Mr. Scruff | |
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Andy Carthy DJing at the Savoy, Cork City, on 30 May 2008 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Andrew Carthy |
Born | Macclesfield, Cheshire, England | 10 February 1972
Origin | Greater Manchester, England |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
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Instrument(s) | |
Years active | 1992–present |
Labels |
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Website | www.MrScruff.com |
Andrew Carthy (born 10 February 1972), [1] known professionally as Mr. Scruff, is an English record producer and DJ. He lives in Stretford, Greater Manchester and studied fine art at the Psalter Lane campus of Sheffield Hallam University. Before he could make a living from his music alone, he worked as a shelf stocker in the Hazel Grove branch of Kwik Save. [2]
His stage name was inspired by his scruffy facial hair as well as his trademark loose-lined drawing style. He has been DJing since 1992, at first in and around Manchester, then nationwide. He is known for DJing in marathon sets (often exceeding six hours), his eclectic musical taste, his love of a "nice cup of tea," and the quirky home-produced visuals and animations associated with his music. In an interview, he said, "It's about putting a lot of effort in and paying attention to detail. I get annoyed if I don't take risks. I'm very hard on myself." [3]
In his twenties, Mr. Scruff's first 12" vinyl, "Hocus Pocus," was released on the small Manchester-based label Robs Records. Subsequent singles and his first album ( Mr. Scruff ) followed, released on Robs Records subsidiary Pleasure Music. [4] After a brief spell working with Mark Rae, he moved to the larger Ninja Tune label and subsequently released the albums Keep It Unreal and Trouser Jazz .
His most notable hit, "Get a Move On!", is built around "Bird's Lament (In Memory of Charlie Parker)" by Moondog [5] and has been used in several commercials, ranging from Lincoln and Volvo automobiles to France Télécom and GEICO insurance. The song also samples Shifty Henry's "Hyping Woman Blues" and led to a renewal of interest in Henry's compositions.
In 2004, Mr. Scruff released Keep It Solid Steel Volume 1 , the first of what is intended to be a series of several DJ mixed compilation CDs for Ninja Tune's Solid Steel series of artist mixes. [6] These mixes are designed to recreate the eclectic genres one would expect to hear at a Mr. Scruff club night. In November 2006, Ninja Tune confirmed that the eighth Solid Steel record would be mixed by J Rocc and the ninth would be Volume 2 from Mr. Scruff. Other Solid Steel mixes have been released by fellow Ninja Tune artists including The Herbaliser, Hexstatic, DJ Food, and Amon Tobin.
He has a wide array of remixes to his name and has also produced tracks for others – notably "Echo of Quiet and Green" for sometimes-collaborator Niko on her 2004 album Life on Earth. Niko returned the favour by appearing on the track "Come Alive" from the Trouser Jazz album.
Having performed regularly at The Big Chill Festival in Eastnor Castle deer park, Ledbury, Herefordshire, Mr. Scruff was asked in 2006 to select the tracks for the compilation album, Big Chill Classics. [7]
July 2008 saw the release of Southport Weekender Volume 7, a double album released in the Southport Weekender series, recorded in a purpose-built holiday village in Southport, Merseyside. The first disc was mixed by German nu jazz DJs Jazzanova, and the second was mixed by Mr. Scruff, whose contribution is a mix of soul music. [8]
In 2008, a new independent record label, Ninja Tuna, was founded, a collaboration between Mr. Scruff and the Ninja Tune label. Mr. Scruff's most recent singles and the album Ninja Tuna were all released on the new label. [4] [9]
A US-only release of the album on MP3 came with 10 additional tracks from the Ninja Tuna recording sessions, under the title Bonus Bait . A CD version of this supplementary album was released in the UK in February 2009.
On 19 May 2014, Ninja Tuna released Mr. Scruff's fifth studio album, Friendly Bacteria .
Mr. Scruff's album and single cover art, music videos, merchandise and his official website are noted for their whimsical cartoonish look; the cartoons are drawn by Mr. Scruff himself in what he calls "potato style." The images and animations are also projected onto large screens during his gigs. Scruff also drew cartoons for music magazines such as Jockey Slut in the 1990s. [10]
Mr. Scruff began selling tea from a small room at the Manchester club, the Music Box (where he was resident DJ around 2000), with the proceeds going to charity. When he started touring, Mr. Scruff took the enterprise with him and gained a reputation for being the DJ with the teashop. When appearing at festivals, such as Big Chill and WOMAD, tea stalls or tents were erected and were open for the duration of the festivals. Mr. Scruff subsequently started an online tea company, Make Us a Brew, and produced his own range of fair trade teabags which used to be sold in department store chains Selfridges, Waitrose and Booths. [11] His official website still sells branded tea-related paraphernalia including teapots, mugs and tea towels, but the tea is no longer sold as the Make Us a Brew company was dissolved in September 2013. [12]
He was the joint owner (with his manager Gary McClarnan) of Teacup Kitchen, located in Thomas Street, Manchester, [13] though this closed in March 2020 with the first COVID-19 lockdown and never reopened. [14]
Most of Mr. Scruff's studio albums contain tracks about fish, whales and other sea-life, which cut up recordings of voiceovers from children's stories and nature documentaries to create surreal and silly stories. [15] They began with the track "Sea Mammal" (featuring a sample from Boogie Down Productions' track "Part Time Sucker"), released on the single "Hocus Pocus" (1995). [16] It is also the opening track on Scruff's first album. This was followed by "Wail" (as a homophone for "Whale"), also on his first album. Keep It Unreal (1999) featured the tracks "Shanty Town" and "Fish," the latter of which features samples from the likes of David Attenborough and David Bellamy. The album Trouser Jazz (2002) closes with another cut-up track, "Ahoy There!", noted as featuring an appearance from "Albert Ross" (albatross).
Mr. Scruff has stated that he is unlikely to record any further fish-based cut-up tracks. However, marine references continue in his work, including the track "Shrimp" from Trouser Jazz and the title and cover art of his albums, especially Ninja Tuna (2008) and its companion release, Bonus Bait (2009).
Mr. Scruff and Treva Whateva (his Ninja Tune label-mate and friend from Stockport) recorded a weekly hour-long radio show (with frequent guest, Jon Hill), some episodes of which can still be found on samurai.fm.
Mr. Scruff has collaborated with:
Several of Mr. Scruff's records also feature guest vocalists and musicians. These include Sneaky (from Fingathing), Roots Manuva, Niko, Braintax, Alice Russell and Danny Breaks. Both Scruff and Roots Manuva have expressed an interest in recording a full album together, though the artists' schedules have prevented this from happening. [11]
Ninja Tune is an English independent record label based in London with a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded by Matt Black and Jonathan More and managed by Peter Quicke and others.
Rodney Hylton Smith, better known by his stage name Roots Manuva, is a British rapper and producer. Since his debut in 1994, he has produced numerous albums and singles on the label Big Dada, achieving commercial success with albums Run Come Save Me and Slime & Reason. He has been described as "one of the most influential artists in British music history." His most recent studio album, Bleeds, was released in October 2015.
Trouser Jazz is an electronic album by Mr. Scruff, released in 2002. It is Mr. Scruff's second "proper" album. In 2010 it was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association, which indicated sales of at least 100,000 copies throughout Europe.
Keep It Unreal is Mr. Scruff's first major release. It includes the hit single "Get a Move On!", which is an electro swing track built upon samples of Moondog's "Bird's Lament " alongside vocals from T-Bone Walker's "Hypin' Woman Blues." The album ends with "Fish", a track made up of samples about marine life, which is a motif of Mr. Scruff. Samples used in the track include the likes of David Attenborough and David Bellamy. It was re-released in 2009 as a 10th anniversary two disc set.
Jon Thorne is an English double bassist, producer and composer.
Blazing the Crop is a DJ mix album, mixed by Rae & Christian. It was released by Mixmag Live in association with their publishing company DMC Publishing in 1999 in the UK. An unmixed vinyl version was also released.
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Mr. Scruff is the eponymous debut studio album by Mr. Scruff. It was released via Pleasure Music on May 12, 1997.
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Ninja Tuna is the fourth studio album by British record producer Andrew "Mr. Scruff" Carthy, released on 6 October 2008 through Carthy's personal Ninja Tune imprint Ninja Tuna.
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DJ Food is an electronic music project currently headed by Kevin Foakes. It was conceived in 1990 by Jonathan More and Matt Black of Coldcut and the Ninja Tune record label. It has since included various lineups of More, Black, Patrick Carpenter, Foakes, and others, before finally being formed only of Foakes.
Friendly Bacteria is the fifth studio album by the British musician and DJ Mr. Scruff. It was released on 19 May 2014 by the labels Ninja Tune/Ninja Tuna simultaneously.
Bonus Bait is a compilation album by British musician and DJ Andrew "Mr. Scruff" Carthy. It was released on 9 February 2009 by Ninja Tune, and features outtakes of his album Ninja Tuna.
Sylvain Richard, better known by his stage name 20syl, is a French rapper, disc jockey and producer. He is a composer and MC in the group Hocus Pocus, member of beatmaker collective of DJs C2C, one half of the Hip Hop/Electronic duo AllttA and quadruple world champion DMC Team. He published his first EP, Motifs, in 2014, followed by Motifs II in 2015.
"Get a Move On!" is a song by English record producer and disc jockey Andrew Carthy under his alias Mr. Scruff, featuring Fingathing member: Sneaky, on bass. The song is featured as the third track from his second studio album and major label debut, Keep It Unreal. It was first released as a three-track single in May 1999; then re-released on 6 August 2001 as a three-track single featuring "Ug" as its B-side, which later appears on his next album: Trouser Jazz. The song samples "Bird's Lament" by Moondog, alongside vocals from T-Bone Walker's "Hypin' Woman Blues". It also contains samples of the song "That's the Blues" by Rubberlegs Williams.