I'm loving Last Night a DJ Saved my Life, it is so cool to see how the concept of having two turntables has been there all along.
Noel mixed records, too. On a primitive setup -- he just had a volume dial for each deck -- he would take elements from a track and tease and taunt the crowd with them: a Jimi Hendrix guitar lick here or a Chambers Brothers a cappelle there -- allusive whispers, barely heard fragments. Then he would slam the whole song through the mincer. "People would come up to me and say, 'I was listening to the Mamas and Papas and now I'm listening to the Stones and I didn't even know.' I used to try some of the wildest changes without losing a beat." Noel's reuptation had risen to the point where producers would bring test pressings of their latest confections. he still has the metal test disc that Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy brought down of Smokey's new production, the Marvelettes' "Dont Mess With Bill."
Wow. It's amazing. This guy, Terry Noel, is supposedly the first DJ who mixed records back in the 60s. People's reactions are the same now. I love that moment when the song suddenly switches over and you suddenly KNOW you're in another song, even though in actuality it's been sneaking in for the last few minutes.
