Kickin' that itch, an interview with John Carluccio, Barry Cole, Excess and IXL

This interview took place at off_corso in Rotterdam, during the Blacksoil Film Festival 03, which saw a screening of Battlesounds (John's documentary about HipHop battle DJs) and a Hop-Fu showcase as part of the afterparty on the first day. As well as having directed Battlesounds, John was also associate producer on "Scratch" and co-creator of the TTM. Barry Cole is a respected music supervisor who has worked on many mainstream films, and DJs IXL and Excess are talented and respected DJs who have both paid their dues on the battle scene, and worked on many different projects. They are part of the Kolabz crew along with Mike Boogie and Sugarcuts.

In addition to this interview you can check our reviews of the Hop Fu Showcase and the Blacksoil Festival which are located in the reviews section.

So how did the idea for Hop-Fu come about?

Barry Cole: Well in ‘98 John Carluccio and I talked about Battlesounds, his documentary, and whilst at the Winter Music Conference we were at a party where the X-Ecutioners were spinning, and on the way back we started talking about how VJs were starting to incorporate visuals everywhere, and DJs and turntables were coming up, and how could we incorporate similar elements of VJing into what these guys do, and then John mentioned that he had always wanted to do something with Kung Fu flicks, having them remixed by DJs and I was on the same vibe and had done some video samples before. So we got together and the first incarnation of it was Rob Swift and Roc Raida from the X-Ecutioners doing it at this place in Brooklyn called the Anchorage in 1998. And it was un-rehearsed, we had two clips, one from "The Bronze Man" and one from "5 Deadly Venoms". Sound was horrible and things didn't go according to plan, but one thing was for sure: people just couldn't take their eyes off the screen. So the concept was there and we knew it had potential all it needed was a bit more rehearsal and a couple of steps further to turn it into something that was actually watch able and enjoyable.

John Carluccio: Then we kind of left things out and then in 2000 someone wanted to do a double screening of BattleSounds with another film and I said that I was working on this thing called X-Fu (the name at the time due to the work of the X-Ecutioners) and then we said we'll call it Hop-Fu, and get some other DJs to do it. And at the time I had met the Kolabz, through touring Battlesounds and organising DJ events, and I thought they would be great guys to do it. So we got together and we picked a film, "Prodigal Son", and then spent about two months playing records, watching the different scenes, matching up records, cutting them up, cutting up scenes and images and then we did it in December 2001 for the first time live. That was our first feature and then from there we just took it on tour and we have been showing it around since.

BC: The great thing was that John is a director and visionary of sorts and I am a music supervisor, meaning that I know the processes needed to break down a film and marry music to the images. The combination of the two of us on a project that incorporated turntables and movies was perfect because we were able to come in and break it apart and put it back together into something coherent.

JC: When we first hooked up with these guys (Excess and IXL) we showed them a short sample Barry and I had put together, and then we kind of all sat round and put records down for the project, but push comes to shove they had the last say cos' they are the ones playing the records and doing all the work really, being on stage and all that...

So how was it for you guys? How did you get your heads around the concept?

Excess: When John first came to us we was down with it, it was a cool idea. At the time as well I was feeling like the artform was bland you know? Battles are bland, music is bland, everything was bland and so this idea was like rejuvenating some of it and turning it around. It is also something that is different and that a different audience could get into instead of a guy standing on stage for 60 minutes doing routines or whatever. It's cool I really like it, still enjoy doing it and touring.

And have you been using what you do with Hop-fu for your other musical projects?

Excess: yeah kind of....

IXL: We do other visual projects as well, which are similar to this. Like we did this thing with Barnstormers. Which is this crew of graf artists from New York. We did a show with them, which involved music and visuals together.

Excess: Yeah we put music to pictures and there was also a film.

IXL: Which we also put the music to. And they had cameras on the night, which took pictures and we were trying to fit the music to that as well. So yeah we have done visual work before.

JC: but the good thing is that DJs aren't just playing parties anymore, they can also be composers. They can play to the moods, if the crowd is getting violent they got to cool it out, if the crowd needs to get excited they need to play the right records. So that ability to express feelings and communicate that through records and their manipulation, was something that I could see and wanted to put across with this project. And with the movie it has become obvious that you guys can be composers. And you can control a movie.

It opens up another aspect of the artform of DJing, in the same way that Radar's work with his concerto does. It breaks away from and embraces hip-hop culture at the same time, and marries it with another element from a different culture and brings it to more people.

Excess: It helps to relay more of your ideas as well. D-Styles had his launch party, where Ned Hoddings were playing with the Beat Junkies, and they had visuals for their show, and we had visuals for our show which we tried to incorporate with the music as best as we could. There are moods within the pieces we play and we try to play the visuals in with that.

It helps enhance the whole experience for the audience as well...

Excess: yeah it's not as direct as something like Wave Twisters, it's more abstract.

Would you say that is something you are starting to see more of now in the scene in general?

Excess: Yeah, Future Primitive does it and have been doing it for a while.

Do you see your use of visual elements as similar to what VJs have been doing for a while?

JC: The thing is I don't know if what VJs do is as literal to the music as stuff like this is. The VJ is in his corner doing his thing and the DJ is in his spot doing his thing, whereas with something like Hop-Fu you know that what you are seeing has something to do with what you are hearing. That's what we try to do.

Is there a lot of improvisation in the show or do you rehearse and prepare most of it?

Excess: Scratch wise it's improvised. We do some of the sounds and if the needle skips then we just work it out on the spot.

JC: Overall there are a lot of cues we use to time things out. Both visual and audio.

Excess: Yeah the Missy Elliot bit that's a perfect example of a visual cue (check Styluswars for the sample in question). It's hard because people watch you mixing for 60 minutes straight and then if a record skips it sucks, you might miss your cue and so you got to have a certain amount of leeway. Even if a record skips, you got to be ready and pick it up straight after that.

And what about the fact that there are a lot of electronic DJs and producers who have gone into film scoring, do you think that with the way in which the artform and the music, that people like you make, is going we might start to see turntablists scoring full length movies?

JC: Exactly! I mean this is why we are here and why we do this, to show that it can done and when you need us, we are here. And that's why we have Barry with us, because he is the music supervisor on films and he knows how things are done.

BC: Yeah I see it in the work that I do on movies. I've been working on a TV series we have in the states called "Streetime", which is coming out on DVD and we got producers and DJs to come in and do music for it, to add to the program. And I do see a change in the industry on both sides, things are changing because now people are considering getting producers to do the music for their films, instead of getting a traditional film composer to come and do an average soundtrack. They want something that is a bit more different and has more punch. It's helping to change things and up the ante for everyone.

And if we could talk about BattleSounds quickly. Where is it at in 2003, what you are doing with it?

JC: Well we are still trying to get it around, get people to see it. People have become more familiar with it. I'm now trying to get it onto DVD, with all the footage and extra bits I filmed.

Isn't there like 5 hours of footage or something like that?

JC: Yeah there is a director's cut, which is probably more like 4 hours and something, so I'd like to get that out onto DVD.

That would be great, it's the type of stuff a lot of people would like to see.

Excess: Yeah man some of that footage needs to be seen!

JC: It's got to come out and be done properly if I am to do it on that level, to publicly release it. It will get out there, and it gets better with time too, which is great. The main issue is still being able to clear a lot of the footage, sounds and stuff like that. You know it is still a documentary that looks at a lot of talented kids, guys, women and men, doing something really talented, and that is also really self-empowering. No one taught them how to do it, they learnt from each other. And they were doing it, they were really focused and I had the opportunity to shoot that, and I saw it and I thought "I have to tell the story, I have to get the story out". And so anything I could do to try and show how amazing that artform is, I'm going to try and do it. And really BattleSounds is just one way to shine a light on an artform that is totally underrated by mass media.

It's similar in ways to what happened with the National Phonographic Festival that they had here in Rotterdam about two weeks ago. Because a lot of the people that showed up at the festival, weren't necessarily into hip-hop or turntablism, but they came to see the shows anyway.

JC: Yeah I had a similar experience with BattleSounds when it was shown at the Whitney Museum, in New York. After that event I had quite a big mailing list from that, and I would have turntable festivals in New York, and I would end up with a lot of people from the underground hip-hop scene in New York and then all the kind of high art people that had come to the Whitney Museum and seen the film. And it was this weird mix of audiences, and I would show the movie and then have the live events, and it was a way to get people to see this artform on film and then show it to them live so that they could really understand and realise what it is.

You were giving them both sides of it in a way. And was BattleSounds originally meant to focus on the Battle DJs?

JC: Yeah that is where my passion was really, I know that there is a lot more that could have been looked at. I mean just the levels of sophistication of technology that they have at their disposal, maybe I didn't focus a lot on club DJs or tape DJs, well there was a couple of club DJs interviewed. But you know to me that is someone else's documentary. You know reading a crowd and playing to a crowd is a really hard thing, but turntablists do read a crowd in their own ways and that's what I wanted to show as well.

I was curious to see what you thought of the current DJ Battle scene, after doing all this work for your documentary. Do you agree that it seems to have reached a certain level where things are a bit bland, and the amount of innovation that was there in the early, mid and even late 90's just isn't there anymore?

JC: It's changed of course, I don't know if it has reached a certain plateau where it won't change. I mean after Jazzy Jeff it was like no one can beat transforming, and then a few years later someone came out with the flare, and everybody was like "whoa!" So there has always been these little plateaus, it used to be each year, like each new NMS, DMC or even now ITF, something else would come out to push people further. Things do seem to have reached a level with scratching and now beat juggling, and evolution is slower.

Wouldn't you say it is also more available to people now, with equipment, videos and stuff like that.

Excess: It's cool that it's become more available, but I feel like the artists who are picking up their games are like "it's cool that other people are coming into this", but the ones who were shy, are staying shy. These guys are the ones who are staying on a more minimal tip, it doesn't have to be about how many scratches you can do, or how fast you can be. It has to come back to the music, for there to be some more progression. You don't really want to hear someone scratching 16 bars for the sake of it, you want to hear scratching as part of a musical composition, I think.

So do you follow the Battle scene still?

JC: Not as much, I had the opportunity to do some work for DMC, but I had a hard time trying to shoot the battles. Since finishing BattleSounds, I get hired as a shooter, which is kind of funny. So I do get around for that reason but not as much as I used to. It's weird because I don't rule out that something might happen, that some kid might come out and break the rules all over again. But I think that a lot of the DJs are getting older and that the emotion that the music will have will change too. Just like it happened with Jazz artists. It is a good comparison, some of the early turntablism and hip-hop stuff, are like swing and then with Coltrane later on Jazz turned into be-bop and hard-bop. And there was a point where you wouldn't see people dance, but people would be looking at the artist doing his stuff, and not really do the dancing thing, whereas with swing people would most always be dancing.

A bit like the DJ Bands that are starting to come out, like what you guys are doing with Ned Hoddings.

JC: Yeah that is a good example.

Excess: For us it's a bit like, we don't want to be club DJs, because then it's the music that is more important than the DJ itself, like if you are doing a jam, who gives a fuck who is behind the decks, as long as its good. Battles are great because you are the entity, for those six minutes you are representing yourself. And with the band it's different because you are the entity, within a group, with your own music, and you are moving the crowd. It's like a combination of all these different stages of being a DJ, like a total.

A consensus...

Excess: Yeah. You can have respect in your artform and still be the entity. Still be a respected artist, and have respect in your game. It's important now that DJs go out and play their own music, and tour it. It's high time some DJs changed their attitude towards their music, because if you go out and see someone scratch for 45 minutes, what are they saying? What are they supporting? Nothing, but then you have bands like the Rolling Stones who have lots of albums and who are always touring because they have lots of albums! It makes sense that DJs start doing stuff like that.

Yeah it's important that the work you guys are doing with Ned Hoddings gets more attention. Like the other guys, like Lamont and his DJ Big Band, these people need to be supported.

Excess: Yeah exactly, we talk a lot with them. Lamont and his guys they have their shit locked down, they know what's going on. Vinyl Ritchie and Tigerstyle from the UK are also doing stuff and that's really good. And at least it finally feels like its progressing you know? And it's weird because Lamont is a great scratcher, I'm a great scratcher, D-Styles is a great scratcher, but who's funkier composition wise, who has the funkiest music? That's what it needs to come down to. Who is the better musician?

The way you talk about it is great because, that's what is really good about tablism right now, is the ability for guys like you to come together and jam and get the best out of each other, again in a similar way as jazz artists and other musicians did and still do.

JC: It's funny because we don't want to just stick to the jazz analogy but we find ourselves in that position all the time. It is limiting in a sense, but it is a good analogy, and when people had jam sessions in jazz and you would have someone come in and cut in with a horn, well that's a similar spirit to what has happened with turntablism. You have people who come in and cut in with others, and sometimes they let it go and sometimes it doesn't work, but the spirit is there. And this familiarity with jazz is I think why the analogy is so used, but I love that idea and I hope that it continues.

Excess: Yeah jams are a great thing. Not many DJs know notes, or how compositions should be built, how things must come together. They might be great scratchers, but they are really just down to that, they never reach anything else.

BC: It also comes down to knowing your place too.

Excess: Exactly, it's so true. We have this song, composed by Mike Boogie, called "Listen". And D-Styles has a main solo in it, and I do a part in it, which is more in the background, but it's a pivotal part, it might not be exciting, and you have to accept these conditions, everyone can't be the lead or the main attraction.

So do you guys have any classical training? Or have you learnt stuff as you went along?

Excess: Ummmm... everyone can play an instrument a little bit, D is learning to play the drums right now, and Mike is working on chords, and I play guitar a little and keys too. Nicks is really good with rhythms, he's got great rhythm. Toadstyle can just hang really well musically, like he'll be able to jump in on anything and add to it, but I don't think any of them really have any real musical background or training. I just came across a bunch of guys who asked me if I wanted to be part of this thing they were putting together. Mike Boogie was in our group, the Kolabz, and we were doing different stuff but then he moved to California. And when I met Toadstyle, in like 2000, 2001, we just started working on stuff, we would be sending out tracks to California, and then Mike would send something back to Toad in Chicago, and then to me and back to California. And then we put stuff together and D-Styles was actually the first guy who gave us a chance to perform live, at the release party for the Phantazmagorea album. D was really feeling what we were doing and he was working on similar stuff for the launch party, which took place at the Knitting Factory.

And who is Ned Hoddings then?

Excess: Ned Hoddings is me, Mike Boogie, Ricci Rucker aka Nicks and Toadstyle.

So is Ned Hoddings a band more then a DJ crew?

Excess: Yeah we are like a band, we work on different musical projects together. D-Styles, Mike Boogie and Nicks came out to Italy and Spain as Gunkhole, and they are working on different stuff as well. I'm in Miami teaching at the moment, Toadstyle is in Chicago, so they are working on some other music together as Gunkhole. But then all of us together, including this guy Gio based out of Seattle, who no one has really heard of yet but who is sick on the cut, we go under the name of Bastard Language. And we have done some stuff including a West Coast tour and now we are trying to set up a UK tour, so hopefully that will come together in the near future.

And are you still working on Styluswars? Because you were Director of Operations for a while...

Excess: Yeah Styluswars is still going on. Defame set it up with me, when he left Tableturns, he was drifting away from the company and so we set this up together, to get some stuff out there. I'm just trying to keep it there you know.

Is there a healthy sense of competition would you say, on a label side of things between you guys and the other similar labels?

BC: The thing is the major labels are all still refusing to acknowledge the presence and growing popularity of musicians like Excess, and so these people are going to want to strive for some sort of outlet for their stuff. Somewhere for them to just spread their music

Excess: That's one of the reasons why we started our label. We were trying to get stuff out on other people's labels and they wouldn't take it so we just set up our own. Bastard Language is actually also a company we are forming, which is Styluswars, Epitome of Fresh (which is Mike Boogie and Nicks' label) and D-Styles' label, which I think, is called Disgruntled. So Bastard Language is our company, to try and get ourselves bigger and better distribution.

How do you feel about what Q and Yogafrog are doing with their company ThudRumble?

Excess: They are cool, they distribute some Styluswars products. You know the thing is when I come overseas and I don't see the products in shops I get nervous. I see other records distributed through other people in there, and so it's bad that my records aren't there but other people's are, mind you sometimes not even theirs are there. So the distribution side of things is something that needs to be controlled a bit more I think, because it's the main part of it. When it comes to distribution now I try to sell to a lot of independents, because why have two middle-men in my chain of distribution when I can sell the stuff to the shops directly myself, you know what I mean?

I find Thud Rumble real interesting because they are building this company, with a lot of interests in a lot of different businesses, but at the core it is formed by turntablists and does represent their work and the artform to the rest of the world.

JC: A bit like a Def Jam type company

Exactly they are like the first company to really make an impact on the media and other aspects of American culture, even worldwide, but with a strong slant on what they love.

Excess: I think if we talk about US Stores, Turntablelab is a more rounded, better store then Thud Rumble. With Thud, you still have to sort out deals with them, whereas Turntablelab is more willing to take your products and see how well they are going to do. There are people out there who are willing to do business on common terms, and Turntablelab is one of them. I mean it started out as a two man operation, out of a NY apartment and they have built on that really well.

IXL: also they really understand the culture, and can relate to it. You know we need people like that. It's good for everyone...

Excess: yeah they are a good operation man.

And can we switch back to your work on Turntable Notation John?

JC: Oh yeah! It's called Turntable Transcription Method.

We spoke to a load of people about it when we did the DMC finals and the Beatdown, trying to see how people related to it and so on. So what was it that motivated you to do this?

JC: Yeah the transcription thing is basically a tool that I kind of stumbled onto. The way it came about was that I was doing a lot of work on video, and editing them using non-linear tools, like Protools, and timeline stuff, and then it was basically combining stuff from that which I had been using along with stuff that I had learnt in architecture school, and then I just came up with a way to chart the movement of the record, as well as the portion of the record you are using. And when I was doing BattleSounds I was talking about it with Babu, and Rob Swift and a number of other DJs about how it could be used to copyright the music, exchange ideas and teach other people. So that is kind of what the motive behind it was, and what I also realised while doing it, was that even though you may have the notes to any song, what you bring to it will shine beyond anything else that is written or taught to you. And I think that is the most important part, because sometimes people get lost, even when they look at tapes, and they study that shit to death, and if they don't bring their own signature to it, then they have missed the point. And I remember when I interviewed Cutmaster Swift, he was talking about when Cash Money won the DMC out there, people were studying that routine for time and so much so that they even ended up copying the mistakes! And that's not the point! You can use this either way, as a way to study or a way in which you would do a video. To me I'm a very visual person and I translate things into images first, I hear music and I see images. And that's how I thought it could be used, like if someone wrote something and then was like, "right how does this sound?" But the important thing is to make sure that the spirit comes out of the music, the notation shouldn't dictate the music. It's really a tool, like if I had an idea for a song, and I want Excess to play this part and this part, you can look at it together and then make changes and play it and take it from there. But yeah I would be quite interested in hearing what people had to say.

Yeah the reactions and answers have been quite far and wide. A lot of the DJs we spoke to, who were battle DJs, said they had heard of it, but hadn't really had the time or occasion to try it out. The most interesting was the French guys, C2C, who won the team, one of them uses a hybrid of yours and A-Trak's system to help kids he teaches to remember that there are more then one type of scratch. The German guys, Noisy Stylus, also mentioned they used similar mnemonic systems to help them remember when they came up with something that sounded good.

Excess: Having something visual like that definitely makes it easier when you are trying to teach something to someone. Even my students in Miami, when I teach scratching, like something which is a progression of forwards, like a forward into a chop into a stab, John's system where waves get shorter is a really good visualisation of that. You understand that less sound is coming out, stab meaning really fast, chop middle and forward extended. So it makes more sense.

JC: Yeah I didn't understand what a flare scratch was until I drew it! I did it and then I was talking to Rob and I was like "right so where is the cut? Is it at this point or this point?" And then I could do it. But I definitely think that it's a good thing that we put it out there. I did it at the time with two friends and then DJ Radar came out with his own system as well. And the thing is his is closer to classical systems and it's just crazy, the guy is so talented and he is doing mad things with it. When we did it we knew that Qbert and other people had their own system they were using, but it was more like up lines and weird shit, and it was really like morse code. And then A-Trak had his, but it wasn't designed to be for a long piece it was more for like individual scratches. And Radar was more based around Western music notation.

I wanted to ask you, because Radar's is based on classical notation, did you purposefully not go with a system that was based around classical notation?

JC: For one I don't know jack about classical music, and second it made more sense for me because you can also talk about the portion of the record you are using. And what I like is that you can also use it to work with a band, which Radar has also done with his, and the work he is doing with the orchestra. I'm thinking that someday there is going to be a hybrid of all these systems. Like what I put out, is more like a guinea pig, just trying to see if it would work. People will use it and customise it and get rid of things they think are not useful, and add their own stuff. I mean look at the first mixers, look at the way they keep changing, TTM is more like a scratchmaster right now, it's not even a Rane or a Vestax yet. It still needs to be adjusted so that it can truly become musician friendly I guess.

The artform and music is still young enough for something like notation to really grow up with it and start taking hold.

JC: Maybe it will take ten years for people to go away from it and be so far removed from it that when they see it again and they will be like "why didn't I think of doing this?" Or myself even.

Do you still work on it at all or have you left it for the moment?

JC: No I haven't touched it. I have been trying to get a book deal on it. I don't think it's going to happen just yet, but we were working on a hybrid with video or audio as well, where you would have a rub and then you would hear Theodore's voice telling you about how it came through. So that it would be educational as well as inspirational. But time will tell...

More info on Hop Fu is available at www.hop-films.com. The latest information indicates that a syndicated version of the concept on TV will see light of the day in 2005 as well as a DVD of the showcases. You can find more on Excess and IXL at www.styluswars.com.