Let's get this straight – it was HOT. Like really, really, ridiculously hot. But that is no excuse for some of the “fashion” seen on people at this BDO.

Fashion is a form of self-expression, a way of having fun, of changing your mood and also usually includes some practical elements (protection from cold/ sun/ rain etc). However it appears that most people followed the mass memo about the BDO uniform.

Denim shorts? Check. Swimwear worn as outerwear? Check. Oversized sunglasses? Check. Fake tan? Check, check and check!

But among the masses, there were some brave individuals, some people going their own way who were walking to the beat of their own fashion drum. And thank god for them as people-watching is a sport played best at music festivals. Spotted were a few retro-inspired frocks, a playful romper or two, flared jeans with a crop top (best left for Kate Hudson but can be rocked out by any regular person who has never grown hips) and even a summer shorts suit.

There were fewer hats than expected and more glitter (but surely it would be sweated off in seconds?). The boys presented a less united front with a diversity of looks ranging from the usual suspects (you know who I'm talking about) to the more dapper.

There were bow ties, skinny ties, oversized tees, crop tops, high tops, caps, tracks and even a three-piece suit (heat stroke anyone?). Although props should be given for his commitment to looking good. By the end, everyone looked a vague shade of orange and were kind of shiny (from the sweat and glitter no doubt).

Nothing is going to turn the Nicky Romero ship off its course - not even a massively grueling touring schedule.

“I've just gotten back from a long tour,” chimes the youngster from the Netherlands. “It started on Boxing Day in England which was an awesome way to start. I did two gigs in one night — one at Gatecrasher Birmingham and the other at Cream in Liverpool! After that, it was straight off to the United States. I started out in Miami where I played the Space Terrace for the first time! Some more gigs after that we landed safely in Los Angeles where I had the pleasure of recording my label's first official video clip for my track with the Nervo twins, ‘Like Home’.”

So at the end of a whirlwind year that he says was an amazing experience, Romero is getting ready to smash Australia with some countrywide dates. But it hasn't been all-roses for the youngster, who could just as easily have headed a different path if it wasn't for his drive, commitment and determination.

“It can be a very intense life in music,” he admits. “Though I feel blessed to be in the position I am in today. It is every musician’s dream to be successful so I have to be very thankful to be doing what I love every day. My career is everything I hoped it would be — and more. The people I get to meet, the places I go, as well as the overall impressions I get every day — it is all one great gift!”

Touring aside, the lad has been rather busy in the studio since his 2012 EP ‘Sparks’ rattled a few feathers (in a good way).  “Many things have been going on musically recently. I produced a track for Rihanna that features on her latest album ‘Unapologetic’. I also released that track with the Nervo twins, that was released on my own label Protocol Recordings which was great as well.” Label wise too, Romero explains how he has signed another track on his imprint by Tony Romera called ‘Pandor’. “David Guetta also asked me to do a remix for his track with Ludacris and Usher called ‘Rest Of My Life’ which will be released shortly too; so all in all we have some great collaborations lined up for 2013!”

The notion of ‘keeping busy’ for Romero may well be an understatement — it doesn't hurt to dream, though, and despite having released tracks on some big labels already, he’s got even bigger goals for the future.

“It's my lifetime dream to work with Timbaland, actually,” he admits. “This is aiming for the stars but I hope that things will become reality some day! Otherwise, some of my collaborations have just come about by hooking up with artists who I had respect for. I am very happy with my collaboration with Avicii for example. My team has played a great part in my success too and we all work really hard — and the results keep coming in, so that is very exciting!”

He acknowledges the special feeling you get as an artist when you receive recognition from your peers, especially since many of them have been in the music business for considerable periods. “It is very special and I am thankful every day,” he professes proudly. “But what is also really great is that I have such an enthusiastic and loyal fan base. Just this week I received a video put together by my hardcore fans to wish me a happy birthday. It was absolutely touching and overwhelming! Also, playing to crowds all over the globe and seeing people partying to your music is one of the most fulfilling things in my life next to making the actual music.”

Clearly then, the Dutchman couldn't be happier. His performances have developed now to the point where he is playing his sets with a majority of his own music. “I try to mix the hottest tracks of the moment into my sets; and I try to feel out the crowd I have in front of me to see what gets them going. I always try to bring a mix that is fresh and reflective of what I am feeling at that time. I always play a good mix of different genres but I do try to stick with a story — it depends on the vibe of the festival, the crowd and so on.”

Finally, while Romero longs for a day off, he admits that even when he does get one, he usually spends the time in the studio doing an even longer session than normal. “A far distant second to music is my motorbike, too,” he says, almost as though he’s surprised to remember he has a life outside of music. “Riding that is a passion and helps me clear my head! Otherwise, at the gigs you can expect me to go all out and bring the freshest tunes, new productions and loads of energy!”

Nicky Romero plays the Big Day Out at Gold Coast Parklands on Sunday January 20

If you're familiar with the languid Southern rock of Band Of Horses, you're probably not used to thinking of them as skate punks. That's about to change.

“You know, it's funny,” laughs drummer Creighton Barrett, who could never have predicted he or frontman (and longtime friend) Ben Bridwell would find fame and relative fortune with radio-friendly tunes like 'Funeral', 'Is There A Ghost' and 'No One's Gonna Love You'. 

“It's this weird thing. I played in hard rock bands until I got the phone call from Ben asking me to play in Band Of Horses. He was always such a big musical influence on me. He just loved music. He would always send me good tapes; he got me into indie rock. But he started listening to country and stuff like that and I was just never around it... I was always into math rock and those kinds of things, just because I'm a drummer.

“But I came to this weird realisation that I had been playing in bands that, almost by design, were not going to be popular. It was a punk thing. But then eventually you start to mature, or at least I did, and I said, 'hey, I do want to be in a band that people actually like'. It meant I had to reinterpret what I thought was 'good music', to a certain degree. So I just think it's so hilarious to  look back on that transformation. Especially with Ben! He was always the punk rock singer in all the bands we played in. It's pretty amazing.”

Barrett may not be a punk rock drummer anymore, but he hasn't exactly left his old life behind. In fact, his new one affords him more indulgences than ever. “I always have my skateboard with me just in case,” he admits. “If I have a day off I'll try to find a skate park, and sometimes I even end up skating in the venue. I'll ollie over guitar cases.

“You can't really beat going to Spain [to skate]... LA is always pretty good, the weather's pretty nice. It's always cool if you get here to New York City right when fall starts, or right before summer starts, and you cruise around these streets... it's so insane, to be going with the flow of traffic. One of my favourite things used to be when we'd go to a bar, have a couple of beers, and then we'd go out at about two in the morning in New York and just skate until six in the morning. You can just cover so much ground.

“But besides New York, it'd have to be Barcelona, just because it's so fucking epic. They always have something fun to skate.”
The transition to playing in a “midtempo sadcore band”, as Barrett describes Band Of Horses, wasn't necessarily easy, and he admits playing midtempo is “a huge challenge” for him. That pace has also been a challenge for skate film directors, who have nonetheless found ways to incorporate Band Of Horses into their work.

“The biggest compliment I've had as a drummer in this band was when 'Fully Flared', the Lakai video [directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze and Corey Weincheque], came out a few years ago, and it was Guy Mariano's first part back [after struggling with substance addiction], and he skated to two Band Of Horses songs in a row and won Best Video Part Of The Year [at the Transworld Skateboarding Awards]. It's killer.

“Having Ty Evans be a fan of your music doesn't hurt at all. It's really interesting, because I would never think that it'd fit. But Ty did a thing for his website, Skate Fairy, when he first got into hi-def cameras, before the ‘Fully Flared’ video came out. He did this thing  with a Daryl Angel skate part to the third song off our first record ['Our Swords'], which is super slow, but he just slowed it down perfectly. He made this gorgeous video part to it.

“So when I first saw that... it opened my mind to music in skate videos. It meant a changing of the guard. It meant anything was possible. It was such a rad way to put a square peg through a circle hole.”

Band Of Horses play Big Day Out at Gold Coast Parklands on Sunday January 20.

When you think of the Big Day Out, you think music. Rock, hip hop, electronic — the eclectic mix that becomes the backing track to your summer.

But after 2013's festival, you may think sweaty men, colourful masks and sexy burlesque dancers. This is thanks to the ‘sexo and violencia’ that is Mexican wrestling troupe Lucha VaVOOM. Producer Rita D'Albert explains the allure of these wrestling luchadores and writhing buxoticas.

“My production partner, Liz Fairbairn, was working on the movie ‘Nacho Libre’ in Mexico, and some of the characters in the film were played by luchadores. On their days off they would take her to see them wrestle and she thought it was just the most insanely fun way to spend the night!

“When she came back to LA, she started organising these bus trips to Tijuana, and it occurred to her that it might be easier to bring the wrestling to LA, so that's when I came in. Liz had never put on a theatrical show, but I was putting on a few successful shows at the time. She took me to see it and after a few minutes I loved it. The masks and characters are so great. I felt that anybody and any culture would get it and the physical comedy is so fun. It's absurd and surreal and infectious. It never gets old.”

Despite not being the primary reason people decide to go to Big Day Out, Rita is confident the show will be a success.

“Being a festival-goer myself, I think there's always a point where you're not that excited about the band and maybe you're ready for something new. We have the same energy as the bands, but what we're doing is actually dangerous. I'm hoping that if you say 'death defying acrobatics' and 'really talented striptease performers' it will be enough to pique people's curiosity. It doesn't hurt to come over and have some tequila too!”

In a very Tarantino-esque way, the Lucha VaVOOM troupe blends sex and violence with wrestling matches spliced with burlesque performances. “It's so seamless you wouldn't believe it. When we did it the first time it was an experiment, and it worked out beautifully ... It's cartoon sex and violence, there's no blood, nothing x-rated. Just good clean – I mean – dirty fun! They complement each other.”

Lucha VaVOOM play the Gold Coast Big Day Out January 20.

It’s safe to say the 2012 Big Day Out was not the event’s finest hour. Sales were sluggish, stages were scrapped, and bombshells were dropped in the form of co-founder Viv Lees’ departure two days after tickets went on sale and the  demise of the Auckland leg of the festival.

“I think I delivered everything that I could,” says Ken West, who founded the BDO with Lees in 1992, “and I tried to keep the good will of people that have been supportive of the show and understand that you can't always get it right. Which, in this case, was obviously fairly apparent, especially with my business partner's departure two days after going on sale! I inherited a lot of issues, and unfortunately, I had to be less honest than I possibly could be, even though I was much more honest than people told me I should have been."

Honesty is not a problem in this interview, as West reveals he considered pulling the plug on the festival altogether in the weeks after the bust-up with Lees.

"It was really those two to three weeks of feeling like it could fall over at any time,” West recalls, “if, say, somebody wouldn't renegotiate, or if it just got any worse, really. It was already gone by that point in time, but I just needed more time to think ... the simplest thing to say is that it wasn’t going to be killed by an accountant.

“I've had 20 years of great joy in this. I've had 30 years in the music industry, of doing the most ridiculous and impossible things. If I had to give it all back at any stage, financially, and just go, 'oh, fuck it, that was the run'... that's what I've been brought up with every year! Every year, you're putting your house on the line and your livelihood and people’s jobs. That part of it hadn't changed. The problem was that we'd entered a world of unknowns. But I couldn't possibly have turned it off, knowing that it might have come home.”

To a degree, the tide did eventually turn — for all their troubles, the East Coast legs of the festival were still widely acclaimed. More importantly, West formed a partnership with US firm C3 Presents, promoters of Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, weeks before the first leg of the 2012 tour.

C3’s influence has already been felt on the BDO’s 21st anniversary edition. The line-up — headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers (who also headlined Lollapalooza and are celebrating the 21st anniversary of ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’), The Killers, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, Band Of Horses and Bloody Beetroots  — is clearly stronger than last year’s. The return of the Lilypad; cheaper, all-inclusive tickets; and new features such as Chow Town (food stalls operated by gourmet chefs) and the ‘Boss’ ticket have also generated excitement. (West is at great pains to point out that, despite appearances, the ‘Boss’ ticket is not a VIP ticket. “I can’t stand that shit,” he says. “People who pay more aren’t VIPs, they’re just people who pay more.”)

"I'm really proud of this show,” West says of his revamped festival. “I'm proud of the acts on it, I think the freshness with it is there, I know the dynamics of the day and the flow from the time sheets I've done...we want to make sure bands get to play their full sets this year. Animal Collective will play for an hour and a half. Chili Peppers will play for an hour and a half. We felt the result of last year was that the brand was damaged, but not unrepairable. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here doing it and C3 wouldn't have foolishly gotten involved.

“But we're all pretty happy with it. We've passed last year's sales, in total ... we're probably six weeks away from selling out Sydney. The Gold Coast may not sell out this year, but it's going to come pretty close. It's just a question of making sure the show delivers on the day."

According to West, this instalment of his festival signals a sea change for the Australian music industry as a whole. He believes local acts need to change their approach to touring, and start treating an event like BDO more like ... well, an event.

“When I was in the early stages of promoting, I remember [INXS manager] Chris Murphy telling me he had to keep INXS out of Australia for four years so people could realise they weren't going to play the next week. They went out and played everywhere else in the world, they were on the road, they released two albums, before they could finally come back to Australia ... and then they were finally accepted like they were a major band. Australian acts are forgetting that.

“Go and fuckin' tour the world! Go and crack the world! Stop milking the thing in the backyard! And I think that's really what Australians will respect more, is an Australian act that's big worldwide. Powderfinger almost got there, but unfortunately there were a lot of bands like Powderfinger in America.

"Here's the simplest thing: We said to all the Australian acts that we need acts who, when people ask them what they're doing, they say they're doing the Big Day Out! Not, 'oh, we're doing Falls and then this and this and this'. We want them emotionally connected to the event, like an international band is. When you interview an international band and ask them what they're doing in Australia, they say, 'we're doing the Big Day Out!' You interview a local act that's touring, and they'll say, 'oh, I'm doing this and I'm doing that'. That didn't used to be the case. When they were on the Big Day Out, all they talked about was the fact they were on the Big Day Out... until we got too many festivals.

“It's a period of adjustment. It's fascinating. As long as we don't go broke in the meantime, it'll be great!"

The Big Day Out returns to Gold Coast Parklands on Sunday January 20.

At the weekend, the likes of Kanye West, Soundgarden and Noel Gallagher entertained more than 30,000 at the Gold Coast Parklands for the Big Day Out. But it appears that not all attendees had an enjoyable experience.

Morgan MacManus was a punter on Sunday (Jan. 22) and has forwarded the following open letter to Big Day Out promoter, Ken West. This is only one side of the story, and Scene acknowledges the conduct alleged by Mr MacManus does not reflect the work and efforts of the vast majority of police officers.

MACMANUS OPEN LETTER:
Mate, I just wanted to contact you in response to a quote of yours that I read when googling "Gold Coast Big Day Out 2012 Fights". The quote I wanted to talk to you about has you saying: "At least we don't have a problem that dance festivals have where everyone takes their shirt off and some of them are on steroids and are picking fights." - Big Day Out promoter Ken West

In response to that I wanted to bring to your attention the fight at the smoking side section of the Boiler Room during Royksopp in which a "Shirt off....Steroid" boy started a fight with me by flicking his sweat drenched shirt in my face and saying "I'll fuck you up. I've got so many boys here", followed instantly with 2 jabs to my front teeth followed by a taller skinhead friend of his punching me repeatedly. The initial idiot wrestled with my buddy, then another friend of his took it upon himself to knee my friend on the tip of his tailbone, while he was on the ground still wrestling with the first wanker.

This was all followed up by me trying to seek medical advice for my loose, numb front teeth. The doctor in the medical unit refused to give me painkillers, just ice. I then went to another medical tent a couple of hours later and was refused ice by the same doctor. He refused to allow me to sit even though I was still sore and my teeth/gums were still bleeding. In fact, he called the cops over because I made several requests for my teeth to be inspected properly.

Four police officers hand-cuffed me, pushed me to the ground and then yanked me up so hard that my elbow was dislocated as well as my shoulder, which had previously been injured. Prior to being escorted to the paddy-wagon in the police-holding area in the Big Day Out Festival grounds, two police officers kneeled on my back over my kidneys for several minutes, while I was in handcuffs, forcing urine from my bladder. They then ridiculed me, calling me "pissy pants". A police officer also punched me in the eye while I was thrown in the paddy-wagon. I was not intoxicated and requested a breath-test as proof. The response I got from the police was further ridiculing with taunts of "pissy pants, shut up pissy pants Macmanus". An officer, by the name of Dodd was a main offender in abusing me. No breath testing ever took place. I was let out of the Southport watch-house about 5 1/2 hours later still not having received the medical attention that I had been requesting hours before. You need to think again, Ken West, before you jump to conclusions about the behaviour of Big Day Out attendees compared with other music festival participants. I will definitely be taking this matter further.

Morgan MacManus

If there were any witnesses to the alleged incident on Sunday involving Morgan MacManus, or if you've been involved in a similar incident, we'd like to hear from you.

Readers may recall that only last week, NSW police were fending off allegations of brutality after footage surfaced depicting a man, clearly under the control of police, being repeatedly assaulted.

20 Years Strong

This year marks two decades of the Big Day Out, arguably making it one of the most successful music festivals in Australia. Promoter Ken West explains how the festival almost didn’t make it to its 20th year.

“That was probably the hardest question of this year, whether to just end it all, and I was fine if that was the case. I went ‘well, legacy is intact, I’ve been in the music industry for such a long time that I’ve got other things I could do with my life’.

“I think I’ve achieved all I could really achieve, and the miracle of this process is that from the depths of not getting the line-up together, and then delaying, and then having two or three other festivals going on sale before us because they’d moved theirs back, all that mess that went on, the negativity of having too many Splendour acts, all that other stuff that fell into line with it, that ultimately (I) ended up parting ways with my business partner (Vivian Lees), and having to make that call then whether the show was going to go ahead at all, it just came down to simply that it couldn’t go out like that.”

West gives credit to his team of trusted friends and his new partnership with C3, America’s third largest promotion company, for keeping the show on the road. “When it came down to possibly not happening I really needed the energy of everybody else to tell me what we could do and what we should do, because really, in this business, everybody you hire is your friend.”

When Ken reflects on the festival’s history, he’s optimistic about what the future holds for him personally. “It’s a rebirth, and that really ties in beautifully with 20 years. It’s deeply looked at itself, we’ve deeply looked at the past, and we’ve looked at what we’ve done right and wrong.”

Of course with every silver lining, there’s a grey cloud, and one thing that has changed over the years is the rise in popularity of social media, bringing with it a new wave of critics. “We’ve been judged fairly harshly this year on the basis that it’s not quite what people want. It’s primarily been judged quite harshly in the electronic internet world, of which most people with half a brain now know that there are so many agendas that go on in that world that you’ve just got to try and find some truth in it, and not take in anything as personal.”

But never fear fans, they aren’t leaving anytime soon. “While the event itself remains needed for the Australian music scene, and while the audiences can respond in a level that it’s sustainable — it doesn’t need to be sellout shows all the time — I think the future is looking great, I think the future is looking really great because it’s got a job to do.”

In a recent interview with Fasterlouder, West had a number of interesting, if not controversial, things to say about the promoter of Soundwave Festival (AJ Maddah). But West stands by his words, believing there’s a lesson to be learned for other event organisers.

“I think part of the problem of that show is that it went down a particular path, and I think lots of festivals are having a similar problem. They’re taking bands because if they don’t take them somebody else will take them, and that’s a really bad way to work. You’ve just got to have a clear vision of what you want to do and just fight for it … It’s really important that the integrity of the Big Day Out actually stays, that it’s supporting the local scene, and it’s not just a pariah and it’s actually there for a purpose. There have been way too many events started up because someone thinks that they can make some money, and a lot of them found out the hard way how much you can lose.”

Deciding on which bands to book is never an easy task, and having bands cancel is part of running a festival. Ken believes you’ve got to aim high and roll with the punches as they come. “I’ll tell you what, it used to be a lot easier when they were all young and stupid and weren’t in relationships! You've got to be prepared to take risks, where if it doesn’t come together you’re going to have some egg on your face, but if you don’t do it then you’re going to be mediocre.”

The split from long-term business partner Vivian Lees, although difficult at the time, has turned into a blessing in disguise; emerging from the rubble is the partnership with C3, the team behind international festival Lollapalooza.

“We’d been talking to lots of people that weren’t really suitable, that I wouldn’t be prepared to partner up with, and C3 actually contacted us and asked if they could help, and that approach is fantastic. And from all accounts, from everywhere, it’s a unanimous thumbs-up worldwide, they’re highly regarded, they’ve worked with Perry Farrell, so therefore I should be easier, I hope!

Which begs the question — what does the C3 partnership bring internationally for the Big Day Out? “We’re talking a lot, we’ve got lots and lots of ideas, and everything sounds exciting, potentially a Big Day Out stage at some stage at Lollapalooza with Australian acts on it.”

As the 2012 edition of the Big Day Out approaches, West is hoping the 20th anniversary reconnects with punters looking for the festival experience, and not just seeing their favourite band of the moment.

“People always ask me what band I’m looking forward to. I’m looking forward to a few people actually understanding the show. There is a feeling that this show is not going to be very good, which is much better than if they’ve got such high expectations about it being awesome. I think the chemistry of the show is really good, which is what it’s meant to be. It’s meant to be a collection of bands that form one living entity for the day. I’m hoping that we can get the Big Day Out back to the idea that you trust us. It’s an experience that we’re selling, not a collection of bands.”

The Big Day Out lands at the Gold Coast Parklands Sunday January 22. bigdayout.com

Digital Winners

On paper his musical approach may look like a copyright suit waiting to happen, but in reality it’s really not, as Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) insists.

For one, the very foundation of music lies on recycling trends past, and secondly, record companies have more or less accepted the digital revolution, which is no longer ‘coming’ and is already here.
“I’m not going to name any names – just because one person asks me for a remix doesn’t mean the rest of their team backs their decision,” says Gillis ever so carefully. “What’s surprised me is that most of these people are tied to the major labels, they’re not exactly indie acts, man. I’ve been asked to remix a backcatalogue which contained a 30-CD box set of hits from 1965-1986!
“I’m glad to see that the industry is trying to collaborate and make peace with digital technology. Besides, the battle over the digital revolution is finished. It’s already happened, it’s not happening anymore – we are in it right now.”
While Gillis claims that when it comes to the audio side of things the law has nothing on him, making complementary film clips is still a different story.
“Despite all these adjustments the industry has made in their outlook, at the end of the day they are always going to be wanting to sell millions of CDs and make the most money possible, of course. I’m not in a position to be making videos, but they can’t really touch my music, I’ve even played the after-parties of the shows that the people I’ve sampled have just played. It’s hilarious because more and more big names are sending me stuff with a side-note saying, ‘check this out…’ hoping for me to take a hint.”
And he does, sometimes managing to make his edit sound a thousands times better than the original.
“The goal in the past few years has been to raise the bar each time. Naturally, I feel like I’ve gotten better with the programs and technology I use ... The big change has been me being open-minded towards using large segments of songs and maybe even using multiple parts from the same song. Now I am trying to find more of a connection between the original artist and the edit.”

Girl Talk performs at the Big Day Out Sunday January 22. bigdayout.com

Acting Their Age

Bluejuice are all grown up. Not that you’d necessarily be able to tell on first glance.

There are still the whacky press shots and outrageous video promos – ‘Act Yr Age’ anybody? – but chatting to the group’s frontman, Jake Stone, you come to realise that there’s been a fundamental change in attitude from the Sydney five-piece. Stone is hardly stressing over popular reception to the band’s latest album, ‘Company’. “We learned last time that at best it’s mildly disappointing to study every avenue of an album release,” he says. “You spend all that time on it; you’ve got to be happy with the thing itself.

“We know what the markers of this type of band’s success are. If we didn’t get on any summer festival bills, that would have been shithouse. If we didn’t get our first single to get any Triple J radio play at all, that would have been shithouse. But we don’t do too badly, so we don’t need to worry about it too much.”

Stone is more concerned with the critical reception. He describes how the band put a massive effort into songwriting and arrangements this time around. “It got four stars in Sydney Morning Herald’s Spectrum. I can pack up all my expectations there. And that’s what I wanted as well, for this album it had to just get one or two bits of critical success that we hadn’t received before. It’s got great songs on it, this record. I worked my arse off for about nine months to make sure it did have some good songs on it.”

And Stone is set to continue working his arse off, as Bluejuice hit the road for a regional tour throughout January. “I like touring and I like working. It’s best to be at work. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, as the adage goes,” Stone laughs. “Everyone’s so keen to get out of this country or make a career in the cities that they forget there are these regional audiences who are really into music and starved for it. If you just go there, they will come. The crowds have always been really receptive and there’s been a good vibe. It should be great.”

BLUEJUICE PLAY COOLANGATTA HOTEL JAN. 8, KINGS BEACH TAVERN JAN. 9 AND GREAT NORTHERN JAN. 10. THE BAND ALSO PLAY THE BIG DAY OUT, GOLD COAST PARKLANDS, JANUARY 22.

Brown Comedy

Ever since Brooklyn’s Das Racist dropped ‘Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell’ in 2009, observers have wondered whether they’re a joke or an act worth taking seriously. But do these two things have to be mutually exclusive?

“Only to small-minded people,” says Himahshu Suri (aka Heems), hyper-literate MC, band manager and de facto performance artist. “It's that classic cliché of black comedy: laughing to keep from crying.”
It’s not a difficult concept to grasp – entertainers have used comedy as a vehicle to tackle serious social issues since at least as far back as Lenny Bruce – but people seem to be struggling with it nonetheless.

For their part, Suri and collaborator Victor Vazquez (aka Kool A.D.) have played up the ambiguity on tracks like ‘hahahaha jk?’ (named one of the 50 best singles of 2010 by Rolling Stone), with its mocking chorus: ‘We’re not joking / Just joking, we are joking / Just joking, we’re not joking’. “That ambiguity has probably hurt us, in a way,” Suri concedes now. “It's prevented a lot of people from taking us seriously.”

That’s their loss. The release of debut LP ‘Relax’ in September confirmed there’s not a smarter, more relevant group operating in hip hop right now than Suri, Vazquez and hype man Ashok Kondabolu (aka Dap). While their lyrics often require detailed annotations to be fully understood, the album also came loaded with dancefloor-friendly hooks as part of a self-conscious bid to become more ‘accessible’.
“What’s hard about that,” Suri says, “is gauging what people want from your music and why people listen to your music. That's something we've been unable to figure out in a lot of ways. We write for ourselves, so it's surprising to see people relate to our experiences of being a brown kid in 2011.

“I don't know what people consider to be accessible. It's probably a dangerous game. But we expected people's expectations and we tried to accommodate them a little bit.”
Accommodate them, but not bow down to them. For all the talk about Das Racist as hoarders and dispensers of pop culture references, ‘Relax’ is more focused on Suri and Vazquez’s life experiences in the two years since they first broke through to something resembling the mainstream.

“I don't have as much time to watch TV or read things on the internet,” Suri explains, “because I'm trying to manage this band and promote a record and play shows around the world. It's difficult to take in what's going on and let it marinate and put it back out. I think with this record, a lot of people weren't necessarily happy with how that happened.

“We are talking more about the experience of being rappers now, and talking about us as people, and it turns out people would rather hear you be humorous. You know, it's hard. You get pigeonholed as a joke and then you get pigeonholed for your hyper-referential humour. The next thing is, you try to break out of that.”

Count Pitchfork, one of Das Racist’s relatively early boosters, among those who have been disillusioned by this change in the group’s direction. Flying in the face of a slew of glowing notices for ‘Relax’ elsewhere, the influential site gave the record a negative review. Did Suri care? “I care about (bad reviews) in so much as they affect me,” he says. “Like, if I could compare Pitchfork scores and how much a band made in a year based on that album and how it was reviewed, I'd be interested in seeing how that works out. I only give a shit about how much less money it puts in my pocket.”

The review certainly hasn’t had an impact on attendance at their shambolic live shows, which continue to be attended by a majority of white hipster kids. Considering the group’s focus on life as ‘brown’ men in 2011 (Suri and Kondabolu are Indian; Vazquez is half-black), how does that sit with them? “It's probably the same at a Dead Prez show,” Suri counters, “and they're more militant than us… It's just what rap is. When I was a 16-year-old kid, I wasn't going to spend 16 dollars to go to a rap show. That's some dumb shit, you know?

“Besides brown people, we just speak to people our age; people who are experiencing what we're experiencing at the same time as us. We're taking that in and putting it on the record. We're just trying to make sense of shit, just like anybody else. It's not like we 'get it' and we're playing some big trick. We're just trying to figure shit out, too.”

Das Racist play the Big Day Out at Gold Coast Parklands on Sunday January 22 and The Zoo on Tuesday January 24. bigdayout.com