The Godfathers of Dubstep (the widely growing and bass obsessed genre taking over dark clubs and warehouses around Sydney), these two artists represent not only Dubsteps brooding and bass heavy tradition, they are some of the first producers to pioneer the sounds which we now take for granted as part of Dubstep.

Chances are if you’ve ever been to a Dubstep party, even only once, you’ve heard these guys, with their tracks being extremely popular amongst DJs and producers alike, Skream’s even had a song appear on Skins.

This exclusive show is supported by some of Sydney’s finest acts - Hermitude, Bec Paton, Double Robin (DSS), Western Synthetics & Monkfly.

Anyway got to moshtix to get a ticket and do it now, this will make Underworld and The Presets look like a Michael Bolton, brap!

http://www.myspace.com/bengabeats vs. http://www.myspace.com/skreamuk

“HI MARGARET, HOW ARE YOU?”
He bellows at the small woman, turns to me and in the same breath informs me that “she’s a lovely lady when you get to know her. Her husband died in the war.”

I wonder how hard it is to get to know someone who can’t hear a word you’re saying. “You’ve got to have a bit of time for these people. It can’t be easy for them either.” Daniel’s words are kind, understanding. My voice seems to echo around the room several times as I ask him how the album is going.

“It’s all been recorded and mixed and mastered and pretty much ready to go. We’re sending it out this week to some labels to see if we can find someone to put it out for us.”

Two young men sit behind us, quietly playing cards, oblivious to our unnecessarily loud voices and happy to be left to their own devices. Daniel tells me more about the motivation behind the album. “It was totally self funded, we just did it ourselves. Musically, it’s ready to go.”

A monstrous sound rips the room apart as a patient begins hammering on the keys of the baby grand piano that until recently had sat disregarded in a corner of the room, her head pressed to the ground in an awkward dance with the chaotic noise. Raising his voice over the din, Daniel explains that “recording to analogue tape made things a bit rough for a first recording. You have to be a lot more accurate.”

The piercing sounds of the tortured piano slowly begin to subside. The random batterings start to resemble a somewhat pleasant sounding melody. “It also limits you to twenty four tracks maximum so you can’t do five hundred vocal takes and take a second from each one. I think doing it to tape worked out well because of things like that.” Daniel starts to talk softer, slowly approaching an average level.

The piano fades into the background noise and I suddenly realise just how hard that is. There are no other sounds in the room but for the subtle flip of cards or the occasional unacknowledged fart. There really isn’t much going on here. It seems like a quiet vacation more than an institution. “It limited our opportunities for editing and we had to have parts more exactly as we wanted them.”
Daniel is hesitant to take any credit for his own actions. He admits that he comes here to help out the less fortunate, but maintains that it is a team effort to keep the place going. “We got a girl choir that we’re calling the Don Walker Appreciation Choir to sing on a few songs.”

“It’s most prominent on one song which is a cover of a song called Silos, which is a Don Walker song.” A tall young woman with a ponytail enters the room. Daniel stands and gives her a warm hug.

“There’s horns and all sorts of percussion too. We wanted to give it a bit of a community vibe and we also liked what those things added and we wanted to do something fairly different to what we do live.”

Hellos and goodbyes are shared. Daniel and I head towards the revolving doors and the outside world. I ask him if The Maladies will be touring soon. “We’re doing quite a few shows in Sydney in December, basically just trying to get a bit of a vibe around the album.”

Passing the visitor registry, Daniel pauses to sign up for another visit next week. “We’ve been trying to write songs really since recording, we’ve been rehearsing a lot, getting together a lot and just nutting out some new material which is coming along as slow as ever but it’s all been rewarding.”

We stop and turn to face each other as we reach the kerb. I decide to ask Daniel straight up how he thinks he’ll manage, trying to balance all these different sides of his personality.

“I imagine it’s gonna be difficult. Especially with writing songs, it’s time consuming and it’s pretty hard to balance it all but you’ve just got to find a way to do it I guess.”

“I don’t think there will ever be industrial relations rock. Sounds pretty boring to me.”

Putting the Industrial Relations music genre on the backburner for now the band has concentrated on touring like a dog in heat, crossing the nation to capitalise on their burgeoning reputation.

“We’ve been probably playing shows for about two and a half years now and just in the last two months, since the release of the EP, things have been coming together a bit.”
“It is kind of shifting gears right now, that is really cool. I think we’re getting more media coverage, more people coming to our shows, just mustering a little bit more interest. We’re also getting more recognition, which is nice, it’s a hard thing to break into.”

Breaking into things is hard (except cars which just takes dedication and a coat-hanger) but the band has pushed past the initial phase, and been rewarded with a nomination for the strangely named Smack award (other nominees include Greg Bird).

“It’s really nice, it just feels that through lots of hard work, you know. But I don’t know a lot about the Smack awards so I’ve been listening to FBI to try and get some info on from them, but yeah it’ll be fun.”
Cloud Control got noticed with their infectious single Death Cloud. It was at that moment people picked up on the recurring cloud theme. Alas, the band are not budding climatologists, just coincidental, they claim.

“The two weren’t really connected, the band name came before we wrote that song. We never intended to have this airy fairy cloud theme, so hopefully putting death in the name shoots that down. But it was just an appropriate name for the song, there was no over-arching plan for world domination through various cloud names.”

World domination may be out of their reach for now, but Cloud Control are blowing in the right direction. They’ve landed a spot at Peats Ridge, joining an impressive line up.
“Yeah it’s going to be really good, getting a few festivals like that under your belt is really helpful. I was listening to the FBI wrap on it today and there are over 200 bands playing so it’s going to be pretty mental I hope. Should be a lot of fun and hopefully we can make a weekend of it.”

The band is composed of three uni students and one full-time worker, which makes for an interesting dynamic. Three quarters of the band get cheap train tickets and stress over footnoting while the hard-working Jeremy watches on in bemusement.

“It can be annoying with students,” he laughs, “they always whinge about how much work they have to do, I was a uni student too and I know you just leave it till the last two weeks and then go nuts.”
This blasé attitude served the band well when they toured with Supergrass. Being in the presence of greatness may have unnerved lesser bands, but Cloud Control took it in their stride.

“Well it was pretty funny, they’re so iconic we didn’t know what to expect, but chatting to them they’re really lovely guys, Gaz the front man is really lovely. Dan the drummer, is kind of like, if you put a drunk Hugh Grant in a band, and told him to play shows every day that’s him. He’s the perfect English gentleman but he is just always drunk and always talking mischief.”

Drunken mischief appeals to everyone so make sure you scuttle on down to Peats Ridge and watch Cloud Control.

“I was just talking to Nick, my co-writer. We’ve been best friends since primary school and we write all the songs together. We were talking about when we were fourteen we used to go to Homebake and dye our hair blue and go for the day and always imagine that we’d one day play at Homebake, and now we are.”

A bit of a dream come true then. It’s not often you get to satisfy a desire you’ve had since your early teens. I still haven’t managed to become a superhero.

“It’s really nice when you can go ‘Wow, I actually wanted to do this when I was fourteen and now I’m doing it.’ It shows that we’ve been writing for a while and we’ve stayed together and that’s kind of rare I guess.”
The desire to play at Homebake is nearly as old as the creative team that underpins the band. The name Deep Sea Arcade may be relatively new, but the songwriters have been working together for quite some time.

“Essentially Nick, the bass player, and I have been writing songs for years. Maybe not the songs we play in our lineup, but we’ve been writing music since we were about twelve and we’ve known each other since we were five.”

This history has given their dreamlike psychedelic sound time to develop “at home, recording on old four tracks and tape decks.” It was an organic process, with the two only deciding to look for collaborators when they were confident they had enough material to work with.

“When we had enough songs and demos to get a band together we did that, about two years ago. We rehearsed for a year without playing shows and then suddenly started doing shows when we felt confident that we were all sure where the music was going.”
That confidence has been tested with a grueling series of performances at the Hopetoun hotel. The past six months of competition have given Deep Sea Arcade a strong working relationship with the venue.

“We’ve been playing the Hopetoun for the last six months or so and they’ve been very positive and encouraging about what we’ve been doing there. It’s been really great for us and really great because the Hopetoun is such a community as well. Not only the Hopetoun themselves, but the community are very supportive of the bands that play there.”

In the midst of recording already, the winning package will give them a chance to record at a renowned studio.

“We’re currently recording at Big Jesus Burger studios in Surry Hills, so we’re putting that together. Also we’re gonna have the opportunity to record at 301 at Byron Bay, which is part of the Homebake incentive. We’ll be doing a lot of recording and mixing.”
“We’ll continue to write because, for us, we love performing and it’s great but it’s always been for us about writing music. That’s why we spent so much time writing and that’s what we get a lot of our joy from. The performance stuff is great too, but that’s kind of what we do as a band, that’s our major focus.”

There are advantages to playing live, however. Nic embraces the instantaneous reaction an audience brings. Playing with other musicians allows for an organic development of their sound also.

“You get to play and get that kind of positive affirmation I guess.”

“The best thing about playing live for us has been that although Nick and I wrote the songs, we’re kinda looking forward to writing with the rest of the band as it moves on because we all kinda really feel where we’re going with it.”

It’s a development that is welcomed by the band. Nic reflects that it has been a positive move.
“Definitely for the better. Just in terms of leaving it in the hands of people who really know their craft. Playing live has transformed the music and it’s been an amazing thing, something that we just couldn’t have done by ourselves.”

“In terms of the people we play with, we all get on really well. We’ve got a really established direction of where we want to take this band and what we want to sound like. I think there’s no room for dispute. All suggestions are always met welcomingly.”

So what can you expect to hear from Deep Sea Arcade on the big day? Musicians are often reluctant to try to describe their own sound, so Nic instead shared an anecdote about a not so keen listener.

“Our guitarist’s neighbours told us that it sounded like spooky reverbs trickling down the wall cavity. It was kind of like a complaint, asking him to turn it down a little bit, but we thought that was a great way to describe the music.”

Indeed.

I man who always has to keep himself busy, I catch Tim while his getting his clean on. “I’m actually doing housework - I’m getting very domestic. I find that every time I get back from a tour I want to get straight into the housework. I put on a load of washing and stare down a pile of dishes. You gotta let those dishes know who’s boss, otherwise they might not be there next time you come back.”
Mind you, rather than being motivated out of OCD or any other compulsive disorder, Tim finds it calming, Zen even as a way to help deal with having just come of a European tour.

“Being domestic is the last thing on your mind when you’re on tour. Then once it’s over, I think every band gets that tour comedown, because you’ve been working 7 days a week for 12 months or so, and then you come off tour and it’s like “I have to do something” or “I have to be somewhere”, and so you try to fill it with the kind of mundane tasks like housework, or doing your taxes… anything to get your mind working again and to get back into your normal life.”

He needs it consider the epic journey of self discover and self abuse the boys just returned from. “We’ve been here, there and everywhere – and a lot of places we’d never been before actually. We’ve done two extensive tours across America, throughout Europe several times, Mexico, Columbia and everywhere else in between… it really has been a year of non-stop overseas touring.”

“I think that once you’re in that kind of world where you’re doing shows night in night out, you tend to go on autopilot a bit; all aspects of normal life go out the window, but then you just have to try grasp onto something that gives you some sense of normality while touring.”

It’s not only domesticity that helps keep Tim and the band clinging to sanity and reality, with the boys employing a varied and wide spanning regime to stay sharp and stop from going all Jack Nicholson in The Shining on each other.

We haven’t really lost it at each other, but we have gone a bit delirious. I definitely don’t think I’m as smart as I used to be. But we try to do things to fix that up, like having chess tournaments on tour and reading a lot and cutting out some of the partying to save our minds a little bit; basically trying to save your creativity, otherwise it might get sucked out of you after doing the same things night after night.”

Creativity however is one thing the band doesn’t seem to be lacking. The marketing department at Modular also seem to be in no need of a creativity injection (although I can think of a few other injections they could use), with the bands press release describe their latest album In Ghost Colours as an “inverse colours exist in a timeless space where 1980 is as relevant as 2080″. What in the name of God’s inflamed haemorrhoids is that supposed to mean?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he replies with a laugh, deep and hearty. “Unfortunately we have no control over the press releases, although perhaps we should.”

“It’s a funny thing to read stuff about your record, especially the journalists’ take on what they think the record is. I guess they do it to build up as much hype about the record as possible. But I don’t think that particular piece is too relevant to our record… maybe it is in their minds but certainly not in ours. It’s hard to tell because it’s incredibly ambiguous – who’s to say that they’ve actually listened to the record?”

I know I didn’t, better not to ruin the picture the press release painted.

Beginning their musical experimentation in 2001, Outrun found much of their musical inspiration from the sound tracks of 80’s b grade films. When referring to these soundtracks Dan states that ‘Much of it is made by unknown musicians, or as with John Carpenter, by the filmmaker him or herself.”

” These days it seems most film scores or synced music is commercially tied in and maybe has more to do with record company ties and placement. We love the earnestness of much of the 80’s cheesy action music. You know those kinds of riffs and solos that conjure images of some dude on a cliff with long hair blowing in the wind and a flying V guitar soloing as if his particular solo right then and there is saving the world.”

” It’s not only B grade 80’s film s that inspire us though, any of Dario Argento’s films (I guess some might argue that they are b grade, but the soundtracks certainly are not). Anything by Giorgio Moroder, John Carpenter, Vangelis.’

Proclaiming that they are not good-looking enough to get anywhere writing cheesy commercial electro pop. And that they are not young enough to know what’s cool amongst the kids they try and make tunes that stand up for themselves.

‘We like our sounds to be interesting and atmospheric. Ideally we would like our tracks to be enjoyed by someone lying on their lounge room floor as well as on the dance floor. I guess our sound originates from Art Rock, Techno, Disco, Electro House, Electro Rock, Minimal Electro. Dan and I had a band years ago called Nautilus that was very Trans Am, Kraftwerk, Goblin, Shellac inspired. It seems like Outrun is a natural progression from Nautilus.’

Outrun have been compared to the likes of other Australian musical acts such as to the Presets, Midnight Juggernauts and Cut Copy.  But when asked who they would least like to be compared to they commented that it would suck if they were compared to some dated band because good electro doesn’t date.

What they do love and who they would love to be compared to include Joy Division, New Order, Suicide, Goblin comparisons. ‘I think we try to write classic tracks rather than cutting edge ones.’

Electro rock is riding a wave of popularity right now, and this has greatly excited Outrun as they no longer fear getting beaten up whilst playing in the regional areas.
When asked why they think Australians are embracing this electro culture more these days Dan states ‘ I think Australia has been awash with rock/pop bands for so long I think we are simply catching up with the rest of the world in terms of electronic music being a major player here.”

This smooth sailing for Outrun in the Electro world has not meant smooth sailing for them in the rest of the world. Outrun has experienced some ’security’ issues with commercial flying, the Australian Federal Police and suspicious activity. Trying to explain what had happened between Outrun and Plane security Dan explained

‘Well, we had played a show in Sydney and I hadn’t slept for a couple of days. I was very drunk when I got on the plane and happened to be seated at the emergency exit door (which is the best by the way because you have so much leg room). I fell asleep as soon as we took off but somewhere over Canberra I awoke to a woman yelling “he’s trying to open the emergency exit door!!!!!” it was a silent moment in the plane so you can imagine the kind of panic that she caused. I was simply dreaming and fumbling with my hands. I had managed to pull off the plastic cover over the handle and then had my hands on the handle while I was waking up. It would have looked bad. But really it is impossible to open one of those doors by yourself, especially while seated.

“Anyway the stewards grabbed me and took me up the back of the plane. I thought that was it and that it was all a bit weird but when the plane landed, five federal police stormed on before anyone had even got up out of their seats, dragged me off to the cop car parked under the wing of the plane and had me under arrest , hands on the car, legs apart and being frisked with kevlar gloves while the passengers filed past pointing at me.”

” The police thought I was psychotic and a terrorist. I was interrogated and marched all the way through the airport. It was all most unpleasant. It made the news in Sydney though which is pretty cool. ‘

And on with the music! With tracks such as the unrequited love song ‘Runnaround’, Outrun proves to value lyrics as much as they are dedicated to their electro beats. When talking about their lyrics Dan comments ‘ I guess I’m the only one who knows the real story behind the lyrics I write. Runnaround (we misspelt it on the first pressing, it should actually be Runaround) to me isn’t really a love song. It’s a bit of a mash of different ideas, and the lyrics in that song aren’t that considered. “I lie awake with you” is kinda referring to amphetamine induced insomnia, “Now you see the stars it’s easy” refers to an Ex girlfriend getting a lot of recognition for her music  and at the time it felt like nothing was working for me.

As a song writer Dan believesin the importance of lyrics for anchoring listeners to the song . However he also believes that  vocals are not necessary.’ We are at ease writing and performing instrumentals as well. Me especially because I actually get to play something rather than dancing around onstage looking like a dick head. ‘

2009 sees big things coming from Outrun. They are recording the next album Dec 8 in Wilsons Promontory so the first couple of months will see them staring a laptops for days on end mixing and producing. They say they are super excited about this next album because with  Mark on bass he has added a whole new element to their song writing and jamming has become much more exciting. They are taking a break from live shows until they go overseas in April to Berlin.

Finally, with video games playing such a vital role in their band, the video game of choice for the band would be difficult to choose.

‘Dan is always playing FIFA Soccer and Grand Theft Auto (both on X Box) . I gave it up when I finally beat him (once, at soccer). I’m more of a pinball guy, actually when I lived in Geelong I was weirdly fanatical about pin ball (pinball machine graphics are a big inspiration for us).”

” Though I was a video game nut when I was a kid. Wonder Boy, Black Dragon, Bobble Bobble, Hyper Olympics, Street Fighter, Outrun, Shinobi, Unreal Tournament, Doom, sit down Racing games as well. I actually had a Commodore 64 and later I had an Atari ST. I finally bought a Play Station but I never had any games. I bought it to use this music program that came out for it. That’s when I started making beats. ‘

Salmonella Dub are musicians from across the Tasman who have been the dub pioneers for fifteen years. Front man Andrew caught us up on their latest movements.

“We’ve just done some writing and recording from our tour with NZ Symphony orchestra, which was interesting. It has come up amazingly well, nerve wracking putting it all together, you’ve got 80 people waiting on stage, but it came together and now its available on CD and vinyl. More recently we’ve been working on our next album.”

The New Zealand based dubsters have seen members come and go, but it hasn’t affected their unique sound.

“We’ve changed members over the years, but now we’ve kind of come full circle to the original core three. As far as the dynamic goes, because of the core membership, it’s the same foundation, we’ve recently had people move on to do other things, which was a natural thing, but it’s allowed us to move on a bit quicker, the more people there are the harder it is to get things done.”

High on the To Do List is hitting the festivals in Australia, their self proclaimed home away from home.

“Those little festivals are out favourites, Peats Ridge will be a sweet bush environment, which suits the psychedelic edge of our stuff, better then being stuck in a sweaty club, I mean it’s always a good vibe, very fond memories.”

“I think we’ve done over thirty tours of Australia and it’s like a second home. We’ve probably got as strong a fan base, if not stronger, in Australia. But also the population is bigger, and a real music industry and touring circuit.”

Despite the infamous rivalry between the countries, in New Zealand sheepish isn’t just a personality trait, it’s a genetic flaw, the band downplays any historical rift.

“Yeah there is no NZ -Aus rivalry, the Aussie crowd embraces us really well, I mean you still get people asking you to say ‘fish and chips’ but we were lucky, we got quite a good leg up when we first went to Australia through the Cruel Sea.”

After the generosity of Tex Perkins, ninety percent Bourbon ten percent Rock God, the band had a foot in the door in Australia, and never looked back, together since 1992.

“The key to our longevity, what sets us apart I think, is that we all have equal input in what we do and equal shares in the whole band. If there are egos involved you just stomp on them. Everyone gets a chance to say something, at the recording process there is no one songwriter, no one dictating what’s going on.”

Lack of dictatorship has worked for both Germany and Salmonella Dub, with their newest collaboration earning critical acclaim. Which saw the band spent time with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, recording and touring.

“They approached us. We got paid by the Govt to play with the orchestra but also I used to play in the school orchestra when I was a kid, and it turns out the conductor, was in my class. We used to bang out punk versions of Beatles song to piss off our music teacher. We were on the same page.”

The mutual juvenile rebellion may have led to a wonderful partnership but neither Salmonella Dub nor NZ Symphony Orchestra could’ve predicted how the tour would end.

“We ended the tour at Trafalgar Park to three thousand people. The night was called Feel the Seasons Change, and when we started out it rained early in the set, and then twenty minutes later the sun came out. It was almost like the weather was choreographed for the show.”
“The thing that really got me was for the last half of the set, there would’ve been 1500 people moshing, in front of the orchestra. You had grandmas, babies, suits, baldies, pot smokers, it was great.”

The multigenerational, pension receiving, weed smoking, diaper shitting crowd may have excited Salmonella but not as much as plans for their newest dub experiment.

“We have a character called the Mighty Asterisk and he is a reggae song bird and we decided to try him out in the studio, and it worked, real jumpy and soulful.”

“The album should hit late summer, maybe winter, we’re going to start involving our audience a bit more via the website. We’ll be starting to make dub versions of the tracks available for download on website just as a taster of we’re we are at.”

If you want to taste Salmonella then hit up their website http://www.salmonelladub.com and check them out at Peats Ridge.

“I’ve actually just stopped working a full time job so I can concentrate on music.”

Perhaps somewhat intimidating given the current environment, this wasn’t an impulsive move. While Sui has been making her melodic folk music since at least 2003, it was several years later that she contemplated the pursuit as something of a career.

“Yeah, I’ve been writing for a long time, but I guess I was always working and doing music as a hobby until about 2006. It was then I actually spent some money on recording my first EP and started playing a few more shows.”
“I had finished uni and was about to get a job and started thinking about what I really wanted to do. I think I was just happy enough to do it for myself. But then obviously you start the whole kinda public persona thing; other people start getting interested.”

That public persona provided an opportunity to meet other artists and musicians who have encouraged her to continue writing, offering chances to collaborate and further develop her unique sound. It’s something that has surely helped to keep up the motivation.

“Yeah, I’ve gradually met a lot of really inspiring people locally. Like-minded people help each other out, and everyone’s different, but you kind of find the similar minded people in the music industry. You work together, and get inspired by each other and that’s the whole reason you do it in the end.”

Still a daunting move to abandon a guaranteed pay check every week, Sui Zhen remains confident with her change of vocation. She has other things in mind too.

“It was good. It was a good move. It took me a while to adjust to the different lifestyle but it allows me to do all this other stuff that I want to do. I’m trying to do a lot of things with the visuals as well.”

“It’s just small kind of stuff at the moment. I’ve just started getting back into drawing and a bit of painting. I like doing small scale visuals, some animations and some drawing, but I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to take it. I’d love to be able to make whole music videos, but they take a very long time for the kind of style I have. I might work for months and months on one thing and it’d only be twenty seconds.”

While entire video clips might be too time consuming, she has already developed ideas for “projections behind the stage” as she performs live. Her upcoming tour involves a mix of solo performances and shows with a full backing band. Both incarnations will be playing the same songs, and hence keep the same name, but she tells me there are some significant differences between the two.

“With the band it’s more of a band experience; it’s not so much a singer songwriter vibe. It’s kinda more like the recording because we can do all those different sounds and stuff but then a lot of people still really respond to the solo shows and I enjoy playing them too. Some people really enjoy just seeing the one person.”

The apex of this tour will see Sui bringing the whole band along to deliver her full atmospheric sound to the main stage at the Peats Ridge festival. It’s a gig that she looks forward to with a surprising lack of nerves, given she’s never played a festival before.

“Nah, it’s really cool. I’m really excited about that. A lot of my good friends are all playing and I think it’s gonna be a really great festival. It’s part of a festival too, so there’s people who are there anyway so you’ve gotta try and get them to come and watch you.”

That challenge, getting complete strangers to connect with her music seems to be part of the attraction of playing live for Sui Zhen.

“I really like that challenge. That’s probably one of my favourite challenges about performing is playing your first song and drawing people in. I really like watching people if don’t know who the hell you are and then you start playing and kinda getting a bit interested.”

Devoting her time to music, she is currently working on two albums of material. One is a Sui Zhen release, the other a little different.

“I’m writing for a Sui Zhen album, which has kinda been a slow organic process. I’m also working with my partner Jamie on a collaborative album together, but it’s a bit more experimental so we’re using lots of different sounds from all over the place”

“I got the Jazz Rooms going in the late 80’s and then up into the 90’s I started to get lots of international gigs, and I was lucky enough to get booked to come out here in 2003 to play a DJ tour,” he tells me in a jolly British accent. “I came here and, I’m quite a fatalistic person in a lot of ways, and when I got it here it just felt like I really connected with the crowd and the audiences here, maybe that I was doing something they hadn’t heard before.”
“Basically I just had a great tour, met a bunch of great people and saw a lot of potential, not only for club nights and DJ-ing but also for bringing live music out here. I hooked up with James Browning from Niche Productions and we did the first Jazz Bop tour, which is my big live music event I do in England and we did that here in 2004 with Quantic Soul Orchestra, and Alex Russell and other people like The Bamboos, and this was before they were sort of appreciated properly here,” hew explains with the speed and insistence of a Tommy Gun.

“We kept doing more tours and club nights, and I found they were just doing really well around the country and it just sort of solidified for me that this was where I wanted to be to sort of spread the word.”

And spread the word he has. Having done shows with a wide range of Australian artists, while helping them gain international exposure through his nights and years of experience in the industry.

“What’s really interesting to me about Australia is that there is so much amazing musical talent, live music talent, that should be on the global stage, but that just isn’t at the moment, that’s kind of confined to Australia. So what I’ve being try to do is to take bands like Ray Mann Three, and Mariana Gilles and The Transatlantics, this great funk band from Adelaide, and getting them out internationally, and that’s been a bit of a mission for me.”

Although things haven’t exactly been easy as pie, Russ is not daunted, seeing difficulty, as a sign of it’s potential to endure. “I’ve always found with quality music and black music or whatever, there’s always a large audience you’ve just got to reach them. How many times do you do gigs, where you get people coming up and saying ‘I’ve never heard this music before, what is it?” So for me it’s about reaching that audience and turning people on to quality music. “

In a world were young, music fans are increasing wrapped up in short lived and shallow musical fads such as Hannah Montana, or MDMA fuelled public gurn-a-thons that sell-out before a line-up even gets announced (Harbourlife), Russ understands a lot for them just don’t know what they’re missing.

“Let’s be honest Mikey,” he commands. “Mainstream music is terrible, it’s the worst it’s ever been. Like the in the club scene kids in their late teens early 20s they’re going to all these electro things and they don’t realise there’s choice now, you know it isn’t all about that, there’s choice now and that’s what I’m about here in Australia, giving people choice.”

“Also the drug culture associated with the club scene has changed things. When I grew up, quality music was so much part of the culture, and that doesn’t exist as much anymore, a lot of people now go to a club to get, to get well, wasted. What I’m trying to do is bring back like a old school mentality where the reason you go to a club is to hear good music.”

“The thing is, it’s always a mission with quality music, and it’s the same for all of us dealing with quality music, but it’s worth the longevity that you get from fighting the battle.”

Coming from the guy that started the longest running club night in the world, his words certainly carry some weight.

“For many years I’ve wanted to put something like this on. I’d jot a few names down on a piece of paper and go ‘imagine that.’ With this lineup it’s pretty damn close to my dream lineup. Rather than going for anything too hip I just wanted to put together something I’d want to go to.”

Crossing the large oval that will be the ’show ring stage’, James tells me the possibility of putting on such an ambitious event was secured over many years promoting smaller scale tours.

“I’ve been promoting bands locally and international bands for six to eight years now. I guess it was sort of  the natural progression to do more, bigger and bigger acts. I kept on getting the taste to do something bigger I guess. The progression to a festival was pretty natural. It wasn’t until I had a few acts already in the bag, I started getting offered more acts and eventually it started to take shape.”

It is certainly a timeless lineup. With the likes of Public Enemy, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and the Platinum Pied Pipers, the new festival boasts a wide range of seasoned artists, as well as some newer locals.

“There’s definitely some debut artists playing like Yo Majesty and The Dodos who are indie. I guess when you think about it all those acts like Sharon Jones, best soul/funk act in the world right now; Fat Freddy’s Drop, best dub act; Atmosphere, some of the best hip hop acts in the world. I do think it’s a bit of a world class lineup.”

Talk wanders to some of the other big festivals that are put on annually in Sydney. James hesitates when comparing his love child to anything on a larger scale.

“If anything I didn’t really want to call this a festival because I know how over saturated and overused that term ‘festival’ is. At the moment I want to look at it like a bit of a block party really. It just so happens there’s a couple of stages.”

As we stroll around the grounds, it is easy to forget that this patch of nature is so close to the city centre. Standing outside where the main stage will be, James points to the Dome which he tells me “will be the more dance, electronic room. And then there’s the forum. I’m sure you’ve been to see a band there.”

“It’s got a village-esque vibe going on. It’s by no means a mega-festival. We’re only talking a pretty small boutique thing. We wanted to keep it pretty intimate. There’s something for everyone there on the bill.”

It seems this idea, of keeping the whole thing a little more intimate and special is something that benefited from a lot of support. We watch a group of tourists pass us as James ponders the benefit of encouragement.

“It was good having a wide network of contacts and people who really love the concept. We hope we can turn it into a bit of a regular event on the calendar.”

Public Enemy will be closing out the festival on the main stage, a group that is worthy of note. Their attendance came with some special instructions from James.

“They’re gonna basically concentrate on playing a lot of their old tracks, from Apocalypse on. We’ve put in that special request.”

With the cancellation of smaller festivals like the Great Escape this year, expectations are tentatively optimistic for Days. As we head towards the bar, James voice takes a positive turn.

“It’s looking really strong and tickets are selling really well. That’s reassuring that we’re on the right path.

Pointing off to his right, James explains his intentions for gourmet food stalls on the day. He tells me this festival is not one that will suffer with a poor choice of unhealthy food, a decision guided by the intended audience.

“From the very beginning I wanted to aim for a demographic. We didn’t want to have kebabs. We put a lot of time into sourcing our food. Basically, what we’re saying is that the music isn’t junk and the food isn’t going to be either.”
“We’re going after a little bit of an older, discerning, music loving crowd who will appreciate it. Everything is going well at the moment.”

Days Like This will be held at the entertainment quarter, Moore Park on the 4th January.