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Deep Scratch
After my long strange trip to go find Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) and interviewing him and helping establish the Maybe Logic Academy, I returned to the UK in late 2005 and a year later moved to Amsterdam. It was here in 2008 I made a first draft of a novel called Our Histories Back. In November 2009, I wrote another 50’000 word novel Sixty. Deep Scratch is an amalgamation, a bastard love child of these two novels, plus some short stories, heavily re-edited, spun and juxtaposed on jazz cabbage. Due to the central premise being focused on DJ’s crafting stories and narrative dialogue using their turntables and records, I’ve been able to mix in and out with new and old material, much like an eclectic DJ selects music from different eras and blends it to make something new. New flesh for old. Indeed, as a scratch DJ, turntablist and drummer I’ve used my tools to construct and edit parts of the novel. With over 25 years experience in the field I’ve come to appreciate the intricacies and time and patience required to perform them. Perhaps this Novel reflects my fantasy of a band and a DJ crew or soundsystem, my secret wishes for a creative workshop of like minded individuals creating multimedia art together for social change, all peppered with the foundations laid out by Robert Anton Wilson and John Sinclair. Maybe?
Readers of Deep Scratch are confronted with an hilarious grab-bag of tales blended and mixed. You will learn about techniques used by scratch DJ’s and beat jugglers, about the south Indian counting system known as Konnakol, about Robert Anton Wilson and his unfinished work called The Tale Of The Tribe , and about the year 1936. There’s some weak A.I. text generated by algorithms in some sections. All grass for the grind. 14 years after the core ideas were formulated in 2009, I’m still formatting and editing. The overall experience of writing and editing and writing and editing over and over again while undertaking the task of self-publishing the book has been exhausting, but I’ve learned a lot about myself by writing and making books. This novel is a sick rollercoaster ride, a black science fiction trip into the mind of a DJ telling his story. A good laugh and mash up of hundreds of smaller tales, expertly blended and bent into shape. This is the story of DJ Plush and his nutty new turntable techniques, his formulation of a turntable crew and what happens to them after dabbling into ideas of Robert Anton Wilson and applying occult techniques to their new spinning artform. Deep Scratch captures the author's ideas during 2008-2019 while living and working in Amsterdam. This book is an ode to the art of turntablism, to the work of Wilson and to others exploring the interface between technology, literature, history and art. This is time travel fiction for fans of back to back to future shocks. It’s a gas. There’s one conspiracy within the book, about the 1936 Olympic Games. This historical intersection point, is a good example of what the author is getting at by way of bringing historical individuals (members of Wilson’s tale of the tribe canon), into historical locations during the time they were alive. This historical narrative is driven by fictional dialogue and fictional action composed by DJs. Give it a go, catch up, look at what I’ve got to show you here. Each page will make you smile I promise. See you around the bend.
--Steven James Pratt
Stourbridge, 23rd September, 2022.
www.deepscratch.net
Readers of Deep Scratch are confronted with an hilarious grab-bag of tales blended and mixed. You will learn about techniques used by scratch DJ’s and beat jugglers, about the south Indian counting system known as Konnakol, about Robert Anton Wilson and his unfinished work called The Tale Of The Tribe , and about the year 1936. There’s some weak A.I. text generated by algorithms in some sections. All grass for the grind. 14 years after the core ideas were formulated in 2009, I’m still formatting and editing. The overall experience of writing and editing and writing and editing over and over again while undertaking the task of self-publishing the book has been exhausting, but I’ve learned a lot about myself by writing and making books. This novel is a sick rollercoaster ride, a black science fiction trip into the mind of a DJ telling his story. A good laugh and mash up of hundreds of smaller tales, expertly blended and bent into shape. This is the story of DJ Plush and his nutty new turntable techniques, his formulation of a turntable crew and what happens to them after dabbling into ideas of Robert Anton Wilson and applying occult techniques to their new spinning artform. Deep Scratch captures the author's ideas during 2008-2019 while living and working in Amsterdam. This book is an ode to the art of turntablism, to the work of Wilson and to others exploring the interface between technology, literature, history and art. This is time travel fiction for fans of back to back to future shocks. It’s a gas. There’s one conspiracy within the book, about the 1936 Olympic Games. This historical intersection point, is a good example of what the author is getting at by way of bringing historical individuals (members of Wilson’s tale of the tribe canon), into historical locations during the time they were alive. This historical narrative is driven by fictional dialogue and fictional action composed by DJs. Give it a go, catch up, look at what I’ve got to show you here. Each page will make you smile I promise. See you around the bend.
--Steven James Pratt
Stourbridge, 23rd September, 2022.
www.deepscratch.net
458 pages, Paperback
Published October 20, 2021
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