Manny Scretching is a panhandler. There is no nice way to put it. But there are plenty of not-so-nice ways to put it and Scretching has heard every one of them at his corner at Broad and Snyder.
People tend to take their frustrations out on him. Such as the time a guy tore a dollar bill into three pieces and threw it at him.
But the reaction most passers-by likely have to Scretching is to shake their heads and think he has seen better days. And they would be right.
In the world of music, specifically electronic dance music, Scretching, 42, once was a pretty big deal. Using his nom-de-groove Nitro Deluxe, Scretching cowrote and recorded seven songs with Cutting Records in New York in the late 1980s. Five of them were released as singles.
Let’s Get Brutal was a dance-club staple that spent eight weeks on the Billboard dance charts and peaked at number 34. It even made the pop charts in England.
But when another single with Cutting Records — Hypno House — flopped in England, it had a serious effect on Scretching’s career and his mental state.
He went into a deep depression and attempted suicide more than once. Cutting decided not to renew Scretching’s contract because of poor sales.
Broke and nearly blind from glaucoma, the musician hit the streets to make money. He desperately wants to return to making music for a living.
"I would like to just do my entertainment," he said.
Scretching is not just hoping to capitalize on his past. When not peddling for change, he is laying down tracks at his friend Michael McLean’s basement studio in a North Philly home.
Nation Records could politely be called a mom-and-pop operation. McLean, a postal worker, owns the company along with several members of his family.
The company has a production team, Black Market International, which comprises McLean, Scretching and Lafeace (aka Roy Pridgen).
Scretching and McLean have been good friends since the early ’80s, when McLean worked at WXPN 88.5 FM and Scretching helped him as an unpaid assistant. They have recorded a number of songs recently. One of them, 900 Love, is available on Amazon.com, Cdnow.com and theorchard.com on a CD that contains several remixes of the song.
On all three sites, the CD is credited to Nitro Deluxe and Black Market International.
"I hope to get distribution soon," Scretching said. Another song, Nitro’s Party, was coproduced and cowritten by nationally known keyboard whiz Dexter Wansel.
Scretching met Wansel the old-fashioned way. He bugged him to death.
"I was a pain in the a–," the musician admitted.
After a year of phone calls back and forth, Wansel finally decided to help out Scretching and McLean and gave them a good rate at his own studio, as well as his expertise as an engineer and a musician. Wansel also brought on board local jazz singer Denise King to help out with vocals.
So with all these big plans, what’s with the panhandling? Scretching would like to get a job until music starts to pay off again, but it’s not that simple. His blindness is a cruel obstacle. Scretching was born with chronic glaucoma, which slowly has developed into critical glaucoma. Social-service agencies could offer help, but he remains on a waiting list at several of those organizations.
Aside from his successful past, Scretching defies other panhandling stereotypes. He has an apartment. It’s in South Philly west of Broad Street. And he has a family. He grew up with seven sisters and two brothers. One of his sisters even made an appearance on one of his recent recordings.
Scretching has never been married, but he has a teenage son, Marcus, in West Philly, whom he sees once or twice a month. The musician is still mourning his mother, who died within the last year.
Scretching worked his way up in the music business after growing up in the South Bronx and the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. After his family moved to North Philadelphia, he attended Ben Franklin High School.
For years, Scretching worked as a disc jockey at clubs and on the radio. In the ’80s, he worked at several small radio stations.
Scretching said he plays the guitar, keyboards, horns and percussion. But his true love is percussion, and anyone who listens to his recordings would agree. He’s both self-taught and formally trained.
Before his days with Cutting Records, Scretching’s biggest success in music came during a brief stint in the Sun Ra Arkestra. He names his musical influences as Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, War, Mandrill and Afrika Bambaataa.
Scretching has some hard feelings about what he believes was insufficient promotion from Cutting Records, but tries to focus on the positive.
At the Nation Records studio, he shows off the singles he released the way a proud papa might show pictures of his children. One record was an anthology by Cutting Records, Cutting Remixes: Volume One. Out of the three people featured on the album’s cover, Scretching stands out. He’s the only one who looks like he’s not striking a pose.
In response to Scretching’s contention that Cutting Records did not do all it could for him, Aldo Marin, the cofounder of the company, said, "We did all the best that we could at the time."
Marin also offered some praise for Scretching, whom he knew as Nitro Deluxe: "It was excellent working with him. He’s definitely a talent."
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To contact Nation Records, call 215-763-3243.
