Terrence Parker

Terrence Parker is a really fascinating DJ to watch. He uses DJing techniques that are more commonly seen and heard by hip hop DJs, turntablists, like Cut Chemist, Babu, DJ Nu-Mark, Invisibl Skratch Piklz. I'm going to include a link to a Wikipedia entry. For my readers who are skeptical of wiki's because anyone can write an entry and there is no system of peer review set up and readers can never be completely certain that what they are reading is accurate, well I'm very sorry. But I don't have time or energy right now to re-write the definition and give some historical background of turntablism, so we'll all just have to accept it! :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turntablism

The techniques that TP uses are scratching, beat matching, and beat juggling (using two copies of the same record and alternating between the two turntables creating a loop, or some type of really amazing musical segment using the two copies of the same record).

This particular night, TP seemed a little off and most of the times he got set up with two copies to doing some juggling, things wouldn't work out quite right, a record might skip, or he might cue the track to the wrong spot, just a little early or a little late. That can throw off the whole beat juggling segment of a set. He seemed frustrated by it. Now, I'm certainly not being critical of TP's djing in any way. Any type of musician playing live can have an off night, or make mistakes. Things can go wrong. I think these moments are really interesting to explore. At most of the parties and events that I have attended so far in Detroit, a DJ has had at least one record skip. They all handle these moments in interesting ways. Some shrug it off and move on, some have a skip continue and have to cue up a new record right away so they can take off the skipping record, some look seriously surprised and disappointed that one of their records is damaged.