Jake, Jay Dee, and Me. March 2006
I came across a mix in my archives and it got me thinking. The passing of my grandfather, Jake, and Jay Dee (aka Dilla) is at the heart of this mix. Both events happened around the same time. I titled the mix “Jake, Jay Dee, and Me.” Here are the mix, a few of my photos from the time, and my thoughts at this moment.
I knew my grandfather only a little bit better than I knew Jay Dee, which is to say, not at all. I’ve never met Dilla in person but always felt his music on a deep level — like most of us. I had only just begun to have a relationship with my grandfather, but felt that I’d known him all my life. Their passings moved me and inspired me to make a mix.
Mixing has been my reply to social discomfort for the longest. In fact, the reason I started DJing was so that I had a reason to be at the parties without needing to find other cool people who could validate my coolness. I never had the confidence to do parties with any level of comfort or fun. I was(?) a Herb as in Herbert.
The literal sound of this mix says so much about that time. The needles were dull and faded from so much scratching with two copies of the latest hottest instrumental. No money to spend on new needles, the sound distorts a bit. Completely based on vinyl, your hear the mid-blend manual pitch corrections. Perhaps my mind wandered for a moment and I lost focus. Maybe I heard gunshots or loud shouting or someone drove down the street with a system so loud and bumpin that I couldn’t keep the rhythms separated in my ear’s mind.
When this mix was recorded I was living in “Ocean Hill,” an ambiguous area in between East New York and Bedstuy. My records and my turntables took up the entire living room.
Sometimes I would go in there at night when it was completely dark, turn on all the equipment- so that only its little red, green, and blue LEDs were visible — and just work on those turntables. Mixing in the dark with records and sounds I was so familiar with there was no need for light.
The mesmerizing strobe pattern of light on the Technique 1200's red pitch indicator.
Records in positions in crates that never changed. Different plastics, different shapes. Long and wide (hard to carry when full), thin and sharp (a crate from Bed Bath and Beyond — for example — looks stylish, but would cut the shit out of your hands if you weren’t careful). I shelved the vinyl and that helped to hold everything. But there was always overflow — and usually a party to do, or one that just happened.
