CRATERY 85: Mastersihn

It’s funny to think I wouldn’t be typing these words right now if Kaewonder hadn’t asked me the question “Do you follow that dude @mastersihn on Instagram”?

We’ve met a lot of good people online, and with a common love for good records and good smoke, Philly’s Mastersihn is definitely one of the good ones.

We connected for the second time when he drove up for last year’s epic Live Convention weekend.

Naturally, a Cratery episode and interview were in order. Episode audio below.

I realized you were a true record nerd when you broke down the origin of your name. Mind sharing it with our readers / listeners?

So the name is a nod to one of my favorite movies growing up “La Planete Sauvage”. I caught it on public access TV late night in my teens. Coming home all fucked up and finding that shit on TV was a real mind fuck. The movie and the music had huge impact on me and when I got into records it was one of the first grails I was after. I got lucky and caught a copy very early on and to this day I still consider it my favorite record of all time. The name is a play on one of the adult Draag characters in the movie who was part of the famous trippy meditation scene.

I need to get a proper copy of that flick for the files, man. When did you start buying vinyl? What kind of stuff were you buying when you first started?

Grew up listening to my Pops’ records and because of the generation I was in when I first started buying music for myself it was on cassette. It wasn’t until I was around 14 that I discovered the train downtown and the magic of hip hop 12″ singles. Then came jacking my Pops turntable followed by a second (direct drive) turntable and the Gemini “scratchmaster” mixer.

Funny I had a similar start. Straight cassettes. Particularly because I took the bus everywhere and I needed my music to be Walkman friendly.

I feel like there was a point when my taste began to mature a little and I wasn’t necessarily chasing the same exact records I was after when I started. Did you experience a similar shift?

[Laughs] Honestly, I’m real slow to mature, so I’m still chasing the kind of shit I was when I first started in some regards. For example: a wicked drum break still gets the juices flowing even though I have thousands already and highly doubt I’m going to make super producer status anytime soon. So basically, if there was any shift it was towards really good records that I don’t have to get up off the couch after one track and change. But that could be an indication of getting old and lazy more so than my musical taste maturing, I dunno.

You and me both [laughs]. That’s kind of the impetus behind Cratery to be honest. But I’m still hip-hop. I just bought a monster break on the weekend. I guess that never goes away.

Your hometown spots like Funk-O-Mart are the stuff of legend. What was it like digging in Philly back then?

One of the most amazing, life-changing discoveries for me in my early teens was the train into the “Gallery” mall downtown. You could get off the train in the basement of the mall, come up, fuck around in the mall, buy gear and shit, then when you hit the streets the real fun began. Philly in the early 90’s was off the fucking chain! Wild shit going on everywhere from street vendors selling bootleg everything, from music to what ever the fashion trend at the moment was and people hustlin’ everything everywhere. 3 card monte, weed, women, fake jewelry – you name it. When you came out of the Gallery you would come up on Filbert Street and walk right across the street to Armand’s records. Then after that you walk 1 block down to Market street and hit Funk O Mart. When you were done there, you’d walk half a block back down to 11th and hit the Sound Of Market. I called it the vinyl triangle. I was always operating on slim funds (usually saved up lunch money) so if I had anything left by the time I got to the third shop it was a miracle. Sadly, I didn’t make the most of my time and money in those shops cause