A couple days ago, I got an email from a completely anonymous person, basically just letting me know that he liked what I did in the "Scratch" documentary. Anytime anyone hits me up like that, I immediately feel 2 things: appreciative and undeserving.
Being a part of "Scratch" really is one of the crowning achievements of my life. For those of you who aren't aware of it, "Scratch" is THE quintessential documentary of Turntablist culture. I'm very much a purist when it comes to how Turntablist and Hip-hop culture are represented, and in my opinion, "Scratch" really captures the lifestyle, essence, and mindset of these cultures really well. And if you can't take my self-proclaimed flim expertise as an acceptable voice of authority, it also got a lot of critical acclaim at the Sundance film fest in 2001, and gained nation-wide and international theatrical distribution. Turntablism has since peaked and declined. This means the likelihood of someone doing another turntablist documentary, let alone a half-decent one, are very slim. What does all this ultimately mean? It means that for anyone who has any curiosity about DJ's, there's a decent chance that this movie will make it into their DVD player, and as a byproduct of that, my music will continue to reach new people. This is why 10 years later, I'm privelaged to still get appreciation for my work. I'm fully aware of how rarely this happens in the Turntablist work, and there aren't really words to express how blessed I feel with this.
While I take a lot of pride in my music, I'm also fully aware that sometimes it just comes down to pure luck and circumstance that can yield success. My exposure in "Scratch" is the perfect example of that. There are so many other DJ's that have put on ridiculously amazing performances that I'd want to watch 100 times more than mine, but way more people have and will be exposed to my stuff simply because the film crew happened to want to film at that place, at that time, at that year of competition. I've always been terrible about accepting compliments on my music because of stuff like this. I just got lucky. There are so many other DJ's out there that more deserving of that short 30 second clip than I was.
At the end of the day, I just feel very blessed for the situation. As undeserving as it might be, it's a great feeling to know that your music has been and will be heard by so many people, and that possibly you might inspire someone to do something of their own. And there's absolutely nothing that isn't beautiful about that.
...Except for the fact that I've learnd that I now have an IMDB profile that tells me quantitatively how much more or less popular I am from week to week. As of this writing, my popularity is down 74%. DAMN IT!
Vancouver Bullet Points
I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my blog before, but my band blacKMahal was invited to perform at the Olympics in Vancouver. It's only been a couple days, but so much stuff has been goin on, it's really difficult to organize my thoughts in a cohesive manner. So I'm taking the easy way out. Just gonna post some random bullet points instead. I'm here until Sunday, so if you're peepin this beforehand, I'll be updating this as I go.
- Playing at such a major event still doesn't make getting to the airport at 5:30AM easy.
- If you blacked out and woke up in Vancouver, it would take you a while to figure out that you're in another country.
- Canadians are the nicest people in the world, except when they're drunk. Then they're the second nicest people in the world.
- Don't fuck with the Hell's Angels
- Red Truck Lager: a new favorite
- The broadway renditions of blacKMahal songs aren't that bad!
- It's awesome having your own suite
- It's more awesome to be faced with this dilemma when you enter your own suite: What do I turn on first? The lights or the fireplace?
- If you blacked out and woke up in Vancouver, there's 90% chance you'll wake up with a starbucks right in front of you. 10% chance you'll wake up with a starbucks right behind you.
- Last time I broke in brand spankin new DJ equipment was about 14 years ago. These feel damn nice.
- Got full blown winded running to the last row of seats
- blacKMahal dance troupe? I could get used to this.
- It's even more awesomer to turn off the fireplace, leave your own suite to go the women's figure skating medal event, seeing your country DESTROY the competition, setting a world-record, and winning your country's first gold medal in that event. All while you're sitting behind a full row of your country's rivals and biggest competition.
- Tim Horton donuts are poorman's Krispy Kreme.
- Tim Horton coffee are poorman's Dunkin Donuts coffee.
- Had the best toast and butter I've ever had in my life.
- Never knew Canadians were so prideful. Literally 90% of the population here are wearing shirts with some kind of "Go Canada" print on them.
- SF Gate finally showing some blacKMahal love.
- WTF is up with required coat check?
- Have confirmation that my racist Chinese accent is still funny outside of US borders.
- My (platonic) love for Korea's figure skating gold medalist, Yu-na Kim, has been well documented by the global press, as you can see in paragraph 4 here.
- The dressing rooms at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre remind me of my summer school class rooms at Faye Ross jr high.
- So many different accents here.
- Never thought I'd walk into a bar that's just about to explode cuz of a women's hockey game.
- A cafe with the name "Amsterdam" is probably what you think.
- Such a tease to be this close to Whistler and not be able to snowboard there.
- Playing at such a major event still doesn't make getting to the airport at 5:30AM easy.
- If you blacked out and woke up in Vancouver, it would take you a while to figure out that you're in another country.
- Canadians are the nicest people in the world, except when they're drunk. Then they're the second nicest people in the world.
- Don't fuck with the Hell's Angels
- Red Truck Lager: a new favorite
- The broadway renditions of blacKMahal songs aren't that bad!
- It's awesome having your own suite
- It's more awesome to be faced with this dilemma when you enter your own suite: What do I turn on first? The lights or the fireplace?
- If you blacked out and woke up in Vancouver, there's 90% chance you'll wake up with a starbucks right in front of you. 10% chance you'll wake up with a starbucks right behind you.
- Last time I broke in brand spankin new DJ equipment was about 14 years ago. These feel damn nice.
- Got full blown winded running to the last row of seats
- blacKMahal dance troupe? I could get used to this.
- It's even more awesomer to turn off the fireplace, leave your own suite to go the women's figure skating medal event, seeing your country DESTROY the competition, setting a world-record, and winning your country's first gold medal in that event. All while you're sitting behind a full row of your country's rivals and biggest competition.
- Tim Horton donuts are poorman's Krispy Kreme.
- Tim Horton coffee are poorman's Dunkin Donuts coffee.
- Had the best toast and butter I've ever had in my life.
- Never knew Canadians were so prideful. Literally 90% of the population here are wearing shirts with some kind of "Go Canada" print on them.
- SF Gate finally showing some blacKMahal love.
- WTF is up with required coat check?
- Have confirmation that my racist Chinese accent is still funny outside of US borders.
- My (platonic) love for Korea's figure skating gold medalist, Yu-na Kim, has been well documented by the global press, as you can see in paragraph 4 here.
- The dressing rooms at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre remind me of my summer school class rooms at Faye Ross jr high.
- So many different accents here.
- Never thought I'd walk into a bar that's just about to explode cuz of a women's hockey game.
- A cafe with the name "Amsterdam" is probably what you think.
- Such a tease to be this close to Whistler and not be able to snowboard there.
Dumataka
Everyone, meet Nirmal Narayan (in his PJ's). Nirmal is one of the world's best players of a traditional indian drum called the mridangum. When I say one of the world's best, I mean one of the world's best. This guy tours and performs more than his arch nemesis, Lady Gaga, fo sho (maybe I'm making the nemesis thing up). This past weekend, he had a couple shows in the Bay area, and while he was here, we did a small collabo for the upcoming Blackmahal mixtape. Take a listen...
Blackmahal - Buddy - Nirmal Narayan Mridangum Solo by Jay Slim
We've been friends for years, but for one reason or another, we've never gotten down until now. The whole contrast of the collabo was off the hook. On my side, I'm working with all my high tech gear, like my 2-way magnetically shielded studio monitors, dual-core processing computer, and firewire analog-to-digital external soundcard and control surface. On his side, Nirmal's working with a simple drum with leather surfaces, that you tune with a friggin STONE (literally a round rock that looks like it came out of a river bed) and DOUGH that you could actually eat. One of my favorite sessions to date.
Stay tuned for the Blackmahal mixtape coming soon...
