SCRATCH IN SWITZERLAND @ THE BRITS

This year marked the 20th Anniversary of the British Snowboarding Championships in Laax, Switzerland...and what a week it was...

Scratch rocked the first night of the Brits with Matt Smooth and Lyley in full effect together with special guests Dj Vadim, MC Paz and Nick Maxwell. From the moment the doors opened the snow community poured in quickly filling the dance floor and busting some pretty 'original' breakdance moves which, it has to be said, brought a lot of laughs.The time seemed to whizz by as the beats kept on dropping til the early hours of the morning...a sure sign of a fun night!

Big shout and much love goes out to Vadim, MC Paz and Nick Maxwell for their handy work on the 1's and 2's! Oh yeah and then there was the afterparty, which i can't remember much about - as in the words of Skinnyman 'if i make it til tomorrow I'll be surprised'!!

With a huge amount of effort we did make it out of bed the next morning and up to the slopes for the first round of competitions, where we provided the tunes for the riders to amp themselves up and throw themselves down the halfpipe, pulling off some amazing tricks. Laax is well known to have one of the best snowboard parks in the whole of Europe.

The evening was spent cooking pasta, drinking wine and putting the final touches to our next Scratch flyer design on Saturday 25th April - a hot one featuring Dj Dexter from the Avalanches, MC Mystro and Dj Biznizz - before emailing it off to Tomski and Richy Pitch, who were back home in London taking care of Scratch at the Big Chill House with special guest Shortee Blitz...who we understand ripped the roof off the sucka!

A couple of days later back at the Brits and it was Funk Royale's turn to rock the night time entertainment, with a golden selection of classic party grooves...another nonstop dancefloor excursion into the early hours of the morning courtesy of Dj's Ben Bailey, Bonobo, Mr Chex, Matt Smooth and MC Tukka & Stu 'Deep Sax'.

Each day was spent up on the slopes djing and boarding, blessed with the perfect combination of sunshine, snow, good music, beer and friendly faces. Big thanks to John Dragon (music coordinator) Tony (soundman), Stu and Spencer for organizing such a great week at this years Brits.

Well now back on British soil...and we are still flying high from the experience. Not that our feet ever left the ground whilst carving up the snow, our boards were firmly fixed to the side of the mountain.

Well we wouldn't want any serious DJ injury's now would we!

Q - TIP- LIVE IN LONDON @ THE ROUNDHOUSE 14.3.09 (A SCRATCH NIGHT OUT!)

To be honest, there was a lot standing on Q Tip's show and many of us had high expectations. Aside from the fact that we grew up on Tribe, this was Tip's first UK show in over 10 years (since '94??) with a full live band at the historic 3'000 capacity Roundhouse and with his track history of classic beats and rhymes, expectations were definitely riding high.

Upon entering the arena Little Dragon (from Gothenbourg City, home to our very own Scratch in Sweden) and Dj Semtex warmed the crowd to a bubbling hysteria, playing vintage hip hop before point of arrival...

Then Q Tip jumps on stage full of energy, shaking his rump and bouncing around much to the delight of adoring fans.

I have to admit at this point I had mild reservations, would he be just going through the motions, or would we be getting down to the nitty gritty? Fortunately for us it was the latter !

Tip started off with a few new tracks from his recent Renaissance LP which went down a treat, before delving into his vast back catalog, doing all the big Tribe tunes we all wanted to hear, as well as a few less likely numbers, which added a nice touch.

As the night went on Tip brought everyone under his groove, the band did a great job adding nice touches, like the voice vocoder at the end of 'Find Away', sweeet! 'Award Tour', 'Buggin Out', 'Jazz',' Sucka Nigga', 'Bonita Applebum', 'Electric Relaxation', 'Check The Rhyme' were just some of the highlight tracks he played.

But before you know it, the gig was over. Time certainly flies when your having loads of fun!

An hour later and we're standing at the back end of the afterparty queue waiting our turn as good honest club goers do - not like some cats I could mention, who were, as it happens, successful in jumping the queue, oh no sir I'm not bitter at all, 'ha!'

Once in the club, the atmosphere was perfect like an old school warehouse party in a great one off venue, hosting a decent sound system and (most importantly) Q Tip on the one's and two's playing a dope selection of disco, boogie grooves and some sweet hip hop!!

Do things get any better? No not really!

Lyley

Scratch Crew at The Roundhouse ! (From Left to Right)
Lyley, Swedish Gangster,Richy Pitch, Matt Smooth and Tomski





Check the Youtube video of Q-tip at the Roundhouse and the Afterparty !



And to download J Period's excellent Q-Tip mix click on the picture below.

DJ'ING AT SCRATCH. WHY IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!

On February 28th 2009, after having 2 brilliant years in Ghana, I played my first set at Scratch for almost a year and a half and to be honest I wasn't sure what to expect!

But one of the comforting things was that I had the DJ crew (Matt, Lyley and Tomski) there enjoying themselves and playing some great tunes and there was also a packed room at the Big Chill House with a friendly crowd full of weekend music lovers having a few beers and enjoying the good Hip Hop music.

I must have played for a couple of hours but I must admit, I absolutely loved every minute of it!

One of the reasons it worked was because I had my old MC partner by my side. Tukka is so good with the crowd, he is a great 'hype man' he makes the audience feel good and he makes me feel very relaxed when I DJ, it really showed.

Another reason why it was a good night was I had some of my great music buddies there, who I first met all the way over in Accra, Ghana. M3NSA and Kwesi turned up with friends and kindly took some pics that you can see below. We also had saw some of the old school Herts posse down there too... big up Sam, Junior, Debs and Amy !

I managed to play a nice variety of tunes from Funk, to Hip Hop Classics, to contemporary Hip Hop to even a bit of Old School Drum and Bass, which went down a storm!

So all in all February's edition of Scratch @ The Big Chill House definitely made me feel that it was good to be back !!!!

Richy Pitch

REVIEW OF TOMMY BOY DJ TOUR @ SCRATCH @ THE SCALA

Click here to read the NME review of Tommy Boy DJ Tour @ Scratch @ the Scala, London.