APOLLOJAMS! > Mixtapes > Room P: The MixPlates Archive!

MIXTAPES > ROOM P: The MixPlates Archive. Classic whitelabel bootleg mixplates collected on CD! Either scroll down and enjoy the ride, OR: *Quick Jump* to the details by clicking on a mix number, (then hit "back" on your browser to return to this list): mixP.01: Latin Rascals megamixes mixP.02: Tommy Boy megamixes/ Double D & Steinski megamixes Label histories and specialty mixes! Choose: Skip to the first mix here OR.... check out the Devildoll's babble (read on).
Ha. I figured i better get started on this room, seeing as to how i've been SITTING on this stuff for, um, almost 20 years! I don't remember the FIRST mixplate i ever bought. I don't know when the first mixplate was RELEASED, even (!). It would be impossible to ACTUALLY pick a starting point, or ONE shoddily-pressed 12" in a plain sleeve with a blank white label and say: "THERE! THAT'S THE FIRST MIXPLATE!". I suppose a case could be made for Jamaica as the origins of the mixplate. I definitely remember around 1975, my good buddy Mitch Hejna giving his Polish aunt a hundred bucks for her trip to Kingston, Jamaica and BEGGING her to go to Randy's Records and buy ANYTHING on the wall that was a "white label" or had (lol) crayon-scrawls describing what it was. Of course, these were not necessarily "mixes": mostly, it was just some GanjaDreadLad rippin' off another record's backing track and "toasting" over the rhythm. And hey, we LOVED 'EM! Then there was the horrid late 70's "stars on 45" type mixes. Ick. Enough to put you off the whole concept of "mixplates": a monotonous primitive drumtrack with "some records" tossed in that fit the B.P.M. But, as the 80's progressed and dj skills developed and drum machines and samplers became affordable to the average music fanatic, two archetypes of "mixplates" began to surface. The fondly-remembered "dj mix services", where you have to PROVE you're a dj and then shell out a fortune to SUBSCRIBE to a usually monthly mailing of "issues". Disconet had their "volume numbers" (V.2#6, V.2#7, etc.). DMC over in England had their "June 1984", "July 1984" (and so on) issues. Then Razormaid came along and got "arty" with their sequencing: "Volume R", Volume A", "Volume Z" (get it? spelling their name out!). The other, even stranger, world was the who-knows-what world of the "whitelabel" mixplate. The Lure Of The Forbidden. Strange titles (if/when they HAD titles!) like Atomic Mix, Dance-A-Thon, Mix Trix, My Forbidden Mixer, Moonshine Mix, Scratchmatic, Scratchmasters Jam, Turntable Trix, Italian Ice, Feelin' James, Original Party Mix, Fusion Beats, Test Pressing, Bits 'n' Pieces, Scratch Party. And on and on! Some, like The Latin Rascals ("Big Apple" mixplate series), Double Dee and Steinski (the "Lesson" series) and the UK's Coldcut ("Beats and Pieces") sweated in the trenches of the WhiteLabel MixPlate before bustin' out to grab their OWN pieces of the Hip Hop History. By the time Cameron Paul started his well known and popular "Mixx-It" series, i knew his mixing style well enough to TELL HIM on the phone which bootplates he had done before. Many, including me, consider this mutant strain of DanceMusic the TRUE "underground". I was lucky to be owning/running a 12" store AND dj-ing at the time, so hellyeah i subscribed to all of the services and POUNCED on every one-off bootmix i could find. I love the, if i may use the term again, ART of the mix: doesn't matter what the hell's being mixed. Some of the mixes i dug, some i didn't. Some i spun in the clubs, some i didn't. But there's no denying the primitive technology SWEAT going on, and the "higher level" knowledge of WHAT records go with what OTHER records. In a subterranean world where there are NO boundaries, NO such thing as "label rights", NO such thing as royalties. Where at any minute, you don't know WHAT the hell's gonna come out the speaker a minute later. Anything goes, and even THAT is an understatement. There was never anything quite like this phenomenon in ANY other kind of music. Due to circumstances (much of my vinyl in storage, still), i'm gonna kickstart this room with just a COUPLE of "mixplate" anthologies, that i have access to at the present time. Eventually, this room will grow to 10/15/20 and maybe MORE volumes. Chronicling the "major label" (relatively speaking) mixplate labels, and even more fascinating, the strange "one-off"s that even *i* can't tell you much about besides what it said on the label and what kind of stuff is on it. So, with much love and affection, i dedicate this room to all the cats with the crates of records, two turntables, a mixer, a tape deck...and a little block of marble and a sharp razor. ;) For label scans and more information about this MOST FASCINATING aspect of hiphop history, visit our friend Patrick's history of the mixplate page. My collection rivals his (and i mean that in the MOST complimentary way possible), so many of the things you see there will show up here, categorized and collected on CD, in time! This room is my Pet Project for this year!

mixP.01) Latin Rascals megamixes (1cd only, no cassette, 80m.) An assortment of early to mid 80's Latin Rascals mixplates with similarly-themed edits/cuts/splices style plates.
mixP.02) Tommy Boy megamixes/ Double D & Steinski megamixes (2cd only, no cassette, 100m.) Here's the story of HOW this DD & S phenomenon started. Tommy Boy Records ran a contest for the Best Mix of one of their releases, Globe & Whiz Kid's "Play That Beat Mr. DJ" (TB #836, 10/83). Here's where i'm confused, or perhaps the folks at TB were trying to get a little more exposure for a GREAT 12" that was languishing in "cult status" for much too long, cuz it seems to me that this contest was initiated in the pages of the old DMR (Dance Music Report) magazine a good YEAR OR TWO after the release of "Play That Beat"! Regardless, DD&S completely kicked ASS with their re-interpretation of "Play That Beat", calling it "Lesson One". Won the contest, and this winning mix first appeared on an old issue of the DiscoNet mix service. Sequential lessons followed on subsequent DiscoNet's ("Two" and "Three"). By 1988, a bootplate appeared with Lessons One thru Three (help me out here: red label...i HAVE it, but it's sittin' in a box in storage 3000 miles away!). A white-label/promo-only Tommy Boy 12" got serviced to retail stores called "The Motorcade Sped on", which we unofficially called "Lesson Four". Steinski lands a contract with Fourth & Broadway, and drops the brilliant "We'll Be Right Back" 12". And the rest is pretty much Known History. Some of THE best bootmixes EVER, combined with the rarest-of-the-rare Tommy Boy-themed underground mixes.