Inside A Mind are a local scratch crew whom you may have seen recently at kung-fu Fridays, playing before the chopping and socking commenced. Jeff Wright got in touch with DJ Vision to ask him a few questions about the group. Here's what he had to say.

HOW'D YOU GUYS ALL GET TOGETHER TO START PLAYING WITH EACH OTHER?
Wow that's a very long story. Well, in short, we all have a deep-rooted background when it comes to mixing and scratching; it was connecting with each other through this strange thing called chance. Somehow we all knew that we were coming from the same place, and we learned pretty quickly that we had the same view of where we wanted to take the art of mixing and scratching in Toronto and around the world.

I'M NOT THAT FAMILIAR WITH YOUR STYLE OF MUSIC, BUT IT SEEMS TO ME LIKE YOU GUYS ARE DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM MOST TURNTABLISTS (IS THAT THE RIGHT TERM?). YOU'RE NOT REALLY PLAYING SHOWY AND DANCEABLE STUFF. IT'S MORE MELLOW SOUNDSCAPE STUFF. IS THAT SOMETHING THAT'S NOT VERY COMMON TO BE PLAYED WITH TURNTABLES? WHAT DREW YOU TOWARDS THAT TYPE OF MUSIC?
We are scratch musicians and what we make is scratch music. It's an art form that hasn't fully made its way to Canada yet. The only artist that comes to mind is Kid Koala. However, what we do, performance-wise, is a bit different. We perform as a live improvised scratch band. Scratch bands have been making an impact in Europe for the past three years, most notable is a group by the name of Birdy nam nam. In the U.S. two groups stick out, Gunkhole and NedHoddings. With scratch music we can take our sound anywhere we want '˜cuz we're digging into the entire history of vinyl recordings to create our moods. A lot of times it comes out pretty mellow, but rhythmically we also find ourselves fluctuating from slow-stroll-down-the-street type beats to buckle-your-seat-belts-intense-car-chases. The love of scratching and joint interest in taking the art form to the next level is what sucked us in, and how it comes out depends a lot on how we're feeling that day.

THERE'S FOUR GUYS IN THE BAND, AND EIGHT TURNTABLES. HOW MANY OF THOSE TURNTABLES CAN BE GOING AT A GIVEN TIME?
The eight table set was one we performed this past spring for a showcase called Photo Synthesis. At moments throughout we have all eight weaving in and out of each other, but truthfully, that's a lot of sound to digest and can get kinda crazy. Our focus now is composing live improvised pieces using four turntables. We have a table each, a bunch of record samples, and a shitload of imagination. We act as separate instruments dropping licks, doing rhythms, bass lines, quirky space ship and drunken alien noises to create the freshest sound around.
HOW DO YOU SELECT THE RECORDS THAT YOU USE IN YOUR SHOW?
Our sets are, lets say, 90% improv, so really, each of us just has a stack of records that we pull from, drop the needle, and see what happens. Different records carry different moods. So, like we said, it all depends on how we're feeling, where we're performing, or where we want to go with our audience that day. We're kinda in the same boat as anyone listening, cause we're also hearing it for the first time and curious to see what'll happen!

WHERE'S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN TORONTO TO BUY USED RECORDS?
The best place is records on the street about to get trashed...those are nice free grabs. Garage sales are good too.

ANY RECENT FINDS THAT ARE WORTH MENTIONING?
Super Man and Spider Man were good finds. Also diggin' this Peter and the Wolf record...really intense delivery!

WHEN YOU PLAY, ARE YOU USUALLY PLAYING WITH BANDS IN A SIMILAR STYLE OR GENRE, OR DO YOU OFTEN FIND YOURSELVES STICKING OUT IN THE NIGHT?
Aurally and visually wherever we go we tend to stick out. As you know, we're a four-man scratch music band and the sounds that we get come from records ranging from around 1940 or 50 to present. Our sources of sound combined with our freestyle contortions of them is something that isn't really heard especially over here in North America.

WHO ARE SOME BANDS THAT YOU'VE PLAYED WITH THAT PEOPLE MIGHT NOT, BUT SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?
We're looking forward to playing with Pholde at an upcoming Ambient Ping showcase. Some other names to check out that we like are Stop Die Resuscitate, LAL, The Undadoggs, The I Spies.

FILE NEXT TO: I wish these were these guys were the ones playing records in the basement unit until all hours of the night.

by Jeff Wright