|
|
|
|
Following on from the first part of our One Self feature, we caught some more words with Woody after the first interview. As one of the UK’s best and most underrated DJs, Woody has been hard at work over the last few years carving a name for himself as well as moving on from his battling heydays. While most people might know him for the titles he won in the early 00s, there is a lot more to the man from Burnley then just DJ battling and scratching, as you’re about to find out. The fact that Vadim chose Woody as the DJ backbone for the One Self shows and album is no surprise, after all he really is one of the best. So here’s Woody, Burnley’s finest speaking on One Self, recent projects, scratching, the scene and the new Vestax melody turntable. Be sure to check the first part of our One Self feature as well. Ok, well what have you been up to outside of what you're doing with One Self at the moment?  W: I've been pretty mad busy with this really... doing the recordings
for this album and mad touring with these lot. I've been doing some club
work and stuff like that as well. I've also put together a break record
that's ready to go as soon as get my finger out my arse and actually
press it! All the artwork and the audio are ready for that, so it'll go
as soon as I push the button basically.So is that going to be more like the classic break records or the scratch tools we've been seeing? W: Definitely more like a scratch tool. I've got a good mate who's a really talented classic keys player, and he's got loads of classic kit so I went up to his and we got down and recorded loads of stuff. We've got synths lines, moog stuff, it's just a lot of keyboard lines, different scales, different kinds of scales, just to offer people a lot of choice in how you can rock what's on the record basically. It's not a strict kind of A to G loop or anything like that. I think it's quite cool to pull scratch solos out of existing solos sometimes and also you get quite interesting note combination when it's not going up in a scale...  "...I think it's quite cool to pull scratch solos out of existing solos sometimes and also you get quite interesting note combination..." The limitations of the turntable make the solo more interesting...  W: Yeah, it's a bit like a jigsaw puzzle sometimes, makes it fun. So
yeah it's going to have tons of stuff, but there's only going to be two
beats on there. As practice beats and they're on the outer edge of the
record, as that's not too easy to use for scratching anyway. The rest of
it is all sounds, nearly 20 minutes of straight sounds.So you got a system for it, or a format, anything like that? W: There's a kind of loose system on there. There's a lot of scratch tools/battle weapons with similar things to this, lots of instrument sounds etc. coming out now but I just went for a system where each visible track, or track marker, is a different instrument. So you'll have different notes of that instrument in different little phrases, but basically each visible track on the record will hold a different instrument, so you can flick between them fairly easily. There'll be drum sections as well. Essentially it's just fodder to make scratch music with really, and I've been playing with it on Serato for quite a while, so I know it should work nicely once it's done. So you haven't even pressed it yet? W: I've not pressed it no. For the One Self shows I use a couple of bits from it, but I'm going to press it as soon as Vad stops working me so hard! (laughs) And I'm also working on a mixtape which regroups breaks and records across a whole range of genres: funk, prog-rock, folk, jazz-fusion etc. My boy Shawn Vinylment from where I'm from, he's a guy I've known for like 15 years and he's a massive digger so we're putting our heads together to come up with something. It's a pretty deep breaks mix, where he supplies the records and I'm left with these hundreds of wicked breaks and I'm in the process of 'turntablising' them all, making them into bits of tracks, scratching them up etc. It's a mixtape essentially but with a twist... V: Is that the one you played me? W: Yeah. V: That's amazing. W: You heard that? DJ Vadim says... "...Just keeping on with stuff really, doing lots of things here and there..." DJ Vadim's seal of approval! V: It is, it'll change music as we know it... (laughs)  W: I just need to finish the bugger... So yeah and I think we might do a
scratch sort of record at some point, Vadim and myself. Just keeping on
with stuff really, doing lots of things here and there. I'm also trying
to work on this live project with a musician from Manchester I've known
for a while and used to work with years ago. So that's on the back
burner but hopefully it'll come to something soon. More about that when
there's something to talk about basically!I was also wondering if you've had time to check what's been going on outside the battles with people like Gunkhole, BNN, Excess etc...? W: Well I know all these people, I do a lot of shows outside of the One Self project and I keep up to date with everything. I did a show with Gunkhole a couple of months ago, I was supposed to do two with them when they were in the UK last year but that fell through. So does it appeal to you, the type of stuff they do? W: Yeah, but it seems there are a lot of young guys who get this impression that making a turntable noise sound musical is some sort of new notion, that they instantly thought of in the year 2000. But you listen to records from 85 and there's people making music with the turntable. Listen to a Davy DMX record and there's mad musical shit on it with a turntable, people seem to think it's a new notion and there's a lot of snobbery around on the scene at the moment, you know? Turntablism as music vs battling... and every battle DJ I know of, which is most of them, is into music and other things. It's not like 'we're the battle community, blady bla' and 'you're the music making people'. It's bullshit. Most of the people who talk shit on the net, haven't left their own town and don't know anything about this shit anyway. "...It seems there are a lot of young guys who get this impression that making a turntable noise sound musical is some sort of new notion..."  Battling
for me, anyway, is just part of being a hip hop head and just a personal
challenge. It's part of hip hop culture and I was always trying to make
music when I put battle sets together, whether or not it was easy to
swallow music I don't know, but whenever I tried to do a routine it was
always about making music with the turntables. For me battling was
always about pulling something out of the bag and making people go 'how
did he pull that off', and try to show up the other people in the
battle. There's nothing wrong with a bit of competitive edge. Producers,
when they make beats, surely they're thinking I want to make the baddest
shit going you know?It's a step up in a way. You've been doing all this other stuff recently with One Self, your solo shows, etc. and that was opened by you doing the battles. And now there are so many people using the turntable in so many different ways from an instrument to a production tool that the possibilities do seem kind of endless... musically speaking. W: There's no right or wrong way to do it and that's the beauty. I love D-Styles, I like Gunkhole, it's some of my favourite stuff in the tablist world, but an all DJ line up isn't the be all and end all. I don't think turntable music should be about ‘we make all this music using only turntables’. There are so many interesting things still to be explored in the live environment, using the tables to compliment other instruments... Yeah it's like saying making hip hop is using a two bar loop, like Vadim said earlier on. W: Exactly. There's so much more to be explored. V: I've always thought, like he just said, that when it comes to DJs or hip hop in general, there's so much more possible, you've got to wonder why people don't think of it? You see DMC routines, and you think 'well that's cool, but it sounds exactly like what the dude before you just did'. It's not rubbish but... it's the same thing but with different words. I know people can do more shit with that. It's like you were saying with the possibilities of the turntable, it's always like 'we've got to have 9 turntables and scratch ahhh and fresh and run around...' "...There's a lot of snobbery around on the scene at the moment..." W: It's like telling a guitar player that the future of guitar music is to have six guitarists...  V: But you don't have that. Guitar players have got to have a bass
player, a drummer... In the same way as a tablist when you mix it with
drums and other instruments it starts to really find its place. So for
me what Kid Koala did with turntables was amazing, to have a little band
with him: P-Love, a drummer, a bassist, and him scratching the vocals of
the lead singer. The way you can manipulate sound with a turntable is
amazing, because it works in a way a musician can’t do.W: You're like a live sampler. V: You can do something really musical, in key, in pitch and you can also bend notes and play notes in a way a musician can't. W: And everything in between. And marry that with traditional musicians and you get something new... V: Yeah exactly. "...Battling, for me anyway, is just part of being a hip hop head and just a personal challenge..." Well actually the last thing I wanted to ask you was about this new Vestax turntable we've been hearing about. I don't know if you can talk about it or not, but I know you were asked by Vestax to come in and talk with them when you were in Japan, so I was wondering if you could say anything about it...  W: Basically to clarify, Vestax have been developing new ideas for a
turntable for a little while, and the initial meetings I think were with
D Styles and Ricci Rucker. Then we were all in Japan doing a show for
Vestax: myself, Ricci, Toadstyle and Excess and we had a meeting
basically with them and we were just throwing ideas around. I can't say
too much about it, but if it happens it's going to take the turntable
music thing more inline with working with musicians and just open up
loads of new possibilities. It's going to really advance pitch
manipulation, in a more musical way. You can do so many things with the
PDX already, things that people aren't messing around with, I don't know
if people are just too lazy or what, but there's so much you can do with
it anyway."...There are so many interesting things still to be explored in the live environment, using the tables to compliment other instruments..." This will definitely take it up a notch. Some people may look at it and think well this isn't even a turntable anymore it's an instrument, but for too long we've been constrained by the blueprint that Technics gave us 20 years ago for something that wasn't even meant to be used in the way we're using it now anyway, and it's time somebody really listened to what we need and what is good for us. Hopefully Vestax will be the one. For now they're very interested in hearing what the tablist community wants. Which is good because not a lot of people really want to spend money developing something that can play vinyl. So hopefully this will come out and change a few things.
|
ukhh.com 2004
DJ
Woody Interview (One Self Pt. 2)
Related
Links:
