DJ Shame

DJ Shame is the best type of collector but the last person you want to see on a digging excursion—he knows too much. Even if he already owns a record, he’ll buy a second copy; owning doubles is his thing. If a record has a good beat and isn’t too pricey (preferably under $5), Shame will take it home.

Growing up in the Massachusetts suburbs never scared Shame from becoming a DJ and digging for the type of records you only find in big cities. He traveled wherever his car could take him and amassed a collection every DJ is jealous of. Some call him the master of b-boy breaks, but I just call him Shame.

I asked my friend Gino (DJ Sorce-1) to help out with the interview, as Gino and Shame go way back. Their knowledge of breaks and hip-hop samples is beyond me. We made the trip out to Deerfield, MA, to visit Shame and his collection of 30,000 records.

 

 

DJ Sorce-1: What is your most memorable digging experience?

It was at a Jamaican record store. I was with my friend Sean from the Vinyl Reanimators. He found this place in New York where you had to know the people to get inside. They had a special door you’d lift to enter the basement. You had to climb down a ladder to get to the basement, full of 45s that had been there for years. There were little dust mites everywhere. Every time we went down there, we wore face masks and dig all day. We got some good shit out of that place. Each 45 was three dollars a piece.

 

 

DJ S1: So it was just a giant cache in their basement?

Yeah, just stacked up 45s. They also had a shitload of different 12-inches from Grand Groove Records, with stuff like T Ski Valley. They had all the titles sealed, just boxes of them. The only title they didn’t have was T Ski Valley’s “Catch the Beat,” one of his big songs. 

Before we discovered this spot, it used to be called Derrick’s Records. The guy that owned Derrick’s owned Grand Groove. Grand Groove was putting out hip-hop records in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, so there were tons of extras in the basement. We’d buy a shitload of those, take them down to the Sound Library, and sell them for twice as much as we paid for them. 

DJ S1: I love that story. I’ve talked to different diggers who have put up with records caked with kitty litter and all different kinds of nasty stuff.

Yeah, the 45s stunk. Even after taking them home, they had an odor for quite some time.

DJ S1: But it was worth it?

Oh, yeah. I pulled out “Substitution” and the Dynamic Corvettes out of there.

 

 

“I was set up in the basement, and when you’re in a DJ battle, you’re just spending hours perfecting little parts of your routines. For someone who doesn’t really understand DJing, I can see them saying, ‘Why are you doing that? What is that going to amount to?'”

DJ S1: I remember reading that “Rapper’s Delight” was the first rap record you ever heard.

Yeah, that’s what got me into the rap shit.

DJ S1: Do you remember the first record you bought?

Yup. I didn’t buy it; my mom was the person who actually bought it. The record was the Original Cast of Zoom. I don’t remember what happened to it, but somehow it broke. For years, I didn’t have it. I found another copy in upstate New York later and ended up grabbing it.

 

 

DJ S1: For sentimental purposes?

Yeah, I mean, it’s got a funky track on there too.

DJ S1: What do your parents think of the amount of records you have?

I don’t know. I don’t think they ever imagined the scratching stuff would amount to anything. When I entered the New Music Seminar Battle in ’89, they realized I was pretty good. 

I was set up in the basement, and when you’re in a DJ battle, you’re just spending hours perfecting little parts of your routines. For someone who doesn’t really understand DJing, I can see them saying, “Why are you doing that? What is that going to amount to?”

DJ S1: You started DJing in ’84, right?

Yeah, I started DJing in ’84. I first heard “Rapper’s Delight” in ’80. As soon as I heard it, I was immediately drawn to it. I knew the music was from Chic’s “Good Times,” but there was no singing. Instead, they were doing something new.

“Whether it was to New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine, we’d go out looking for flea markets and stores. Every weekend, we hit the streets.”

 

 

DJ S1: Did you have a mentor when you started digging, or did you learn the ropes independently?

All on my own. It was before digging became “cool” and “trendy.” I was always into records. My favorite part was hearing early hip-hop records and recognizing beats from a different song. From that point on, I went nuts and started digging everywhere I could.

DJ S1: Did you start digging in Worcester or another part of Massachusetts?

It started here in Worcester with Al-Bums (an independent chain of record stores), which had three different locations before it moved next to Tortilla Sams.

DJ S1: They had an Al-Bums in Amherst, MA, in the ’90s.

I got out to Amherst and hit up that other place, Mystery Train. I got some good stuff out of there. I started going there regularly when I moved to Southbridge, MA. 

DJ S1: Eilon and I watched a documentary called Vinyl last night, and they talked about the point where collecting records becomes all-consuming. Have you ever had it become all-consuming?

When I was younger, we did a lot of producing; it was an every-weekend thing. Sean, one of the other Vinyl Reanimators, lived in Boston. I’d go out to Boston, and we’d go on a road trip every weekend. Whether it was to New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine, we’d go out looking for flea markets and stores. Every weekend, we hit the streets.

 

 

DJ S1: It’s interesting to hear about people in smaller places in New England being really legendary diggers. Sometimes, people think hip-hop exists or exists in a vortex that includes only New York and California. Did you find that digging in New England? You would find as much good stuff as if you had gone to a place like New York.

Yeah, we had an advantage because we started before the internet. In New York, all the stores were picked over more than they were here. Nobody was digging like that, even in Boston. People weren’t looking for what we were looking for. We were kind of way ahead. 

I did a radio show at Northeastern for about five years. Even before that, in Worcester at WCUW, I knew a kid doing radio shows. He let me enter the station, and I’d go through records, pulling things out and playing them.

I started doing that with jazz. Tribe’s first record, which came out in ’89, got me into digging through jazz. It had “Bonita Applebum” on it as one of the singles. I found the Ramp and the Billy Brooks record they sampled on that album. There were a lot of really deep samples that people weren’t looking for at the time. Tribe was digging way into jazz and finding really dope shit.

DJ S1: Were more people looking for funk and James Brown?

People were going crazy for James Brown and Funkadelic. The stores in Boston were charging a lot more for those records. I was past that. That was some of the early stuff in digging. You’d go through all the James Brown shit and ask, “Well, what else is out there?” 

I started digging to find Ebony Rhythm Funk Campaign and deep shit that people didn’t know about. What helped me out was having access to radio station libraries. I’ve learned a lot by doing that. To this day, there are tons of records that you almost never come across in a record store.

 

“In my opinion, the internet kind of ruined digging for records. Anybody and everybody started knowing the names of what records to look for. It made it a lot more difficult to find certain things.”

DJ S1: Have you ever had a digging trip where you scored several impossible-to-find records at once?

I was probably the first person to go through the basement part of Al-Bums in Worcester. The kid running the place was named Justin, and he took the store over from his uncle. He used to tell me about all the stuff they had in the basement. One day I was like, “Fuck, let me go through it, dude.” Whenever someone would bring him records, or he’d get someone’s collection, he would call me and let me go through it first.

Somebody dumped off an insane private collection at Al-Bums about four years ago that I got to go through. There were mint copies of things I’d been searching out for years, like the Hell’s Belles OST, Naked Angels OST, Dorothy Ashby’s Afroharping, and an Ike Turner and The Kings of Rhythm album. It was all there. 

Towards the end of Al-Bums’ existence, Justin started charging more money for records than when I first started going there. I think he was charging me $10-15 bucks for these records, but they were $200 records, and they were all mint. It was stuff that I didn’t think I’d ever come across. The type of stuff you’ll only get at the Sound Library in New York is up on the wall for $150.

The thing with digging is it was hard even to pay $10 for a record. Especially during the time when we were younger, we had bills to pay and didn’t have much money to play with. When I was on a digging mission, I’d say, “I don’t want to pay $15 for that record.” We were always down with paying up to $5, but after that, we would hesitate. 

We were used to hitting up all the flea markets and used record stores and getting all the cheap shit. I remember at Looney Tunes Records in Boston, just months after Pete Rock’s “T.R.O.Y” record came out, I found the Tom Scott record that they sampled in the dollar bin. I was happy about that one. Nobody knew what it was at the time.

DJ S1: Is it more satisfying as a digger to find something while going through piles of records instead of just grabbing it off a record store wall?

Oh yeah, no doubt.

DJ S1: Is there a best place to go digging? I expected the diggers I interviewed to say NYC, but many people threw out the names of small towns and surprising places.

Oh yeah. I used to find a lot of excellent stuff in New Hampshire.

DJ S1: Where in New Hampshire?

We would go to Nashua. They used to have a really big indoor flea market. It was in some plaza. A guy there had a second floor where he’d take us to sell us records. We bought a lot of good records out there, a lot of good soul records. It was weird that they were all up in New Hampshire, but it was a spot, man.

 

“Pre-internet, you paid dues to find out stuff. You actually dug and played music you didn’t know to find out certain things.”

DJ S1: In one interview I did with Brian Coleman, he said, “You need to troll the out-of-the-way spots to really hit the jackpot.” Do you find that to be true?

For sure. Anywhere that had records, that’s where we were heading. Sometimes, a record store would know a private collector who would sell stuff to us. To get a hookup like that was always a big deal. You won’t find the best stuff at the regular stores.

DJ S1: You were in a crew called The Vinyl Re-Animators, which did some well-known remixes. Can we talk briefly about how The Vinyl Re-Animators came to be?

I met Sean in ’91 at the CMJ convention. Whenever I went to New York, I would stay with my buddy Jamieson, who grew up in Amherst and went to school in Boston. I met Jamieson in ’90 while he was doing the radio show at WRBB at Northeastern. He was going to school there then and invited me to come up and spin at his show. I did, and it ended up becoming a five-year weekly gig.

Jamieson and Sean knew each other through radio. I met Sean, and we clicked. At the time, Sean wasn’t really producing. He was just starting to get into it. I went down to the Cape, where Sean was from originally, and hung out with him for a weekend. From that point on, he started getting into digging and making beats. He got good at it really quickly. I knew Joe, the other member, through Ed O.G. and Da Bulldogs because Joe had basically produced Ed’s first album. I’d link with Joe and talk records with him all the time, so the three of us ended up forming the Vinyl Re-Animators.

DJ S1: Are those guys still involved with digging?

Well, they got into Traffic Records, which was Landspeed Records. Joe clicked with the dude from Landspeed and started working there. Sean also got down with them when he was still living in NYC. When Sean moved back to Massachusetts, he was in the office working all the time. They got out of the digging aspect of it all. They were still buying some stuff on eBay and filling out their collections, but I don’t think they would go out to dig. They don’t produce or make beats anymore, but they’re both really into music.

DJ S1: Are you guys still friends?

Yeah, we’re still cool. I talk to Sean all the time. They’re putting out a compilation of Brazilian stuff with Egon from Stones Throw. Sean emailed me one of the tracks with a really nice break-boy (b-boy) break. I told him to find out what it is, and he still hasn’t. I need to get Egon’s number because I did some trades a while back with him and got some good stuff.

DJ S1: Before the Internet was big, I always heard about the “Fast Life” remix you did. When I finally heard it years later on a mix tape, I was blown away by how you completely transformed the whole mood of the song. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the record you sampled for the remix.

Well, I didn’t put that beat together specifically for remixing “Fast Life.” It was just one of those dope beats I had come up with. When we decided to remix “Fast Life,” I said, “I have the perfect track.” I put the beat together on a 4-track cassette, and we mixed it onto a DAT. At the time, DATs were bi,g and everyone was using them.

DJ S1: That remix was close to getting officially pressed, right?

Well, we gave copies to Bobbito and Stretch, Riz and Mayhem, and Marley and Pete Rock. They all started playing the shit out of it, which is what we intended. As a result of that, we were hoping Epic would pick up our remix. People were calling up Epic and looking for our remix, but the A&R people at Epic went with the Salaam Remi remix instead, which wasn’t close to anything we did. It kind of showed us the politics of the whole music game. After that, we went with a few people who made bootleg records.

DJ S1: Did you guys see any money from that?

Yeah, they’d pay us a certain amount up front, a few thousand dollars or whatever. It was worth doing it like that just to get it out.

 

 

DJ S1: Your remix of Tim Dog’s “Bronx Nigga” is another significant remix that deserved more shine than it got. Is that remix one of your most prized records because of what it meant for your career?

Yeah, being the first record I produced that got pressed up means a bit to me. I did the remix in ’91, and I think it was pressed at the beginning of ’92. It was a promo-only record. I don’t know whether they pressed up 500 copies or 1,000. My boy Jared, who runs Big City Records, had me sign a copy he had in the store, which was really cool.

DJ S1: Do you have any other records that are important to you?

I have many early rap records that mean a lot to me. I also like my copy of L Da Head Toucha’s “Too Complex,” which I produced. Just the feedback from everybody after doing that was kind of overwhelming. 

The Don Blackman sample that I used immediately became a sought-after record. The price went up really quickly, and everybody wanted it. When we gave the DAT of “Too Complex” to Marley Marl and Pete Rock before it was pressed, the same way we did with “The Fast Life” Remix, they were killing it. It caught on quickly. People all across the country were killing it.

People recently told me that it’s one of their favorite records of all time. When someone gives you a compliment like that, all you can say is, “Holy shit, thanks.” It’s great when people say stuff like that. All we were trying to do was make dope shit. I think the best hip-hop was about creating stuff just to make it as good as you could without the intent of trying to sell the most copies. I think that’s another big part of what changed in the game. People started trying to make stuff that would sell and stopped making true music.

DJ S1: You’ve been dropping names like Pete Rock and Premier. Did you ever go digging with any of those guys, or was it mainly with the Vinyl Re-Animators?

I think it was in ’93; I went to New Orleans for a convention there. We went with Buckwild, and we were pulling out stuff to trade. 

DJ S1: Do you have collecting stories about any other big names?

Jamieson worked at PWL Records, which eventually turned into Chemistry. I went up to the Hit Factory with Jamieson when Diamond’s first album was about to come out, and he mastered it. We were hanging out with Diamond, just talking records. I remember hearing his album for the first time and being like, “Holy shit, that’s dope. What the fuck is that sample?” He told me it was a Flaming Ember track, “Gotta Get Away,”  that he ended up using. 

Diamond knew many dope records, so I picked his brain, asking him, “What’s that? What’s this sample?” I also sold some records to Q-Tip at a New York show before. 

DJ S1: Do you know what track they used it for?

They never used it, as far as I know. I remember hearing that one of the guys from the Sound Library was going through Q’s collection and trying to put value to it for insurance purposes, and then his house burned down. I think most of his vinyl was destroyed. This wasn’t long after I sold him that record.

 

 

Eilon: What’s the story behind this record?

I got this out of a radio station. This is an excellent soul record that was put out on GFS Records by Joe Quarterman and Free Soul. It’s a really hard record to get. GFS Records also put out Skull Snaps.

DJ S1: Do you own a copy of Skull Snaps?

No, I don’t have a copy of that. I’ve seen it at The Sound Library and places like that. I don’t like paying much money for records. That’s not my thing. I once paid $120 for a Cold Crush Brothers 12-inch off of eBay. It was just something I really wanted. That’s the most I’ve ever paid. It was funny: after I won, Peanut Butter Wolf sent me an email saying, “I guess you really wanted that record.”

DJ S1: Is there a particular reason that you wanted that record?

My hip-hop collection is pretty good. My old-school collection is really good for someone who grew up in this area. There were a lot of records that were only released in the New York area, like Paul Winley records. He was responsible for Super Disco Breaks and “Zulu Nation Throw Down.” They were never distributed around here. I have some of his records that I’ve come across, but if something like “Zulu Nation Throw Down” pops up in the Sound Library, it will sell for $200.

There’s a dude named Peter Brown who had a bunch of different labels like Heavenly Star and P and P records that I have come across. Brass Recordings was a label that put out Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five’s first single. I own that record. There’s another record even rarer than the one I have by The Marvelous Three. Busy Bee was in that group. Rob from the Sound Library was bugging me that I had an original copy because it’s hard to get. He told me he saw a beat-up copy go for $250.

 

The Marvelous Three & The Younger Generation – “Rappin All Over.” “It’s a record they eventually re-issued, but I have the original one.”

DJ S1: Do those records sound dated at all to you?

Yeah, definitely. The early rap stuff has its sound. I still love it, but some people can’t really get into it. It was fun doing the old-school hip-hop show on XM Radio. I could play stuff like “Rappin’ All Over.” 

DJ S1: Does that record have a face value, or would it be hard to get you to part with it no matter what someone offered?

If there was a record I knew I could get a copy of somewhere else, I wouldn’t have a problem selling it. You won’t find “Rappin’ All Over,” so I don’t care what I’m offered. Even if I were offered $750, I would say no.

E: Why is it so hard for you to let records go?

I need it. I find a record, I like it, and I need it. Even records that aren’t really that great; there may be something on it that I like. I need one copy of it. I’ve always been up for trading doubles of something, but I need one copy.

E: Could it be any record that you need? Or do you only need vinyl where you know you’ll find breaks?

I’m primarily into breaks and samples; I’ve always been into those records. I also dig for essential, good records I’ll enjoy listening to. I need one copy of everything…that’s my sickness. I can’t let it go. My digging buddy Xavier will ask to trade me stuff, and I’ll say, “No, that’s my only copy. If I find another one, I’ll trade you that one.”

E: You have four copies of a Styx record here.

People often hook you up with records they’re getting rid of. I don’t need four copies of a Styx record. I’ve never gone out and bought a Styx album. It’s just something that people hook you up with.

E: Do you need this record?

Do I need it? I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah, I need it; I just need to have it. I don’t know why, but I need one copy of it.

DJ S1: Okay, so let’s talk numbers. How many records total?

Oh man, I’d say somewhere around 25,000-30,000.

DJ S1: Is there an order to these records?

Yeah, alphabetical. I organized them years ago, and it didn’t take long. Now, whenever I pull something off the shelf and go to put it back later, it has to be alphabetical.

DJ S1: You told me earlier that you’re trimming your collection by eliminating many of the doubles you have.

At first, it was a weird feeling. I’ve spent years hunting and searching to get doubles of everything, but realistically, I don’t need doubles. There’s a lot of stuff I have triples of as well.

E: You’ve come to your senses as a record collector. That’s…odd.

I’m making a rational decision. It doesn’t bother me to cut it down to one copy of everything because that’s all I need. When I’m pulling out records for selling, if one of them is in better condition, I’m keeping that one. Almost every day, I just pull out and sort. I have a lot of rap shit, like Lord Shafiq’s “My Mic is On Fire.”

 

 

E: Do you have any records that you’re ashamed of owning?

Some rap records that I’ve gotten for free. When I did a radio show in the early ’90s, I was on all of the record company mailing lists. Everything came in the mail to me for free. That’s where I’d get extra, extra, extra copies. I’d get shit like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. I even have the word “wack” written on the box some of them are in. I didn’t give a fuck about MC Hammer, Eazy-E, or Too Short.

DJ S1: Eazy-E and Too Shortfall in the same category as MC Hammer for you?

It’s stuff that I wouldn’t be playing. I have no event to play them for.

DJ S1: Some people would call Eazy and Short classic.

To some people, they’re a specific type of classic. I don’t think I’ve ever spun a Too Short or Eazy-E record, so they went in my wack box, but they still have a certain value.

 

“Digging lost what it was about, for me anyway. Going out, getting dusty, digging, trying out things, and taking a chance on stuff you don’t know. You get a rush. Playing a certain record for the first time and not knowing anything about it, you suddenly come across an ill drum break; there’s a great feeling to that.”

DJ S1: Earlier, you discussed spending time with Buckwild, Diamond, and Q-Tip. Were those guys open about sharing information, or were they more secretive about giving away breaks and sample secrets?

You’ll always be secretive to a certain point. You aren’t going to tell everyone everything. Before the internet put all the information out there for everybody, it was more of a closed community. You would talk beats with other diggers and producers that would have information. You’d know someone wasn’t bullshiting when they dropped a certain name or record. Then you could trade off and say, “Hey, we should trade” or “Keep an eye out for this break on this record.”

In my opinion, the internet kind of ruined digging for records. Anybody and everybody started knowing the names of what records to look for. It made it a lot more difficult to find certain things.

DJ S1: So you look at the internet as a negative?

Overall, yeah. It also has its good points, but I would have liked for there to be no Internet.

DJ S1: You guys had to work a lot harder for it?

Pre-internet, you paid dues to find out stuff. You actually dug and played music you didn’t know to find out certain things. 

Digging lost what it was about, for me anyway. Going out, getting dusty, digging, trying out things, and taking a chance on stuff you don’t know. You get a rush. Playing a certain record for the first time and not knowing anything about it, you suddenly come across an ill drum break; there’s a great feeling to that. Taking that and playing it out for people who don’t know it is satisfying, for me anyway.

DJ S1: And you’re saying that after all these years of digging, that rush hasn’t diminished with time?

No. I stopped playing sets for a while because of what happened to rap music and where it ended up going. It turned to pop and got really wack. I couldn’t do clubs anymore, but after I stopped playing sets, something happened. 

Friends here in Worcester brought me to Boston for a jam. Seeing kids who are 16 and 17 years old know all of the words to old Big Daddy Kane and Rakim records was amazing. It made me ask myself, “Ok, why didn’t I know this was happening?” I immediately jumped into that world.

DJ S1: Do beats sound overproduced to you today? For someone like you who grew up listening to stuff that was sampled, often from old, beat-up vinyl, it must be weird to hear really sterile production.

Vinyl gave music that feel and sound. You won’t always have a nice, clean copy of something to sample. Sometimes, you find that dope sample, and there are some pops and clicks in it. Today’s stuff is so clean. The sampling has changed, and they aren’t sampling as we used to. Hip-hop came from DJ’s spinning breaks. It turned into people using samplers instead of spinning two copies of the same record. If you’re creating music without that, it kind of strays off of the path.

DJ S1: You say people aren’t sampling how you used to. What was the way you used to sample?

I have an MPC 60 II, and I’ve always used that. Before that, I had the Numark. First, they had a four-second, then an eight-second sampler with a round pad. They had one version on a mixer and one in a rack mount. I ended up getting the rack mount with an eight-second sample length. The Tim Dog remix, the first record I did, was done on the eight-second Numark sampler. 

DJ S1: Will you ever buy something that has a cool cover based on the look of the cover alone?

It’s more about the music.

DJ S1: So the cover is secondary?

In the early years of digging, covers would help me decide if something looked really good. Years ago, record stores didn’t have a turntable set up for you to check something out. You would grab something based on stuff like if there were a bunch of black dudes with afros on the cover.

E: What other kind of signs did you look for?

Hmm. Well, in the early years of digging, things like that could help, but after really getting into listening to music, you’d find records that would have the corniest-looking white dude on the cover but would also have a really dope drum break. You realize you can’t really go by what’s on the cover. Like the David McCallum records. He’s a goofy-looking white dude, but you can’t judge his music by what’s on the cover.

DJ Sorce-1: Do you have a favorite album cover or covers?

DJ Shame: A lot of the CTI covers are dope. Wax poetics had an article on those covers. CTI was a jazz label with people like Bob James, Hubert Laws, and Freddie Hubbard. Most of the covers had a shiny finish, making them stand out.

 

 

 

DJ S1: Say you’re 65 years old. Are you still going to hit up the flea market on the weekend looking for stuff? Is there always going to be a record you’re looking for that you don’t have?

Probably. It never ends. With drum breaks and samples, I have so much of that shit. It started again when I started getting into the b-boy scene and b-boy breaks. Many of these samples are breaks I’d come across years ago but didn’t consciously remember because I couldn’t use them in the hip-hop production we were doing back then. We wanted dry, open snares and stuff like that. 

We weren’t really looking for fast, up-tempo bongo breaks, which are great for b-boys. When I first started going to b-boy events, the DJ would play shit, and I’d ask what it was. When they told me, I’d say, “Oh, I have that record.” I started going through huge chunks of my collection, just playing and listening for new dope breaks.

DJ S1: How do you catalog them?

When I find something, I’ll almost always instantly burn it to CD. I think I’ve got about 35 or 36 CDs full of b-boy tracks. There’s just so much. It kind of sparked a new fire for me with digging.

DJ S1: Are you still making beats these days, or is it more about just cutting up b-boy breaks?

I’ve been about b-boy breaks for a while. With rap music, what happened to it, and where it went it took me away from making beats. There is a rap project I’m working on with a kid named Lyrical. He’s from around the Lowell area, and I did a track with him two summers ago that came out really fucking good. We just did it to do it. 

Someone from China wanted to press it, but I told them to give us some time to develop something for the B Side. We talked again, and right now, we’re in the middle of putting the whole album together. Besides that, I don’t really have the itch to make beats like I used to. One of the beats I did with Lyrical was one I used on a mega mix of mine for a blend of Big Daddy Kane and Rakim.

DJ S1: Can you tell us about that mix?

Back in ’87 and ’88, I did these four-track mega mixes. Old Latin Rascals tapes got me into wanting to do those kinds of mixes. The cut-and-paste work they put into their mixes blew me away. I was really inspired by them and a Grandmaster Flash record called “Grandmaster Flash on The Wheels of Steel.” That Grandmaster Flash record is actually why I started DJing. He took a whole bunch of records and made a collage that worked as one song.

A kid named Matt, who works at Landspeed, heard my old mixes through Sean. He called me up one day and said, “Hey, why don’t you put together a new megamix.” After thinking about it, I decided to put one together. Before this most recent one, I had four or five mega mixes between six and 15 minutes long. 

The recent one I made was about an hour long. I remembered unused ideas from years ago and decided to put into this mix. There is a slow song section, rock, AC/DC, The Police, old soul records, and an electro section. It’s all over the fucking place, but I’m super happy with how it came out.

Traffic was supposed to put it out, but that fell through. I was going to have Jamieson put it out because he’s down with Redline Music Distribution, and that didn’t happen. As a result, it’s just been sitting for the last couple of years. Jared at the record store in New York might put it out. I played it on my radio show and got a lot of good feedback.

DJ S1: Are you classically trained in music?

I can play the keyboard a little bit, but it’s mostly by ear. I used to play with a band named Giraffe. There was a drummer, a keyboard player, a guy on trumpet, and me.

DJ S1: I used to watch you guys play at Clark!

Oh yeah, I could apply my ear for samples quickly to what the band was doing. They would start playing a grove, and I would immediately start getting an idea of something that was in key that I could cut in. Sometimes, I would start with a groove, and they would build around me. That band was a cool thing to be a part of. Doing that helped me get better at mixing things in key as well as on beat.

 

 

DJ S1: What do you think about the future of digging now that guys like you are becoming more of a rarity?

I don’t think it will ever stop. I think it will keep going. There’s a younger kid named Lean Rock, part of the Floor Lords, a b-boy crew from Boston. His dad, who is my age, has been dancing since then and has never stopped. Maybe a year younger, Lean Rock and his cousin grew up around true hip-hop and have been dancing their whole lives. Lean Rock DJs and spins b-boy breaks. 

That type of kid is part of a select group of people actively digging and looking for breaks. Some hip-hop producers are the same way. But, other than that, I don’t know. Digging will always have its place with people who respect it and are into it, but one of the main groups I see staying true to it is the DJs who are into breaks.

 

 

DJ Source-1 is an all-knowing music journalist who happens to dabble in DJing. Check out Source-1’s substack Micro-Chop for posts on hip-hop and all things Source-1.

DJ Shame is one of the big names in b-boy breaks. His dozens of years of digging and DJing have led him to release No More Re-Mixes Volumes one and two. 

 

Discogs

Vinyl Reanimators

 

Edited by Sam Cohen (3/24/25)

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