Last weekend, while Phish were entertaining a mini-metropolis of phans in the boondocks of Maine and any number of festival tours were creeping their way through towns across the land, a decidedly different spin on live music was taking place at Manhattan's Irving Plaza. It was there that a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd was treated to a rare exhibition of the country's best DJ wizardry and showmanship, on occasion of the 1998 Technics/DMC U.S. DJ Championship.

Eleven deft turntablists from across the U.S. were pitted against each other to decide who would represent America in the World Championship in Paris this October for the chance to win a set of gold-plated turntables and the title of World Champion. Contestants were chosen from an unprecedented seven regional heats held throughout the States, and included familiar faces such as DJ Dummy (Brooklyn), Craze (Miami), defending champ DJ Slyce (New Jersey), with Kuttin Kandi (Queens) making it more than a battle of skills, but a battle of the sexes as well.

Conceived in England in 1983, DMC (Disco Mix Club) is the world's longest running DJ competition. Originally intended as simply a mixing battle, it soon grew into something much greater with the introduction of scratching, cutting and other refinements. Although it was America's DJ Cheese who brought scratching to the contest in 1986, the genre's pioneer was undoubtedly Grandmaster Flash. (It was he who introduced cutting, the practice of simultaneously spinning two or more copies of the same song to alter arrangements.)

Thus, it was not surprising that Flash was one of this year's judges. As if this were not intimidating enough, other judges included Grand Wizard Theodore, renowned for furthering Flash's techniques, and Cash Money (1988 World Champion and member of the Technics Hall of Fame), who had already proved his worth to the crowd earlier that night with a rich set.

When the legendary DJ was asked if he felt at all threatened by the upstarts taking the stage, Cash's response was a generous one: "I love it. I'm happy to be instrumental to the kids. After all, it's all about education isn't it?" And Saturday night's display was certainly a lesson for the uninitiated and expert alike.

Each competitor proved worthy of his (or her) position on the line-up, displaying the skills we've come to expect from such a battle with the usual quota of new trickery as well -- Shortkut scratched impeccably to a track playing at double speed to the obvious delight of both the crowd and the judges; Mysterio (a k a The Boogey Man) certainly won bonus points by pulling records off the turntable as they were playing, landing the needle on another record sitting underneath without losing the beat.

But the outstanding talent of the night undoubtedly came from the humid hinterlands in the form of Miami's Craze. Smiling mischievously at the rapturous audience, he proceeded to cut tracks whether they were playing backwards, forwards, trip-hop slow or jungle fast, complementing it all by scratching with his back turned to the decks and crowd.

The only thing Craze did to delight the crowd further was to accept two turntables as the winner, beating Shortkut into second place, and Dummy into third.

Adding to the already impressive events of the evening were performances from Non Phixion and Scaramanga who, if one were being honest, provided little competition for those on the wheels of steel. However, the Beatjunkies gave an excellent display with their four-man, four-deck mixing, which carried synchronization and imagination second to none.

At a more sentimental point of the occasion, Flash, Theodore, Grandmixer DXT (who collaborated with Herbie Hancock on the Grammy-winning track "Rockit"), and the legendary Afrika Bambaataa (unfortunately absent) were inducted into the DMC DJ Hall of Fame for their achievements both as pioneers and World Champions. These are the talents that the relative newcomers such as Craze, Shortkut and Dummy have to thank for paving the way to the musical mixmastery displayed this evening.

ABBY HEWITTSON
(August 19, 1998)