Paris is burning up. Oh yes it is, and we’ve known about it for quite a while. Artists like Justice, Kavinsky, SebastiAn and Para One, not to mention the labels Kitsuné, Ed Banger and Institubes, are setting the tone, both aurally and aesthetically. In fact, I doubt we even need to continue, due to what may be construed as the near over saturation of the French scene in the media at the moment. Though, whilst heads have been turned towards France, and Paris especially, something rather incredible has been growing elsewhere - namely Australia.

Oh yes, I said it. Australia. The country has undergone an electronic musical renaissance of late. Modular Records was the prime mover, giving the world The Avalanches, whose 1999 album ‘Since I Left You’ made Australian electronic artists viable worldwide. Their unique sampling technique both created a sound that was fundamentally their own, and also precursored the ‘mash/bootleg’ culture that most pin on 2ManyDJs. Through this success, as well as the release of music from other Australian artists such as Cut Copy, Wolfmother and The Presets, the label hit its stride and grew far beyond its geographical confi nes, becoming an international power releasing records by London hipsters New Young Pony Club and Canadian daft punkers MSTRKFT. But what of the grass roots level of electronic music? Naturally, Modular has kept it’s standing as a pillar of the scene, though, it must be said, as one star ascends out of sight, another comes into view, and these new stars, dear reader, are The Bang Gang.


Consisting of six members, DJ Damage, Dangerous Dan, Ajax, Gus The Hoodrat, Jaim-e Doom and Double Nolan, the crew grew out of weekly Friday night parties they threw at a few dive lesbian/burlesque clubs in Sydney, finally settling at the Club 77. “Bang Gang started out as a weekly party,” says Jaime. “We started that three years ago in Kings Cross. We moved through a couple of crappy venues and finally moved to Club 77.” The music, it seems, always took a back seat to the ‘party’. “It was on every Friday and yeah, we used to DJ, but it was more about the party and getting wasted and all that. I didn’t even DJ when we started the party,” says Jaime. “I don’t even think I started until after the first year. Originally only one of us was good enough to DJ (Ajax), then when we started, four of us would DJ and now five of us DJ.” He continues: “We just do what we like doing. Of course the music was important but it wasn’t the main thing, we’re like ‘anti-purists’, the complete opposite to people who like minimal, know what I mean? If you have to sacrifi ce good mixing to slip in some funky rock track or you want to get really pissed that’s the sacrifi ce you’ve got to make you know. And I think because it’s our night and it was our thing, we could fuck with it however we wanted. If we wanted to play something really dumb or wanted to get trashed we could do it.”


Though naturally, fresh music was still important, with each of the members making new tracks midweek to play for the following week.

Stop. This is important, before one makes a snap judgment, one oughtn’t mistake the words of the Bang Gang boys for those of professional wasters. The Bang Gang parties were something seminal in the city. This was the only place where one could go and hear edgy, messed up, party music played by party hungry loons in a space decked out in DIY, pseudo-ironic iconography. This sounds rather familiar does it not? It seems that being born from the ashes of a scene leaves certain marks on one’s genes “Yeah, electroclash pushed that whole fashion and music thing.” Ajax chuckles, “More dressing up at the disco and we see that now in lots of fancy dress parties and the like. We just can’t let it go... it’s so great how it [electroclash] lasted about two minutes.” Jaime pipes up: “There was something about that vibe, you know the whole thing about dressing up and getting wasted. We’ve always liked to do our parties as a full thing, a whole kind of package. We do artwork and we do a fanzine (the hilariously monikered Fagazine), we do posters, drag queens and strippers. You know we just like to do the whole thing.”

Though, naturally, three years of parties began to take its toll. “We kind of got sick of destroying ourselves. Perhaps not sick of it, but more that we wanted to do something new and not get demolished every week.” This thought, coupled with a bunch of tracks produced for playing at the club over the years, meant the genesis of Bang Gang 12”.And once the first Bang Gang 12” dropped, it was like a nuke on Iranian soil. The guitar and synth cover of Daft Punk’s ‘Around The World’, wittily titled ‘Around The World Again’, created dancefloor pandemonium from Canada to Calcutta.


One may question why there is such a tight link within the electronic scene in Australia. There appear to be many reasons for it, one of which due to the population of the country and the fact that the cities are so small, though, naturally, there are many other contributing factors. Firstly, that there aren’t really many Australian electronic labels to begin with, and those that do exist, are all closely connected to each other. Modular satellites if you will.“[Apart from Bang Gang and Modular] there’s Cut Copy’s label Cutters, but you know that’s very closely related anyway. The thing about Australia is that it’s not a massive ‘do-things’ culture.” muses Jaime. “There are a lot of DJs and stuff, but there aren’t a lot of people making tunes. So, as opposed to how most labels are started by someone who makes tunes and then gets their friend’s tunes and so on. Here there isn’t that real kind of music-making culture. There’re some cool indie labels, but that’s it.” What’s more, there aren’t many good clubs in Australia for their kind of music.


“We’re really lucky, you know our party was really successful and at the time we were different and had a pretty unique sound or whatever. So now we get to play festivals and in Melbourne and Brisbane we just put on our own parties and stuff like that. We definitely play the better gigs in Australia. And, there aren’t very many good gigs here you know? If you only played at clubs you love-love-loved, you wouldn’t be playing very much. In Australia you’re lucky to have one good club in each capital city. And there are only like four main cities, so there are four gigs.”
Ajax has another thought on the matter. “I think it happens in most scenes down here simply because of our geography and population, what we call the tyranny of distance. The difference is that we respect each other because generally it’s a hard slog. There is little press support, it’s expensive to tour and the market is quite thin here and because of this, support for each other is quite strong. Although when everyone’s pissed or whatever the whole thing sounds kinda American. You know, positive affirmation and all that. We wanna be careful not to keep rubbing each other’s dicks to much.”

 
In fact, that appears to be one of the main problems with a scene that’s so small. It becomes difficult to gain perspective, or give any constructive criticism without being seen as ‘a hating motherfucker’. “Nobody’s a hater here,” Kim states. “In fact, sometimes I think people can sometimes be too accepting of what other people are doing. Sometimes a good healthy dose of cynicism is good, although people may not always appreciate hearing that their track’s a bit shit.” Later, however, he concedes that this tightness of the scene combined with the almost medically abnormal energy levels of some of the group, is what spurred the Bang Gang on. “It’s really incestuous and it’s really cool. A couple of them have out of control energy levels, they’re the kind of guys that, no matter how big their weekend was, they’ll be up fi rst thing Monday morning sending you emails asking about business, or asking to come round to do a track or something, you know what I mean? Just sort of hyperactive kids with ADHD you know? They always fi re everyone else up as well. I’ve always been pretty disciplined, but being around Jaime, Dan and Gus from Bang Gang and their energy levels, you just sort of want to take over the world. For me, a lot of the stuff that’s happening, I’m not saying they’re responsible for it, but it’s that sort of hyperactivity that’s made it possible.”

Though, one would expect, after years of building a scene together, not to mention the pressures of becoming international artists, playing the larger festivals and international headline spots, that quality control of tracks and sets have started to become more stringent? Are they more focused than the heady days of ‘03? “Sometimes we get together and we’re like ‘You know what, we’ve got to get more organized’” Jaime laughs, “so you know, if we’re playing a big festival in front of a few thousand people, we like to take it rather seriously. We’re not gonna have too much K.” But, as always, what they do, they do to have fun, “Musically things have changed because different music is being made now then was three years ago, but it’s not like we’ve started playing minimal or started experimenting with trance or drum and bass or whatever. At the end of the day we just play fun music you know, but now it’s in a different form. There’s still the same kind of underlying feel to the music, but it’s just different people doing it I guess. Australian and French music, that’s about it!” 


This is where the parallel to the French scene starts to become apparent. In recent interviews with DJ Mehdi and Kavinsky in One Week To Live, they both concurred that the new sound of Paris, the scuzzy, rock infused electro music, grew out of a tight knit group of artists and DJs messing about and making music primarily for fun and a place, their spiritual home, the infamous Paris Paris. As the adage goes, a firm foundation at home is essential. Ajax adds: “It’s always good to have a solid foundation to build from whether you’re a band, DJ or magician. Just like bad make up, all the fancy stuff should happen after you have got a nice thick layer and covered up all your ugly bits.” Though, it’s not merely the context that’s similar, but the music itself. A mixture of electro, rock and lashings of humour, the music is made to make people bug out on the dancefloor or writhe on the sofa in the corner of the room.

And it’s not only Bang Gang that see the connection. In fact, it has become commonplace to see names from Aussie/international label Modular, Bang Gang and Cutters alongside names such as DJ Mehdi, SebastiAn or Justice on playlists and party line-ups worldwide, one could easily assume they were all part of the same crew. Jaime, in fact, finds the musical similarities rather ridiculous, though amusing nonetheless. “We actually talk about it on our radio show. It’s funny, a lot of people draw a comparison between us and France (read Paris). There’s something similar about the scenes, though I don’t really know what. Even when Ajax and I do a weekly radio show, we play pretty much 90% either French or Australian stuff (laughs). I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just the way it is. There’s not heaps of stuff up our alley coming out of Germany or the UK. It’s actually kind of embarrassing when you do a mix CD and it’s like ‘French and Australian: French, French, French, Australian, Australian, French’, it’s a bit weird.”


One can tell when a movement has been rich, as it leaves fertile ground behind. And, in the wake of Bang Gang’s weekly parties (they’ve recently started holding monthly events in Melbourne, Brisbane and sporadic events in Sydney) new parties in the same vein have been popping up like a retarded fluoro heat rash. Paris is burning up, but didn’t you know, Australia’s always been roasting hot. Viva Bang Gang.

THE INNER CIRCLE:
1. Ajax: Voted Australia’s best DJ, several times as well as voted 3D World DJ of the year in 2002, 2004 and 2005. Highlights: mixing three Ministry ‘Mashed’ CDs and the killer Ajax remix of Nicky Van She and Dangerous Dan’s ‘Around The World Again’. 
2. Gus Da Hoodrat: Member of The Bagraiders remix/DJ collective that consists of Gus, Christopher Brave and Jack Sabbath. Highlights: Remix of Valentino’s ‘Kafka’. 
3. Dangerous Dan: Produced the debut Bang Gang 12” with Nicky Van She ‘Around The World Again’. 
4. Jaime-e Doom: Spearhead of the Bang Gang 12” label. 
5. DJ Damage (Bennie): DJ and member of Riot In Belgium with DJ Belgium, an ex member of Cut Copy. Highlights: ‘La Musique’ on Relish. 
6. Double Nolan: Events organiser and all round waster. Highlights: Too many to mention and too offensive to print. 
7. Bands/Acts to look out for: Riot In Belgium, Bag Raiders, The Presets, K.I.M, Midnight Jugganaughts, The Valentinos, Van She Technologic, Bumblebeez, Muscles ‘B.T.T.T.T.R.Y’ (pronounced Battery) by K.I.M, the second release on Bang Gang 12”, is available in your local vinyl emporium now. Riot In Belgium’s ‘La Musique’ is out now, as is ‘Kitsuné Maison 3’ with the Bagraiders remix of The Valentinos. As for the future, you can expect a double mixed CD from the Bang Gang as well as a UK tour during the summer. Oh, and in keeping with their friendly/incestuous setup, Modular have also taken on Bang Gang as a sister label. Tight.


www.banggang.com.au www.banggangpodcast.com www.myspace.com/thebanggang www.myspace.com/banggangtwelveinches www.thepresets.com www.myspace.com/kimberleyisaacmoyes

J Saintil, One Week to Live, April 2007