Other than 17 year old sticker artists and people who slurp ‘Go-gurt’ out of used enema bags, is there anyone as perennially cool as a DJ? These guys have somehow managed to monetise a job that used to be done for free by drunken uncles at weddings, turning an artform that started as a unique mode of expression for African-Americans in the urban jungle into a tool for meeting barely legals at schoolies and embarking on wild ‘finerbangathons’ that us non-DJs can only dream about.
DJs in Perth are treated to a life of off-brand awe struck reverence, like warlocks of mud swallowing fiefdoms in 5th century Ireland. The choice of DJs in FIFO city can be a bit overwhelming however, so I’ve distilled this special list of the gnarliest disk-jockeys this side of outdated slang words like ‘gnarly’.
1. DJ GARY COSMOS AND HIS GLITTER FINGERS
The king of the thin spin is pumpin mad disco classics every Wednesday night from 7 to 8.30 at Osborne Park’s The Osborne Park Hotel. Gary ‘Paternity Payments’ Cosmos got his start at his eleven year old daughters’ blue-light disco back in what he calls “the golden age of the nano-shuffle” (2006) and hasn’t looked back. Gary’s portable soundsystem has an iPod dock and everything, so Gary is able to glide with seamless DJ grace between the works of ABBA, Cold Chisel, Van Halen, The Jackson 5, and Daddy Cool. No one plays ‘Eagle Rock’ over a pub PA like Gary.
2. DJ STENSON WHIZZLTEATS BRASS BLAST OFF
Palmyra RSL is one of Perth’s most vibrant cultural hubs, and at the centre of this bustling PTSD inflicted scene is none other than the man with the stomach band, Stenson Whizzleteats. Stenson’s system is a modified Panasonic stereo from 2002, which has been set up to play CD as well as cassette tapes. His grand-nephew taught him the ins and outs of Torrentz, and Stenson has been able to track down some classic golden oldies that could only be found by someone who knew how to flip between FM and AM radio. Among Stenson’s repertoire are The Scottish Reviews Brass Bandelier Drummers and – on ‘lest we forget Fridays’ - some of Perry Como’s edgier material. Stenson, a Korean War veteran, is also famous for blasting the theme song to M.A.S.H. and shouting “Where’s your theme song, eh?” to the Vietnam veterans.
3. DJ NITRON TURBMAX aka THE MASKED THUNDER
Nitron is a mystery wrapped in one of those cartoons you find on a Minties wrapper. A techno-dub-house boy wonder, Nitron aka the Malaysian Equation aka The Masked Thunder, has managed to keep an aura of anonymity around himself and his sets, despite the fact that he is Kim E Lung, a 15 year old Rosmoyne High student who regularly spruiks his gigs on Facebook. When Nitron’s mum drops him off at Metros every Thursday, he wows the bungle headed regulars with his remixes of K-Pop and Naruto/One Piece sound effects as well as samples of his older brother’s home made beat-loops. Nitron famously pumped the Hamtaro theme over German house music for fifteen sweaty hours in a daring mix-media genre transmutation, and all in his friend’s step-dad’s parked Honda Jazz.
4. DJ AQUALIFT SUNBEND
With her mystically entrancing henna tattoos and false incisors, Aqualift dominates the Hamilton Hill backyard micro-concert market. Armed with 17 different samples of television static, Aqualift offers up a catchy combination of monotone fuzz underscored by her ‘I have definitely been sectioned’ schizophrenic ramblings. Huge crowds of up to eleven half-stoned scene tripsters sit on discarded pizza boxes in awe as Aqualift feeds loops of ‘FZZZzzTtTTTTTTTTTZZZ’ and ‘HSSCHHHHHHHHhsH’ over such hits as ‘Thomas Pynchon tried to felch my miscarriage’ and ‘woman is the allen key of the Reserve Bank’. Aqualift can be found in derelict government housing, half sleeping with her bikey turned scrap-metal
collector boyfriend Skin-flint on a heap of mannequin parts.
5. DJs PHAT GARRET AND BILLY THE SKID
Oh shit son, move aside, this pair of rebel rousing altervating mind lords are playing at The Bird/Bakery/Venn. Don’t worry about it, they have already slept with that girl you like twice and don’t really need to worry about doing it again because these guys have never not had ‘options’. They’re mixing up Indonesian jazz-funk with MIA and Nomack and maybe (definitely) throwing some Wu-Tang over the top of the Inception soundtrack, was that some James Blake I hear? You know it. You saw them profiled in sixthousand and everyone agrees without question that they are indeed artists beyond par and you totally understand why a bevy of knock-kneed square fringed Bon Iver fans pile themselves – without any sign of will – at their feet. Their v-necks are impossibly low and their hair seems unbelievably immaculate and all you know is that they are definitely gonna be on some stage somewhere at Beaufort Street Festival at some time and you are gonna see that guy who works at Ezra Pound really enjoying their irony riddled version of ‘Wrecking Ball’.
So next time you’re in Perth, hit up some of our local Chinese owned bars and catch these amazing disk-flppers. In the immortal words of local scene-wunderkind Phat Garret, “DJ does not stand for disk jockey, it stands for Deep Jenius [sic].”
Leave a Comment