A great book fell into my hands - "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash - My Life, My Beats - A Memoir" by Grandmaster Flash and David Ritz. I was reading a bound galley version, but the official version from Harlem Moon/Broadway Books appears due in June 2008.
It's the story of Joseph Saddler growing up in the Bronx. As a kid, he was fascinated by musical beats that moved his parents and older siblings as they danced in the living room, and obsessed with the electronics that made it work. He was also beaten harshly by his father for going near the prized record player and record collection, but couldn't keep away from it.
Joseph's mom got him a bike by saving up green stamps. He didn't ride it. He flipped it upside down and watched the wheels go around. He put cards in the spokes and tried to make each wheel click at the same speed.
He also learned electronics and found that other people's junk radio's and speakers could be fixed up or made into other things.
Joseph noticed other kids doing amazing art on trains - tagging them with graffiti. Rivals would battle for the best artwork, such as getting a whole train car and he gave it a try. He wasn't very good, and other's quickly mocked him out of doing it anymore. Still, it was amazing to him that kids were having battles over art.
He noticed other kids were dancing like robots and spinning on their heads. He gave that a try and quickly failed at that as well.
It wasn't until he saw a DJ captivate a park by playing the best breaks from hit records that he found his calling. The DJ was playing people's favorite parts over and over by picking up the needle and dropping it back down. It drove dancers wild, but they also stopped each time the needle went up and it took a while to find that groove again when it came back down.
This book is about how Joseph Saddler became known as Grandmaster Flash, the first DJ to master the art of mixing and what happened after he invented smoothly switching between two turntables on the beat. It gives insight into the dawn of scratching - in the mid-1970's in the Bronx.
It's nightclubs, sound systems, being nervous about performing, women, the start of MC's and rap, record deals, cars, lawsuits, cocaine, inner peace, and the beat going on. It's disco, it's record collections, it's Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel and The Message.
It's written in a way that takes you to the scene and walks you through the thought processes so that readers get the sensation of coming up with the solution, or falling into the problem, right along with the author. There is the time that Rick James asks him to join him in a project and inquires about how his publishing deal is set up. Publishing? Mr. James pulls him aside for an hour at a party and explains how he is being screwed by Sugarhill.
Anyone who is interested in the early days of turntables and MC's will enjoy this book. Lots of insider trivia, too, for true DJ fans. Where was Flash when "White Lines" came out? How was he able to get electricity to DJ in the park? How did he figure out how to mix seamlessly? All this and more in his own words.
Highly recommended if the name Grandmaster Flash brings fonds memories to you.
Here's a video Interview with Grandmaster Flash from 1986 , and another more recent video of him performing in Glasgow.
For fun you might want to see what this revolution with a record player led to - here is Birdy Nam Nam, a french DJ group featuring four DJ's.
Thanks, Flash!