Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Scratching

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Listen in today as we salute turntablism, aka, record scratching.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry.

Let's get it started. Wow. Is that the best you got? That was a yeah. I thought it was pretty good. Was it not? It was great. So this coincides with our vinyl records full length episode. And we just want to be clear. Record scratching could be a full length episode easily. Turns out. We're going to concentrate mainly on sort of the early history because we've also learned that trying to describe musical things and audio things is a little awkward. A little. I think it might be the most difficult thing we've ever tried to describe for real. You know, it kind of sounds like this. So it's going to be light on that. But let's talk about record scratching, which although apparently in the 1940s and 50s, people were creating music

from turntables and composing and sampling. But if you really want to talk about turntableism, a term coined in the 90s, you really got to start in the 1970s in New York City. Yeah. There was a guy in 1975. His name is Theodore Livingston. He was a teenager in the Bronx. And he went by DJ Grand Wizard Theodore, unfortunate name. But in 1975, Theodore was playing records apparently too loud on his home stereo. And his mom came in and said, you better turn that down. I guess his mom busted in and said, what's that noise? Right. And when he went to go turn the volume down, I guess rather quickly accidentally scratched the record. And instead of being like, man, I screwed up my record, Theodore had the presence of mind to be like, that sounded pretty

cool. Let me see if I can do that again. Yeah, I can like totally see the movie version. Apparently she was downstairs yelling at him and he went to stop it so she could hear what she was saying. Right. And then he goes over and it goes and all of a sudden like the lights in the room get brighter. Right. He's discovered a new musical genre. Close in on Brian May looking totally astounded and amazed in awe. Oh, goodness. I still like that movie. It was very corny, though. You're correct. Yeah. So he technically invented the scratch and started doing it at parties and house parties and clubs and stuff. But if you were to ask a hip hop enthusiast sort of who the forefathers of turntableism are, they would point to three people for sure, maybe more.

Cool Herk, Grandmaster Flash, and Africa Bombada, all of which we talked about in our hip hop episode. Yeah. So from what I can discern, Chuck, there's basically two categories of turntableism. One is scratching that was invented by Grand Wizard Theodore and then the other is called cutting. And that was, most people say, invented by DJ Cool Herk. Again, I think in the 70s, the very, very late 70s, and scratching is exactly what you think it is. It's moving the record back and forth, back and forth against the needle, making it scratch. And cutting is where you have to have two records and you're using the cross fader that turns one on and the other off or turns that one on and the other off depending on which way you slide it. That is cutting and everything else is

either a subcategory or a combination of those two. And when you put it all together, that's where you get turntableism, which is this incredibly sophisticated, incredibly talented combination of scratching and cutting. Now, doesn't cutting mean the same record though? No, cutting is you're cutting back and forth between two records. But not the same two records. Sorry. So two identical records, like two of the same record one on each turntable, you mean? Yes. Not necessarily. Cutting is the larger category of that. I think that is breakbeat, usually when it's two different ones. Yeah, breakbeat, which seems to have evolved into the beat juggling, seems like just a sort of more complex version of

breakbeat, right? Yeah. And breakbeat is a type of cutting from what I understand. All right. So Cool Herk apparently came up with a breakbeat technique. That's hard to say. Mm-hmm. I would be the terrible hip-hop artist because I can't even say breakbeat technique. How's your breakbeat technique? But that's when you have the two copies of the same record put on two different decks. And basically, you mix between them to extend whatever indefinitely, like the climax usually or the break, you can just extend that forever because you're going back and forth. And like, I know how all this stuff works, but I watched a lot of videos on YouTube. There's one called Scratch School where Scratch Basted kind of shows you

how to do this stuff. And when you, if you don't know a lot about it, but you've long admired the sound of it and you look at it, it's really kind of cool to see how it works. It's really a lot, way more complicated than I thought. I didn't know that they actually physically marked the record in like a clock position to know where the beats were. I always wondered how they got the needle back to the point in the song when they needed that beat and they just move it. So they're scratching the records, they're moving the fader, they're literally moving the needle to get it in the right position back and forth. And there's a lot more going on than I thought. I knew it wasn't easy, but I was just kind of blown away. Yeah, because here's the thing.

If you play a part of a record that's say like a drum roll and you want to play that again, if you spin the record backward, which I believe is walking it, right, or pausing it, I can't remember which one it is. Backward would be moonwalking, right? Okay, so if you moonwalk the record, it's going to make its own sound. But if all you want is that beat over and over again, what you're doing is through creating break beats is just going from that drum roll on the one record. And when that's done, you move the cross fader to turn the other record on so that the drum roll starts then. And then while you're playing that, you pull the other record that you just played back to the spot again. And by doing that, you can keep that drum roll going, just

moving back and forth seamlessly, add in fun item, basically, you could just keep it going forever. Keep it going forever. So that's what we would do if we didn't have to take an ad break. But we're going to do that. We'll be back to finish up right after this. this situation. If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God, seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking,

this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you,

it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just want a second Chuck before we start again. I'm with you. That scratch school with Scratch Bastard was so easy to watch. That guy's like a total natural at explaining things.

And he's also astoundingly talented too. Yeah, and talented and would like, he was having fun and he was messing up and his whole point and all the videos I watched was like, this is what it's about. Like I screwed up there. I lost the beat. You got to play around with it. You got to get funky and just sort of like roll with mistakes and try and mistakes into happy accidents. And for a change, sort of look through some of the YouTube comments and it was really supportive and cool. Like people are like, man, I'm trying to learn and you make this so much more accessible and seeing someone kind of screw up and then get it back is like and not edit that part out is like really valuable. So yeah, without being like,

damn it. Yeah, start again. Wait, or else being like, wait, wait, hold on. I got it. Hold on. Wait, wait a second. Yeah, it was pretty fun. And I also want to recommend there were some more fun videos from DJ Babu BABU that were pretty awesome as well at explaining things. Maybe let's talk about a couple of more quick little moves and then we'll go back and finish up with some history. Yeah, I think that's a great idea, dude. So I would highly recommend you go and watch these videos if you're interested in knowing what something like a transformer scratch is. So perfectly named, though. I know it's named because it sounds sort of like a transformer transforming cash money, Jazzy Jeff, lots of DJs sort of helped pioneer this technique.

And once you see it and hear it, you're like, Oh, I just, you know, if you don't know much about it, you're like, I didn't know it was called the transformer scratch, but I've heard it a million times. Yeah. And by the way, yes, that Jazzy Jeff, DJ Jazzy Jeff, as in he's the DJ, I'm the rapper, DJ Jazzy Jeff, who apparently invented that. And then there's another one that's called the scrap, the crab that scratch bastard does. And the reason it's called that is because you're flicking the crossfader back and forth using your thumb and then one finger, thumb, the next finger, thumb, your other finger and then sometimes your thumb and your fourth finger. And as you do it really fast, one finger after another, it kind of, you know,

is reminiscent of a crab's legs walking. Yeah. It's again, it's really cool. It's like you use your thumb as to kind of put pressure against the fader. And basically what you're doing is you're turning the fader on and off really quickly. But you know, that thing, if you're, if you're bored, do you do like I'm going to do with my fingers on like a piece of wood, but that Yes. Well, did that come through at all? Yes, it did. That's what you're doing with the fader. So whenever you hear a scratch go like, that's what they're doing. And it's just, it's a technique called the crab. It's so cool. The thing is, though, is when you watch DJs doing these things and explaining it, it becomes so much more, I guess, admirable because the

the, the, the different coordination of your hands doing two different things at different times, perfectly synced up is so hard for someone like me that just to see somebody who can just do it, like it's nothing is really, it's really, my head is off to those people. Yeah, it's super impressive. Jumping back to history, things are happening in the Bronx, obviously in the late 70s. Again, if you listen to our hip hop episode, we talk all about it. And then the big, big breakout as far as the mainstream America music loving public goes was in 1984, when Herbie Hancock's rocket came out, landmark video, landmark performance at the 26 Grammy Awards, which really pushes it into the mainstream. Yeah. Because that was the first scratch solo.

And it was amazing. It was performed by another Bronx DJ. And it said in this one article, Grandmaster, but it was Grand Mixer DST, who then changed it to DXT. Yeah. And I think, so this was like the first song that ever had scratching as like, not only like a rhythm, but there was like scratching solos in the middle of the song. And like at this point, like people just, especially just the general people, I'm sure every single person at the Grammys, did not think of turntables as anything particularly interesting. Like at that, up to that point, a DJ was, what a lot of DJs are still today, you've got one record playing, and you let it play most of the way, and then you mix in another record, and then you take the first record off and put another one

and mix that in, which is, it's really hard to do. You have to have a really good ear. That's not scratching. That's not cutting. That's not turntables. And that's DJing. And that's what people thought of turntables as, that was it. That's what they were for. But with Rocket, it was like, nope, this is a completely different era now, starting in 1984. Yeah. And I remember, man, I remember being 12 and 13 years old and seeing Rocket the video for the first time. And this was, Herbie Hancock was a sort of star fading jazz musician at this time. This really revived his career. But I remember the video was so weird and so, and looking at it now, it's very kind of disturbing and odd looking. But I remember seeing it and just

thinking, what in the world am I seeing and hearing right now? And it's not like I immediately started, I didn't get into hip hop till probably four or five years after that. But it blew my mind. I was just, I had never heard anything like it before. It was super cool to be of that generation to have seen like a new genre being born before your very eyes. Yeah. Apparently that one performance is credited for basically getting a lot of kids into scratching and then eventually turntablism starting in the 90s, which is pretty cool. And also as a little side note, that was the same Grammys where Michael Jackson carried a manual Lewis around like a baby. You actually, if you watch the performance of Rocket, I think

at the end after when everybody's clapping, they cut to them sitting together in the front row. Oh, goodness. It's a weird Grammys dude. You got anything else? That means of course everybody's short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.