Interview with a Butler

by Taran M

On Sunday just passed it was my pleasure to catch up with one of Melbourne’s rising pound for pound DJ’s and friend of Substance, DJ Alex Butler, or as he casually refers to himself as “The Alex Butler Experience”. It takes a bold and brash personality to adorn themselves with the title “Experience”  and for those that don’t know him, you would simply write it off as DJ wankerism 303. But to those afforded the luxury of being in his inner circle, it’s actually more of an ironic middle finger to the conformity of what a DJ is nowadays, done with a ball’s out this is what I have, if you’re not laughing at it you should be stomping your ass off to it. So with beer in hand and recorder set to stun I set about interviewing Alex at the home of his own branded “Sunday Sessions” at the Terminus in Abottsford.

Substance: So mate how is that Tasmania came to lose you, what did you do with the second head?

Alex: I was living in Tasmania and one day got a phone call from my brother, basically telling me to pack up my shit and come over to Melbourne to party with him. So three days later I packed up my life into my car came over on the boat and was straight to Hard Kandy on the Friday night. They perform the operation to remove the third head before you get on the boat.

Substance: So you’re a real boat-person, wow you’re my first. So before you came over to Melbourne you had had your first experience in real big clubbing/ partying. Tell us about it?

Alex: Yeah I had been over here on a sporting trip to Melbourne in 2003 and was pretty buggered and after thirteen days of games. On the Friday night my brother said “Fuck it, I’m taking you partying”. So we hop into his car and after about half an hour of driving I asked where we were going. I found out we were going to a party, at a castle in the middle of nowhere. Was a bit shocked and had no idea what I was in for. Got to the front of the castle and I was amazed, I hadn’t seen ravers or set foot in a proper club before and there’s Kryal Castle done up to a T, I was amazed. I met Scott Alert back stage and when the night was done there was no looking back, I spent every Friday at Hard Kandy for the next three to four years.

Substance: When you first started getting into the scene did you know that you wanted to be a DJ/ Producer. Asking because you have been in the scene for awhile its only the last few years we’ve seen you really step up to the plate?

Alex: Nah, wasn’t like I wanted to get into DJing immediately I just liked to head out and party. I had a few friends that showed me the ropes, mixing wise and producing. It wasn’t until about 2006 that I started getting into the tunes, bought some decks and gave it a crack.

Substance: So you started playing electro house and Trance with Kandy at the start of your career and you’ve definitely headed into a more bushy sound, what are you preferring to play at the moment, What’s the Alex experience offering listeners at the moment and where is it heading?

Alex: I’m playing a hybrid of prog trance with definitely a more psy sound. It’s a universal sound, crosses over but it’s definitely got a tough feel to it. On the flip side I do like to get down and dirty and have a bit of fun playing electro house still. I’m definitely pushing the prog psy as my definitive sound though. I’m starting to produce tunes in this vein so that’s where it’s all heading.

Substance: Worst gig experience? If you had five robotic dancing chickens would that have helped the gig?

Alex: I ran an after party for a Substance, nothing worked, it was at Pony, which was a miss-booking in terms of a venue, we were heckled by people that saw us play there the last week, even though that was our first night. At the end of the gig we grabbed our shit and we broke out.

Substance: How important is the crew that you hang with n the EDM?

The support from the guys around in the early days, like the Substance crew was important. More so now my mates like Simon Murphy and Jordz have given me the avenues to get the gigs I’m getting. It’s great to have mates around me doing this cause the main reason I started this was to have fun with my mates.

Substance: Tell me about the beach party you and Simon destroyed New year? By all reports it was just a docile little affair until you and Simon got on and fucked shit up, is it true you laced the water with stimulants?

It was a docile party to begin with and was pretty tame during the day lots of people sitting back relaxing , the sun went down, we started bashing out the prog psy and shit got loose, started rocking it. I wish we could afford to lace water with drugs, unfortunately we are not that rich.

Substance: Use the words “Mint”,  “Fresh” and “slapper” to describe the average situation behind the decks:

Alex: (Laughs) I’d like to think the tunes I play are pretty fresh, I like looking out at the mint chicks on the dance floor until the lights come on and they’re all slappers.

Substance: What is the one artist and or event you would give your left nut for a gig at?

Alex: Rainbow Serpent Open or straight after Neelix, market stage… Go hard or go home!

Substance: You’re really into Neelix?

Alex: Yeah he got me into that prog sound, everytime i see him play he never disappoints, he steered my sound towards a more rounded prog sound, definitely diverted my attention from hard trance.

Substance: So we’re at Sunday Sessions at the Terminus which you run with Simon, what is this all about? Is this the Dr. Jekyll to your Mr. Hyde?

Alex: This is more just for us to have an outlet to hang with our mates, play some chill out hip hop. We just thought it would be a nice change of pace to cross fade some tunes and enjoy a beer garden with a mean parma.

Substance: What’s the biggest problem that the Melbourne EDM is facing and don’t say clubstep!

Alex: I would definitely  say it’s the stigma that some venues still have to partying, more so a throwback to the damage caused by bad crowds and negatively geared press towards the EDM as a whole. Liquor licensing and councils are slowly become more of a problem for venues.

Substance: Whore yourself again, Where are you playing next? What are you upto?

Alex:  I’m playing an electro gig at Hard Kandy, with “The freak” Daniel Johnston going bananas on some tough electro. Then there’s a party coming up in a couple of weeks, ill post it underneath the article…. I’m also playing a two hour prog set down in the Otways in March, that’s going to be a good little doof.

 

For more info on Alex and upcoming gigs visit his Facebook page.
You can catch him playing every second week at the Sunday Sessions at Terminus Hotel in Abottsford.

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Melbourne’s Beautiful Scene and why it’s the centre of the earth

by Taran M

When it comes down to brass tacks, we all know which city in Melbourne will forever hold the title of Australia’s electronic music capital and it is of course…Melbourne.

From the very first times I started going out, on reflection it was always clear to me that there is something special about the Melbourne scene. Whether it be Progressive, Tech, Psy, Hard trance, electro, drum and bass our beautiful city carries its flag highly on our mantelpiece.

So why does Melbourne work? Why is it possible? Who wrote the book on love and why does the toilet flush when I haven’t even pressed the button; I think I am digressing a touch.

From the time I first started going out late last century (no really 1997!) the thing even as a newbie party goer that I noticed was that the different genre’s of electronic, majorly techno, House and trance/ hard house all intertwined in some way. Whilst purists and pundits did exist there was co-existence and intermingling between all factions. From its inception Hardware insisted on blending tech and house, there CD releases on Shock Records would be split into a house disc and a techno disc. From the onset of both Hard Kandy and Bass Station, Hard trance and house music and electro was always paralleled albeit in a side room. Hard Kandy went as far as having two house DJ’s playing on rotation for warm up sets. The much famed and missed NRG parties run by smile Police always encouraged a plethora of music styles and whilst very much a “rave” spectacle never failed to mix genres on any stage at any time. This establishment of diversity and working together basically galvanised relationships and genre based promoters. And while at any given period a genre can hold popular demand it has never been seen to issue “coup d’état” amongst the others.

All you have to do is look at the festivals that Melbourne holds to understand exactly how deep Melbourne’s scene runs. Since the hallowed Days of Every Picture tells a story, Belfast and the early years of Hardware there has always been an “Enjoy Music” at major events. Rainbow Serpent, Summerdayze, Welcome, Good Vibrations, Stereosonic, Hot BBQ, and Future music are festivals that Bred from Melbourne promoters and have become state and even national success stories. At grass roots smaller scale promoters have been encouraged more than discouraged by the bigger promoters. More so Melbourne has bred promoters to appreciate the party more than the cash. It is amazing how quite a few of the middle tier production companies run at next to nothing budget’s just to throw a party, just to get people shaking it…like a 35mm picture.

There has never really been any such “stand over” tactics by larger scale promotion companies to undermine smaller event organisers. There is a healthy buffer and intermingling between the likes of lower, middle and upper tier promoters that helps breed a pro active approach to maintaining and growing electronic music. There is always going to be the fuckwit promoter who doesn’t pay his DJ or the arrogant, self absorbed money hungry promoter/ rapist that springs up from time to time. The only problem is that us promoters all talk to each other in one form or the other and sooner or later the evangelistic, fly by night promoter is found out, I can think of a few that have all to quickly sunk under their ego’s own mistakes.

It’s always going to be about the talent and in the words of Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing “We’re chock full of that!”. Australia’s first two early superstar DJ’s came from the Melbourne scene, Will E Tell and Richie Rich. I think sometimes we are spoilt to the point of under appreciation of the amount of talent around in Melbourne. Whether they be DJ’s or producers the quality of the gene pool in Melbourne cannot be under estimated. Whether you’ve loved Hard trance/ house, love it now or hate it with a passion; you cannot ignore the talent we have in Melbourne. The original Kandy crew of Scott Alert, Ajax and Krash are still some of the most talented producers and Dj’s you will find. NFX is one of those producers that can only be truly found once in a blue moon (I think we can claim Dr. Willis as well!).

Producers of all genres whether it be the Progressive/ tech stylings of Blinky (Beat Geek Records), the tech house/ electro antics of Kalus, Trance extraordinaire Steve May (5am/ Armada) showcase the depth of Melbourne’s talent. So much so that many of the above names have featured on the set lists and podcasts of such international stars as Dubfire, Armin Van Burren, Tiesto and Carl Cox. We can’t forget our biggest national dance music export, TV Rock who also hail from our beloved city. We have even thrown a major contender into the ever popular “Mash arena” in the vein of Substance’s own Mouka. Seriously this guy makes Girl Talk sound like a poor man’s Bob Hope. To list the talent in Melbourne in terms of DJing would require an almost dictionary like bible. Melbourne is “Spin city” a haven for the master of the pioneer, mac and now the almost extinct 1200’s.

Finally this article would be a miss without giving praise to the Melbourne crowd. I have partied in every city and played in most of them as well and I can easily say that WE ARE THE SHIT! You won’t find a friendlier crowd on a dance-floor than in Melbourne. More so Melbourne’s regular punters don’t just go out, they live and breathe the scene. Not so much as scenesters, but more as crowds that love their music, support their cause and promote our city for what it is, the centre of Australia’s electronic music scene.

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