If you’ve watched a car commercial in the past decade I guarantee that you’ve heard something of Mr. Scruff’s.
Andy Carthy is a British DJ and musician who chose his stage name from the state of his facial hair. He has gained most of his renown for being featured in car commercials and various television spots. Mr. Scruff has been active since 1994 and released his latest album this year.
His genre varies widely, encompassing anything from jazz, hip-hop, electronic, funk and soul, or combinations of them, making a truly awesome sound. He really likes tea, and has a reputation as being the DJ with the tea shop. Carthy also draws the most adorable album art for all his CDs, most of which feature fish, another of his favorite things.
He’s released six studio albums to date, his first one, the eponymous “Mr. Scruff”, released in 1997, “Keep It Unreal” released in 1999, Trouser Jazz released in 2002, “Mrs. Cruff”, a redo of Mr. Scruff with more tracks, released in 2005, “Ninja Tune”, released last year, and “Bonus Bait”, released on February 9th of this year.
I’ve heard his music tons of times, but I only found out his name a few days ago after hearing something of his one night last week. The jazz tones he uses are exquisite, and he uses elements of the aforementioned trip-hop and electronica to compose his tunes.
My personal favorites include “Get A Move On”, which has been featured in commercials for Volvo and Lincoln (and has a wonderful saxophone loop), and most recently, a bump for the Adult Swim segment of Cartoon Network, “Spandex Man”, featured in Top Gear, and “Trollmarch”, an upbeat song with nice drums mixed into the electronic sound that sounds something out the Looney Tunes universe.
Most of his music is available for free listening at http://www.imeem.com/artists/mr_scruff/, and his website is at http://mrscruff.com.
