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PHLOG:
2023-08-05 - Scratch the Beach
Going on our daily walk down to the beach, my
spouse and I happened upon an uncommon sight
today. Over at the picnic tables by the main
lifeguard station was a group of five or six
guys, all seemingly local, each with their own
single portable turntable in front of them.
All of them had same model of turntable. It was
small and compact, with a built in speaker and a
fader, clearly designed for the purpose of
developing scratching skills. And in the middle
of all of them on the picnic table was a wireless
speaker playing hip hop beats. Each of the guys
were taking turns showcasing their scratch skills
over the underlying beats. It was super cool to
see.
Another curious feature to the whole sight was
that they all had 7" records on their turntables.
Nobody was scratching a 12". Even more curious
was that these 7" records had classic scratch
sounds on them, like Fab 5 Freddy's "Ahhh Fresh!"
sample in the track entitled Change the Beat.
In all my 30 years of DJing I've never seen a 7"
DJ scratch tool, but I guess after today I now
know they they exist.
Anyway, we walked by and paused to watch for a
bit, saying nothing and just taking in the sight.
It was super cool to discover there's a local
crew of these guys that are way into scratch
culture.
Figuring that they might like to have copies of
some recent releases I did, which are all very
much in the same vein, I grabbed a few copies out
of inventory once we got home, hopped in the car,
and made my way back to the beach.
By the time I got back to the picnic tables, they
had all moved on. There was nobody to be found.
In hindsight, maybe it's for the better. Not
every guy in the group looked like a person of
upstanding character. Also, I've regretted
getting tangled up in scenes before. The last
thing I need is to get caught up with a group
that I couldn't escape from even if I wanted to,
because it's literally in my back yard.
Home is best kept private.
– BSTUF
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