The second Community Skratch Games take place this weekend in Galway, its purpose to further the art of turntable manipulation and raise awareness of Hip-Hop DJ culture. The centre-piece of the weekend is the Games themselves, taking place Saturday 22 March in the Bierhaus, amid a backdrop of workshops/seminars, skratch music showcases and a barrage of funk and hip-hop.

Setlist's Padraic O'Connor caught up with co-organiser Deviant (who along with DJs Tweek, Hideous Penguin and Mikey Fingers makes up Galway scratch collective 'Vince MacMahon') for the lowdown on the games and the weekend's festivities

Why start the Community Skratch Games?

Basically we (Vince MacMahon) came up with the idea last year about a month before Easter. We wanted to have a battle and more importantly have a laugh with the other scratch DJs in the country; and rather than being involved in a high pressure competition like the DMCs, we put together a battle where DJs could try out new things, where the emphasis is more on the experimental and progressive sounds being made than on trying to do as many tricks as possible in a few minutes.

This is the second year of the 'Games'; is it a bigger event this year?

Yeah, it's definitely a bigger weekend in that we have some really good acts coming over for the Games this year. We have Grandeurs of Delusion coming. They're a serious scratch crew from London/Brighton. And then we also have DJ Mek (legendary scratch DJ from seminal early Irish hip-hop crew Scary Eire) to headline the whole weekend.

For people who don't know much about hip-hop DJ culture, what exactly will the 'Community Sktatch Games' battle on Saturday entail?

We have two categories in the overall battle and each category has one overall winner.

Firstly there's the Showcase category where DJs can use as many turntables, mixers, pedals, samplers, effects units as they like - as long as the turntable is the dominant instrument in their set - as opposed to a normal DJ battle where DJs generally only use two turntables and a mixer. We kinda thought that, 25 years down the line, it was time to incorporate new things in the battle. We just wanted again to make the whole thing more progressive.

Secondly then we also have the more traditional Freestyle Scratch Battle, which is basically two DJs side by side going head to head… back and forth freestyle scratching over the same beat… it's pure skill!

You guys did a '24 Hour Skratch' a couple of weeks ago to raise awareness for the 'Games'. How did that go?

It was EPIC man! Couldn't feel my hands after it! There was just the four of us (Vince MackMahon) for the 24 hours. It started off in the Bell Book & Candle, then it moved up to the Museum, on to Pariah Clothing in the Eyre Square centre and then to Java's. It ended at the Stress club night at De Burgho's, which was great as they've helped us immeasurably over the last year. The Stress night is one of THE best things in Galway right now; they're definitely on the right buzz!

Where will the entrants for the Skratch Games be coming from?

All over Ireland! We have entrants from Dublin and Belfast, hopefully from Limerick and definitely from Cork… as well as four or five local guys from Galway.