Disco Scratch

Many thanks for supporting DS for it’s first year in existence… some things didn’t work out for one reason or another.. I would have like to have put on an old school jam with some prime UK artists but didn’t have the resource… an old school meet up never happened, I was going to try to get a load more vinyl & tape rips up but I’m afraid time was against me and lastly because of the weather I just couldn’t get over to Repo136 to do the Christmas podcast…

BUT

We have had loads of dope tape rips, vinyl, some great discussions and next year round about spring I’ll be taking the site down, revamping it and coming back like Lee Majors!  Hopefully there will be a meet up next year, plus the database will be back up and running and I’ll be opening a shop for all your purchases.  I’ll have stuff like custom graf clothing, jewelery like 4 finger rings, tag belts, old trainers like Troop & British Knights & maybe some old vinyl & such.  If you are interested in having your stuff available in the shop please let me know.

I want to introduce a new feature where you can upload your own audio & video for sharing with other old schol UK heads.

So, on that note, I’ll be away for a couple of weeks over Christmas and new year so I really hope everyone has a great holiday season and I’ll speak to you in the new year.

May the force be with you, peace, Waxer.

So a few days have now passed since I first heard of the untimely death of an inspiring, ground breaking and influential UK MC.  Derek Boland, born 15th January 1965 in London, started DJing at 15 on pirates in London, namely LWS and KISS.  Rock the Beat was his first sonic Assault in 1987, released on the Music Of Life imprint and forging a new path for UK acts to follow in his wake.  Derek B was the  third rapper to ever perform on Top Of The Pops, with “Bad Young Brother”,  following Doug E Fresh and Break Machine.

He was a big big name back in 88 and I remember my first purchase of his was indeed the “Bad Young Brother” 12.  The energy that he had was inspirational and I’m proud to say I was a fan back then and will continue to be a fan of his music.

After releasing his LP “Bullet from a gun” I don’t really recall much being released from him, or seeing him anywhere he seemed to just fade out.

I think this was because he is essentially an old school artist and struggled to find a place in the Britcore scene at the time, which had become harsh and political instead of the party style that Derek B was associated with.  I never had the pleasure of seeing him live on stage, but I do however have some quality 80s footage on video which as far as I’m aware is not available ANYWHERE on the net, so I’m going to try to find it, rip it and upload it to youtube tonight, then add it in here later.

There is a lot of stuff I could write about Derek B, but in the past week a lot has been written already and I don’t want to fo over the same stuff twice, so here are some

links:

Drew Huge from Fat Lace does freelance journalism and wrote this piece for The Guardian

Here is the link to The Guardians’ piece about Derek Bs death and here is the obituary.

More Links to Derek B:

Derek Bs Myspace

Derek B on wikipedia

His discography

New Music Express

BBC news article

Starts tributes to him (via Gigwise)

I always believe in looking back over someone’s life with happiness that they existed and contributed to our lives and considering the up and coming festive season, here is the dope “Chillin’ With Santa” as included on the “Christmas Rappin” LP that came out in 1987.

 

 Derek B - Chillin With Santa [4:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (292)

Nuff respect to Derek B, a UK legend.  Being as Disco Scratch is at the heart of the old school UK Hip Hop community and is read by many people in the scene show some love & respect for this artist by taking the time to leave a comment to this post, it will be a longstanding mark of his career.

Just using this as a tune to test the iTunes feed and all the settings…

 

 Severe Carnage - The Struggle Continues [4:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (347)

I thought I’d try and help you lot out and spend a Saturday night doing a tutorial to help you put stuff on the database.

This basically (and I MEAN basically!) covers creating a new page, creating a page from a link, uploading a picture and adding it to an entry and embedding a youtube video. I plan to do another one soon to embed music as well, but this should do to get you going. There’s also sections in the video covering how to edit another entry.

Well, check ‘em out & leave a comment! It’s in 3 parts due to the 10 minute restriction on Youtube, but you lucky people can watch it in HD as that’s the format I uploaded it in!

Thanks all, I look forward to reading your entries!

Disco Scratch Database Link

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

I had been thinking of starting a proper site for a while that enables the UK Hip Hop community to add their own entries to a database. All the other resources that are available on the web for the Hip Hop scene are or were maintained only by a handful of people.

The software I am using is mediawiki which is the software that drives wikipedia.

It’s dead easy to use, just search in the box like you would on wikipedia and if what you’re searching for is not there, just click create page and add your entry. I would recommend that you create an account and login to it, that way you get e-mail alerts when someone ads to or edits your entry. This is not just a music wiki, this is to encompass the entire EXPERIENCE of growing up with hip hop from the early 80s through to now in the UK.

It is rooted firmly in the old school upto mid 90s, but there is no reason why you can’t add whatever you want.

I encourage writers, B Boys, MCs, DJs, beatboxers, crew members, dancers, record shop owners, fashion, concerts, concert venues, radio shows, anything at all that falls into your experience with Hip Hop. I have started adding entries and will continue to do so. I am quite new to this myself so over time I’m hoping to tailor it to suit the needs of the community to the best.

You can add video, audio, pictures, links, pretty much anything that you could put on a forum you can out in here… so GET CONTRIBUTING!!!

You can look in the disco scratch forum for the thread for this with tutorial videos, http://discoscratch.co.uk/forum

The database is here: http://discoscratch.co.uk/dsdb

Enjoy!!!!

True Hip Hop legends, I had to put this video up out of respect. Sounds like it’s just minor though, so looking forward to that new LP!

Well unusually quickly the forum now seems problem free! Login andkeep posting or sign up for all the fresh UK old school downloads!

Here’s some vids of what to expect in the downloads section on the forum:

Fresh downloads coming every day in August exclusive to the forum, LOOK OUT, UK COMING THROUGH!!!

WaxerDisco Scratch forum back online now all working OK, http://discoscratch.co.uk/f... join & get those fresh downloads yo!

I dunno, all this being a grown up is overrated! I mean a month since my last post? Oh well, I suppose that’s just how it goes sometimes. Well, the summer holidays are here now and I am hoping work and stuff should calm down enough for me to do some work on the site.

First off I gotta let you know about some technical stuff. The forum has had loads of technical problems with users being unable to login, passwords not working, all kinds of stupid issues, so it’s going to be offline for a while so that I can sort it out. I’m in and out of the Diggers With Gratitude forum a fair bit so you can catch me in there.

When I bring the forum back (hopefully in about 2 weeks) there will be a new download section. This is so that you can download the golden era UK Hip Hop releases in MP3 format. I’m hoping that each download I make available will spark memories for you, or if you are not familiar with it, to seek out the original vinyl, look at Discogs, their MySpace page etc. With each post I will be adding background on the artist & the release, my personal opinions and links to where you can buy the tracks or the vinyl.

I hope this will drive a lot of new members to the forum and start conversations and debates with the Old School UK heads out there!

OK, onto other stuff, I’m going to be in Brighton on the 1st July to meet up with a load of other Old School UK Nutters for a general beach, booze & beats meet up. This is gonna be totally random, with no organisation except we all know we’re meeting in Brighton on Saturday the 1st. If you are interested add me on FaceBook ( facebook.com/discoscratch ) and you’ll be able to see the thread. Cases of Red Stripe & Dragon Stout a plenty!

Lastly I should be back on track with regular tape rip downloads, previously unavailable mixtapes and such this week, so look out for that!

Soz for the dry spell, but the lawn won’t cut itself/dining room won’t paint itself/kids can’t get to their own parties etc etc etc blah blah yawn!!!

See you all soon, peash!

After 6  months I thought it only right I grace your ears with my dulcit tones, get in the mix for a couple of hours and verbalise about my thoughts on Hip Hop, life, the solar system, whatever deranged thoughts that happen to pass through my mind at any given time while playing some dope tracks.

I’m not going to post a tracklist up, and here’s why:  I find that when you do this, people automatically look through the tracklist to see what you’ve played, and tend to judge the podcast purely on that, which sort of sucks…once it’s been up a couple of weeks I’ll add the tracklist, but rest assured you’ll find some classics, rareities, UK & US tracks, demos and more… if you are really desperate for it, I embedded it into the lyrics section of the ID3 tag.

So without further ado, download & leave a comment if you have time!

 

 Disco Scratch Podcast May 2009 [127:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (365)