Influences: Eddie C

My friend in grade 6 introduced me to the ‘Raising Hell’ cassette from Run DMC and we listened to it on repeat constantly. I bought my own copy too… at Zellers in Cobourg I think. This was before ‘Parental Advisory’ but I still had to hide it from my parents. I loved Run DMC so much and had an idea of what Jam Master Jay was doing. I really wanted to try scratching. For my 10th or 11th birthday my parents bought me one of those all-in-one stereo systems with the plastic shit turntable on the top. I think I cut up an old pair of pyjamas to make a slipmat and took one of my mom’s records. The console that I had, you could push down the phono and tape buttons at the same time and MIX! This made it possible to scratch over top of the cassette that was playing. The double cassette thing was also very interesting… wait a minute… I can record this beat I like, press pause and then record it again!!

My best friend’s older brother was into Depeche Mode and New Order and turned us both on to a radio show he was listening to. This was late ’87. The show also played Hip Hop, Chicago and British Acid House and popular Dance music. I started recording various shows and did so every week until around ’94. I still have all my old tapes. Early on I liked dance music but I was still more about Hip Hop and scratching. That changed when I heard Pump Up The Volume. It was this hypnotic rhythm with samples and breakbeats AND scratching. I’d never heard anything like it. ’87 was really when sampling took off in a huge way. I started to notice the same beats or sounds or vocals in different songs.

Thanks to the radio, I found out where to buy records! I used to go to the city to visit my grandparents and it was my grandmother that would have taken me shopping. I was really looking for rap music or any records with breakbeat loops and scratching! I was also getting into Hip House and Acid House that was popular at the time from both Chicago and the UK.
’87 and ’88 was when sampling really took off in a huge way. I started to notice the same beats or sounds or vocals in different songs.
Some of the first 12″s I bought were the Coldcut remix of Eric B. and Rakim’s ‘Paid In Full’ and ‘Beat Dis’ by Bomb The Bass. Both influenced heavily by Pump Up The Volume. Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock’s ‘It Takes Two’ and Fast Eddie’s ‘Yo Yo Get Funky’. Both using the same break. I swear I bought every ‘woo yeah’ record. 45 King’s ‘900 Number’ and Chad Jackson’s ‘Hear The Drummer Get Wicked’. A theme was developing. The next year there were a hundred tunes that used the ‘Paid In Full’ break from ‘Ashley’s Roachclip’
I do remember not thinking of music in terms of genres. There was just music I liked and music I didn’t like. I didn’t really differentiate between Public Enemy and Todd Terry for example. Or Fast Eddie and S-Express.

Between ’88 and ’92 the music was changing so fast it was crazy.
I turned 16 in 1992 and as soon as I got my driver’s licence… boom! Even though my first party experience was life changing, I’ll never forget thinking that I’d missed so much.

Where I lived in Ontario wasn’t that far from Detroit and Richie Hawtin was a young Canadian’s gateway to Techno City. What an adventure back then… so loud and dark! Detroit really opened up a completely new way of looking at electronic music for me.

In the late 90s I was still in Ontario and started to buy older records for the first time. I really started digging in ’01 after I moved out west. This was around the same time the film ‘Scratch’ came out. I got back into Hip Hop at the same time and caught up on all the stuff I missed while I was busy raving.

I’ve been a skier all my life… except for the past few years in Berlin. Something’s gotta change.