“It’s just moving your hand back and forth, turning on and off a sound. It’s not particularly complicated.”
When he puts it like this, Andy “Deviant” Connolly makes the complex choreography of turntablism sound very simple indeed. Connolly is one of the founders of the Community Skratch Games, a free, non-profit two-day event dedicated to the art of scratching records, held on the Easter weekend in Galway’s Bierhaus.
Alongside fellow performers Jimmy Penguin, Mikey Fingers and Tweek, Connolly has grown the festival from a casual gathering of friends with a common interest into a staple of the international scratching scene's calendar. This year is the festival's 10th anniversary and, for many scratchers, CSG is an established alternative to the usual circuit of competitive DJ battles.
“We found it was hard to get all the scratching guys together except for the battles,” says Connnolly of the festival’s beginnings. “That was a very stressful environment that wasn’t actually conducive to hanging out and showing people what you were up to. It was very focused on winning a battle; quite high pressure. We sort of wanted to do something that was more for the scratchers themselves. The initial idea was to invite everyone up for a barbecue in the house.”
“It was supposed to be some DJ sets and a DJ battle on the Saturday and a five-a-side soccer match on the Sunday between the MCs and the DJs,” adds Jimmy Penguin with a laugh. “It’s much more about cooperation and community and getting a platform to showcase what kind of stuff you’re into.”
Turntablism is a technical art-form, and the last 10 years have seen huge changes in the variety and availability of the technologies which make it possible. These developments – from CDJs to laptops to iPads – have been controversial for some purists, but the CSG crew have always kept an open mind towards those who want to experiment. These days, the setups change from act to act, everyone choosing their own favoured means of expression.
“The first year was two Technics and a mixer – that was it,” says Penguin. “Once we realised that it was becoming an established thing, that people cared and wanted to be involved, we realised that we weren’t actually tied down to these restrictions. In the second year, I was using Ableton Live, one turntable and a mixer. Mikey Fingers was using one turntable, a loop pedal and a bass guitar. Already, in the second year, we realised we could do whatever we wanted. Ten years in, it’s the same mentality but on a bigger scale.”
At the heart of the festival is the promotion of music over method; technique is always secondary to the emotional power of the sounds being created.
“We learn the technique, and we use the methodology, but that’s just a vehicle for making music,” says Connolly. “You shouldn’t need to know exactly how it’s done to appreciate it. You should be able to close your eyes and it should still sound good. Knowing how it’s done definitely helps, but you shouldn’t rely on that for it to be successful art.”
One outstanding issue among the scratch community is the issue of female participation. Even though they consciously try to “soften the maleness”, CSG has only been able to feature a handful of female performers over the years. This is perhaps a knock-on effect of the wider scratch scene’s focus on battles and their aggressive, macho posturing.
“I could see why anyone avoids that type of situation, male or female,” says Penguin. “There’s lots of competitions I’ve been to myself and I wouldn’t want to be there, I’d rather be somewhere else. I like to make people feel comfortable when they perform and when they get involved, so I’d hate for anyone to feel that way. It’s a community effort to make any scene grow outside of a gender or an age group. It takes everyone getting involved to make people feel welcome.”
As well as a loyal audience on home turf, CSG has developed a strong network of peers around the world, with performers from all corners of Europe and the US coming to Galway over the years. These relationships have been reciprocal, and Connolly says that watching people perform, particularly in Brighton and Oslo, made the Irish crew try harder to up their skills and match the quality they were experiencing elsewhere.
“When I went to Brighton, I got my ass handed to me,” he says, still sounding chastened by the experience.
More importantly, these international friendships have driven home the importance of the collective work ethic and the strengthening of relationships over time – key elements in any DIY endeavour.
“Scenes don’t just happen overnight, you have to really put in the work,” says Penguin. “You have to go out and make stuff happen if you want it to happen, and a good crew is the best way to get anything done. Just building the crew is the main thing. It was a few like-minded people here, a few like-minded people in the UK, each of us out on our own making these connections and then when we brought it all together we thought, This is really working, really worth putting time and effort into.
“The more people you have involved, the more stepping stones you have to create something special, to make it grow, to make it lasting and expansive.”
Community Skratch Games takes place in the Bierhaus in Galway, March 25th-27th. Entry is free
