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Vote for Mighty Atom in DMC Online DJ Championship.
Let’s break the ice. Let us know who you are, where you are from, and when did you fall in love with Skratching?
Hello mate, my name is Mighty Atom from The Disablists Crew and I’m from Reading in the south east of England.
I suppose there were many “eureka” moments that solidified my love for the art form.. hearing cuts on commercially successful records in the early/mid 90’s… little glimpses of turntablists on TV (DJ Rectangle as Warren G’s DJ on MTV being particularly memorable)…
But without a doubt the most important event was a local funk DJ, who my dad used to sell records to, giving me a copy of Q-Bert’s “Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik” mixtape. This would have been 1996, and was shortly after I got my first pair of belt drive turntables. I remember having my mind seriously blown, not only by the incredible sounds they were able to produce from a record player, but also by all the funk breaks in their original form.
Who or what are your influences? When did you first hear or see someone scratching?
Loads of DJ’s and musicians have influenced my style.. too many to mention I guess. In the mid to late 90’s, aside from ISP, The Scratch Perverts were a huge influence. They were very active, battling, putting out wicked mix tapes, doing cuts on lots of UK hip hop albums and playing shows, so I was exposed to their output more than any other turntablists during that period.
The first DJ who I ever saw scratch in front of me is my good friend DJ Muzzell. This would have been 99 when I started college. He was one of the older students who showed me and Clever Monkey (also from The Disablists) around. We were all on the music course there and Muzz used to practise on the turntables every lunch time. We used to get stoned and watch him.. he was fucking sick even back then lol..
How much time/effort went into preparing your set for Round 9? Which you KILLED, by the way.
Thank you mate, thats really appreciated. That 2 minutes is taken from the 6 minutes I performed at this years UK finals. The whole 6 minutes probably took me 2 and a half months to put together.. although thats 2 and a half months of flat out practise and not really going out or having much of a social life…
What’s next for the 4X UK DMC Champs?
Since 2010 we have been really back on it in a big way; touring our 4 deck show, supporting some big artists and putting out LOTS of mix tapes. This year we have done a mix for Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel Show and I’ve done another mix for Eddy Temple Morris’ show which was broadcast on Xfm.
We’re currently working on another mix for Bestival, which is something I’m excited about and is sounding wicked…
Hopefully I’ll get through to the final of the DMC Online so everyone can see my 6 minutes from this year.
What does the turntablism / DJ community need right now? Do you see any areas where we need to step it up a notch?
Wow.. I’m not sure how to answer this question. There’s been a lot of talk about how turntablism has lost its way, first it was pressing custom records, now it’s using certain styles of electronic music and constructing routines in a certain way. I don’t think anyone can deny that the battle scene used to be stronger in the early 2000’s and that the standard was higher, however on average people’s cutting is much more advanced now. I think it’s just going through another period of transition, we’re talking about an art form that’s still relatively young. Who can guess where it will be in 10 years? Will companies even still manufacture turntables? Will DMC still exist? Will a younger generation get into turntablism and advance the art form?
I genuinely feel that things started to change with the death of the Hip Hop show, I’m speaking about the UK, however I know this is true in other countries as well. Audiences used to go to Hip Hop shows and want to see skills, be that DJ’ing, MC’ing, Beatboxing, Breaking. There are now fewer (if any) local grass roots Hip Hop shows in the UK and even fewer with regular performances from turntablists. I think this has denied many Turntablists a platform to perform, gain recognition and put the artform out there for people to see in their own towns.
What’s one thing you can tell someone about Skratching that you wish you knew when you first started?
Probably to listen more to the sound of what you’re scratching.. does it actually sound good? Know the strengths and limitations of the instrument..So many instruments sound shit scratched on turntables. Don’t bother trying to scratch strings or whatever if the pitch is all over the place and it sounds like a mess.
What equipment do you use? Do you have a favorite piece of gear?
I have a serious turntable practise room at my house as well as a music production area.
Amongst other things I have 2 Numark TTX’s, 6 Technics 1210’s, 2 Rane TTm 56’s, A Vestax 05.
Like many DJ’s and producers my Macbook Pro is probably my most useful and treasured piece of equipment.
What was the last song you listened to?
Miguel- Do You… (Cashmere Cat Remix)
Do you have a favorite record you love to use for Skratching?
Yes definitely! I use the Scratch Science records on a daily basis as well as the ultra pitch section on Muzzell’s Donkey Work 3.
What style(s) of music do you enjoy spinning?
At my shows and the Disablists shows we play EVERYTHING! anything from 90’s Hip Hop to Jungle to House to Reggae to Trap to new underground electronic stuff like Om Unit and Machine Drum. Literally anything if it sounds good and it makes people move.
Do you have any skratch tapes or other work we can check out? Where can we get it?
Yeah we have a big back catalogue of mix tapes which we’re quite proud of and would encourage people to check out. We put a huge amount of work into these mixtapes and they feature loads of multi tracked scratching and mashups/live remixes. Best place to find all of those is our Soundcloud.
You can still get our debut EP featuring Foreign Beggars on iTunes as well.
Where can we connect with you online?
Any last thoughts? Shout outs?
Thanks to you for the interview and all those who support what we do. Shouts to my Disablists comrades Asian Hawk and Clever Monkey. Shout to my homey and scratch terminator Muzzell. Also massive shout out to my long suffering girlfriend who puts up with the noise and writes some of the musical parts in my routines 🙂
PEACE!!
