I’ve been pretty ridiculously clear about my devotion to DJ Shadow. (Missed it? See here or here, for example.) I also like Cut Chemist and love his track “Swing Set” off Jurassic 5’s Quality Control album (He also performed with the band Ozomatli).
These two DJ greats have collaborated on Brainfreeze and Product Placement, two projects consisting of live tours and CD releases. If I recall correctly, both of these sets were done live with 45s — much harder to manipulate than a 12″ record.
(Here are some video clips of them in action: From the Brainfreeze tour, perhaps an L.A. performance (clip one and clip two), and from the Product Placement tour, a show in Japan).
Now, they’re back with another project: The Hard Sell, consisting again of a CD and a tour. Here’s the history from Shadow’s website:
It all started with a phone call (or, in this case, a text message)…”would you want to do Freeze at the Hollywood Bowl?” Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow jumped at the chance to be the first-ever headlining turntablists at the legendary 16,500 capacity venue, the site of infamous concerts by everyone from John Williams to the Beatles to the Doors. In the process of preparing for the June 2007 show, Shadow and Cut recorded their rehearsals, allowing for this latest and greatest episode in all-45 mayhem: The Hard Sell.
Oliver Wang wrote about the show in June of 2007:
Unlike the previous two performances, built specifically around funk 45s, Hard Sell was far more ambitious and eclectic. Now the two DJs split eight turntables between them plus effects processors which allowed them new options in creating and sustaining tones and loops. It was an entirely different kind of performance, less oriented on playing dozens of obscure records in a row and more about building a series of conceptual sets – all made using records, but less about the actual records and more about what one could make with them.
His description of the set list seems pretty similar to the resulting CD. The Hard Sell seems less cutting-edge and show-offy than the previous mixes. Just for one example, most of the records played on Brainfreeze and Product Placement were pretty rare. There are records on The Hard Sell that are widely known and some that will be obvious to anyone with basic knowledge of classic hip-hop. Wang described their original live performance this way:
I also think it was fair to say that the overall performance was significantly less coherent and cohesive [than the earlier projects]. It felt more like a scattered set of pieces that hinted at a larger picture but it wasn’t clear what that image was meant to be. And maybe that was the whole point but no doubt, folks expecting another session full of funky 45s were left wondering, “wait, what was that?” And maybe that was part of the point too.
This struck me too, that the whole thing was organized into mini-sets that were strung together into a larger whole. For example, there’s a doo-wop section, a hard rock section, a hip-hop original samples section. I’ve chunked out two pieces and offer them to you to get a taste. The first includes Billy Squier’s “The Big Beat,” unidentified world music, Caribbean groove, rock, Latin, and I don’t know what else. The second starts with a graceful harp and ends with OutKast.
DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist – The Hard Sell (excerpt one) — BUY
DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist – The Hard Sell (excerpt two) — BUY
Tags: DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, The Hard Sell, turntablism