by SCOTT C

It isn’t too difficult to remember that Montreal enjoyed a healthy turntablism boom both before, and certainly after, DJ A-Trak’s 1997 DMC win. These days, though, you might need the services of a private investigator to track down the energy and enthusiasm that once surrounded the mighty DJ Mixing Championships.

With the spotlight waning, both the audience and the competitors have gone missing, while the pomp and popularity of the infamous iPod battle continues to grow. The masters and disciples of turntablism either relaxed back into the underground, or actively found new ways to fulfill their unspoken charge to push things forward with style and originality.

Joining likeminded turntable artists Birdy Nam Nam from France, and Montreal’s own Microtone Kitchen, Vancouver’s No Luck Club—brothers Trevor and Matt Chan, and Paul Belen—have grown beyond the classic DJ battle, even if their live show does feature the requisite two DJs on stage and a third man manipulating sample-based rhythms, triggering clips and conducting things. Thirty-four-year old Trevor Chan is that third man.

“Dude, let me tell you something. The DMC is dead around the whole world! It’s not just Montreal,” Chan laughs over the phone from Toronto. “There’s less and less people scratching now, and it’s almost like no one cares. I don’t follow the ins and outs of all the battles like Matt and Paul do, but from what I can see of the new crop that’s coming up, they’re just watching all the past year’s videos and copying that shit. That was never really our thing. Matt never once competed in the DMC and never had any aspirations to do so. Our goal all along was to create music. If you’re gonna be a DMC champ, you end up practising for six-minute routines all the time, or you’re practising for head-to-head battles. I just thought I’d take that time and create songs, and that’s always been our mentality.”

Faders and the lost Ark

The No Luck Club sound is many things, as demonstrated over the course of the four suites on their new album, Prosperity. Eager to strip away any preconceived notions of what turntable-based music should be, Matt and Trevor Chan started the group back in 2000, when their demo, Newfangled Moments, was picked up by Dan the Automator’s 75Ark label. Sadly, their debut album Happiness never saw the light of day, as 75Ark, like a lot of indie hip hop labels, went the way of the dinosaur the following year. With DMC champ Paul Belen joining the group in 2004, the direction forward from there started to take shape, culminating with this year’s release of Prosperity.

“When Paul joined the group,” continues Chan, “I think he was at the crossroads, having just won the title of DMC champion. He was trying to decide if he should shoot for the world championship, or if he should start making music. And at the time, you could sort of see that the whole DMC thing was going down, and he couldn’t really see anything coming out of it, so he decided to make music with us.

“We look at the DMC as something that helped to further the art form, and introduce turntablism to a lot of people who had no idea, but at the end of the day, it’s not enough to stop there. It’s really about records and songs for us—that’s what’s going to get to people. Otherwise, it starts to feel like you’re watching figure skating or some kind of extreme sport. You want to give people something they can relate to, something with emotional appeal.”

Hip hop, full stop?

Chan is clearly excited at the prospect of more and more turntablists packing up their battle mentality to get into the songwriting game. He insists that the only way the art form will enjoy the same attention and popularity that it once did is if people start using the limitless applications of such a vast playing field. While chatrooms and message boards waste time arguing about whether turntablism has to be linked to hip hop culture, or if mixer feedback and needle flicking is considered a legitimate technique, the No Luck Club has taken their live show on the road for a Canadian tour.

Part of their touring repertoire includes a partially improvised performance of reconstituted indigenous music from around the world, called “Folk 109: World Music Collage.” This experiment in sound was commissioned by the Vancouver Folk Music Festival for its July 2006 program, and was a huge hit with audiences, so they decided to take it on the road.

“If you listen to the stuff that Ricci Rucker does—I mean, that Fuga record is awesome, but I can’t listen to it every day. That shit is like jazz! I listen to it and I can’t even tell where the scratching is. I guess it’s so subtle that you just can’t help but enjoy the overall feel of the music. You have to remember, this is an art form that people pick up from watching other people do it, so if the top guys that everybody looks to are making head-nod scratch shit, then a lot of people will assume that this is what they should aspire to. That step is great, but there’s room for so much more. We need guys like Ricci and Birdy Nam Nam to blow people away with innovation and creativity, so others will be inspired to do the same. You just have to use your imagination and have the will to

do it.”

Flick on the jams

Montrealers are well aware of the infinite possibilities of turntablism, thanks in part to the continuing contributions of Eric San, aka Kid Koala, who released Your Mom’s Favorite DJ on Ninja Tune earlier this year. The Kid was quick to kidnap the notion of a scratch DJ/turntablist early on, and quickly adapted it to fit his quirky and spontaneous approach to storytelling and music. But while Kid Koala sounds like much more on record, he generally works alone when performing live, making the impact all the more amazing. When the No Luck Club trio hits the stage, sometimes even they don’t know what’s going to happen.

“Our biggest problem right now is that our live show is completely different from our recordings,” says Chan. “I tell people we’re like a jam band, because of the amount of improvisation that goes on. If you listen to the record and then go see the show, you might wonder if it’s the same band. We’re using samples we could never use on record, and I’m not sure people want to see an eight-minute improvised piece, so we’ve shaved things down a bit to enhance the repeat factor. There is a certain energy and spontaneity when we perform, and I do want to capture that on our records, but these things take time. We have to get better in the studio, and on the road.”

Although Prosperity is only the second chapter in a planned trilogy of recordings inspired by the Chinese gods of luck and good fortune, the Chan brothers are enjoying it as much as they can. Things seem to be going so well, in fact, that the question of what would have happened if they had actually been introduced to the world on 75Ark in 2001 hangs in the air.

“Man, that was a time when the music industry was making a lot of money, especially independent labels. I think that’s why we were signed. They were willing to sign new, different and weird acts. It was a good time to do something really crazy, and then the industry died. Now, nobody knows what the hell’s going on with the music industry, and there’s a kind of conservatism that makes me want to make music more than ever before.”

With Kobayashi and Microtone Kitchen at Main Hall tonight, Thursday, Nov. 16, 9 p.m., $7 , and with Stop Die Resuscitate and No-1 at Divan Orange on Saturday, Nov. 18, 9 p.m.

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