Denver turntablism masters square off April 30

With a small army of laptop-toting DJs filling up every other bar and dance club on weekend nights, it’s pretty easy to feel a little sick of Denver-Boulder DJs. You’re not: You’re just fed up with crappy local DJs. But now, the 2011 DMC Battleground is set to give you a taste of Colorado’s top-shelf turntable talents. The event, held Saturday, April 30 at Casselman’s, isn’t for college kids with pirated mixing software and hard drives full of stolen music. It’s the real deal, as in turntablism with its requisite mixing, scratching, and old-school face-offs where masters wield slabs of wax like weapons.

“When I say ‘DJ,’ I mean guys who have really honed the craft,” explains Mane Rok, one of the performers. “These days you have the guys on Jersey Shore with [software like] Serato and Traktor Scratch. It’s definitely not for that college DJ guy. They have a six-minute battle, and that takes preparation. These college guys are definitely not doing that.”

The DMC competitors certainly are a cut above frat-house MP3 jockeys: Held since 1985, the battle’s been the launching pad for names such as Mix Master Mike, DJ Q-Bert, A-Trak, and DJ Craze, and has helped local artists such as DJ Vajra establish a presence in the national scene. The event is one from a handful of regional qualifiers, and the winner earns a trip to New York to fight for the right to represent the United States in worldwide competition. Winners at the Denver battle also take home a pile of prizes to go with the bragging rights.

Before you roll your eyes about Colorado’s chances in an international event, consider last year’s U.S. finals: Five Colorado-based DJs passed through various finals to spin in the national championship. That level of turntablism skill is certain to be represented—including some hardcore DJs travelling for a shot to qualify in Denver—at the event. That probably doesn’t surprise anyone who’s kept up with battle DJs and turntablism in the Centennial state.

“Colorado, for some weird reason, has always been real big on this,” says event organizer DJ Lazy Eyez. “There’s a very tight-knit group of DJs who practice this and follow the national competition. In the late ’90s, it was really popular with kids, but kind of died down. In Colorado, it’s kind of been kept alive.”

The 2011 battle season marks the first time the DMC’s acknowledged the digital music world: After years of requiring DJs to perform on the wheels of steel, this year, battlers may also tap Serato Scratch Live, a purely digital mix-station suite. Don’t expect those amateur DJs to stand a chance against all of the competition, though.

“I think that will open up a lot more possibilities for creativity, and a lot of things that will allow the DJs to compete, but to make sets that are more accessible to the average person watching it,” DJ Lazy Eyes says. “My hope is that it makes the competition even more popular again.”

The Denver battle also features sideline battles between MCs and B-boys, though neither are official battles in the DMC circuit. The winners of still earn Mile High bragging rights, while helping provide a rare gateway into three separate branches of the town’s hip-hop community under a single bill.

“A lot of times, a lot of those things are separated, even though it all falls under the banner of hip-hop,” DJ Lazy Eyez says. “It’s a rare event where all those elements get to be under one roof.”