Published in the October 2008 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 21 - Number 10

A/V turntablist Mike Relm generally acknowledges he’s from San Francisco, but considering his schedule, his home over the past three or four years has been the arenas and sports stadiums of the world that host his pop-culture-obsessed video mash-ups.

Since integrating the Pioneer DVJ-1000 into his set, Relm has applied his proven skills as a vinyl turntablist to the video arts. A former ITF champ, he has several battle records to his name, but these days he’s more involved with manipulating YouTube entries and scenes from Hollywood blockbusters. In doing so, he’s earned opening slots on Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Huckjam tour and the Blue Man Group’s “How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.0.” His mild-mannered suit-and-tie get-up and tongue-in-cheek music-visual juxtapositions—for example, George W. Bush speeches paired with Beck’s “Loser” and lucha libre matches with The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”—suggest a frustrated comedian polishing his shtick. It’s an observation Relm easily concedes to.

“It’s kind of like a stand-up comic routine,” he says. “You have set pieces and I work so hard on certain things, I don’t wanna just like do it once and never do it again. I want as many people to see this as possible.”

In addition to the DVJ-1000, Relm’s rider includes a Rane TTM 57SL mixer to work with Serato Scratch Live and Video-SL because, he says, “I don’t like to touch my computer onstage.” Relm might bring a 10- by-7-foot screen with him to clubs as well. Depending on venues, however, he can go with whatever he’s given, provided everyone can see and follow along with the video.

This is crucial for moments like Relm’s cut-and-scratch rendition of the “O-Face” scene from “Office Space.” For aspiring DJ-turned-video turntablists, Relm insists that one needs to pre-edit films on Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere and color-correct them with these programs’ filters to both streamline the look and cut to the chase of your selected scenes.

“A lot of people pick up the DVJ and think they can pop in any DVD and have a show,” he says. “Well, when you pop a DVD in, you have the menus and you have to do all these different things just to get to the clips you need. You’ve gotta edit. You’ve got to get the clips you need just like when you’re preparing your crate of records.”

At the moment, Relm’s preparing to “retire” his current set for specially created videos made for tracks on his upcoming LP, Spectacle. As indicated on the videos produced for his latest DVD, Clown Alley, Relm unsurprisingly has directorial ambitions as well: “Before, I was restricted to what I could get my hands on, musically or visually, and at times, it’s frustrating, because there’s not enough cool things happening,” he says. “Now, it’s not like I’m grabbing footage that I think is funny from something or from a movie or a TV show, I’m making them myself. So as a whole, it feels very free.”

– Justin Hampton