This week I'm joined by DJ Melo D — a beat junkie, a world champion, and one of the most technically gifted scratch DJs to come out of Southern California. Melo D was born and raised in Cerritos in the early 1980s, right as hip hop and electro were landing on the West Coast, and he grew up hooked on KDAY airchecks, pause-button mixtapes and a friend's older brother's turntables. He got his first Technics 1200 for Christmas 1987, taught himself to scratch by ear on his dad's home stereo, and cut his teeth doing high school dances and quinceañeras as a mobile DJ before linking up with DJ Curse, Rhett Matic and J Rock — the crew that would become the Beat Junkies.

While studying sociology at UC Irvine, Melo D was quietly stacking up battle titles: a Vestax USA and World Championship, a DMC USA final with Babu, and an ITF World Championship with the Beat Junkies crew. That same run of form landed him a job as Quincy Jones' on-air DJ for the late-night talk show Vibe — a gig he says he only got because he had the nerve to force a James Brown routine on Quincy after his first set of battle routines fell flat. Alongside years on LA radio with Julio G at 92.3 The Beat, Melo D went on to co-found the Beat Junkie Institute of Sound with his crew, where he still teaches today.

We get properly nerdy in this one — the maths behind scratch technique, why J Dilla's swing breaks DJs, how the crab scratch was actually born in a Tokyo hotel room, and what it's like being handed a job by Quincy Jones on the spot.

In this episode we cover:

• Growing up in Cerritos during the first wave of West Coast hip hop and electro
• The KDAY Mixmasters and the birth of the West Coast mix show
• Getting his first Technics 1200 for Christmas 1987 and teaching himself to scratch
• Mobile DJing quinceañeras, high school dances and SoCal house parties
• Linking up with DJ Curse, Rhett Matic and J Rock and forming the Beat Junkies
• Balancing a sociology degree with Vestax, DMC and ITF world titles
• The golden era of turntableism and why vinyl forced so much creativity
• The origin story of the crab scratch, told first-hand
• Becoming Quincy Jones' DJ for the Vibe talk show
• Building the Beat Junkie Institute of Sound and what's hardest to teach beginners
• The vinyl renaissance and the case for BPM-labelling your records

Got another great guest today. A beat junkie, a world champion, an insanely tight dj, a tutor, a man with a very long career. DJ Melo D, how are you doing today?

Good. Doing well. Thank you. Adam, appreciate you having me on today. And thank you for the kind words and the killer intro.

Appreciate it. No, no, it's. It's an honor. And you're the first beat junkie we've had on and hopefully not the last. So, yeah, you got bragging rights there. So, yeah.

So really, as I mentioned before, I just want to kind of look at your life and your journey through DJ and where it's taking you. We can. It's always nice to have a bit of then and now and. And what you think about how things have developed.

But what I'd like to start with is just if you could tell us a bit about where you grew up, your early years, and your introduction to records.

So I've been out here my whole life, you know, just kind of immersed, just primarily on the west coast, you know, since birth. And timing played a really big role in me becoming a dj. Just.

And the same time we had Michael Jackson, the big phenomenon that he was, and introducing like the moonwalk.

And so all these things were kind of connected, you know, and then back in those days, this is elementary school, but we were actually allowed, believe it or not, to bring radios to school. So after. During recess and after school, that's when we could like, play our cassettes and turn on AM or FM radio.

That was kind of like, to answer your question, that was my first exposure to, like, just the sounds of the early sounds of hip hop, electro, you know, Cybertron, Clear, Nucleus, Jam on it, Ice T, the fat boys, Malcolm McLaren, all the golden era, like, you know, all that, that first wave of, of hip hop and electro, that was my first exposure to it. And immediately I was just like, what, what is this music?

I was just, you know, everything from the hip hop to the sounds of the, you know, the primitive, the first run of drum machines just captivated me from the very start. And electro, all the early, like out here, there was a sound called techno hop records from Egyptian Lover and like vocoder raps.

I was always just enamored with that sound.

You know, just being a young kid and just the first time you're exposed to it and it just, it just reaches out and just grabs you, I was immediately pulled in. And so that was. Kind of sparked my curiosity into the culture and growing up with my, my parents. Parents, they, they were young, they got married.

They were 21, 22 years old. They got married at 21. I think they were 22 when they had me. And so they were still kind of very much in the, the prime of their lives.

And so they were very much into. Into music. And they would go out on occasion and kind of.

My mom was into like disco and R B, so my dad would take her out to disco dancing and they would enter dance contests and you know, they were young and having fun and going out. But through, through that, you know, through their kind of recreation as husband and wife, they. They were exposed to music too.

And so they would take us to record stores. My mom would hear records at these clubs or, you know, events that they would go to.

And the next day on Sunday we would be at a record store, a local record store buying 45s. So we would, we would frequent record stores, I'd say two to three, pretty regularly, two to three times a month. And so it was my parents that would.

When, when we would go record shopping, they would buy records for themselves and then they would buy for mostly 45s for me in the beginning.

And then around 83, 84, when some of these actual records started to make their way to the local record stores out here in my area now, I was seeing like 12 inches and I still have it. My first copy, my original copy of the first Fat Boys album. My mom bought that for me.

UTFO just again, that, that early first was Murphy's Dance, Spider D. So records like that, 12 inches and stuff, Nucleus Jam on it. So that was kind of like those were my early beginnings of getting into music and starting to kind of.

I didn't know it at the time, but I guess starting a record collection.

Yeah, yeah. You mentioned Ice T before. I don't think anyone's really mentioned him on air so far. Like, what was, what was his impact?

Like, we know it in the wider world of sort of gangster rap and stuff. But so musically and things. What, what was his impact? I guess in California and for DJs,.

But the K Day Mixmasters, who were kind of the pioneering DJs out here on the West Coast. So DJ Aladdin, Joe Cooley, MWOK. And this was a DJ crew that was founded by, we call him the Godfather.

And so Tony is pretty much credited as being the pioneer for the sound of the west coast style mix show. Like actually taking, having a 30 minute set on the air, you know, mixing records, you know, live, live on the air.

Anyhow, to answer your question, some of the early tapes that I had, and Katie was a. It was an AM station, so it wasn't that easy to get. The signal was very wonky. Sometimes, you know, you could get it and sometimes you couldn't.

But when I could, I would, you know, try and record just sometimes just regular daytime programming. On occasion, if I could catch a mix, I would record Summer, all of that.

But anyhow, those early years, like 84, 85 was my first kind of exposure to rap. So Ice T, six in the Morning was one of the first songs I remember hearing. I was like, what is this? And I caught it from the very beginning.

And so I ended up just, I just happened to have the record button on during that, that show, that segment. And so I just remember just replaying as like, wow, this song is just so fresh, you know, at the time.

And yeah, come to find out, it was Ice T. So that was, you know, I have more of a personal connection because of that, that memory, you know, that was one of the first rap records that I had heard along with Boogie Down Productions, which came a little bit later. But I definitely remember Ice T. Big Daddy Kane was another one. Biz Markey.

All of these records were records that Tony G would bring back from New York, you know, and then play them on the radio. So he was exposing all this music to all of us out here on the West Coast.

And then obviously, like a few short years later, you would have the emergence of nwa. But yeah, Ice T, you know, again, as original gangster. Yeah, to me, he. He kind of like, he's the one that kind of pioneered that sound.

You know, I know they have those Schoolly D, PSK and which was, you know, from the east coast, but. But out here, I mean, me personally, I credit Ice T with kind of fathering that style of. Of rap music.

Yeah. Because didn't Ice T inspire Schoolly D?

It was. I think you're right. Yeah. I want to say it was one or the other, but I think you're. I think you might be right. Yeah. I feel.

I feel like I've heard that there's every chance I could be wrong on something like that.

Yeah, it's either that or vice versa, because I heard that. I've heard that same. That same story a couple times over the years.

So when you had those radio show shows and you had like elite scratch DJs then on the radio at that time in like, Aladdin and Joe Cooley then, right?

Absolutely.

Were they doing sort of turntableism and things like that in their mixes on the radio then?

They were. Joe was probably the most active when it came to scratching.

And again, I was still pretty young and I didn't get a chance to hear everybody regularly, but there was probably ten, maybe a dozen mixmasters in that, the K Day Mixmaster crew. But Joe would definitely cut records. Aladdin I didn't catch too often, but Tony, Tony G was.

He was so versatile because he, you know, and even to this day, he. He is a great selector. He knows, you know, how to play a set, but also he knows, like, where.

Where it's appropriate to kind of jump in and kind of like finesse the mix with a little bit of scratching or finding that particular particularly dope section of a record to cut back and forth, not overdoing it, but just enough to just give the mix a little flavor. So he, again, is just kind of credited with just. Just pioneering that. That entire sound and just basically just spawning like a whole new style of.

Of mix show DJing out here on the West Coast. He was a big influence on all the mix masters on. On the Beat Junkies. All of us, you know, listen to them growing up and, yeah, we're.

We're dear friends. We would connect with them years later and, you know, we still get a chance to DJ with them on occasion in the present day, which Is, which is cool.

So, but, but yeah, the. Of the Mixmasters, I would say probably Joe Cooley, Aladdin, definitely Julio G as well. All of them, all of them would get, get busy.

But I'd say probably Tony and Joe were probably, I mean that I remember were probably the, the most active when it came to flexing, like on the air.

Yeah, yeah.

So how long from seeing your friend who had the pause tapes, how long was it from that to you actually getting on a pair of turntables and starting to learn to DJ or starting to try and work out what was going on?

The high school that I went to basically was middle school, which was our junior high school, seventh and eighth grade. So what age campus I was. So this is 85, follow 85. I was 12. Seventh grade. Yeah, starting seventh grade.

So the campus basically you stayed from seventh grade all the way to graduation as a senior in high school. So you spent six years on the same campus.

So anyhow, this school I went to in Cerritos, where I grew up, they would have dances like high school, you know, dances for the student body. And so the very first dance of my seventh grade year, it was kind of like this welcome back to school dance.

That happened like early in the fall, maybe like a month after school was underway.

And, and he was, you know, and, and back in those days, I know some schools out here on occasion, I think we did as well. On occasion you would have a band come and play.

But 95% of the time at our high school, it was always a DJ that was the entertainment providing the music for these dances. So it was a series of different mobile DJs that would come and play these dances.

And so it was that first dance that I actually witnessed a live DJ set. And it just, all that did was just really just draw me in even more because Curse at the time Again, and this is 85.

So he had probably been DJing three or four years at this point, but obviously he had all the gear. He had, you know, a super dope record collection.

Just all the, the cracking music at the time, which was everything, hip hop, some pop music, some electro, Latin, freestyle, you know, Lisa, Lisa, you know, songs like that. But he had, he would, you know, do doubles and rock back and forth and then he would find sections of acapellas to scratch.

And I just, I was blown away. I was like, oh, I'd never seen anything like it or heard anything like it.

You know, maybe like I would get a glimpse of it on like a Rodney O and Joe Cooley record or you know, like we were saying, like I could hear Tony G or Aladdin or somebody cut for eight bars or something like on a, on a mix show, but nothing like this where it was like a three hour set of just like, just like I said, just banger after banger, rocking the park party and then just getting, getting busy. You know, I was just, I was hooked. I was like oh my God.

So the, so from then on, from that night, I begged my parents to buy me equipment for two years. I, I just, you know, non stop like, you know, but you know, and I've shared this a couple times over the years.

And then you, you know, you wanted to get a premium mixer.

Like I wanted the, I wanted the set, I wanted the rig, you know, and then throw in an amplifier, QSC amp and you know, high powered speakers, you'd spend several thousand dollars easily.

And so my parents, you know, and looking back and being a parent myself now I kind of understand why they stalled me out for a while because they had seen me go through, get into video games and then get into skateboarding and you know, and they, they always like, you know, they bought me an Atari system and they bought me like a really dope vision skateboard for my birthday, you know, one year.

Yeah.

And, but now we're talking, you know, thousands of dollars worth of equipment versus $150 skateboard, you know, or a hundred dollar home entertainment video game system.

So they, I, I think they, they were reluctant because they didn't want to probably invest all of this money into something that could have potentially been another passing fad also something that can end.

Up costing a lot more money in records as well. With a. Skateboards. A skateboard, isn't it?

But exactly, exactly. I mean, that you can only go, you know, so deep, you know, something like that. But anyhow, Fast forward Santa Claus brought me my first Technics.

Got me one Technics turntable in for Christmas of 87. So I still have it. It's. It's actually over here. It's right here.

Oh, nice.

But what I did was I took basically our family, my dad's home stereo system, which was just, you know, an old kenwood, basically a very simple home stereo system. There was a receiver and he had a cassette deck. So I would record records and play them back on the cassette deck.

And that's kind of how I taught myself how to beat match a little bit. And then I'm. I would try to scratch.

But because I was using a home stereo kind of amplifier that had an auxiliary mode, an AM&FM, a phono, a cassette. What I would have to do was I would have to have it in phono mode and turn the knob to like the auxiliary that didn't have anything plugged into it.

So I could turn the sound off, go back to the phono, and then. So that was kind of how I tried to sort of attempt to, you know, turn sound on and off to scratch.

And obviously there were no study tools, so I was just kind of learning everything by ear, listening to Cash Money and marvelous Jazzy Jeff, Joe Cooley, obviously just, you know, all the Grandmaster Flash, all the greats that came before us. But yeah, that was, to answer your question, that was kind of my first. Well, that was when I would get my. My first piece of gear was.

Was Christmas of 87.

How easy was it for you in those early days to try and decipher what you were hearing other DJs doing?

It was very challenging because, again, everything was by ear.

Looking back, I feel like, you know, very basic movements, like a baby scratch, something that was like two motions, like a simple forward motion, a simple back motion. Like those translated relatively easily. But there were certain scratches where the range. There would be like some really high variance in the range.

Like.

Like that took me a while to kind of figure out that it was a really, really, really aggressive, forceful kind of forward motion followed mirrored by, you know, the same distance backwards and then maybe condensing that by 75%, going short and like basically a long scratch and then a short scratch.

So stuff like that, the tear scratch, which was a Three part Scratch I struggled with for, for ages, but I was always so fascinated by it because again, there was so much range and the different cadences that you would hear scribbles and vibrations like anything basically outside of a simple baby scratch. It took me, took me quite some time to figure out. And I didn't really have any friends that were DJs. I didn't know curse. I was just a bedroom DJ.

You know, again, all these guys, rep matic Curse. They're, you know, four or five years older than me.

You know, they're already off and running and doing these big mobile parties and already had their name and their network well established. And I'm just a kid, just, you know, just, just a fan of the music and a lover of DJ culture and just trying to get my foot in the door.

Not even in the door, but just trying to, just trying to learn, you know. So it took me. The learning curve for me was, was, was very, quite, quite extensive.

It sounds like you were kind of getting your head around it on a conceptual sort of level though.

Yes, no, absolutely. It was just a lot of, just hours and hours and hours of practice.

I had one, one guy, we became friends, but he was, he was a year older than me, who also was a student at my high school, Whitney High School here in Cerritos. And he was, he was dope, he was a dj. Same thing like Curse. He had, you know, all the gear.

I don't know when he started, but was probably around 84, 85. But he, yeah, he went by DJ White Night and he would DJ a lot of our high school dances. And you know, I just. Same thing.

I would just, you know, anytime him and his crew would show up and dj, you know, one of our school events, I was just, just basically, you know, fly on the wall, just kind of just rail birding from, you know, a few short feet away. Just trying to study and learn and just everything.

I mean, just looking at the, the records that he would play, looking at the record labels, just trying to remember visually what the artwork looked like. So when I would go to the record store, oh, that's that label I saw, you know, White Knight was playing something. Wait, maybe this is a good record.

You know, so just trying to soak up as much game as. As I could. So yeah, there was, that was definitely a big part of it.

And then any chance I would get to, to watch someone live and they would scratch like White Knight or Curse, like I would, I would watch like what their hands were doing, like, because I could hear the sounds they were making and they were doing all these scratches that I was curious about and trying to learn, but it would just happen so fast in real time. It's like you, you, you can kind of like, it's hard to put into words.

You could kind of when you see them do it like, okay, but then within a few short minutes, an hour later, like, you're like, oh my God, what did it look like again? Because you know, you just have basically that, that short memory of what it looked like visually.

So I'd say I had about like a, you know, a two and a half, three year learning curve where I was just, again, just a bedroom dj. I didn't DJ publicly. I didn't do any gigs or anything like that.

I was just constantly practicing and like I said, listening to the, you know, the DJ and MC hip hop duos that were, you know, had records out at the time, just studying.

And the fortunate thing was, I mean I'm sure you're well familiar with these albums, but you go back and listen, listen to Cash Money and marvelous album. Cash Money literally was the chorus, like he literally did scratch hooks on every song on the album. So those were great study tools.

Same with Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

Years later in 89, I think low profile DJ Aladdin, WC Aladdin obviously produced, you know, the entire album, but all those songs very, very scratch heavy.

So you know, those were kind of like my, my tools back in the day and again, just trying to dissect what they were doing, but they were so far ahead of, they were just light years ahead of of of where I was. But, but, but again that was, those were my only resources at the time. So.

But little by little I started to kind of like connect the dots and, and once things would click, I'd be like, oh, that's it, I think I did it, you know, and then, and little by little I, I learned the scribble, I learned vibration, I learned the tear scratch.

I learned how to kind of like, you know, kind of exercise that range in my, my baby scratches, you know, kind of high pitched scratches and low pitch and you know, so. But yeah, it took me, it took me several years, several years to really.

Get comfortable through that time. Then were you building up your setup? Did you like get another two turntable and then get a mixer?

And so we kind of just parked, partnered up. And then that was when we started doing kind of gigs together.

So my very first gig was in fact, one of those high school dances at my high school that we DJ together and just kind of pulling our equipment together, our record collections together. It was just an hour. It was a noon dance on occasion, maybe once or twice a year that we would do an extended lunch.

And, you know, sometimes they would. They would have a noon dance that would be just for an hour where a DJ would come out and play music. So we got to do one of those.

So, yeah, yeah, Chris and Richard and then my other friend Scott, we kind of formed a little DJ crew again, just kind of pulling all of our tools and our DJ equipment and records together.

At that first gig, then were you kind of, like, calm about what you were doing or were you kind of trying to flex?

Because you've got all these, like, techniques and things that you've been working on, and this is your first opportunity to, like, break them out for people.

Yeah, it was. I still remember it was a kind of a. A mixed bag of. Of feelings going into it. I was. I was very excited. I was like, wow, I finally get to dj.

Because, you know, my friends, my classmates, they had kind of known that I was, you know, practicing to. Practicing DJing, but some of them would, like, tease me about it and like, oh, you know, you're David's my name. Dave.

You ain't no David, ain't no dj, you know, and so I was kind of, like, excited to kind of like, wow, this could be like my. My big breakout moment, you know, like DJing for my friends, you know, And.

But at the same time, I was also very nervous because this is the first time I was going to DJ publicly. And, you know, I didn't want to make any mistakes.

And the few crates of records that I had, I definitely put in a lot of hours to kind of figure out what I was going to play and put. Practicing little segments here and there.

And yes, to answer your question, I did have a few moments where, you know, I scratch and I still wasn't very, very advanced. I still had a long way to go. But I did have a few kind of basic scratch techniques that I was comfortable with.

So just, you know, just, I think just enough for like the first time that people got a chance to see me dj, I was like, oh, wow, he can actually scratch a little bit. And yeah, he's playing some, some, some good records and you know, he's competent in mixing.

So, you know, looking back, I feel like it went well overall.

But definitely going into it there was like, kind of like that, you know, that, like I said, kind of like that anxiousness like that, that excitement, but also like, oh man, like that, you know, the butterflies and you know, just being a little bit nervous because it was, it was a pretty big, big moment for me and from, for my crew, for my friends too.

Like. Yeah, I remember those early gigs and just, just my hands shaking in, just trying.

Oh yeah, yeah. Picking up the needle.

Yeah. Is it a thing about California where.

Because like I interviewed Cook Chemist the other day and he was talking about, is it a case iniera or something? One of the dances.

Oh, quinceanera. Yes.

I knew I'd absolutely butcher it.

No, that's a. No, you got it. Quinceanera. It's a, basically a 15th birthday celebration that happens for young teenage girls in Mexican culture. So.

So yeah, I did, I did a few of those. But yeah, those were kind of like. Yeah, we probably cut canvas, all of us out here.

We probably had similar paths coming up as mobile DJs, you know, because those were the kind of gigs that you would do. You would do high school dances, you would do. Yeah, quinceaneras, like sweet 16s.

Later, like kind of in my college years, it became like weddings and like kind of some work functions that, you know, you kind of knew from, like you got connected with through like a, a parent of a friend or something like that. So kind of like these, these like little building block style gigs that we all kind of came up doing out here in Soca for sure. Quinceanera.

Yeah, that's.

Do you think, do you think that's something where there's all these different type of events and parties and celebrations that are about DJing and dancing? Is that something that's kind of unique to California or Southern California compared to other parts of the US it's hard.

For me to say because I spent my whole life out here.

I'm just wondering if that's the reason there's so many DJs and important DJs that have come, come out of your sort of area.

I would have to say that definitely played a key part for sure out here in the West Coast.

Just because, again, just that was the entertainment for like, again like just a host of different style of events, you know, birthday parties and all the things I mentioned.

You know, it was nine times out of ten it was a dj, it was a mobile dj and again, even at some, some of the corporate work functions, you know, everything from, from holiday parties, dentist, a dental office, you know, get togethers and, and yeah, conventions and yeah, it was, it was always a dj. It was always a dj. The majority of the time I would say on occasion you would see or hear about a band.

But out here it was like I said that the vast majority of the time I, I remember it always being a DJ battling.

When did that enter your world?

So I think there were like eight or nine of us. And that was my, my first DJ battle. And that was, that was a big one.

And it was probably around 800, a thousand people there, you know, and because it was out here in la, so you know, when we're all young, we're all in our early 20s, 19, 20, 21 years old. So kids would, college kids drove down from Santa Barbara, they drove up from San Diego. You know, Irvine wasn't not too far from la.

So my school came out. UCLA is right down the street from where the battle was. So you had all these like schools like come out. It was, it was, it was pretty exciting.

But again that same kind of feeling going in. You know, just hours and hours of practice and coming up with routines. It was kind of a head to head style battle.

So we competed in rounds of elimination.

So I think I had to come up with, I think 10 to different one minute or 90 second sets just to have Enough kind of just in case I. I had a deep run in this contest. Yeah, because I think each battle was two rounds of nine, 90 seconds. It was either 60 or 90 seconds, something like that.

But basically, you know, you had to have enough routines kind of under your belt again in case you. You made it to the finals. And so that was. That was my first, first, excuse me, very first DJ battle.

And, yeah, I just remember practicing relentlessly.

I cut class a few times, which I, you know, shouldn't have done, but that's how much I really wanted to just make some noise and, and hopefully win this. This contest. And so I. I did. Luckily, I did win the. The battle. And, yeah, that was a. That was a big, big moment for me.

I think there was like, a little bit of prize money, like a 500 prize package or something like that, and then obviously, like, the bragging rights, you know, like, because at the time, that was another thing. Like, all of the colleges, we would have everything.

There'd be frat parties, there would be, like, you know, college dances, big, but big college dances.

And then, like, out, even outside of school now, because we're, you know, again, in our late teens and early 20s, there would be just like, these hall jams, like these big parties that you would just hear about where, you know, it was open to the public. So now you're going to these and you're getting, know, exposed socially to. To other groups and, you know, other. Other kids from. From. From SoCal. So.

So yeah, that was. That was a pretty big. Pretty big deal for me. But that. That was my first battle in 93. Yeah. And I had just.

Just linked up with the beat junkies the year before. So, yeah, now I had, like, a crew to kind of lean on and I could just, like, you know, exchange ideas with and, like, show.

Show them my routines and get their feedback and get their thoughts on stuff. And obviously, like, they were there to kind of expose me to new styles and techniques and, you know, teach me things too.

So all that kind of weighed in. So how did you join?

How did you join up with them?

So there was a club in Hollywood called spice in 90 90, 92. I want to say they started. Started it, but it was basically DJ curse. Rhett Matic J Rock would show up in dj. There was a couple of other guys.

One of the dj, what, who's also an original beat junkie. It was basically a conglomerate of a few mobile DJ crews that decided to start this, this nightclub. And it was a big club, two rooms.

You would walk into the main room that probably held 600, 700, you know, always packed. Grandmaster Kaz would show up and jump on the mic.

Sometimes an MC like in the main room just kind of like with the, the crowd engagement and the, you know, the chance and, and party rocking and stuff, doing some mic work. So that room was always live. And then downstairs there was a basement where they would set up four turntables.

And that was more kind of like the underground like hip hop room where they would play like, you know, Digable Planets, you know, like Houdini and just, just hip hop, just, just straight like hip hop and breaks and you know, all that stuff.

And that's where I would, I would usually walk into the club and I would spend time a few short minutes upstairs just kind of like soaking it all in and like, you know, just kind of just digging the vibe. And then after maybe 15, 20 minutes of that, I'd be like, all right, time to go downstairs.

And I would go downstairs and that's where I would spend the entire night.

Well, this was a weekly, so every week, you know, I would just, I would go by myself sometimes with a friend or whatever and Curse would be down there, Red Matic would be down there on J Rock would be down there. And finally after five or six weeks of me just showing up and just again, just kind of just rail birding like the entire night just watching them in.

Dj, it was Curse that finally came up to me. He's like, man, he's like, he's like, dude, you're here every week, like just, why don't you come next week and bring some records?

I was like, oh, okay, yeah, hell yeah. Dope. Thanks man.

And so, so I did the next week I brought like, just a little bag of records and they let me get on and DJ for like, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And so that's kind of how I met, formally met Curse and Rhett Matic and, and Jrock.

And that was the first time I think they had all kind of heard, heard about, you know, meet Melo D, this kid Melo D from Cerritos and Curses from Cerritos, Rhett's from Cerritos, you know, Jay's not too far. So I think they had kind of heard my name floating around, you know, a little bit.

But they had never actually seen me DJ or even really like got a chance to, to meet me, you know, or anything like that. So that was kind of like our, our kind of like break the ice kind of moment.

Curse invited me to, to DJ with them and so after that, you know, we exchanged info, we started hanging out. We would go record shopping together.

We would go to J Rock's gigs or Curse would have a gig and we'd posse you up and meet at Curse's house and go to his gig. Or Rhett would have a gig, or Rhett and curse would be DJing together, one of these big college jams.

So we would all go out to that and we just became friends and started just hanging out a lot. And then it was J Rock that was just like, he's, you know, same thing.

He's like, he's like, man, it's like, fellas, we hang out all the time, either practicing together, record shopping, or we DJ some of the same spots. Like, let's just start a crew. So it was really his idea to start the crew and he wanted to call it the Beat Junkies.

So that's how the Beat Junkies were formed. And it was Jay and Curse, Red Matic, dj, what and myself were probably like the earliest members.

And then within a short year or two, you Babu, shortcut, D Styles, Mr. Chalk, icy ice, Havoc, the whole squad, Tommy Gunn, all of us together. But originally we were 13 members.

But yeah, that's kind of a, you know, the long and short of it as far as how I got inducted into the, into the Beat Junkies crew.

So, so was playing in front of them for the first time because it's diff. When you, when you try to do these things in front of your peers, that's a whole different level of nervous, right?

Totally. Yeah. Yeah, it was. And that was kind of like, I remember, like, same thing. I mean, just.

And, and even to this day, preparation is a, it's a big part of the equation for me.

I know there's no right or wrong, I don't think, approach to, to DJing or doing anything creative, but that's just always been a very key part of my formula. So for that, that set, that 15 minute set in front of Curse, Rhett and J, same thing.

I remember just like just being thoughtful about what records I'm going to actually bring to the gig and trying to flush out, you know, a few, like, cool moments or whatever to kind of like make a good impression. And that was a big moment for me too, because I knew that, you know, I had to basically I only had one chance to make a good impression.

You know, I didn't, I didn't want to blow it. I didn't want to suck or have them think I was whack. So, so so yeah, fortunately the things I did practice, I was able to pull off records.

Didn't skip or anything like, like that. And, and, and yeah, so they, they took me under the wing and we became friends and became crew and the rest is kind of, kind of history.

What did you do at college?

I studied sociology. So I graduated with a degree in sociology, believe it or not.

I was just telling my kids this recently because they were asking me, like, dad, if you weren't a dj, what would you. I was always fascinated by, by police work, so I actually wanted to be, yeah, be a special agent and possibly work for the, the FBI one day.

I was always fascinated by like criminal psychology and human behavior and the inner workings of, of the human mind. So that was kind of why I leaned more towards sociology.

And then midway like halfway through my, my college studies, that's when DJing again, around 92, 93 really started to kind of take off for me.

And on the, the tail end of my, my education at UC Irvine was when I would get my first gig at 92.3 the Beat, which was basically the number two hip or radio station out here in Los Angeles that had a million plus listeners, you know, seven nights a week. And that was my radio partner Julio G and Tony G, both of them that gave me that opportunity.

So that, that was in early 96, and I graduated UC Irvine in 97 a year later. So, you know, I had this degree and those were kind of my original intentions.

You know, I'd say halfway through college, but then DJing just, I don't know, it's just a lot of, just a lot of right place, right time, a lot of very fortunate opportunities, a lot of like really, really positive things just kind of went my way and, and yeah, it just, it just, without even ever intending it to be one, it just became, became a career for me, you know, at an early age. So, so I stuck with it. But yeah, I still have my degree. It's hanging on my wall in the other room.

So yeah, let's just put a bit of context around this, right? Whilst you were studying a degree, you were a Vestax USA and world champion. In 95 you were a finalist in the DMC, was it two years in the US.

It was. No, it was a, I was a West coast finalist in 94, which was my first DMC contest. And then I was a USA finalist with Babu.

And I want to say that was 96.

Yeah, that 95. 96 Was 95.

96. Yeah.

I've got here that you, you were a Vestax team world champion, an ITF world champion as well. All of these things while you were studying a degree. How, how did you make manage that?

How, how were you able to balance the time and finish your degree?

I don't, I don't know.

I was commuting to UC Irvine for, for college and yeah, somehow was finding the time to, to practice and come up with routines. And I do remember though during, during college like I would go to, to class and you know, I didn't have class every day.

I would have class three or four days a week and I'd be home by a pretty reasonable time, 4:35 o' clock and then if I had any schoolwork or studies I would finish that and by 7:38pm I'd be free and I would call Curse because he just lived literally three minutes away from my parents house. And so I do remember like being at Curses a lot, me and J. Rock and, and Rhett multiple nights a week every week consistently for, for years.

And we would you know, practice from, let's just call it 8pm till till midnight. And then I would go home and just go to sleep and wake up and get ready for school and do it all again the next day.

But yeah, to answer your question, I, I don't know.

I mean there's only so many minutes and hours in a day but you know, when you're young you have the energy and you know, you don't get worn down as, as quickly or as easily. So I'm sure that that played a part too.

When I was at college I just watched tv. I just wasted so much time if I could have the time again.

I did a lot of that too though. Yeah, there was some good tv. There was some good TV back in those days for sure.

Oh it was better than, better than a lot of stuff now. But yeah, yeah. So I mean for me that 95, 596 battle, it doesn't really get any better.

And I mean, look at the lineup. I've got it written down somewhere for that. 95, 96 US final. Yes, that you Babu, Sinister Swamp and a couple more.

And it's like there's so many different styles as well involved in that.

Yeah, yeah, it was definitely a special time in turntableism for sure. And to your point, you know, a lot of that I think had to do with, you know, my personal theory. You know, we're.

The fact that we were using vinyl, we were using records. So you really, I mean, with Serato and digital is great.

Don't get me wrong, I, I love Serato and you know, I love kind of all the doors that opens for you. You know, just. You can do things that were, you know, just literally impossible with two vinyl copies of a record.

But when you're relegated to, you know, analog source like vinyl, like, like you really, really have to think just super outside the box to come up with some of these ideas.

I mean, I don't know who to credit with putting, you know, small sticks of white tape on the vinyl, you know, to needle drop and just make your set more efficient.

I mean, guys that are just strictly that obviously D Styles and Qbert and the Scratch Pickles have inspired. They're just one turntable DJs. All, all they do is scratch and they scratch phenomenal. Like, it's just, it's just incredible.

Like, you know, just the mechanics and the sounds and like the way they can bend these, these short samples and these long samples and manipulate them is just, it's awesome to see. And then you have turntableists like, like Reyna, who's just, just unbelievably talented.

I mean, just literally just like we'll take any record or a combination of any two records and just, just make it ultra funky. So it's, it's really dope to see. But looking back like on that, that exact window that you mentioned.

I really do think that like you mentioned selection was a big part of it. Just dropping that. That record that was familiar that you would get kind of like, I guess like a reaction you would get.

Like if you're doing a club set, you know, the room kind of explodes and like. Oh, they get hype. But then they're exactly. They're excited because they know the jam. But they're also.

I feel like they're getting hyped because they know it's about to get flipped. You know, like whoever just dropped that record is going to. They're going to fuck that record up, you know, they're going to do something.

Something really ill with it. So yeah, I think that that played a big part in competing. Especially like in that era. Just everything like pre.

Pre digital I think as well with it.

It was like there was one of your battles I was watching earlier and there's a bit where you're using a bit of a scratch record where it's just like sounds like, I don't know, like, like a burp and something else or a cough or something like that. But they're like. They're all like in time, rhythmically laid out and stuff. Because I know there's a bit like that on Super Duck Breaks as well.

And it's interesting how you'd like use that with the drum break and stuff and using different records on both sides and things. You know, there was just. Yeah. So much sort of creativity.

Yeah. I think if. I think I know the routine. If you're referring to one of my routines, that was actually one of DJ Swamp's records and they.

That was a. I think they still make them today. But a skip list, they call it a skipless record or it'll be like a combination. It's just basically one revolution.

You know, the sounds just repeat, you know, from 12 o' clock to 12 o' clock and there'll be anywhere from three to five different sounds. But yeah, that was actually a routine I. Using one of D. DJ Swamp's Skipless. Skipless records back in the day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Raina. Is it Reina or Rayner? Sorry, he was the one that was gonna mention. Yeah, because I think with him as well, like everything he.

He seems to put out that I see at least on Instagram, it's all rooted in classic songs as well. So he's. He's got that selection aspect to it rather than just using very sort of stock esque sort of beats to it. He's absolutely Wicked.

Yeah, yeah, he's incredible. He's. He's something else. And I think Rhett Matic told me, I think, I believe his dad was a dj. Rena's dad, Krennek.

Pronunciation, I apologize, Rena, but I believe his, his dad was a dj, I think. Rhett Matic told me that. So that's kind of where he gets his, I guess, kind of musical education from, maybe, in a sense. Yeah, I would think.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Beat Junkie style, was that something that was consciously developed and, and who developed it?

Because when I've watched sort of demos and things, it's mainly sort of yourself and jrock that I've seen implement in that. And can you talk about how that developed?

Yeah, really? So, I mean, Jay, he's always, I mean just over the years he's just.

When it comes to records, when it comes to selection, when it comes to just knowledge of music, when it comes to a live DJ set, outside of turntableism, he's just always kind of been the front man for the Beat Junkies.

So the, the early styles of what we call the Beat Junkie style really come from Jay, from J Rock and over the years, again, just all of us practicing together, us competing, you know, in some of these, these DJ battles. I personally, you know, all of us were inspired by Jay and he definitely brought, you know, a handful of techniques to the table.

And then over the years everybody kind of would come up with something that was kind of like a related technique, but it was kind of, it was an off, like an offshoot of what, what Jay would do. Right. So if Jay was doing. I'm getting a little nerdy here, but if Jay was doing something like, like a quarter note offset, right.

Having one record a quarter note behind the other. Well then I think accidentally one day I came up with an eighth note offset and then a 16th note, which is a, you know, a double time, you know.

And then, you know, I remember competing in the DJ battle, one of my first battles, and me and Babu would practice a lot and it was more of an organic thing for me.

But the 16th note kind of offset, which is more of like a, like a really fast, you know, instead of using one hand on the fader, it just felt easier for me to use two hands. And I guess, you know, with. Without even intending it to be this way for the sake of showmanship, it looked, it just presented better, I think.

And I remember practicing with Babu and he was like, he's like mellow. That two handed thing you do is. It's really dope, man. You got to show that to me. I was like, bab. All I'm doing is just, it's just an offset.

I'm just using two hands. It just feels easier for me. He's like, oh. So that was, you know, one thing that I remember.

Like, okay, like, you know, and then once I kept working it and, and figured out like, you know, you can pretty much do these techniques with, with any record, it kind of kind of became one of my, my staple things. But yeah, to answer your question, that the beat junkie style is kind of like a. Yeah, a Culmin.

A combination of just all these different techniques that we've, you know, we've kind of, I like to think, kind of contributed over the years. And it's a combination of all those things I mentioned. You know, record selection, part party rocking, technicality, scratching.

It's kind of like, I look at it like a well rounded bag, if you will. Of all things that go into, into DJing. Yeah, I guess would be the best way to describe it.

Do you learn those specific routines on the specific records and stuff? Do you go, right, I'm gonna get Cold Sweat and I'm gonna work out how we can kind of beat junkie this all the way through?

No, that's a great question.

It's funny because, you know, I'll be driving or I'll be out somewhere and I'll hear a song or I'll think of a song and I have a notes page in my phone and I'll write down ideas and sometimes a song will come to me or I'll hear a song and I'll think, oh, oh, when I get back, I gotta try coming up with something with this. Oh, it's gonna sound so fresh. And then I'll start working on it. Like it doesn't sound anything like an envision.

And then sometimes it happens the opposite way where, you know, I'll just be recording a record or I'll have two copies of something, or I'll load something in serato and just, you know, start warming up or practicing and just kind of by accident, like find a section or something that actually sounds good on a record that I never would have expected to come up with a routine with. So. So it kind of goes both ways. You know, sometimes I, I set out to with. With an exact record or a couple records in mind.

And sometimes it comes out the way I envisioned it, sometimes it doesn't. And I kind of abort mission. And then sometimes it happens by accident, just, just Kind of through trial and error. So.

But it's, it's always interesting because it kind of keeps me on my toes in a sense because it's, it, it's never. Things never go the way you expect them to.

And then like I said, conversely, sometimes they just happen without, you know, you intending them to, to happen that way. So it kind of keeps you, keeps you going, you know, in that sense, like if that makes any sense. I don't know. Yeah.

Something I've thought about with it and I might be just way off is it's almost like, you know, like with synesthesia where people can kind of sort of see sound and stuff like that. It's like can you almost like see the arrangement in your head? So say it's a, say it's a record that you know.

Well, you kind of know what techniques you're going to be able to use where before you've started doing it.

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, A lot of times that does help. Just being very familiar with the record or a section of a record.

And over the years, this mostly during the pandemic for me, just because, you know, we had nothing but time. So I really, really, really dove hard into DJing.

And it was during the pandemic and just prior to that, teaching at the school, the Beat Junkie Institute of Sound out here really unlocked a lot of the mathematics behind the technicality of DJing. Just really understanding what an 8th note is, what a 16th note note is, what each 8th note is inside of one bar of music. Kick hat, snare hat.

Kick hat, snare hat. And then repeat and then beyond that. Now I'm really getting into the weeds here, but this is like the ultra nerdy stuff for all the tapes.

But basically taking, let's say if it's an eighth note, right technique that I want to do and something very, very technically, I guess, advanced that requires a lot of speed, a lot of focus and a lot of precision.

I basically scienced how to take an eighth note anywhere inside of one bar of music and do a 3D, which is a 16th note pattern, but have it land on beat a lot of times. No discredit to anybody. But you know, for example, you'll see, you know, a DJ take a record like Sucker MCs.

That first, you know, drum roll, it's like ah. But then when the one hits, it doesn't land on the one. They're just like just chasing it for, you know, for the sake of, you know, sheer speed.

And it doesn't like Rhythmically it's not there.

So I wanted to figure out a way to, like I said, take an eighth note with whether it was the 1, the 1 and the 3, which is the snare or I'm sorry, the 3 which would be the next one.

I wanted to be able to figure out a way to take any eighth note and create that same effect, that same 16th note chase effect, but have it flow, you know, have it be head noddable.

So again, that all, that all comes down to, to mathematics and obviously a lot of trial and error and figuring out that sometimes depending on, depending on from where you take it from, it might float naturally and you can just release it in a land.

But sometimes you have to add an extra baby scratch or sometimes an extra two baby scratches to make it land on beat, you know, so that you don't lose that, that effect, you know, that four on the floor effect. So yeah, that was, that was a big kind of moment for me, just a big breakthrough for me during the pandemic.

But yeah, to answer your question through all of that there now when I hear a song or I think of a song, I can kind of hear the musicality. And I've kind of learned too that the more basic the better.

And this is something that I've kind of taught some of our students is that for terms of like practice tools, I direct a lot of our students towards the 80s 80s hip hop because it was very elementary, right? It was a lot of the beats, you know, were very, very, very basic sounding just, you know, a drum machine which is obviously like kick hat snare.

Sometimes there'd be a bass line or a bass, a bass note that would be sampled and chopped up.

But you know, nothing that's going to sound like too busy when you're being technical compared to something that's like a hip hop record that maybe has like a string sample in it that, that kind of like runs for two bars and kind of can kind of sound a little bit messy or not as crispy, I guess something more, more basic. But, but yeah. So now like when I listen to records with the intent of coming up with a routine, I listen to them with that kind of ear.

Like, would it sound good? Or is this record like too busy or is there a two bar section?

Maybe the whole record is busy, but there's this two bar bridge or two bar section where, you know, it's bare bones and it's minimal and it's workable and it'll sound fresh and kind of the way I, I'd like it to. So that's kind of the way I, I listen to music when I'm thinking of making a routine or composing a routine or something like that.

Yeah. Like I. I kind of tried with juggling and stuff. I. I never kind of got deep into it. I. I don't have the work ethic it takes.

But it is interesting thing because you've even got to think about kind of say with your snares, like how fat your snare is and how much tail it's got as to like how much margin forever there is. And even like with say like 90s hip hop and beyond how swung it is. So say if you get diller and stuff like that.

If you're doing like some chase patterns and things.

Yeah. Oh, that's a. Yeah. Dill is always tough like that. Yeah. I don't think.

I think the only Dilla record that I'm comfortable and it's not even really technically a beat juggle, it's more of like, kind of like trick mixing and just kind of working.

The first 8 bar intro is E equals MC squared is really like the only song I'm kind of comfortable doing anything with because to your point, like, obviously all of his music is. Is genius. But. Yeah, very swingy, very syncopated. You know, the one a lot of times doesn't fall on the one and it's.

Yeah.

You know, it's got that, that extra hop to it. So it's. Yeah. Even little things like just an offset, you know, don't even. Like sometimes they don't even sound good.

Just because when you swing the fader over the hi hat. Well, it's not there. You just. It's air. Because of the way he sequenced it. So.

Yeah. Yeah. It didn't make it easy for DJs.

Yeah, not at all.

So when I saw one of your mixes, I noticed that you're just really subtly putting in like the little vinyl drags and just like little bits of echo and stuff like that. How. How do you approach effects and what advice have you got for people?

Because it's really easy to just like just go full on with effects and stuff rather than use it sparingly.

Sure. For me the cardinal rule is just knowing the song, right. Whatever song you're using.

Because to me, I look at those like when I'm kind of using and I love using the effects. I've actually grown, grown very fond of a few of the effects on the mixer that I use.

But just knowing kind of when the appropriate time I Look at them like, kind of like almost like ad libs in a sense. Just a subtle way of adding some flavor to the mix or to the song.

But I try and use them sparingly, not overdoing it to where it becomes like a little annoying. But yeah, just like I said, I think the cardinal rule for me is just knowing the song.

So if it's a rap song, knowing the lyrics, knowing if there's a, like an, like on an eighth note, you know, that's kind of open, doesn't have like a, a note or an instrument behind it, that's like a good spot to hit anything. An echo, a reverb, a break, quick crab or something like that. But that, that, that always helps. I mean just, just knowing, knowing your music.

And if you don't, then spending time with it comes of fostering that relationship with the music that you love and that you care about enough to, to want to flip, to do something. Whether it's a routine or even just playing in a set and adding, like I said, subtle, subtle things like that.

It all comes down to, to just how familiar and comfortable you are with the music that you're playing. But that's kind of the way I, I approach using the effects.

So a personal question for me then is I, I want to mix more disco, but disco I find really frustrating. I think I'm just going to have to BPM it all up because it has such a big variation in BPMs.

Beyond that, if you got any advice around mixing it, because I start mixing it and I just, I don't do too much because I'm like, oh, I'm just at this and do something else instead.

Yeah. Are you talking more of like the, the uptempo dance records? Are you talking about the whole range? Like everything from like 108 to like 130.

Like I think this is the challenge. Yeah. That it's just such a big vast variation in BPMs. A lot more than probably a lot of other genres.

Yeah, I mean I kind of, I face the same challenge with, with every genre honestly.

But then there's also like kind of like the uptempo B Boy, like Warm It Up Cane, Big Daddy Kane records that are like 115 that I want to get in that hour set. So like my, My way is always kind of.

And I think this is kind of like a traditional approach, but kind of starting at a certain BPM, say 90 or whatever. I mean, I guess in Disco 105, you know, whatever. And then just slowly kind of like progressing your way up, up through the. The tempo range.

Eventually you get to that, that 115, 118 and then that'll bring you into the 120s and eventually get to like the. The 126, 130, bony M shame and all the uptempo dance records. But that, that's kind of, kind of my way of doing it.

And there is like a little, A little cheat that, that I use where whichever direction you're going, like if you're going.

Progressing from a low tempo to a high tempo, like over the course of the mix, like if you're player record, you can, you can, you can edge the pitch control, you know, a notch or two to kind of like give yourself a little more. You can take a 114 from a 114 to like a 116, 117. And then. Yeah, yeah, that next record comes in at 116.

And then you can use that same, you know, approach and bump that 116 up to a 118. And you know, things like that. But same thing.

Try and do it subtly so that it doesn't like, you know, draw the attention of your audience or if it's a mix, you know.

Yeah, I find when you do that, in my mind, I think if you do, if you do that little bit of do the little bumps on a snare drum, it seems to be less noticeable.

Interesting, huh? I usually. Huh. I never, I never tried that. I usually just try and do it like maybe over like four bars as opposed to like right away.

Just bumping it up from like plus 2 to plus 4. Just gradually, you know, so that it's like almost like, you know, not noticeable.

Yeah. So maybe just try doing it just on this, on. On the snare. But you know, to still do it over the same amount of bars.

I feel like for whatever reason, it just, it just seems a little bit more subtle then.

Okay. Yeah, I'll definitely give that a try. Wow.

I did not expect that to happen today.

Yeah, that's what I love about DJing. There's, like I said earlier, there's like. I really feel like there's no right or wrong.

Everyone has a different approach, a different method, and, you know, it's always interesting, like talking to DJs, because, you know, I feel like, like everybody, like if you've been doing it this long, like everyone has something to bring to the table, you know. So that's why I just, like, that's part of the reason I'm still in love with DJing, honestly.

Yeah. And I think, you know, everyone spent so much time in the bedroom figuring a lot of different bits out for themselves that sometimes.

There was one of my friends I used to DJ with a bit and he had this like. Really? There's a couple of people actually I. I've dated with that have got certain techniques that they. They do in a very different way.

Like one of my friends that used to do like three clicks, but he'd start with the fader short, so he'd do his three clicks and then his last. The kind of baby was at the end of it, if you like. Probably not. Yeah, it's like three click crabs. Or he'd do a pullback.

There was one way where rather than them being forward, forward, forward, forward, backward, backward, backward, backward, it was like forward, forward, forward, backward, backward, backward, backward, forward or something. And yeah, it just has a totally different sound to it.

No, absolutely. And D Styles and Babu, like, they're the ones that kind of like in the last decade have kind of walked me through. Yeah, just.

You don't necessarily have to start your sound like from the top of the city sound. You know, you can start it quarter way into the sound if it's a long sound or even in the middle. Some people are just.

Now they're just using the middle of the sound. And yeah, like, like you were saying, that doesn't have to. Everything doesn't have to be congruent.

Doesn't have to be two clicks forward, two clicks backward. You know, it can be like you said, three forward, four back, or four forward, two back or whatever. So, yeah, it's. It's infinite.

Yeah, it's never ending. Funny that you mentioned the. The crab. I was talking to Shortcut a while back and we were kind of reminiscing. So we were in Japan for the.

The Vestex World Finals was the. The competition that I was. I was competing in to represent the United States. When I won the USA Finals, I went to Japan for the Worlds.

And so one of the competitors, DJ Excel, who was also from the. From the uk, he. After the battle, we were having just a jam session and I think Qbert's hotel room. And of course Qbert had equipment upstairs.

So is Excel shortcut myself. And I think maybe Yoga frog was there too.

Anyhow, it's just a few of us, you know, after the contest and we're just, we're just taking turns on cue, setup, practicing. And Excel gets up and he's like, I've been working on this thing called the twiddle.

And he shows, shows a twiddle us and it's, he's two fingers on the, on the fader. And we all know what the twiddle is this many years later. But I remember me and short, we were laughing because Qbert, anytime.

You have to know Qbert, but anytime he gets curious about something. Wait, do that. What was it? Do it again. Do it again. And so like I, you saw Qbert kind of perk up like, and just.

Oh like watching him and like, oh, that's. Yeah, that's pretty sick. And literally a week later he introduced a 3 finger crab scratch. So that was kind of like the inspiration.

I don't know if you've ever heard that, that story.

Yeah, yeah.

But it was, it was kind of cool to be there and like just kind of see like that, you know, that exchange between Excel and Q Bert and how Excel's twiddle really, really inspired and gave Qbert the idea to, for the, for the crab scratch. Yeah. And at first, actually it was a four. It was a four finger crab.

When Q first did it, he was doing a four finger crab and I don't know what he does. He probably does four and three or whatever. But that was basically like the, the birth of the crab scratch.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy that it came from Wales. XL is an interesting one as well. Have you seen the 98 where he does the like play it underwater thing with the OJs?

He gets that money, money, money and the way he uses the EQ and then he does this like little tapping on the record and stuff. Stuff this like play underwater thing. It's just, I don't know where, where he got these things from.

Is that a DMC contest?

UK98. I think it is.

Okay, I'll have to look at that.

Yeah, yeah. If, if I find it on YouTube or anything, I'll send it over to you.

So around this time as well, you became the live DJ for Quincy Jones for his vibe show, right?

Yes, in 97. 97. 97.

There's CO signs and then there's CO signs from Quincy Jones. Like, how is that, how, how do you deal with that? It's like what people.

No, it was Quincy. I wouldn't call it necessarily a cosine. Yeah, so that's a, that's an interesting story.

So the way that that came to be was I literally just graduated college.

So this is going, kind of going, going back to that, that time in my life where, you know, I've been on the radio for a couple years and you know, again, I'm playing on now. We, we had become the number one radio station in Los Angeles. So Quincy Jones and his partner David I. Forget it. I'm drawing a blank on his last name.

But basically they had this idea to create kind of like an urban late night talk show. I think they were kind of like looking to kind of, if you're familiar with the Arsenio Halls show that ran from. Okay.

They were kind of looking to recreate that, that vibe, you know, kind of bring that late night TV element or that element back to late night television. And so they were auditioning DJs for the house band that was literally a band like you would see on every other late night talk show.

You know, everyone from Letterman to, you know, the Roots play for Jimmy Kimmel. And so they were auditioning a DJ to be a part. Auditioning DJs to be a part of this band.

And I hadn't even heard about this.

And he called me and told me they had just finished this audition for this new late night talk show at the CBS studios, which is one of the major television recording studios out here in Los Angeles. And they're looking for DJs and I mentioned your name, I told them about you, they're probably going to call you tomorrow and want you to come in.

And he's like, you should, you should go give it a try. Like this could be like a good gig for whoever gets it. I was like, oh man, good looking out. Thank you. I'll keep an eye out for the phone call.

And yeah, I was just work. My plans were to just work on that mixtape all weekend.

And sure enough, I get a call from a representative at, at this Vibe TV show asking if I was available literally that next day, that Saturday afternoon, like I had to be there like at 2 o' clock or something to audition for Quincy Jones and, and the band director who was Greg Fin Gains.

Oh wow. Worked and produced, play keyboards on Thriller.

Right, exactly. Michael Jackson, worked with Quincy, you know, for years. Stevie Wonder, everything legend, right? I'm like, okay, what, what, what do you guys.

What would you like me to do? And just. We need you to just come down and, and play for five minutes. Okay. And again, keep in mind, this is 97, you know, these are our battle years.

So, you know, I was doing gigs and stuff here and there, but the core of what I was doing was turntableism. So I'm thinking, okay, they're looking for a dj.

I'm just gonna bring, you know, my routines, you know, So I brought probably four, maybe five routines to do. And so I walk into the studio and, you know, it's Quincy Jones and Greg. And we meet, say hello, points. He says, okay, show us what you got.

And I could tell that they, you know, they, they weren't really, they weren't really vibing. And then probably within three minutes, if that. Quincy says, okay, thank you, you know, and I'm like. And I just knew, I felt it.

I was like, ah, they, they, they weren't digging any of that. Like, it's just too technical for them.

So one of the records that I brought that I actually had, it was more of a mixed routine was James Brown, Give it up or Turn It Loose. So I was like, in my, in my head, I'm telling myself, oh, Mel, I'm not going out like that, right?

Like I'm saying, just gonna, like, whatever, just kind of force them this last routine. So I quickly, you know, pull the James Brown record out, drop it from the top.

And now, like, in my peripheral vision, I can kind of feel like, all right, they're kind of like giving me like a little grace here. Gonna give me another minute or two. And then I go into this, you know, this. Like I said, it's more of a mixing routine.

Everything happens in real time. I'm not strobing, I'm not altering the tempo of the song.

And within the first minute, 30 seconds, I can feel them because they, they know the song, they're into the groove. And I can kind of feel them kind of like nodding along. And then I start doing just some basic with the beat junkie style trick mixing. And so.

And thankfully I, I pulled it off like it was probably one of the Cleanest, you know, performances of that, that set I do with that, that break and, and, and I think I ended it with like a cold stop or something. And it, and it couldn't have gone better.

Like, I mean, not patting myself on the back, but it just, you know, I was just, I was just locked in and I pulled it off literally right there. Like they both started clapping. Quincy's Quincy Jones himself pointed at me and said, you got the job. And that was it. Like he hired me on the spot.

Like, literally. Had I not done that James Brown routine, they would have just sent me home and I wouldn't have got a call back or, or anything.

But it was because I literally, I literally force fed them that, that James Brown. It was only because I was stubborn and you know, I was just like, I was like, I, I judge this very poorly.

I should have just, I brought the wrong records. But luckily I had that, that record with me and yeah, I pulled it off and yeah, they gave me the job right there on the spot.

So that show ran for a season and we recorded four days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then two shows on Thursday.

The first show would air Thursday night and the second show that we would film on Thursday would air on Fridays.

So that was a, that was a busy time like in my career because I would have to be on set 11am and then, you know, we would show up, we would kind of get like the itinerary, the show, the show, the run of show, and then we would rehearse because a lot of times there were musical guests.

But I had a chance to play with some, some really Aaliyah, Destiny's Child, way before they blew up, meeting Beyonce and Kelly and you know, with their breakout single. And James Brown was a guest. Yeah, it was, that was a cool, that was a cool run.

But we would, we would get there and I'd be on set from like 11 to like 4:35.

And we would finish, we would wrap filming and then I would drive straight to the beat to do my mix show at 7pm So I was kind of like moonlighting between, for a year between these, these two gigs. But yeah, that was fun. My, my parents used to record the shows every night, so I have them on VHS here somewhere.

They would, they would give me a little camera time once in a while.

And then when we won the 97 ITF World Championship, the team, the team champions, you know, I, I told them about it and the, the host of the show, Chris Spencer, really cool cat, he actually went to the producers and Told them that my crew had just won this DJ battle and man, we should put them on. So he actually got us on the show. I think that's on YouTube somewhere too. But that was J Rock, Rhett Matic, Babu, myself, you know, they.

They gave us like, I think three minutes, two or three minutes of air time to do kind of like a condensed version of our, our championship routine. So, yeah, that was pretty cool, but that's how that came to be.

So in that peak sort of battle era, what was the kind of vibe between different crews? Was it like all love or was it a little bit like, yeah, I want to kill you sort of thing? Like what, what was it?

No, it was, it was very. It was.

There was a lot of camaraderie because I think, you know, we were all equally passionate about the craft and about coming up with new techniques. And everyone was just such a fan of like a dope routine or a dope scratch solo. There was never really any tension that I remember between any crews.

We always got along really well with the Pickles, with the Executioners. Anytime they would come out to the west, you know, we would host them, hang out with them.

Anytime we were out in New York, same thing, you know, they would take us in and take us around and, you know, we would practice together. The Pickles, I used to fly up to the Bay just to hang out and practice with, with D and Q. Yeah, I did that a lot like in the 90s.

Yeah, we were all just. We were all dear friends, understand, still like really good friends to this day. The only time like in.

I wouldn't say it would be like tense, but if like, you know, we were competing against each other, then sure, but we were in a lot of battles together. Like there was a battle that Babu, Shortcut, Rhett Matic, myself, we were in, out here in la, the Rap sheet battle.

And we still, we all practiced together. We all, you know, just. There was no gatekeeping. We would exchange ideas, show each other we routines before the battle. You know, get.

Give feedback, get feedback. And then the day of the battle, at the battle, like we'd be like, you know, cheering on the homie. Just.

Yeah, just trying to, trying to lift each other up and yeah, there was really no tension.

The only, the only funny story I have is I think when Babu, this was the 97 ITF battle, like the solo, like Head to Head, he was going against Tony Vegas from the Scratch Perverts. And so I guess he called, he left. This is again late 90s. So this is in the like the answering machine days.

Like, you know, you call, they're not home and they're the, oh, this is Melody. I'm not home, but leave a message. Boop. So he called either short or Rhett, Matt.

He called somebody and left a, a voicemail saying that, hey, I'm, I'm coming to la, coming down to whip your boy Babu. And like he left us kind of just. But it was all, it was light hearted, you know what I mean?

But that's the only like funny story I remember where like, yeah, there was a little bit of a rivalry that was kind of being built up because that word got back to us that Tony had left. I have to remember, I have to ask Rhett. But he left a message for somebody and it got back to us.

So we were all getting Babs fired up, you know what I mean? Oh, Babs, you can't. Come on, man, you can't let this come cat come from the UK and serve you, you know.

So, so yeah, so it was that one, that one was talked about a little bit, but in the end, like, yeah, we were, we were all friends and we hung out with the perverts. Yeah, those are, they're good guys.

So yeah, I think it's nice to hear stuff like that because you get some fairly sort of niche interest and small things or even sort of local scenes and stuff that they're small enough that people shouldn't fall out. But I think sometimes, sometimes egos just mean that there's too much rivalry in these kind of, in these worlds.

It's nice return tablism that, that, you know, it's kind of escaped that.

Yeah, they're actually, now that we're talking about it, there was one kind of like dark incident that I remember, like just got really out of hand for I don't think any good reason other than like sheer hate. But Rhett Matic was in this DJ battle, just a local DJ battle out here in la and there was another DJ that was kind of.

He was, I guess an active DJ also out here from Los Angeles, but he wasn't really part of turntableist culture, but he was in this battle and he had done his set and it was okay. Looking back, in my opinion, it wasn't really up to par with kind of what the standard was or the styles were at the time.

But he did his thing and then it was Rhett's turn to go up and do his six minute set. And the whole time during Rhett's set. This guy's just trash talking Rhett, like heckling him like bad.

Like, you know, I think he even like said something about his mom and just like really just trying to like, just get under his skin like while Rhett's doing his battle routine. And Rhett like at the end of the set, like. And Rhett like, you have to know Red Matic, man, that's my brother. He's salt of the earth.

Like just, just the most selfless guy like ever got love for everything and everyone and you know, takes a lot, a lot to get him stirred up. But this guy was just like, just really giving Rhett the business.

And Rhett stopped his set and like clapped back at him and they literally like almost ended up getting into, into a fist fight.

And like it had, it got broken up, but it was all because this other chump like was just for no reason, like just, I don't know, he just had it out for. Rhett was just like trash talking and they, they didn't have any history.

I don't know, maybe the guy was like jealous of Rhett because he was, you know, getting a little recognition as a producer and he was competing in DJ battles. But yeah, that was like probably the, the only thing that, that stands out looking back, but that was 30 plus years ago. This is mid-90s, you know.

But, but yeah, outside of that, like everything was always like, yeah, really, really, really cool. Everything was, was always chill from crew to crew. Yeah.

Apologies if you've been asked this many, many times with the school, then how did the school get set up and how difficult was.

Was and is it to condense like, I'm guessing at the time, sort of 30 years of experience or say there's five of you, 150 years of DJing experience into like organized courses.

And shortly after that, you know, that was kind of like the catalyst because in probably the five years or so prior to that we had all kind of gone different directions. You know, still remain in contact, still very good friends, still crew, but you know, J Rock was doing J Rock.

So I was out in Vegas kind of DJing, big nightclub scene out there on the weekends. So we had kind of come to this point in the crew where, like I said, no love, loss, anything like that. But we had all kind.

We all kind of had separate pursuits. Yeah. And then I talked to the fellas and I was like, let's. It's 20 years, guys. We should do something.

So anyhow, so we had a really dope 20 year celebration out here in, in LA.

And that was kind of like the catalyst that brought us kind of all back together and got us kind of talking about doing things together as a crew more. And so that was kind of when we first started talking about the idea of opening up a school. And then we opened up the school years later.

And in the months leading up to opening the school, it was Mr. Chalk's idea, shout out to Chalk, because he had been teaching at another DJ school out here in la. So he was already a veteran kind of instructor at this point because he had probably eight or nine years as an instructor under his belt.

So we just thought we're going to open up a school and, and teach, you know, teach our method, you know, teach all these techniques, the Beat Junkie style and, and all the techniques that go into the Beat Junkie style. Obviously history is a big part of, you know, DJ culture with our method. So those were our ideas.

And in the months leading up to opening the school, Chak said, okay, you know, we need to really like, sit down and map out like, what we're going to teach, like, and develop a curriculum. And like, he was getting really scientific about it and we were all like, yeah, you're right, Chuck. Like, we, we need to do that.

We can't just open doors and have people sign up for class. Like, we have to like, you know, have a goal in mind for these students and like a, you know, a path to that end.

So Chalk was very adamant about us having mock classes where all the junkies, we would get together privately at the school and he would basically kind of give us like a pop quiz. Okay, Babu, get up and show me the strobe. Show me the strobe. Give me a demo of the strobe and then talk me through it as a student.

So he would kind of present these classes to us that way.

And it was in those moments that we all realized that we can the demo part, no problem, but articulating it to someone that's brand new to DJing and Super Green. That was the challenge. We, we realized like, wow, we've been doing these techniques for 20 years.

You know, we can do them with our eyes closed, we can do them on our sleep, but to have to really break them down and articulate them in a way that's logical and sensible to someone that's brand new, even something elementary like beat matching, like that was the one that he threw at me.

And then I was completely stumped because it was in that moment that I realized, oh my God, there's like probably 10 things, 10 steps that go into mixing two records. Like, where do you start? So that was, that was, that was. I'm actually glad that we're all glad that we did that.

And again, kudos to Chalk for having the foresight to, you know, have us think all those things through, because we definitely had a lot of work ahead of us as far as like really ironing out our curriculum, all getting on the same page about what we were going to teach, how it was going to be taught, you know, so that there was consistency throughout our product, so to speak, which was the classes, the classes that the students would sign up for. So that was kind of how the school came together.

And early on that was kind of our, our way of just like getting all the curriculum and the techniques and what we were going to teach, getting everything dialed in. There was a lot of discussion about, do we start on vinyl? Do we.

Well, we can't just start on digital because that means everyone has to have a computer. So we ultimately decided on having a students start on vinyl.

So we all kind of like went through our record collections and kind of pulled like extra records that we had. So that was a, that was a big part of our program and still is to this day.

We still, we've modified the curriculum a little bit over the years and then we've kind of branched out and added on a few more kind of intermediate plus and advanced classes. And we've done master classes on occasion for some of the more advanced students and DJs and stuff like that. More as like one offs.

But the bread and butter of our school is three programs, the most basic of which is called Intro to DJing, which is an eight week course that meets once a week for eight weeks for 75 minutes. And that's basically for anyone and everyone that's brand new to DJing.

We teach four basic scratch techniques and then the course is capped off with instructions on beat matching, which is kind of like the big takeaway for that course.

So at the end of those eight weeks you have a pretty thorough understanding of like a, a few basic scratch techniques, some basic music theory and how that applies to beat matching and then ultimately being able to beat match two records and basically transition. I think it's a three song mix that we have them do kind of for their graduation final.

And then if those students that complete the intro course are interested in furthering their journey or their study, we offer a program called the foundation, which, which runs about 10 months, that meets once a week for two hours. And there are nine different levels.

And that's kind of a lot to explain, but again that, that we kind of, that's a much deeper dive into the craft, into the history, into our approach to DJing. And I like to think of that course as part lecture, part demo.

Again because before we present any technique, if it's like a, a technique that like the baby scratch, for example, right. We always credit Grand Wister Theater. We talk about Theodore, we thought, we talk about, you know, how that baby scratch came to be.

We all know the story, right? Him and mom and you know that. So we, we like sharing like tidbits of, of history with our students.

And then obviously there's, there's demo and then there's, we'll demo the technique and then we'll explain how the technique came to be. And if it's seven steps, we walk them through all seven steps and then we'll demo it again.

So now that they have, they'll see it first and then we'll talk them through it and then we'll show it to them again. And they can kind of like, oh, okay, we have a big overhead camera projector behind us so they can kind of see an overhead view of us doing it.

They see this at the school, right. Which helps. And then after the second demo, there's drill time. So we have 12 students. Each class is capped at 12 students.

And the instructor will walk around, we'll take 10 minutes, 15 minutes and let everybody kind of like start working on it. And then we'll walk around from student to student and spend some time with them and just check their progress.

And so that's that, that's the foundation program. But again, that's a very extensive program, about 10 months.

And then the third course is more of our intermediate plus where we start to really, really dive deep into trick mixing, more advanced scratch techniques, more advanced concepts. And that program is called Structure. And that program runs for, I believe, four months. That also meets once a week for, I think, 90 minutes.

Yeah, and then we have a few specialty programs. Babu teaches one called Battle Ready, which is more, you know, kind of battle technique focused. And then, like I said, we've done.

I've done a few master classes. Dee's done some master classes, Babu.

And those are more for like, you know, the advanced students and people that want to learn everything that goes into the beat, junkie style, high level scratching, advanced trick mixing, etc.

Amazing. Is there any particular thing that's really hard to teach new students?

Like, I don't know, like, patience or, or anything, or is there any sort of fundamentals that are really hard to get across?

You know, most everyone grasps the concepts. And I think what really helps with that is kind of our approach, which is, like I said, kind of, you know, part lecture. Like basically 50.

50, Like half lecture, half demo. Being able to articulate the technique into basically a tutorial really helps.

The only, the only thing, the only challenge I've noticed, noticed with a few students that really where they get frustrated is like, we've had a. I've had a few students that they really struggle with rhythm. They just, I think innately they don't have rhythm, so they, they get lost when we talk about.

Or we're starting to kind of like trying to feel things out, like tempo, basic music theory, 1, 2, 3, 4. 2, 3, 4. And dropping on a 1. You know, instead of dropping on a 1, they'll come in on a 2 or a 3 or a 3.

And, and it really, like, I mean, from my observation, it just comes down to rhythm because I'm watching them and I see them even, even their head nod. They're just, they're not in the groove. They're. They're nodding to something else. They're not hearing a kick and a snare.

And it's challenging for us as instructors because I feel like that's not something you can teach. You can talk them through it, like. Cause I'll walk up to them and count along with me. One, two, listen for the kick and the snare.

Two, two, three, four. So when the kick, you know, I have to have them identify what a kick is and where to drop it in. So they learn.

They eventually learn, but they learn at a slower pace than the other students in the class. So that's really the only challenge that, that I've noticed. And obviously, like I said, they're for them.

You know, you can kind of sense their frustration because, like I said, they, they understand. Like, they.

I feel like they're digesting, like, the lecture part and like they, they're attentive, you know, to the, to the demo, but when it comes to executing, that's where they, they get lost. And I think a lot of that, like I said, just comes to their. Their rhythm. You know, it's just they, they, they struggle with it for whatever.

But there. That's been very far in view. Between. Between. I definitely count them all on less than one hand, for sure.

I do sometimes worry about whether my son's gonna have rhythm.

Why do you say that?

I don't know. I just think, what if my son's not got rhythm? What we're going to bond over? Scary. Don't tell him I've said that.

Yeah, no, I'm guilty of it myself. Like, it's DJing for me. Like, rhythm, like, you know, something that I, you know, like, I've had to.

And you would think, like, you know, I, I would be able to cut up a rug a little bit, but no, that's just, that's. That's never been my, My lane.

Yeah, I feel your pain. There's like a. There's a piano teacher. I know that she's done. I can't remember what the.

There's a certain teaching technique she's done, and I think they have a quite interesting way of teaching rhythm. Like, if you can teach rhythm, I'll try and find out what it is and get you some info.

Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. There was just one more question then, because I think we've gone really deep there. I've absolutely loved this. It's always nice to get nerdy.

The one other question I was going to ask is we talked about a lot of different DJs there and giving a lot of flowers and stuff. Is there anyone particular that you think we've not mentioned that deserves an honorable mention?

Oh, my gosh, that's so hard. I mean, I've been around DJing so long. I mean, four decades plus. Like, I, I have an extensive list of inspirations from my early days to the 90s.

Like I said into the present day with kind of like the. The newer school DJs that we were talking about earlier. I know that if I just.

I could probably rattle off 50 plus names, but I know I'd still probably forget 10 or 20.

Right. Let me ask you a different question then. Is there anyone in your kind of peak of battling that terrified you to battle against more than anyone else?

Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure. I never wanted to see Mixmaster Mike, Qbert Raider just because. Yeah, he was just. He was not the guy that. He was just ready.

Was just ready to battle. It didn't even have to be on stage. He was just. Yeah, he was just ready for it. For you it could have been like you're in somebody's garage.

He was just always ready for it. Rest in peace. Craze. Super dope. This and then this is like kind of like the. Kind of after our. Our battle years. But yeah, craze and A track.

They really took it to the next level. Just, you know, with all styles. Everything scratching, the way they would compose their routines, just super innovative. Again, still using vinyl.

That's the. The techniques alone. Juggling everything. Always super dope, super funky, very dangerous.

Yeah, those would be probably the first few that come to mind.

I love the A track one that, that one where he's like scratching along to the guitar solo. Do you know the one? It's like quite a long guitar track and he's just nailing all the. All the expression of it and stuff.

Probably. If I, if I, if I. Oh, is it like a. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I've seen that it's a scratch, a long scratch piece. Right?

Yeah. It's maybe like. It might have been like a showcase or something like that, but it's probably about 110bpm, sort of like guitar wig out sort of thing.

Yeah. And he's basically following like the. The. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. Just super sick.

Yeah, I'd like to see someone do that with co Contusion by Stevie Wonder.

Yeah, there's who. I think Rob Swift had a routine like that called the Salsa Scratch where.

Yeah, he was on his album following.

Yeah. Yes, yes. That was another. I don't know who the first DJ to do that was, but. But again, just all these, all these innovations. I just feel like it's.

It's never ending. There's always just when you think like the. The art, the craft has hit the ceilings. Some other somebody else like comes with something. Something new.

And fresh. And, you know, I love seeing the resurgence of vinyl too. There's a big vinyl renaissance that's been going on for probably close to a decade now.

A lot of live vinyl DJ sets happening.

Well, that, yeah, that's, that's my heart. But it's like, like I was saying to you about disco stuff. My problem is now I feel like I need to BPM all my disco and stuff.

But then because you're buying records when they cost, what they cost now is if you're like, oh, do I want to put a sticker on it? And because you're just thinking about like, or I'm thinking about it like that and it's probably the wrong way to be.

I need to just be like, look, there's only one, one way I'm going to get better at DJ disco. Just got stick some bpms on these.

Yeah. Like labeling the actual sleeve, you mean? Like.

Yeah, on the, on the sleeve or even on the label.

Right, right.

Probably label.

If it's a 12 out here on the West Coast, I didn't see it a whole lot, but there, there was a handful of DJs that I would see at gigs back in the day that they would have, again, we're talking the record crate era, but they would have the, their, their sleeves BPM'd.

So like I remember like, you know, playing alongside them and they would have like a crate, you know, and they would have like a stack pulled out like, you know, know, I might play this record, I might play that record. I remember seeing them thumb through it and they would have, you know, just those little white stickers, you know, 118, 120.

Yeah, yeah.

There'd be like this progression of BPM like from front to back of the crate. So that was always interesting to me. I never took the time to do that.

But kudos to the DJs that do because that definitely I can see that, that being a big help like when organizing a DJ set.

For sure. Yeah, yeah. Because that's if, if I ever do anything off Serato, I'd always do it BPM wise. So. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Right.

Where can people find you online?

So I'm at DJ M E L O D on Instagram. I have a Twitter or X and a Tick Tock account, but I'm most active on Instagram.

And I also, I started a, a Patreon channel about a year and a half ago where it's just a, a place that I post just mostly mixes and I got into live streaming during the pandemic. So I have some video content on my Patreon channel as well. So that's patreon.com DJ Melod.

And on occasion now when I have time, I still do jump on Twitch and do just basically a live DJ set.

And it's mostly just when I just feel like DJing or I get a handful of new music that I just feel like, you know, just kind of playing for myself mostly and if people want to tune in. But that's a Twitch TV DJ Melod.

Amazing. Great stuff. Well, yeah, thanks a lot for your time today.

Thanks for having me, Adam. Really appreciate it. It was great talking to you and awesome.

Yeah, let me know how you get on with the pitching up on the snare.

I will. I definitely, definitely lock that in the mental bank for sure.

Awesome. Thanks so much, man. Take care.

Okay. Thank you, Adam.

Cheers.