The Age of Divisadero Soul (Issue Two)

Divisadero,-SF-1944, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

by Mike Conway

If I could travel anywhere, it would be back in time. I want to go back and see, hear and feel the places and moments we can only study now. Going back in time is not as hard as it seems; many backdrops of the past remain with us. All you have to do is go to those places and imagine the things you know about the past, and you’re there.

I just got back from such a trip, that I took after speaking with Ms. Josephine Robinson. From 1959 to 1977, she and her husband ran a nightclub and restaurant at 543 Divisadero Street in San Francisco. During this period, just four blocks east, the Fillmore Jazz Era was in full swing. Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and countless other gods of jazz played up and down Fillmore. The ‘Moe had a reputation as the Harlem of the West.

But along nearby Divis, a parallel surge of jazz and early soul was blazing...

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A Brief Future of Hip-Hop Part 1:

By Andrew Strawder


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Inspector Gary Delagnes, President of the SF Police Officer's Association

In an exclusive interview with SHOUT,
Inspector Delagnes speaks his mind:




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{ border: solid 2px #000000; } Image by Granger Davis

Mixmaster Mike

MixmasterMike, Illustration by Andrew Strawder.

By Charlie Russo

Deep in the annals of hip-hop history, the origin of the deejay’s scratch is filed under the year 1975 and reads like this: “Eleven years old and practicing deejaying on his older brother’s turntables, Theodore Livingston grabbed for the record as his mom shouted at him to turn the music down. Hearing an odd scratching sound through his headphones as the vinyl moved in his grasp, Theodore knew he was on to something.” Livingston eventually became known as Grandwizard Theodore and was credited as the inventor of both the scratch and needle drop techniques.

Thirty years later, hip-hop has begun to outsell rock music in America, and early forefathers such as Grandwizard Theordore have been succeeded by a lengthy list of turntable talent: DJ Premier, Q-Bert, Z-Trip, Cut Chemist...and of course, Mixmaster Mike. These names may not necessarily be classified as early inventors, but are sure to be remembered as major pioneers all the same.

That said, Mixmaster Mike may very well be remembered as the John Coltrane of turntablism: a musician who caused a quantum leap in the evolution of an already developing art form.

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