With a career spanning nearly two decades and collaborations with the very cream of the hip hop and scratch music scene, The X-ecutioners have carved out a name for themselves as a turntablist crew to be reckoned with. Although the NY-based X-ecutioners project has gone through various guises over the years, changing names twice and DJ line ups on numerous occasions, the core team of Rob Swift, Total Eclipse and Grandmaster Roc Raida have worked more or less continuously on various projects with the aim of bringing their love of turntabalism to the masses, and making it more and more acceptable in the mainstream music scene.

The crew has undoubtedly achieved much of what they set out to do, releasing a string of highly successful turntabalism CDs and albums and although the crew had gone a little quiet from 2005 onwards, with members focusing on personal and group side projects, they are currently back together touring Australia as the infamous and almighty X-ecutioners. Joining the core team now are Boogie Blind and DJ Precision (who was part of the Ill Insanity team with Rob Swift and Total Eclipse) and together they make for some formidable talent. Ahead of their gig at St Kilda’s Esplanade Hotel, the United DJ Mixing School organised a very special one-off free DJ seminar for all ex-students and industry members. I was lucky enough to get down there for the event which turned out to be most educational.

After some serious setting up and sound tinkering, the team (spread across at least eight decks and four mixers) were ready to show us what they are so famous for. The first thing I was surprised to see was that they were championing the cause of Serrato Scratch, the computer based program that allows DJs to choose tracks on MP3 from their laptops and lay them out over a single digital vinyl. This system reduces the bulk of vinyl but keeps the live performance factor which for turntabalism is a virtual must. Following some mind boggoling beat matching, mixing, scratching and turntable juggling, as well as superb solos from DJ Precision, DJ Total Eclipse and Rob Swift, the crew took to the mics to take questions from the audience.

A little hesitant at first, the audience soon got into the swing of posing questions to the team who were more than happy to answer precisely and honestly with a fair amount of humour. The big subject for discussion was ‘custom records’ and what the team thought of them. Custom records are when DJs and producers hook up and put together skipless records containing sequenced chosen cuts, loops, scratches and beats to allow the DJ to perform juggling and scratching with the minimum of effort. This topic came up several times and the overall view from the team was a big thumbs down, as they view it as cheapening and simplifying the finely tuned art which they have carefully perfected.

Further questions were posed on their backgrounds and the history of the crew, as well as preferred tracks and the process they use for creating solo and team performances. Then we were back into the exhibitionist section of the seminar this time with solos from Roc Raida and Boogie Blind, and then a finishing performance where all five of the crew swapped places and worked off the same two decks. Pretty awe inspiring stuff.

The seminar started a little late and would have benefited if a camera could have been placed over the decks so we could get a good view of the techniques and tricks they were using. However, the sound was fantastic and the crew came over as exceptionally smart, supremely talented, focused, dedicated and with a superb sense of humour. If ever you needed motivation to learn the art of turntabalism, you need only look to the X-ecutioners to provide it and the seminar provided a great opportunity to really get to know who they are and what they do.