29/11/2024
The Novel I wrote for SpringOUT Party | One Night In Heaven - FB won't add it to the event page [maybe too long] so I'm trying it here ... DJ Announcement #14: A Robot Citizen :) ... Quickie TLDR version = On Saturnight I'm representing Heaven's 6-year series of Thursday alternative music nights; mixing 90s big beat electronica, indie-dance-rock-crossover and, depending on the vibe of the room, and what others have played, maybe some other chunky-funky-stuff or guilty pleasures of early 90s techno hip-house and late 90s Euro-dance/trance. It'll be eclectic "cos that's the way, aha aha, I like it". To make moves to such grooves I'm doing 3x30min sets in the "Bak Bar" room; having volunteered late to the party.
The longer rambles ...
With the mega-monster-montage I sought to overcome decades of shyness with some pics from different years of the 90s; plus flyers for some events; and to honour the friends I DJd with most often.
From top left going across:
Mel C [DJ partner 92-95 & proprietor of the "Roadkill Boutique" clothing store in the mid-late 90s] she being who kick-started a chain-series of alt-music nights that run through to this day;
DJ Toupee [94-96] well-known in the dance scene she moonlighted in the alt-music scene;
Sonja & Blake [Parklife 96];
and at the right is Sylvie Stern the serious-yet-loving commandeer of the Heavenly realms 94-00.
Down the left: the 5 years of "goth" nights at Heaven [96-2000]: DJs Emma, Valentina and Jo Cramer, she being who made those nights happen 96-98; then Lisa [98-99], Annette [99-00]; at lower left are Patricia and Naomi who worked the doors and danced the floors through the late-90s.
Biographical thing ...
My decades of Accidental-DJ-Syndrome commenced in 92. My bestie, Mel C, relayed that "MudClub" needed DJs and she thought that because I had lots of music I should give it a go. What was a one-off somehow continued. I ascended the Stairway to Heaven [insert mix of guffaws & groans] in late 94 after 2 years of gigs at The Base and The Asylum - events called "Cactoblastis", "Fudge" & "Boing"; plus a rave called "Mentasm" in 1993.
[Tangent: I was producing electronic music since '91 & could've veered in to a focus on DJing EDM. However, there were plenty of others doing that so well and I felt the price was too high - the gear & forever chasing new vinyls. When I had savings I spent it mostly on synths. Hardly anyone was presenting alternative pop music and I became more than busy DJing those nights. Depending on the events I was tasked with the varieties of industrial music, big beat electronica, indie-pop-rock, goth, new-wave and other post-punk as well as IDM ["intelligent dance music"] and retro genres of the 60s-70s-80s.
I commenced DJing at Heaven for the monthly "Planet Pumpkin" [94-95] thanks to Alex G for the invitation. The subsequent events included: "Cloud 9" [95], "Parklife" [96], "Petrol" [96/97], "Oblivion" [96], "Millenium" [97], "Paroxysm" [97], "Retro" & "Nexus" [both 98-00].
Most of those were monthly; a couple ran for several events while most titles lasted about a year. I was usually DJing at Heaven twice a month. I guesstimate it was ~130 nights at Heaven across 6 years; plus gigs at other venues; and so few photos or even flyers!
For some reason we changed event titles every so often; usually when a change in the DJ lineup as, sadly, so many people left town for the big cities; so many heart-breaks! The title that stuck was the one I came up with, Nexus, which lasted for ~2.5 years. Other people organised the events up to 98. So it was their get-up'n'go that got me going. Any complaints ought be lodged with them! ;)
I didn't even have a DJ name for years. In the early-mid 00s we usually didn't have our names on the promo material. To do so felt ... weird! Still does. :) Sometimes "Robbie" was listed on the promo done by others. I adopted "J Citizen" ~96. In the 00s I became "Robot". Then there was a merger of titles.
Sort-of-Related: From the mid-90s I hosted radioshows on 2XX for ~10 years. Those included the Saturday evening Canberra and Australian music shows; and "Beatside" for electronic dance music; from 2001 I commenced a show called "S.I.N.G.E.D" [synth-pop/punk industrial noise gothic elektro darkwave]; and during 2003-06 I hosted the weekly "Sunset" drive-time shows on Thursday then Friday. I was often doing ~16 radio hours per month. I also did admin roles including promotions manager and worked as a volunteer station manager for 6 months when the station was in a rough patch during Summer 04-05.
It was after Heaven closed, when working at radio 2XX, that Sylvie and I got to hang out a lot and became friends; working on projects like fundraiser events.
Through doing those shows I sought out underground music-makers around town, Australia and the world. That led to my producing a series of compilation CDs. One of those was in 1998 "Blatant Propaganda volume 1" and it featured 8 Canberra artists, 7 of them electronic.
An expansion on that was a 3CD series called "ElectriCity" in 2003+04. It featured several dozen Canberra electronic music projects - some of them were DJs at Heaven; others were patrons. The music spanned from the mid-90s to 2002.
To showcase that, and more, I've made a site www.CanberraElectronicMusic.com - with lots more content to add in 2025.
A highlight side-shoot of my Heaven years was being part of the Clan Analogue project called "Stoat" aka "Clanberra". We created and performed a one-off set at the 1996 Sydney Big Day Out; headlining an outdoor podium stage. The four core Clanberrans in that project were Nicole and Kate of the brand new B(if)tek and Bo and Tim of Dark Network. We had a great time and the reception and feedback was thrilling.
In hindsight I don't think any of us quite realised what a break we had been given - a headlining set on a stage at the nation's premier music festival.
If we'd done more to build on that, gosh, what we might have achieved - a Canberra Electronica super group :) :) when such music felt newly exciting, daring and hardly anyone was able to do it. However we all had our heads down working on our separate projects. While each achieved noteworthy goals, in hindsight, united, we could have achieved a great deal more. We might still be going; able to tour to an established fanbase ... Sigh!
While I was busy DJing through the 90s at Heaven and other venues, my major passion was making music. But like many people I seldom finished most of what I was working on. I kept changing titles and I cringed at promoting it; never did an album launch event for my own things. Project titles included "Aphazia", "EYE, "AYA", "ELF", "The E.L.F." and "QT".
EYE music received a lot of radio play around Australia '98-04. A video clip was made in '99 and shown on "Rage" [ABC] and "Alchemy" [SBS]. The track was "Mandate!" It featured samples of politicians such as PM Howard. Some of the video was filmed at Parliament House on a blistering hot day; us dressed in capes and gas masks. We were threatened with arrest for apparently mocking something-or-other. A JJJ rep said the song and album were "interesting ... but ... too political" for their daily playlist.
So I devised "E.L.F." with a view to get more JJJ airwaves. Shortly after the demise of Heaven, in 2001, I recorded a track called "A Nice Walk in the Park". Though, forever chasing new ideas and distractions, I did nothing with it until 2003 when I added it to the Canberra compilation. JJJ then added that track to their daily playlist. Even several years later it was featured on shows like "The Club"; one of the nation's premier dance music shows.
It meant the world to me that Sylvie, who rather frowned at the heavy music I played at our goth+industrial nights, years later, she was genuinely enthusiastic about my E.L.F. tunes. The photo of her at top-right is from one of our gigs. We did around a dozen E.L.F. gigs 2001-04. It stopped as I fell ill and didn't much like lugging $10K of heavy gear around; as a musician I felt frustrated about not doing every note live [most electronic artists use some sequencing/playback]; and then others were using the related titles. In hindsight I should have released a CD with a video in 2001 and really focused on building that. But, working on too many things, that opportunity also passed by. Another opportunity that passed by was receiving a letter of interest in 2003 from Jello Biafra [of Dead Kennedys fame and owner of the Alternative Tentacles record label] about releasing EYE's political tunes. I never got around to replying. If it'd been some years before I would've jumped on it.
After Heaven I've DJd most years at tons of events including gigs in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Perth. Plus several eras of organising weekly or monthly clubs. The busiest era was running up to 6 events per month in 2007-08; mostly at the Bar 32 venue, plus The Holy Grail and Kremlin Bar. The most numerous event was "VAMP" which spanned 2007-2017. It was like a continuation of the events we had at Heaven, listed above.
And after all this time, "retiring" many times, the biggest and one of the most fun gigs I've done was a month ago - a 4 hour set at a Halloween "Emo night" with a packed house at The Basement.
I've done events at ~15 Canberra venues. With Sylvie, Heaven was the venue which was the most easy-going. From late 1994 the Thursday nights at Heaven became like a home-away-from-home for many of my friends, in what might be summed up as "the alt/goth/industrial scene". Those events helped enormously to keep social networks connected which meant many people stayed in Canberra, at least for longer than otherwise. In the years prior, 1990-1992 most of my friends moved away; in large part because Canberra then wasn't a safe place to look "freaky"; there wasn't a safe nightclub to go to; nor with music we loved the most; not after the closure of the Manhattan on NYD 1990. A major exodus of our scene occurred in 1992.
For those who remained and those who moved here or came of age, we were then very fortunate that Lynne O'Brien and crew set up Heaven in 1993; and that Sylvie continued the mission from 1994 to NYD 2001. Thank-You!
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