpm option for sending music to radio DJs and selling it to consumers.

Television was still several decades away at this point, so people in the U.S., the U.K., and elsewhere still relied on the radio for entertainment. At first, radio show hosts were referred to as announcers. Then, in 1935, American newspaper and radio commentator Walt Winchell coined the term “disc jockey” in reference to Martin Block, whose ABC radio show Make Believe Ballroom was receiving twelve thousand letters a month. The moniker seemed to suggest that the announcers passively “rode” the discs, implying that they were cursory figures. But the term stuck.

Frank Singiser was another popular radio DJ of the ’30s and ’40s, hosting Your Hit Parade on NBC’s Red Network. Singiser played the week’s most popular songs and promoted brands for commercial sponsors such as Lucky Strike, which paid big bucks to have its name associated with nationally syndicated broadcasts. To take advantage of the growing popularity of the radio DJ in the so-called Golden Age of American broadcasting, record producers began to send and even hand-deliver their latest hits to radio studios.

These early promotional copies ensured maximum exposure with minimal cost, and taking the DJs out for a few drinks certainly didn’t hurt the record promoters’ cause either (before the days when the big labels would allegedly bribe DJs to play their latest releases). With the release of an affordable transistor radio in 1948, radio audiences reached an all-time high, and DJs became more influential than ever before, evolving from mere announcers to cultural tastemakers. Without the support of the radio DJ, musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Tony Bennett would arguably never have achieved commercial success.

OUT OF THE STUDIO, INTO THE CLUB

Most DJs in the ’40s were content to stay in the radio studios, but a few of the more enterprising ones opted for the less profitable, but often more emotionally rewarding, route of playing records for live audiences. This was a daunting task, as crowds in the U.S. and

U.K. were accustomed to live bands and orchestras, not some guy standing behind equipment, head bent over in concentration— which, come to think of it, is often the case today. Indeed, the crowd’s only familiarity with recorded music was what they played on their primitive home turntables, or heard on the radio or on the jukeboxes that had become popular at bars and restaurants. British DJ Jimmy Savile decided he was bored with radio and held his first dance party in 1943 using a makeshift stereo system built by a friend from spare parts. The few people who came to the function room of the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds (perhaps the best name for a club, ever) in Otley, England, probably didn’t know what to think. After a few more performances, however, Savile developed a loyal following, and soon worked out a deal with nationwide dance hall proprietor Mecca Ballrooms to hold similar gatherings elsewhere in England.

Four years later, Savile decided that the single turntable he was using was too restrictive, and hired a local metalworker to weld two decks together—making him, for all intents and purposes, the godfather of the modern DJ. The wonderfully eccentric Savile (who owns a mountain, was friends with Elvis Presley and John Lennon, and had over a hundred fights as a pro wrestler) went on to DJ for powerhouse Radio Luxembourg and to host Top of the Pops, the British TV institution that, until 2006, counted down the Top 40 singles chart and featured several live acts each week. Savile’s example was followed by Jamaican DJs such as Count Suckle in London, who used powerful sound systems to blast out the sounds of early ska to crowds at outdoor and indoor venues. Wild jazz parties held by DJs and attended by foppish teenagers known as “ravers” were also held throughout the city.

While Savile, Suckle, and the jazz ravers were laying the foundations for the modern club DJ in England, an equally significant development was unfolding across the English Channel in Paris. It was here that entrepreneur Paul Pracine opened Whisky a Go Go, the world’s first discothèque (the word is a portmanteau of disc and bibliothèque), in 1947. The Chez Castel and Chez Régine clubs soon opened nearby, giving Parisian music aficionados a triumvirate of quality venues from which to choose.

DJs in the U.S. quickly followed the Europeans’ lead, and started to host dance parties known as sock hops in school gymnasiums, so called because you weren’t allowed to wear dancing shoes in the gyms in case they damaged the floor. While dis...

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  • PublisherGriffin
  • Publication date2009
  • ISBN 10 0312531249
  • ISBN 13 9780312531249
  • BindingPaperback
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages342
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