(SPIN) ready … set …

EVERY AIR-GUITAR head in the ‘80s wanted to be Steve Vai. Skip the basics, bring on the flashy solos and speed riffs. Spokane DJ Cheddar Chad sees the same attitude when he is approached by beginners who want to learn the tricks of the turntable trade.

It reminds him of a lesson he learned while attending a workshop with upright bass master and jazz legend Ron Carter a couple of years ago when he came to Sandpoint.

“He went off on this middle-aged woman who was just learning to play. He goes, ‘You, B flat,’ and she started sweating bullets,” said Cheddar Chad, aka Chad Rattray. “Then he snapped, ‘Everyone wants to learn the fancy stuff. When I practice, I practice the scales.’”

Just as with upright bass, or electric guitar, or any other instrument, learning the basics is the first step to mastering the wheels of steel.

Read on for more needle tips from local deejays Cheddar Chad, Breezy Brown, Brainchild, Spince, Messiah, Parafyn and K.O. Wax.

Two turntables and a microphone

OK, the microphone is optional for deejays but, unless you’re a CD jock (see sidebar), turntables – that’s plural, as in two – are not. Technics 1200 are the gold standard for deejaying. Brand new, they go for about $500 each. Luckily these bad boys are built like tanks, so don’t be afraid to buy a used pair.

Actually, many deejays recommend starting used.

“I tell guys to get the cheap stuff, so if you don’t like it, you’re not throwing away a $1,000,” said Breezy Brown, aka Tony Brown, owner of vinyl record store Unified Groove Merchants, 2607 N. Monroe St. “I got my first wheels at the pawn shop.”

Messiah, aka Jason Purdie, prefers starting with top-of-the-line gear. The tech-house breakbeat deejay has invested in needles made specifically for scratching, glow-in-the-dark tips for night clubs, $100 headphones with replaceable parts and more than $3,000 in flight cases to transport his tables.

“Spend the money. If you don’t like it, sell them on eBay. But it’s hard to get good on a Toys R Us setup,” said Messiah, who teams with DJ Elevation on Thursday nights at Twilight Room, 112 S. Monroe St., and Saturdays at Aki’s Sushi Bar and Grill.

Whether used or new, most deejays agree direct drive is the way to go because it has more torque than a belt-drive turntable.

“If you are even halfway serious start with Technics 1200 direct drive,” said Brainchild, aka James Singleton. “I started with belt drive. Those sucked. So I sold them and got direct non-Technics and went through those just as fast.”

Depending on your needs and your budget, a speakers-amplifier/ headphones-mixer combo completes your basic setup. And you’ll need to replace needles periodically.

Know the ledge

Of course your turntables are useless without a seasoned ear to play the right records at the right party in the right sequence.

“Your turntables are like pots and pans. They are secondary to what you put in them,” said Spince, aka Spencer Davey, while on his way back from a record shopping trip in Portland. “Knowing your crowd and how to satisfy them is more important than how you match a beat.”

Inevitably, a good deejay is going to need lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of records.

Brainchild spends up to $800 a month on eBay refreshing his catalog.

“Buy as many different musical styles as possible. Don’t pigeonhole yourself early,” said Brainchild, who moved to Los Angeles last month to work for underground heavyweight Peanut Butter Wolf’s Stones Throw record label.

Good places to start hunting for vinyl locally are Unified Groove Merchants, Realside Records, 4607 N. Nevada St., and 4,000 Holes, 1502 N. Monroe St., and thrift stores. Also try the Internet (check www.spokane7.com/soundwave for links).

For deejays in electronica and techno – genres where a song’s lifespan is measured in minutes – the best sources are online.

Messiah and Elevation each spend about $150 a week on records that will become eBay fodder four months later.

“Staying current on tracks is a full-time job on its own,” Messiah said.

Skills to pay the bills

Once you get your turntables, it’s time to put them to use.

Right away it might seem tempting to start scratching – rhythmically manipulating the record to the cross fader so it makes that cool wokka-wokka sound – but beat blending – switching from one record to the next by matching the tempos of the beats without interrupting the song – is the foundation of deejaying.

“Learning how to scratch before you can blend is like a track star playing football, or a wide receiver that can’t catch,” said Cheddar Chad.

Known mostly for his cobra-quick scratching, DJ Parafyn wishes he would have started with blends.

“I went totally the wrong way of learning how to deejay. I tried to scratch first. When you scratch, you don’t grasp the concept of mixing a beat. You’re just making noise. Once I learned how to mix, my scratching took off,” said Parafyn, aka Joel Olson.

A white-hot club deejay, Parafyn was taught how to mix by K.O. Wax. The two have appeared at night clubs together, and both deejays had shows on the now defunct hip-hop station Wild 103.9 FM.

“Learn the math to your songs; whether they have a 30-beat intro or a 32-beat chorus,” said K.O. Wax, aka Mike McCauslin. “I can’t teach you what songs sound good together, you have to hear it in your head.”

Essential to blending beats is knowing the BPM, or beats per minute, on a record.

This can be done by tapping along with the beat on a drum machine, using a metronome, or even tracking your watch’s second hand and tapping your foot to the beat.

Organize your records by BPM, so you have quick access to songs that have similar tempos.

After you master basic beat blending, you can move on to more complex techniques such as scratching and beat juggling – using two copies of a record to rearrange the beat to create a new drum pattern.

In order to pull off even the simplest vinyl maneuver, though, a deejay has to have a sense of rhythm.

“Kids come here to learn the one thing they lack that you kind of have to be born with – rhythm,” Breezy Brown said. “You have to be able to clap on beat. If you don’t have rhythm and you want to be a deejay, you have your work cut out for you.”

Nearly every deejay starts as a bedroom deejay, in his cocoon with a copy of “Thriller” and a pair of headphones trying to make a fresh scratch out of “ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa.”

Most end there as well.

“Treat it like a high school sport,” said K.O. Wax, who deejays in clubs five nights a week. “I’m still a bedroom deejay. I used to spend three hours a day practicing. One morning I went from 9 a.m. to 7 that night and I didn’t even eat. That time just slipped away.”