DEEP SCRATCH

Tag: Music

  • With John Sinclair And A Wall Of Legendary Guitarists

    With John Sinclair And A Wall Of Legendary Guitarists

    Jumping from an article in the Detroit Metro Times, about The Damned performing in Detroit, I was reminded of the session with Brian James, March 11th 2011 at Kingston College. The John Sinclair Beatnik Youth session.

    It was unforgettable and overwhelming, the sound, the characters around. The detailed liner notes of the CD listed all those on the session, and includes an extensive contribution by Mick Farren. My google search returned the usual AI summary, and I continued to “ask more questions”. The results below are accurate to my understanding, but then again, my remembrandts r’ a bit fuzzy.

    The rather simplistic, straight ahead facts about the session and musicians and tracks get it down. I’m reminded how I’ll never get to play on a live session like that again! Not least because Brian James and Keith Levene and Mick Farren and George Butler and Howard Marks and John Sinclair are no longer around, but…their recorded music and words and inspiration live with us, through us and all about us. If you don’t know find out. Testify!

    There’s still a lot of other musicians and contributors to Beatnik Youth who are not mentioned below, such as the drummer George Butler (who I had to nervously follow) and Howard Marks. Jesse Wood is also on the album! Holy smokes. What a band.

    To hear what it’s all about, or support visit:
    https://johnsinclair.bandcamp.com/album/beatnik-youth-2

    All Love, Steve Fly


    “The creation of Beatnik Youth was split into two worlds: a legendary live “wall of guitars” session, and a long post-production layering process done by producer Youth and engineer Michael Rendall, who integrated external guest samples and studio tracking. [1, 2, 3]

    The comprehensive list of musicians involved in the album is divided by their location of contribution: [1, 2]

    🏫 The Kingston College of Music Session (Live Tracking)

    These musicians gathered in person on March 1, 2011, to lay down the massive, live improvised grooves that formed the instrumental foundation for tracks like “Brilliant Corners”, and “Sitarrtha”. [1, 2]

    • Brian James (Guitar – The Damned / Lords of the New Church)
    • Keith Levene (Guitar – The Clash / Public Image Ltd)
    • Alan Clayton (Guitar & Vocals – The Dirty Strangers)
    • James Sedwards (Guitar – Nøught / Thurston Moore Group)
    • Steve Fly (Drums / Project Management) [1, 2]

    🎛️ Post-Production & Studio Additions (Not at Kingston College)

    These artists contributed either by having their work sampled and re-contextualized by Youth (often pulling from overlapping studio sessions), or by tracking their vocals/instruments directly at Youth’s private home studio: [1, 2]

    Jesse Wood – Guitar.

    Youth (Martin Glover) – Played bass on all tracks, programmed electronic layers, and acted as the main producer.

    Michael Rendall – Keyboards, synthesizers, and engineering.

    Bobby Gillespie – Lead vocals/guest vocals on “Culture-Cide” (pulled in from Primal Scream sessions).

    Primal Scream – Provided programming and instrumentation for “Culture-Cide”.

    The View – The Scottish indie rock band provided the prominent backing chorus hook on “Culture-Cide”.

    Howard Marks – Spoken word vocals on “War On Drugs” and “Culture-Cide”.

    Zodiac Mindwarp (Mark Manning) – Guest vocals.

    Mark Stewart – Guest vocals (The Pop Group).

    Robb Spragg (Larry Love) – Vocals on “Culture-Cide” (from Alabama 3).

    Angie Brown – Insidious soul choruses and backing vocals.

    drummer Steve Fly (Steven James Pratt) recorded his primary contributions during the March 1, 2011 session at Kingston College of Music. He served as a main drummer, project manager, and executive producer for the Beatnik Youth project. [1, 2]

    He plays drums on the following tracks:

    • “Brilliant Corners”
    • “Change My Life”
    • “Sitarrtha” (where he uses dampened sticks on the toms)
    • “Red Dress (Ruby My Dear)” (where he provides a softer, ambient jazz texture using brushes) [1, 2]
    Beatnik Youth by John Sinclair

  • Love Is The Only Thing That Matters At All After All

    Love Is The Only Thing That Matters At All After All

    A lush out testament to the diva conversation, the female voice, heartache call and swing response lotsa’ soul, soul, the antidote to a world at war. Come back, sit back, turn it up, saturate yourself with voices, songs. Press play, make you feel. Artists supported via bandcamp, supported by fly patreon-camp, cheers.

    –Lotsa Love Steve

    A graphic image featuring a cat alongside a person working at a music mixer, with the text 'LOVE IS THE ONLY THING...' and the names 'DJ FLY' and 'AGORIC 23' displayed prominently.

    [01] Lizzie Steiner – Cherish The Day

    [02] Eryka Badu x Alchemist x Thundercat – They Ain’t You

    [03] Alabama Shakes – Tied To You

    [04] Cleo Sol – Their Smiles Are Not The Same

    [05] Ego Ella May – Tarot

    [06[ Ella Fitzgerald – Let’s Face The Music And Dance

    [07] Eryka Badu – Love Me Not

    [08] Alabama Shakes – This Feeling

    [09] Norah Jones – Travelin On

    [10] Nate Smith Feat. Brittany Howard

    [11] Hiatus Kayote – Red Room

    [12] Alabama Shakes – Garden

    [13[ Aretha Franklin – Love Is The Only Thing

    [14[ Cleo Sol – Family Ties

    [15] The Cinematic Orchestra – Leave The World

    [16] Sault – Wild Fires

    https://www.patreon.com/stevefly/posts/love-is-only-at-171049351

  • Box Of Monk

    Box Of Monk

    Box Of Monk by Steve Fly

    This album is my tribute to John Sinclair and the music of Thelonious Monk, in the most innovative way I see fit. Every sound you hear originates with my voice, humming, beatboxing, live into a microphone. With the added sources of uncle Tim in the Amsterdam studio, I fixed up these mixes or blends of the live voice takes and the Uncle Tim experiments.

    The Book Of Monk Continued….

    John Sinclair wore many fine hats, one of which was the beret of the investigative jazz poet. His 40 year tribute to the life and work of Thelonious Monk, always know: a book of monk, focuses on his deep self confessed ‘obsession with completeness’ his nutty aim to write a poem for every Monk composition. I suggest the continuation of what he started, as a tribute to John and to Monk.
    I’m instigating a new series of collaborative productions in music and verse, laying groundwork and formulating a plan to complete what John started.
    Box Of Monk is the shared beginnings of my process of building a bed of music and poetry. Stay tuned for more uploads to this album and The Book Of Monk Continued…project.

    Make it new. All love.

    –Steve Fly Agaric 23
    21/06/26

    Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”―Thelonious Monk

    Picking up the joint and running with it, I’ve boldly produced 10 poems, interpretations and a tribute to the investigative jazz poetry of John Sinclair. Seeking to sound unique enough to warrant a serious tribute to innovation and making it new, yet familiar to those who knew John and appreciated his incalculable impact on modern American culture, poetry and activism.
    The songs are performance by example, demonstrable appreciation for the artform and for John and for Monk. These songs are also meant to be a calling to the others who may put one or two poems together themselves and imagine what the Book Of Monk project is all about and begin a new exploration.

    Dedications and special thanks to: Celia Sinclair / Ed Sanders / Leslie Lopez / Leni Sinclair / Larry Hayden / David Amram / Frenchy / Peter N Nevraumont / Kai Eckhardt / T.S Monk / Tom Worrell / Peter King / M.L Liebler / Carey Loren / Mark Sampson / Youth / Adam Brook / R.J / Jeff Grande / Jair Rohm and friends worldwide.

    Edited, Mixed and Arranged by Steve The Fly 10/10/26. Turntables, piano, vocals, and beatbox by Steve The Fly. FX engineered by Uncle Tim. 2026 

    credits

    released June 20, 2026

    All music by Steve Fly. Mixed by Uncle Tim 2026.

    https://stevefly.bandcamp.com/album/box-of-monk

  • Ambidexless – A Blend

    Ambidexless – A Blend

    it’s a pleasure to introduce a new mix-blend selection of mostly beatless music AKA Ambient, fished out from Bandcamp, this sounds are soundtrack like, mellow, spaced and paced by design. A step to the left and back from the recent bass heavy booming breakbeats that might send the neighbours into a tizzy if played too loud, too late, too often. These are chill out and kick back atmospheres, a varied palette of moods and evocative incentives for your ears to pick up on.

    This mix got me to thinking so I’ll share some thoughts about heat, and the term hot-house, Sauna and Greenhouse. Just riffin’, Saunas for human beings, Greenhouses generally for plants, (humans are a bit like plants), then there’s the Greenhouse Effect…a bit like a Sauna effect but for the earth’s atmosphere, and the delicate climate balance, earth’s thermostat control system. Complex.

    One distinguishing feature shared by Saunas and Greenhouses, I guess, is that they’re usually under human control, the trained expert who know the limitations, sweet spots and comfort zones. The Global ‘Greenhouse’ effect has no such all powerful thermostat dial, to be controlled by man. So music for saunas is music for the heating up of the planet and cooling off of human beings, to chill out may also mean to warm up in a Sauna, or if you’re a plant, in a greenhouse, a controlled environment.

    The sharp contrast and flip between hot and cold seems like a powerful force across scale, materials and technology. Geology, thermodynamics and data hardware depend upon stable temperature parameters. Like wearing six hoodies and thermal underpants in a sauna, or swimming with no wet suit in the North Sea after eating ten choc’ ice’s, these sharp contrasts are testing human capacity to adequately house and feed everyone. I conclude, burn less fossil fuels, utilise the natural abundance of untapped energy in wind, water, solar and novel natural carbon capture technologies. I’m drifting… 

    Perhaps, i muse, the exercise of imagining contrary environments of the tepid to warm to glowing to hot to boiling to freezing to cold to chilled to breezy and around. Melting and freezing, melting and freezing. Perhaps Dali’s melting clocks, captured and frozen in time, via painting, or memories of times on the beach, or in a sunny warm summer meadow, blended with memories of building snowmen or making snowballs or crunch through snow as you walked. The smell of summer perfumes and aromas both rural and urban, and the ozone of ice, coldness and damp. I dunno, just riffin’ here.

    Enjoy the music.

    https://www.patreon.com/stevefly/posts/ambidexless-mix-160519960

  • Loves Labours Lost Mixtape

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  • Makes Me Wanna’ Hurl

    Makes Me Wanna’ Hurl

    An off the top verse, put to mic, plus freestyle guitar take added post production. Rough. x Fly.

    A new boom-bap to bop the old mad christers,
    Time to take a stand make a band and eat oysters,
    War porn torn across villages and cities
    Building up the war machine with Jesus throwin’ fiddies,


    Hey listen up you dutty man, misreading scriptures uncle sam, which,
    Clog the arteries and fuel the devil archers from the marching forgeries,
    Blowing up schools, hospitals and mortuaries,

    The dead can’t talk but these fingers can tap,
    Dance to the speaker and double rap to my black cap sap lap, your honour
    Slipped in some marijuana now I’m wanted by the hour to throw a cake made of flower,
    Flame sewer sour tower power dower cower for cover, spittin’ bars for my brudda,

    Rake mower grass seeder automatic inter breeder, success and suck seeda’
    Hop in my pan, I fried ya’
    A kindred spirit beside yer’ inside we take slide to
    The outdoors shaped like a funnel spider

    When I see dem’ killa girl, it mek me wanna hurl,
    Killing the innocent and so what be their punishment
    When he see em’ kill a girl, god get angry on the whirl’d
    Blowing up schools what a whirl what a whirl 


    Spun out like a spinning top at the audacity they got,

    War ain’t holy it’s phoney a mugs game of the lonely,
    Bombing away the life they say they give, if only,
    They’d wake up in time space, recognize they out of phase-traced,
    The error of their ways and face the stinging tear gas haze laced    

    With memories of once womb innocent babe
    All from the cradle but some sent early by Trump cabal to their graves,

    They digging and the cabal dancing on em’ then builds a big ball room,
    To swing little dick, sing bronze age dogma like a sequence of strokes,
    Who buys this shit except the business spivs and talk show hosts,
    The return of Jesus on a winged horse, just say neigh
    Not even Elon on Ketamine riding Pete Kegsbreath with wings, let us say,
    Our men don’t support fascists they destroy them,
    Put that in your pipe and smoke it while losing to von neumann

    When you unabashedly kill many little girls, or protect those who do,
    You get the worst place in hell a really low place that’s true,
    That’s the trump fash’ axis pedo power far-wrong netanyahoo,
    Sorry to break it to you but to put this song into review,
    You target innocent young girls and murder them in cold blood without a sorry,
    Shame on you, you lack any moral high ground everything you say is dud and folly
    I’m counting down days until yer trial upon the tally,

    https://substack.com/@stevefly
  • DJ FLAI vs udio – HIP SLOP

    DJ FLAI vs udio – HIP SLOP

    Many of the great artists I admire said little about their work, leaving it to speak for itself. Generative AI provides a lens and amplifier to let what started as thoughts, evolve into sound waves and moving images. This is a part of the once fictional narrative of Deep Scratch (A Tribetable Novel). I’ve gone full pelt into the AI landscape and here present some of the highlights, as Hip Slop, a mux type.

    Read more: DJ FLAI vs udio – HIP SLOP

    Hip Slop is AI collaborative text to sound to video collage, as a beat tape, what was engineered to sound like a vinyl mixtape from 1999 or there abouts, the hey day of turntablism, old school boom bap, static, blunted beats, muted jazz, and weird lyrics. Note that all lyrics and turntable speak are original Steve Fly Agaric compositions, besides the few hallucinatory excursions into LLM garble-gumage. These audio selection were produced over the last 18 months, some AI remixed versions of old tracks, some only play out for a few bars, others are left alone.

    Many of these tracks are released via bandcamp in the Deep Scratch vs Udio series, here selected, mixed and blended using Djay (for I-Pad). No real turntables were harmed in the recording of this mix. No real singers, musicians, or real engineers were consulted, insulted or catapulted into orbit during this recording. This DJ Flai mix is a part of the Deep Scratch Universe. The Novel and accompanying works Deep Scratch Remix, and, Between The Groove, help add context. A DJ Mantis, DJ Tardigrade and DJ Fly become world champions in a human universe, but at what expense to the rest of humanity, history, time and spirit? Remind yourself this is science fiction, everything you see and hear is machine learning and neural nets, sewn together by the current author into sound things and moving light things, and any resemblance to real living things is purely coincidental. As a DJ and drummer, musician and writer my work entails building stronger ideas and methods and putting them into practice, performance IRL.

    I hope you strive for that too. In the meantime, as somebody who perpetually hears music and sees somewhat psychedelic visions, I shored a few from some deep dives, for your enjoyment, analysis and meditation. If the goal of the Deep Scratch project was musical time-travel, this mix demonstrates success in some sense. Outlines and new directions for The tale of the tribe. A snapshot from an alternate universe where turntables turn fables, narrative decodes, writes, reads. I hope this finds you well. All love. –Steve Fly

    deepscratch.net

    stevefly.bandcamp

    patreon.com/stevefly

  • 7 Minds – garaj mahal

    7 Minds – garaj mahal

    7 Minds (An Oz Ezzeldin Composition)

    ​ 7 minds Written by Oz Ezzeldin ⁨@GarajMahalMusic⁩ is: ⁨@FareedHaqueMusic⁩ , Kai Eckhardt, Oz Ezzeldin, Hassan Hurd. Video content generated using Gemini Veo. The creator intends to plant a tree for each full video and encourages anybody who enjoys this video to go support a local artist, or plant a tree, or both! Visit http://www.garajmahal.us and Patreon.com/stevefly

  • BRD – GARAJ MAHAL

    BRD – GARAJ MAHAL

    BRD:

    ​⁨BRD Written by Fareed Haque. @GarajMahalMusic⁩ is: ⁨@FareedHaqueMusic⁩, Kai Eckhardt, Oz Ezzeldin, Hassan Hurd. Video content generated using Gemini Veo. The creator intends to plant a tree for each full video and encourages anybody who enjoys this video to go support a local artist, or plant a tree, or both! Visit http://www.garajmahal.us and Patreon.com/stevefly

  • dj mantis

    dj mantis

    Lyrics by Fly

    Give me a D.J!
    Give me an M
    Give me an A
    Give me an N
    Give me an T
    Give me an I
    Give me an S

    MANTIS! Yeah....

    It's the return of the Mantis,
    From out of your dreams, 
    Scratching and cutting up the beats, so it seems...
    This is no D.M.T. trip, (oh no)
    This is deep scratch and fly lyrics straight off the lip. (trippa trip trip trippa trip trick-nology.
    Flip it Mantis...
    Pray. Who's ready to eat?