DJ Shadow / Cut Chemist

Chapter 1: "Brainfreeze" - Back in late 1999 / early 2000, DJs Shadow and Cut Chemist hit the road with a novel concept - 4 turntables and nothing but old funk 45's. Not just playing song to song to song, but a frenetic blending sounds, drum breaks, and vocals from various songs to create a whole new musical soundscape. Or as they put it, "A nonstop live mix of strictly 45's and exercise in vinyl destruction." At each show, they sold a CD entitled "Brainfreeze", which contained 2 warmup sets of them spinning vinyl before the tour, and only pressed about 1,000. Almost instantly, copies of the CD began showing up on eBay, going for $100-200 apiece. Collectors began to deconstruct the CD, trying to itemize all of the basic songs from the set. Eventually those 45's began to turn up on eBay themselves, each going for north of $25. A new funk craze was reborn.

Chapter 2: "Product Placement" - It's now 2001, and they're at it again. A whole new world of 45's. A whole new CD. A whole new excursion into funk.

Links of note:

DJ Shadow's homepage: http://www.djshadow.com.

If you'd like, you can email me here: richard@hearingmusic.com.

Oh, and all content on these pages is copyright Richard Lewis.