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Michael Schwartz | |
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![]() Mix Master Mike in 2007 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Michael Schwartz |
Also known as | Mix Master Mike |
Born | San Francisco, California, U.S. | April 4, 1970
Genres | Turntablism, hip hop, rap rock |
Occupation(s) | Disc jockey |
Instrument(s) | Turntables |
Years active | 1989–present |
Labels | Grand Royal, Capitol |
Website | www.mixmastermike.com |
Michael Schwartz (born April 4, 1970), [1] better known by his stage name Mix Master Mike, is an American turntablist best known for his work with Beastie Boys.
Born in San Francisco, California, Mix Master Mike is of German and Filipino descent. [2] Mix Master Mike came to prominence upon winning the 1992 New Music Seminar/Supermen Inc. DJ Battle for World Supremacy in New York City, becoming the first West Coast DJ ever to do so. In the same year Mix Master Mike won the DMC World DJ Championships as a member of the turntablism collective Rock Steady DJs with DJ Qbert and DJ Apollo, establishing Mix Master Mike as one of the pre-eminent DJs in the industry. This success was followed by triumph in the 1993 DMC Championships, this time as part of the duo Dream Team with DJ Qbert. [3]
Mix Master Mike, DJ Qbert, and DJ Apollo were the founding members of the turntablist group Invisibl Skratch Piklz. [4]
In 1994 it was rumored that Mix Master Mike and Q-Bert were asked to retire from further competition, so as to avoid monopolizing the title. [4] [5] This claim is disputed by the DMC World Championship Website.[ citation needed ] After retiring from the world of competitive turntablism, Mix Master Mike and Qbert became judges for the 1995 DMC Championships.
Mike has also helped fellow DJs produce their own albums, most notably, Wave Twisters , by DJ Q-bert.
In 1995, he was honored with The Grand Wizzard Theodore lifetime achievement award from the International Turntablist Federation. He has collaborated with Ozzy Osbourne, Tommy Lee, Rob Zombie, Fela Kuti and Joss Stone, and a number of other artists.[ citation needed ]
Mix Master Mike's most high-profile work has been with hip hop group the Beastie Boys. Mix Master Mike worked with the band on Hello Nasty (1998), To The 5 Boroughs (2004), and Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (2011). He also appears on the Beastie Boys single "Alive", which was released in 1999 in support of The Sounds of Science retrospective anthology. From the studio to world tours, Mix Master Mike is now effectively the Beastie Boys' resident DJ, having replaced DJ Hurricane, who was preceded by Doctor Dré (not to be confused with Dr. Dre) who replaced Rick Rubin known as DJ Double R.
Mix Master Mike is known for his heavy-hitting bass and intricate scratch routines. His solo album Eye of the Cyklops won best electronic album in 2000 at the California music awards. In 2001 he released the album Spin Psychle. [6]
In 2002, Mix Master Mike contributed two tracks to Red Hot + Riot , a compilation CD created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to the music and work of Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti, that raised money for various charities devoted to raising AIDS awareness and fighting the disease and featured many other contemporary hip-hop and R&B artists. He remade classic Fela Kuti songs, "Interlude: Gimme Shit" and "Water No Get Enemy."
Mix Master Mike is often credited with inventing the Tweak Scratch. The scratch is performed by moving the record back and forth while the platter motor is stopped. The inertia of the platter causes the sounds to slow and drop in pitch in an unusual manner. He is also well known for the unusual technique of using a wah-wah pedal, an effect most commonly used by guitarists, with his turntables.
Mix Master Mike is featured as a secret character that can be obtained through a cheat code in the 2002 snowboarding game SSX Tricky . He also contributed the song "Patrol Knob" to the soundtrack of the NTSC and PAL versions of the 2000 game Jet Grind Radio.
Mix Master Mike is one of 9 artists who participated in thetruth.com's Remix Project, in which he remixed the Sunny Side song "Tough Love".
On March 9, 2010, Mix Master Mike was a guest on the Cool Tricks segment of Yo Gabba Gabba. In December, Mix Master Mike provided scratches for a cover of Frank Zappa's "Willie the Pimp", which appeared on the iTunes compilation The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAAAA Birthday Bundle 2010 , featuring rappers Darryl McDaniels and Talib Kweli and singing by Zappa's son, Ahmet Zappa. On December 2, 2010, Skullcandy and Mix Master Mike launched the official Mix Master Mike headphones, released in all major marketplaces including Apple stores, worldwide.
In 2011, Mix Master Mike joined Travis Barker for a few performances promoting Travis' debut album Give the Drummer Some - On February 10, 2011, performing "Can a Drummer Get Some?" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with Travis Barker, Game and Swizz Beatz, and On March 7, 2011, performing "Saturday Night" on Conan with Travis Barker, Transplants and Elvis Cortez. It was then confirmed that Mix Master Mike will be performing with Barker again, joining Barker on the I Am Music Tour supporting Lil Wayne, through March–April 2011.
In June 2011, it was announced that he was to present a Saturday night show on the alternative radio network Xfm from 6pm-7pm for an initial 13-week period commencing July 9. In May 2012, Beastie Boys, along with Mix Master Mike, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. In December 2013, Mix Master Mike became the first turntablist to perform at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for The Kennedy Center Honors in honor of Herbie Hancock, performing "Rockit"
In 2018, it was announced by B-Real of Cypress Hill that Mix Master Mike would be joining Cypress Hill.
In 2019, Mix Master Mike performed alongside Cypress Hill at a free concert in Vancouver, British Columbia at Vancouver's 420 Cannabis Festival to a crowd of 60,000 people despite efforts by the Vancouver Parks board to cancel the show. [7]
In 2023, Mix Master Mike opened multiple shows for Staind and Godsmack on their co-headlining United States tour.
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA system and/or broadcasting equipment so that a wider audience can hear the turntablist's music. Turntablists typically manipulate records on a turntable by moving the record with their hand to cue the stylus to exact points on a record, and by touching or moving the platter or record to stop, slow down, speed up or, spin the record backwards, or moving the turntable platter back and forth, all while using a DJ mixer's crossfader control and the mixer's gain and equalization controls to adjust the sound and level of each turntable. Turntablists typically use two or more turntables and headphones to cue up desired start points on different records.
Mixmaster may refer to:
Richard Quitevis known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert, is an American turntablist and composer who has heavily influenced the History of DJing. He was awarded America's Best DJ in 2010, was DMC USA Champion 1991 (solo) and achieved titles as DMC World Champion in 1992 and 1993.
Scratch is a 2001 documentary film, directed and edited by Doug Pray. The film explores the world of the hip-hop DJ from the birth of hip-hop when pioneering DJs began extending breaks on records, to the invention of scratching and beat juggling, to the more recent explosion of turntablism. Throughout the documentary, many artists explain how they were introduced to hip-hop while providing stories of their personal experiences.
The Invisibl Skratch Piklz are an American group of turntablists.
The Scratch Perverts are a collective of turntablist DJs from London, formed in 1996 by Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts and DJ Renegade.
The X-Ecutioners, originally known as X-Men, are a group of American hip hop DJs/turntablists from New York City, New York. The group formed in 1989 and currently consists of three DJs, including Total Eclipse, DJ Boogie Blind, and DJ Precision. Original members of the group included Mista Sinista, Rob Swift, and Roc Raida. Rob Swift and Total Eclipse formed a side project called Ill Insanity releasing one album together in 2008 entitled Ground Xero.
Rob Swift is an American hip hop DJ and turntablist. He was an original member of the turntablist group The X-Ecutioners until 2004. He has also released numerous solo albums and collaborated with various artists, including Mike Patton, Patton's project Peeping Tom, Dan the Automator and Handsome Boy Modeling School, Lords of Acid, Portugal. The Man, and Herbie Hancock.
Alain Macklovitch, known by his stage name A-Trak, is a Canadian DJ, record producer, and record executive. He came to prominence in the late 2000s as an international club DJ and remix artist, known for incorporating highly technical turntable skills and scratching into his genre-spanning work. He is also president of the record label Fool's Gold, which was founded in 2007, and is credited for developing the careers of artists such as Kid Cudi, Danny Brown, and Flosstradamus. Among other collaborative projects, he is part of the DJ duo Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for their song "Barbra Streisand".
DJ Lord, is an American DJ and turntablist. In 1999, DJ Lord joined the hip hop group Public Enemy on its 40th World Tour replacing Terminator X. Soon after, DJ Lord had his own performance segment within the Public Enemy show. While hip hop has been at the foundation of his career, he also works in the drum and bass arena. His career and the art of turntablism is documented in the DVD, DJ Lord - The Turntablist Chronicles, released in 2004.
DJ Disk is a turntablist from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is of Panamanian, Colombian, and Nicaraguan descent. Born Luis Quintanilla on October 7, 1970, in San Francisco, Disk began scratching and mixing vinyl at a young age. In 1992, he joined his long-time friend DJ Qbert among the Rock Steady Crew DJs, later changing the group's name to the Invisibl Skratch Piklz.
Turntablist Transcription Methodology, or TTM, is a notation system for scratching and turntablism. The system was founded by John Carluccio in 1997. A seminal booklet detailing the system was written and published by John Carluccio, industrial designer Ethan Imboden and DJ Raedawn in 2000. It is an intuitive graphical representation of the movement of a record whilst performing with a turntable, and was originally documented in a booklet form for distribution used by turntablists around the world.
A crab is a type of scratch used by turntablists, combining hand movements on a turntable with rapid manipulation of the crossfader. This technique enables the creation of multiple, rapid sound variations, producing a unique stutter sound that blends audio and silence, giving it an almost robotic quality.
John Francis Carluccio is an American filmmaker, artist, and inventor. Carluccio is a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker who is best known for documenting obscure pockets of urban society and the creative process.
Scratch is the soundtrack to the 2001 documentary Scratch directed by Doug Pray. Scratch examines cultural and historical perspectives on the birth and evolution of hip-hop disc jockeys (DJs), scratching and turntablism and includes interviews with some of hip-hop's most famous and respected DJs.
The DMC World DJ Championships is an annual DJ competition founded by the Disco Mix Club (DMC) which began in 1985. It has been described as a "pre-eminent competitive DJ event".
The San Francisco-based Bomb Hip-Hop Records has evolved since its humble beginnings in 1991 as a hip-hop publication to "one of the fifteen independent labels that matter" according to Rolling Stone. Bomb’s Return of the DJ series was ranked by Spin Magazine as #25 in their “The 90 Greatest Albums of the 90’s”. Having been credited with the revival of the D.J. as an artist in their own right for the Return of the DJ series, featured in the movie Scratch, the label is also known for spotlighting hip-hop from around the world. With a total of 77 releases to date, some of the artists that have appeared on releases from Bomb Hip-Hop include Dilated Peoples, Blackalicious, J-Live, Cut Chemist from Jurassic 5, Qbert, DJ Craze, Z-Trip, Rob Swift & Roc Raida from X-ecutioners, Noisy Stylus, Mr. Dibbs of Atmosphere, DJ Honda, DJ Format, Peanut Butter Wolf, Swollen Members, Defari, Paul Nice and AG of D.I.T.C., Jedi Mind Tricks, Mystik Journeymen, Kid Koala and Mixmaster Mike of the Beastie Boys.
The influence and impact of hip hop was originally shaped from African American and Latino communities in the South Bronx. In the last several decades, the movement has become a worldwide phenomenon which transcends different cultural boundaries as it reaches several ethnic groups, including Asian Americans. Asian American hip-hop practitioners include: MC Jin, Lyrics Born, Dumbfoundead, Tokimonsta, and DJ Q-Bert.