Q&A: Scratch's Doug Pray

Documentarian Doug Pray has a knack for being at the right place at the right time. Wandering into Seattle in the mid-90s, Pray arrived with cameras running just in time to catch the first glimpse of a flock of corporate vultures about to descend on "grunge." The resulting film, Hype!, was a fascinating and at times disheartening expose of a musical underground being wrestled against its will to the top of the charts.

Years later, Pray turns a curious eye to yet another "about to break" musical movement with his newest film, Scratch, which recently opened in New York City. Sifting through the nearly two-decade evolution of deejaying, Pray unearths a story that, in the end, is a logical sequel to the themes of his first film, despite differences of time, place, race and political purpose.

"A 15-year-old kid playing his guitar in his suburban basement is essentially the same thing as a 15-year-old kid in Harlem getting a set of turntables," Pray says. "It's just that, culturally, if you want to go down that road you could probably identify some big differences. The birth of hiphop is utterly fascinating to me, because yet again African-American culture, working with total limits?basically poverty and no access to all the instruments?says, 'Well, what have we got? We've got two turntables because we're having all these disco parties, so let's do something with it. Let's rap over it.'

"The biggest similarity between Scratch and Hype!," he continues, "was that here is yet another subculture that is all about do it yourself, kids in their basements doing their thing. Be they garage bands in Seattle or kids deejaying in their rooms, both cultures are getting back to the roots of what was fun and original and simple and great and beautiful and just for yourself. You change the name and get the same ideas, the same desires behind the music."

Scratch gives an extensive retelling of turntable history, from its roots in Afrika Bambaataa's 1970s Harlem renaissance through GrandMixer DXT working the Grammy crowd with Herbie Hancock, up to today's new scratch artists. Unearthing, for wonderfully informative interviews, virtually every one of the genre's innovators?GrandWizzard Theodore, Jazzy Jay, Steinski?Pray manages to provide a definitive Scratch starter guide, a kind of turntablist Cliff's Notes that will both indoctrinate the ignorant and impress the long converted.

In one of the most fascinating scenes, seminal DJ Mix Master Mike patiently illustrates for the camera how exactly a "scratch" is orchestrated by combining a Robert Johnson track with some very nimble fingers. One of the film's most eloquent subjects, in person Mix Master Mike speaks about his art with the same thoughtful and patient tone a kindergarten teacher uses on a much loved class.

"The actual creation process is what people get confused about. The process is everyday living, going through life itself and then going into the studio. I mean, I could go into the studio right now and who knows what would come out? Probably, since I'm happy and excited right now, it would be happy and excited. I keep a big library of records, and there are these certain records that I use.

"Me, I grew up listening to a lot of jazz and blues," he goes on, "so when I do that in the movie, when I'm playing Robert Johnson, I'm trying to show people the difference from taking other people's music and making it your own music. That's what it is, scratching?you take a piece of something that's already been created and reinvent it. And think of how much music there is to reinvent."

Mix Master Mike is joined in the film by newer DJs Cut Chemist, Swamp, Shadow, Qbert and Krush, to name a few. Pray uses sleek 16 mm footage and kinetic cut-and-paste editing that mirrors the movement of the needle.

"People have such a hard time seeing DJs as musicians," Pray says. "It's complex and it's hard for people to get beyond 'They're just playing records.' It took me about a week to get over that argument in my own mind. Then I started to look at instruments differently. And suddenly the piano became this unbelievably limited machine that has 88 keys that some inventor decided was going to be that particular sound. It's not 89 sounds, it's just 88 keys, and yet you can make 50 billion beautiful pieces of music with that one instrument, loud or quiet or anything. Then you think about deejaying and it becomes completely limitless." This seemingly infinite choice creates scratch's mystique?an endless variety of sounds and tones and bells and whistles that spreads itself out to be interpreted in any which way the DJ chooses.

The DJs in Scratch are a meditative lot, imbued with a kind of patchwork, homegrown spirituality. "I could have just made a 90 minute film on just that aspect of this music," Pray tells me. "Very few people are aware of it. I mean, the origins of hiphop had a definite philosophy. People like Afrika Bambaataa were trying to create a community with music, a new kind of motivation and brotherhood. Rock has its spiritual and philosophical motivations as well, but not on as a deep a level as with scratching. I don't know what it is with this music, there's something magical about it."

"It's a good place, a warm place, where this music comes from," Mix Master Mike agrees. "Hopefully one day we can show everyone, the world?take this to Carnegie Hall and perform. To give them a vision. To show them that the turntable is an instrument, and it's only just the beginning of what we can do with it."

The Scratch live concert tour, featuring Dilated Peoplez, Z-Trip, GrandWizzard Theodore and Qbert, comes to Irving Plaza March 19-20, 17 Irving Pl. (15th St.), 777-6800. For more Scratch info, go to [www.scratchmovie.com](http://www.scratchmovie.com).