Since venturing into the underground hip-hop scene as a teen-ager, the English DJ Andy Smith has honed his knack for spinning and scratching records all his own that has thrust him into the thriving club culture across America and Europe.
In the early 1980s, Smith first explored his craft at parties in his hometown of Portishead, England. Intrigued by hip-hop artists such as Kurtis Blow and Grandmaster Flash, Smith started to record hip-hop compilations, which he sold to kids at the local bus stops. Smith soon had enough cash for his first set of turntables; he spent the rest augmenting his then-scanty vinyl collection, which has since grown to monstrous proportions.
"I have a one-bedroom flat in London which is three stories and my collection sits on all three levels," Smith said. "I've never counted them, but there are probably thousands. Unfortunately, I have to throw out the old stuff because the new stuff is coming in."
Smith met fellow turntablist Geoff Barrow during a hip-hop jam session in a club in Bristol.
"At the time, Geoff had a sampler and turntable but few records," Smith recalled. "I would take crates of records over to his house and we would go through them to find samples -- as we still do it to this day, only in the studio."
Barrow was a member of the band Portishead and he soon recruited Smith to be the band's DJ guru. Smith traveled throughout the world opening shows for Portishead, exposing crowds to a medley of jazz, funk, hip-hop and rock music.
"For these shows, I set the scene for Portishead, trying to give the crowd an idea of the band's musical heritage," he said, "playing everything from the 1960s and 1970s soundtracks, jazz, funk, original breaks and even the odd rock record. I wanted people to hear Hendrix in the same performance as hearing reggae and ska. I wanted different styles of music coming together for one night of entertainment."
In 1999, Smith recorded "The Document," an album which earned him well-deserved fame as a solo artist, and looks to the future with "The Document II," set for release in September. "I thought it was time to move on and create my own name," he said of the record. "It has been an uphill struggle because so many people still see me as the assistant to Portishead."
Smith recently joined talents with fellow DJ Scott Hendy in a partnership called Dynamo Productions.
"We met each other and we were really into the same records, and really enjoyed the same music, so we decided to hook up," Hendy said. Hendy, also a hip-hop aficionado, lives in Bristol and exchanges ideas with Smith through the mail. "We live quite a bit away from each other, so we send mini-discs to each other and it works quite well."
As a member of the hip-hop collaboration Purple Penguin, Hendy has acquired his own worldwide acclaim as a DJ, and his own sizeable collection. He and Smith hope that one fringe benefit of their U.S. tour will be the opportunity to accumulate more records for their collections.
"America is a great place to buy records," Smith said. "It's exciting because you are able to share the records and reinvent yourself every night. When I buy a record, I go through it and I note certain points in my head where I might double up. I try to know the record inside and out."
The format of a Dynamo Productions performance features alternate spinning sessions from Smith and Hendy. The two then team up for the show's conclusion.
"The reception in America has been pretty good -- except when we played at a club in Chicago which was completely empty ... I couldn't quite fathom that," said Smith.
He and Hendy agree that one of the main differences between U.S. and English audiences is that Americans tend to lump widely varied music into a single category. "We play a lot of different and obscure stuff, and people ask us to play Puff Daddy. I think people automatically assume (that) because we play hip-hop we will have Puff Daddy."
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