DJ HUDGE

Following the passing of MCA last Friday, the good people at George FM asked me to do a 20 min mix on Nick D's Breakfast Show this morning as a tribute to the great man. Its a bit rough around the edges but hey it's morning radio...that's my excuse.

The world will be a quieter place without Adam Yauch...

Gone but never forgotten...

John Peel was an absolute legend in the UK. He was the longest serving DJ on BBC Radio 1 playing truly eclectic tunes from 1967 until his death in 2004. Through his love of new music and enthusiasm for music outside the mainstream he became responsible for the discovery of many a band/artist. There are a surprising amount of people who owe their careers to this Liverpool FC supporting DJ.

Throughout his life he amassed one of the most important and celebrated record collections in the world. Recently his family have given exclusive access to the collection which includes over 25,000 LPs, 40,000 singles and many thousands of CDs being made into an interactive online museum allowing a tiny glimpse into this incredible collection of music.

Each week his family will pick out the first 100 records from 'a' through to 'z' from this painstakingly organised bounty to give us an exciting insight into the man and his collection.

I want to take this opportunity to give crazy props to my homeboy Leroy Nockolds (www.ahsh!t.com) for his part in archiving and presenting this online museum. What a joy that must have been to work on...

A bit late on this I know, but I've just seen these 30th anniversary 1200's. From the creation of the 1200 mk2's in 1979 by Matsushita in Japan they have gone on to become the most important musical instrument in the world of Hiphop and DJing.

I think these are a tribute from a company called Next Sound. Their 30th anniversary edition looks pretty dope with its back lit platter and with the double start/stop button (like the Numark TTXUSB) in each corner, moving the 7inch record centre up towards the tone arm. It also looks like they have finally been internally grounded (I've had my 1200's internally grounded for 4 years now courtesy of the Deck Doctor in London) which makes life a hell of a lot easier...no more sweating and fiddling around with the poxy grounding wire.

Unfortunately on 1 November 2010 the Technics 1200 production range was discontinued. Panasonic made the following statement on the DMC World Championships home page.

Panasonic reactive statement - Production of analogue turntables has ceased

Panasonic has confirmed that it ceased the production of its Technics-branded analogue turntables this autumn. After more than 35 years as a leading manufacturer of analogue turntables, Panasonic has regretfully taken the decision to leave this market. We are sure that retailers and consumers will understand that our product range has to reflect the accelerating transformation of the entire audio market from analogue to digital. In addition, the number of component suppliers serving the analogue market has dwindled in recent years and we brought forward the decision to leave the market rather than risk being unable to fulfill future orders because of a lack of parts.

I don't know for sure but I feel there is a bit of a resurgence towards the tangible beauty of vinyl and a seemingly ever increasing amount of DJs are closing their laptops and going back to playing vinyl only sets. No one can argue that the feeling of owning and collecting vinyl way exceeds having a digital collection and the sound of 12inch vinyl is also arguably superior to that of its digital nemesis.

Even with over 3,000,000 Technic 1200 mk2's sold, maybe, hopefully, with this renaissance towards vinyl there might once again be a gap in the market place that only these fantastic bits of kit can fill. Saying that, I've had mine for over 15 years and taken them around the world to many a party, rave, jam, show and they are still going real strong. What an investment!

Ahead of tonight's Boom Bap at Rakinos in Auckland (with King Kaps doing a DJ set alongside myself and Base FM's Dylan C) I thought I'd share this great interview on 'My World FRESH'. These guys have been involved in the game here in NZ since day dot and have been responsible for breaking boundaries, pushing limits and continuing the high standards in production and straight up skills here in New Zilla!

Full respect!

My homeboy - and old primary school mate - Jonny Cuba (from Ninjatune's Dynamic Sycanpation) and Audessey (formerly of Mass Influence) came out with this ILL album in 2009. It won album of the month from Hip Hop Connection and Juno and is just the sort of music the Hiphop scene has been missing. If you slept on it, don't worry, it's not too late! Its available from the bandcamp link above and on iTunes so, go forth and support good sheeeet!

THE BOOM BAP NZ

After enjoying a successful year of THE BOOM BAP in London in 2011 I was keen to keep the momentum going here in NZ. By luck I found Rakinos. A family business and great venue on High St right in the center of Auckland and for years has been setting the high standard of Hiphop and good music in AK. The perfect home for The Boom Bap NZ!

To kick off the first one I approached two pillars of the Hiphop community in AK. Firstly we have DYLAN C, ill DJ and station manager at NZ's BASE FM and last but definitely not least, I can only describe him as straight up royalty of the NZ Hiphop scene, KING KAPISI.

http://www.facebook.com/events/261508807276693/

The flyer that got away. This was designed by my homeboy DJ Shredded Pete for the Boom Bap Xmas party before I left London. Normal story. Shortsighted venue owners that pulled the plug a week before the jam. Anyway, I thought I'd share this flyer. Modeled on A Tribe Called Quests 'Midnight Marauders' LP we paid respect to all the peeps who had been involved in the Boom Bap for 2011.

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