this book is brilliant

[MisterDuck]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Night-DJ-Saved-Life/dp/0755313984/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/026-8894334-9391661?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188323479&sr=8-2

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: 100 Years of the Disc Jockey

the amazon review of it is outdated btw, the new edition focuses more on acid house and stuff, the readers reviews are good though

basically it's history of the disc jockey, through 100 years. it covers acid house, the illegal rave scene, us rave scene - it has a whole chapter called "outlaw" on the oppression (or whatever) on the dance scene, coverin the CJA etc.

and the ridiculous reaction of the US to "rave" there, it's really shockin that part, some of the stuff the us govt have done is ridiculous

but it also covers stuff like northern soul and reggae, well throughout 100 years really, everythin is there

it's written with wry humour, expecially about the government - the authors are very liberal in it and quite obviously support things like legalisin drugs and the rave scene, and really take a dig at certain things, as well as bein funny

but yeah, i loved it, just to say i reccomend it to anyone


:bounce_fl

[kaito]

Yeah tis a quality read.


Not sure it covers 100 years - doesn't it start with Jimmy Saville in a working mens club in Leeds in the post second world war era??? Or is that a different book?

Not sure, got a few similar books in my bookcase at home.

[MisterDuck]

it might be an older version - i bought the centenary edition last year, but it was first released ages ago i think

[kaito]

Ah right - yeah, late 90's I got hold of a copy

[General Lighting]

100 years? possible, but it would have started with someone playing tunes in the street on one of those old wind up gramophones :laugh_at:

[kaito]

I know the edition I've got starts with what it calls the first live DJ performance with Jimmy Saville taking a record deck and a mic to a working mens club in Leeds and playing records and introducing them with the mic to a live crowd - think this was in the late 40's or early 50's. According to that edition this can be regarded as the first ever live performance by a DJ and where it all began...


God only knows what they could have been doing 30 odd years before that!


Edit: actually he may have had two decks wired up to reduce time between records, but certainly no mixer

[MisterDuck]

100 years? possible, but it would have started with someone playing tunes in the street on one of those old wind up gramophones :laugh_at:

1906-2006

to quote the book

"2006 is the centenery of djing, because at 9pm on Cristmas Eve 1906 Canadian engineer Reginald A Fessenden, who had worked with Edison, and who intended to transmit radio waves between the US and Scotland, sent uncoded radio signals - music and speech - from Boston to a number of astonished ships telgraph operators out in the atlantic"

it's a good book, the endin bit called "outlaw" and about all the clampdown shit is the best tho

[d.r.e.a.m]

were can i get a copy?would love 2 know as it does sound like a good read!!!:bounce_fl

[General Lighting]

Edit: actually he may have had two decks wired up to reduce time between records, but certainly no mixer

I have a collection of old (1950s era) books on "wireless and electronics" which mention public address systems of the time (unfortunately these books are still at my old house in Reading or I would scan one of the pictures).

In most of these systems they show the mixer as part of the amplifier, with a single fader for "gram" (gramophone pickups), but mention how two turntables can be attached to this using a changeover switch...