I Was There. I Saw The Legend.

Friday, 24 November 2006
Tripod, Dublin

Grand Master Flash walks out on stage. He picks up the microphone, says hello and then asks everyone to make some noise. After walking back & forth across the stage, raising his arms he says, "OK y'all. When you come to hear GMF there are 3 rules. The first rule is: when I tell you to make some noise, you make some mother fuckin' noise." The place goes wild. "Alright, alright. Rule number 2. When I tell you to raise your hands in the air... you raise your mother fuckin' hands in the air." Again - madness. He must of been caught up in the moment because there was no third rule. But it didn't matter because he dropped 'The Mexican' by Babe Ruth and we were off.

Surprisingly he let that song play for about 2 minutes before he rewound it and stopped it. Just to be sure he said "Is everyone having fun yet?" Screams. "I can't hear you. Tell me again, is everyone having fun yet?" Louder screams. "Now, I want all of you to sing this song. I want you to put your mother fuckin' hands in the air and sing this mother fuckin' song." He drops 'Everyday People' by Arrested Development and it seems like the place will collapse from the noise. Everyone is singing and dancing. Sorry, everyone is mother fuckin' singing and mother fuckin' dancing.

This all continues for about 10 minutes. He drops a song, lets it play for about a minute or two, asks the audience to mother fuckin' do something and then drops the next song.

But, he has someone on stage with him. I can't remember his name - DJ D or DJ Demon or DJ Dread. It doesn't matter. Whoever he is he has been trained by GMF and is his protege. More accurately, he is his be-atch. They both go to the back of the stage and return with a stack of records. Flash scratches the current tune, be-atch has his arms extended with the records, Flash takes the one on top, puts it on the turntable and within 5 seconds has it cued, scratches it and goes to the next song. He does this with about 10 records in less than 2 minutes. He is a fucking legend. And that is what I came to see. He never misses a beat, he never makes a mistake. He is unbelievable. He is a legend.

While he is letting some of the music play a bit longer, he cleans all the records he is about to play. In fact they played an interview with him before he came out on stage and he said that he never, ever touches the grooves on a record unless he is mixing / scratching it on the turntable.

The rest of the show is him sharing time with DJ be-atch. He played some new stuff but mostly old school tunes (as you would expect) while DJ be-atch played the newer stuff.

Some of the highlights were:

He was playing a song, started scratching it and says "I don't care what anyone says. He IS still the mother fuckin' King Of Pop." And drops 'Billie Jean'. The place goes wild. He mixes in 'Don't Stop Til You Get Enough' and then plays 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. He tells the crowd to sing and is able to perfectly loop (on the decks) the bit where he says ma ma se, ma ma se, ma ma coo sa over and over again, killing the song to let the crowd sing it as well. Then on the other turntable he starts the song over from the beginning. Quality.

He played 'Let's Dance' by David Bowie and then stopped the music to tell a story. He explained how he has travelled all over the world and has bought records in every place that he goes to. He is always on the lookout for a new song, a new beat. And, "It doesn't matter where the record is from or who made the record. If it has good mother fuckin' beat then Flash will play it." He then dropped 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' followed by 'Seven Nation Army'. Absolute quality.

There was only one 'mistake' made all night. He went to start a record and nothing happened. Silence. He took the record off the deck and said, "Yo, DJ be-atch will you get me a new needle? This mother fuckin' one is dead." And just started the next tune.

His real name is Joseph Saddler and he was born on January 1, 1958 in Barbados. When he was young his parents moved to New York and he grew up in the Bronx.

He became part of the early NY DJ scene and played illegal parties outdoors with Kool Herc, Pete Jones and Kurtis Blow. He took the art of scratching records to a whole new level and he invented cutting. Cutting is when he loops a break by playing the same record on each turntable. He cues each one up at the same place and then uses the cross fader to cut back and forth between them while back-cueing the other to play the break again. This rhythmical manipulation and repetition of a record is what made him famous. He was the first one to do it and it blew everyone away when they heard it. He claims he invented it becuase he just got bored of listening to DJs play entire songs and having to wait for the best bit - usually the drum break.

He also used what he called "The Clock Theory" quickly find and cue a particular section of a record. He would study records and then mark sections on them with either tape or crayon.

After playing for a few years, he began to assemble MCs to keep the crowds going. Apparently his skills and the way he played was so captivating that people would just watch him and forget to dance. He brought MCs along to ensure that the crowd kept moving and didn't get distracted.

His nickname was given to him in high school because he hung out with some dude called Gordon (Flash Gordon). And he was called Grandmaster by someone at a party who told him that he was the equivalent of a chess grandmaster.

In 1980 he signed to Sugar Hill Records and in 1981 released 'The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel'. It was the first single that displayed his talents and used 'Another One Bites The Dust' by Queen, 'Good Times' by Chic and 'Rapture' by Blondie as the main parts of the song. In 1982 he released 'The Message' with Melle Mel & The Furious Five and in 1983 they released 'White Lines'. Unfortunately in 1984 the group fell apart and did not record any more records.