How The First Turntablist Album Was Made
What project had the turntable as it’s sole instrument… do you know?
There are many classic scratch moments… Grandmixer DXT on Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”, DJ Babu’s “Blind Alley Juggle”, DJ Premier In Deep Concentration, QBert on “Bear Witness”, Rob Swift’s incredible “Nobody Beats The Biz” … the list goes on and on.
But what was the first Turntablist album… ever? What project had “Vinyl + Wheels of Steel + Mixer” as the only instrument… do you know?
The answer is MAN OR MYTH?, by DJ Faust.
Released July 28th, 1998 on Bomb Records, this 60 minute/27 track album was created without any sequencers, samplers, keyboards, effects processors or traditional instruments. Everything was scratched by hand, sewn together by Faust.
We recently interviewed DJ Shortee, who has been his wife and creative partner for 25 years.
She said that he started working on this in college in Radford, Virginia and he finished it in Atlanta, on an 8 Track (cassette) recorder. This is before ProTools or any other software.
“We didn’t know how to really use computers at that time. This was in 1996, ’97. In my college, if you wanted to use a computer, you had to go to the Computer Lab! I didn’t even have my own in ’96, but he had a Yamaha eight track. Every single thing was scratched in. If you hear an echo, there’s no effects processor. It was all done by hand. You’d do (imitates echo) full volume, then a little lower… then a little lower… then a little lower. With the fader. When listening to MAN OR MYTH?, know that that was not created with a sequencer or a computer of any kind. It was just a Yamaha eight track to sequence it, basically on eight tracks. He had created this and he was just going to release it as a mixtape, a crazy one.”
It‘s the first Turntablist album ever created by any Turntablist, ever.
It also featured DJ Craze and the rest of their crew, Third World Citizens. Shortee describes Craze as “a three time DMC Champ solo, three time DMC Champ (Team). If you don’t know who he is, you better act like you know, because he’s an amazing DJ and Turntablist all around. He’s ambidextrous too. We could go a mile long talking about this guy!”
MAN OR MYTH? also featured Battle DJ/Turntablist Shotgun from Goodie Mob and T-Rock, King James and DMC Champ Klever. It was a chance for everyone in Third World Citizens to really shine.
Another member was (Writer) Dave Tompkins, who got the project signed to Bomb Hip Hop Records.
Bomb had previously put out the highly influential Return Of The DJ series. MAN OR MYTH? was different from those albums, because it was a full project made of only scratching… as opposed to “Return Of The DJ”, a series where each record was a collection of Turntablist tracks, with different instrumentation. And the scratching on most of those songs was coming from the ‘soloist mentality’, as opposed to the ‘parts player’ concept that DJ Faust needed to have in order for it all to gel. Also, while some of the songs on “Return Of The DJ” were made from layers of scratching, such as “Invasion of the Octopus People" by Q’s band, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Faust made an entire album.
Qbert would put out “Wave Twisters, Episode 7 Million: Sonic Wars Within the Protons” a few months later, on November 2nd, 1998. Great minds think alike! Side note: Q’s was made using the first affordable digital multitrack recording system, the Alesis ADAT, before MOTU’s Performer became Digital Performer and ProTools became omnipresent. Q’s recording process was pure digital capture of analog scratching, across 8 tracks. Faust’s was vinyl scratching to analog tape. Also, while “Wave Twisters” was a pastiche of 99% scratches, it also featured Mix Master Mike’s programmed beats as the main agent of groove.
Anyway, returning to the mystery of how it all happened, Dave Tompkins put a snippet of MAN OR MYTH? on his answering machine. Dave Paul from Bomb Records fortunately called one day. When Dave Tompkins checked his messages, he heard Dave Paul saying “What was that? What was that? What did I just hear? I need to release that! I want to release that on my label! What is that?”
And that was basically the message that he left Dave Tompkins.
As Shortee says, “Basically Dave, the writer, connected Bobby (DJ Faust) with Dave, ‘Bomb Hip Hop’ label owner. And that is how Bobby got connected with Bomb and released the MAN OR MYTH? album. That’s how he got signed. And also how I got my first time on record, and Craze’s first. It was everyone’s first time on vinyl, so it was a big deal for us.”
You can hear the whole DJ SHORTEE interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, Pocket Casts, or Tune In. Or, just say “Alexa, Play Aspirin Regimen Podcast”! If it doesn’t seem to work, Alexa might think you said ‘regiment’, so make sure you leave off any ‘t’ on ‘Regimen’. You can skip around by saying “play latest episode”
If you would like to hear MAN OR MYTH?, here’s a link for Spotify, Apple Music, and you can get it on Amazon. You can read more at All Music. Faust is also on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The label he and Shortee started is called Heavy Artillery Recordings.
DJ Shortee is at DJSHORTEE.com, and also on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook!
Dave Paul currently hosts The Prince And Michael Experience and has a popular Twitch stream.
Aspirin Regimen Newsletter is created by DJ Green Arrow, Lisa “Chase” Patterson, diamondseed and Kelli. Thanks for reading our first article! Around 3-4 times a month we’ll explore the deepest concepts and ideas from the great minds we interview. It’s the best of the best of the podcast.