It's an average Friday night at Kinselas. the middle bar is heaving, upstairs the dance floor is just beginning to attract a crowd. the door people sigh as yet another clubber asks when Pee Wee will be on. Pee Wee's arrival is imminent; the punter decides to take a chance on the half-empty room, rather than miss a minute of the DJ's set.
It's a scenario that's been repeated all over the country for some ten years, since Pee Wee first began to forge his now formidable reputation as one of the best DJs in Australia. Widely regarded by many as the country's number one, Pee Wee has had his fair share of fans..And it is their reactions that have prompted Pee Wee to take some action with two CD projects forthcoming. The first, 'DJs Down Under' Volume One, is a fully mixed CD of licenced tracks, due out this month on the newly formed Supersonic Recordings (via Shock), a label set up by Reach'n Records' Sugar Ray. "It was basically Ray's idea but we've been talking about it for a long time," Pee Wee Explains. "I wanted to do one ages ago but no one was prepared to licence anything for me for a legal compilation. We decided to go for a Techno thing for the kids and I chose the tracks and Ray went ahead and got them cleared. Of all the ones I got I missed about four of them so there are 21 tracks in an hour. It's basically just happy hard techno, not too fast, arounf 150+, but its not nasty, Rotterdam style. It's very uplifting, and there is also trancey stuff mixed into it so it crosses a few boundaries but it doesn't lose energy at all."
"These sort of CD legally will go everywhere, into K Mart, where most underground stuff doesn't go beyond Central, Reach'n and BPM. It will broaden the horizon for things that aren't Top 40. 'Heres Johnny" is only getting played 'cause it's Top 40, but this sort of stuff would never get released unless it was on a CD like this."
The second CD he's currently working on, scheduled for release in June, is Pee Wee's own brain child: 'Beats Beyond The Turntable', a collection which features exclusive tracks from Australia's top DJs: Sydney's Pee Wee & John Ferris, Sugar Ray, Phil Smart, Nik Fish & Jumpin Jack; Mark James (Bass Culture), John Course (Vicious Vinyl) and CJ Dolan (Quench) from Melbourne; Gracie, Angus and Ken Jensen from Queensland; Perth's Darren Briais and Adelaide based Groove Terminator. For most it's the first time they've released tracks under their own names; for some it's the first chance they have been given to do music at all.
"I've been doing it all for ten years and no one's ever supported me and I've always wondered why" says Pee Wee candidly. "there's a marked for it so I thought why not support them and do it myself. It's pretty logical someone's got to take the line somewhere. A lot of people wanted to do it and they just didn't come through. DJs are shocking like that: They all want to do it and then they won't finish it. It was a bit of a hassle..And a lot of people had never done tracks before so I had to get involved on that level."
The people and the music might change, Pee Wee has never lost his passion for either. He admits that the hardest aspect of his career as a DJ has been maintaining his reputation, but he also concedes that sometimes keeping up with the ever chaging world of club music is also a challenge.
"It's getting harder and harder because I like lots of differnt stuff, "he says. "In Sydney I play more Techno; I try to play more house but there is not much work for it, so I tend to play a little bit of house sets but the majority of techno 'cause there's more work. At all the house clubs I just play purely underground house and in Melbourne I play house, and then in Sydney at raves I just play techno. It's tricky 'cause I would rather just play lots of different stuff, but you've got to determine by what markets are available. I'm a working DJ - I'm not going to sit there and not work for three weeks just 'cause I'll only play house records. I would never do that anyway 'cause I like everything so I'm not like that."
"I come from the old school where I'd play a whole night: start with slower stuff, build up to faster stuff and slow down at the end and that's what I prefer a night to be no matter what everybody does now. You've got to build a night and no-one does that any more. You've got to have a peak to get the vibe going 'cause that's why people go out - It's the vibe it's not just the music; otherwise they could have the same music at home."
Since Pee Wee first started working in studios in 1987 he's become proficient and in demand. From producinf Collette he moved on to projects for Bass Culture, Bellydance and Lisa Maxwell, and has remixed tracks for everyone from Boom Crash Opera, Noiseworks, Kate Ceberano and Ross Wilson to Boxcar..But Pee Wee says that it's become obvious over the last couple of years that the rock industry movers and shakers are no longer interested in remixes as a marketing tool. When it comes to anything other than dance tracks, few are willing to take a risk by commissioning remixers from here or overseas.
"The last rock remix I did was the Radiators. Since then rock acts don't really approach remixers very much... they didn't follow the market and they decided to go back to their rock roots and stuff the dance scene altogether. They're the ones suffering now and wondering why they're not making as much money."
Fortunately for Pee Wee the dance music industry in Australia, like his
home studio, is getting bigger and bigger. Working with groups like the
Wollonging based Infusion
keeps him busy enough.
"I'd try and do my own stuff but I get sidetracked. That's what my
priority was this year, to do my own stuff, and I still get caught
out. Its really hard to either say no or get it together without DJing
getting in the way..And the compilation took a lot of work, I put a lot
of work into other people's tracks as well as my own."
"I've done lots of remixes, like the remix of 'Love is the Drug' by a guy called Ekko, and it's got the Gay & Lesbian choir and it 's really catchy, and that's cominbg out on Central via Shock as well..And I've been doing editing work on stuff like Nikki French... really basic stuff, but I do other stuff outside of my own writing and DJing."
"I got myself an eight track hard disk recorder which is really useful for lots of different things, vocals, you name it. I can go from eight tracks to a hundred and twenty eight, so it's pretty full-on. I get four hours of recording. Obviously I've got lots more keyboards now and I can run everything live at home, so I don't have to go anywhere any more.
"I prefer juggling everything. It's my taste - I like lots of stuff. If i'm working at home by myself I prefer doing more sort of hard house, just because it's more fun for me, but I like to do lots of other things 'cause it tends to get repetitive if you're doing the same things over and over and over."
Naomi Dinnen
From Loop Magazine - May 1995