Scott Baker recently picked up first prize in Sydney’s ‘Plastic’ DJ Comp. A key part of the prize is a performance at ‘Transmission’s 6th Birthday’ playing alongside Sydney’s finest DJs such as Nervous, Mark Dynamix, John Ferris, Jumping Jack, Ben Korbel and Trent Anthony. His display of skill behind the decks has managed to impress even some of the city’s most jaded clubbers!



It is clear that Scott’s thrilled with his recent success of winning Plastic’s DJ comp. Clearly, he feels his hard work and driving passion to establish himself is beginning to pay off. Although his DJ identity has recently been thrust into the limelight, he is humble in his words and gestures. Scott speaks of the dreams he, like many of us have, of being able to lead a mass of people to a point of absolute bliss through his creativity and the emotion expressed through music he selects. Scott is putting those dreams into action and after putting in the hard yards, his dream is becoming a reality.



Since the young age of 13, Scott has been interested in dance music and dance culture. At 15, his passion for electronic music took control and he began venturing out to dance events. Not long after, Scott got bitten by the clubbing bug. From that point on, there was no stopping his love for the music and the scene. The seed was planted on NYE night in 99/00; Scott describes standing in wonderment watching the thousands of people reacting to the DJ. Lo and behold, the following week, Scott purchased his very first DJ set-up and was starting to build his precious vinyl collection, which now numbers in the hundreds.



In the early days, Scott Baker’s main musical focus was Trance, flowing from the uplifting side of the spectrum to the hard, darker-edged side. However in the past 6 months Scott’s tastes have developed and he now seeks out the more ‘underground’ sounds. Dodging the mainstream styles of dance and pushing the boundaries of what crowds are willing to accept. In his own words, I get such a buzz out of testing the crowd, it’s the greatest feeling if they react well to what I dish out. Pushing the boundaries is what makes the scene grow and flourish and a fearless mixing approach is to be respected.



On the progressive front Scott nabs anything from the producers Funky Green Dogs, Satoshi Tomiie, Way Out West, Chris Lum and FC Kahuna. Coming from the tech influenced side he tends to focuses on the works of Oxia, Plasmatics, Pascal FEOS, Layo & Bushwacka, Marco V, Mr C & Danilo Vigorito, but most of all he gets everything and anything Timo Maas puts his name to. no matter what he produces or remixes, I just love the continuous, rolling tech-edge he manages to flow right through it all… a perfect example is his dub remix of his own ‘To Get Down’... a great tech number indeed.



In the local front Scott Baker’s main influence is Mark Dynamix. I’ve been listening to a lot of his sets and it’s given me more direction musically, technically and in many other aspects of constructing a set live, or putting a CD together. Live acts such as Infusion & Pocket are great inspiration and leave me with an open mind when searching for my music. Another key source of inspiration has to be the punters themselves… seeing a dance floor pumping and full of smiling faces drives to send myself even more broke by continually buying more records!



Scott looks upon winning the Plastic DJ competition as one huge accomplishment and a big step in furthering his career:

Coming into the comp I saw it as a great opportunity for any DJ to take the next step in their career, and also being put on by one of the most respected club nights in Sydney, you felt that you were dealing with the right people. Even though the demo I handed in was primarily trance, I decided to play a tech house / progressive set for my heat, which seemed to be received really well as a welcomed change from the other heats. I knew the final was going to be tough, with over 35 entrants in total, it would really contain the ‘best of the best’. I trusted my instincts and strengths in pushing out a progressive and tech house set with a lot of tunes for the condensed 30 minute set allowance, driving in and out of mixes as quickly as the tracks would allow.



I was lucky enough to see Scott perform his initial DJ comp set… and by god did it go down like chocolate milk! He received an encore chant from the tightly packed back room, but finishing a smooth Tech-Prog set with the ‘Gabriel & Dresden’ remix of Way Out West’s Mindcircus was bound to rate highly amongst any crowd who really know their music.



Scott Baker’s future looks very bright. He has recently set up a home studio to further channel his sound into a product. If he keeps up the string of strong performances as in the recent past, and pushing the boundaries of electronic music then the good people of Sydney are certainly in for a treat.



Scott is playing at Plastic (Zen Nightclub) in July / August and has an in-store mixup at Original Levi’s Store, Pitt Street Mall on 3rd August. Tune into CPX – 99.9 SWR FM in August for more of Scott’s sound and the big one…



Transmission’s 6th Birthday – Sydney Arena, Homebush – 7 September