When people talk about Australia, they usually think about the vast red earth landscapes, the endless beaches, its unique wildlife and Sydney or Melbourne. One thing is for sure, hardly anyone thinks about Adelaide, because with it's population of 1.3 million, South Australia's state capital is ranked fifth city in the country and is considered a small one.
My relationship to Adelaide is special, it's my mother's hometown and most of my family lives there so I have affection for this place, probably the only other place outside of Paris where i truly feel at home. In my mind Adelaide is also associated with Techno music and that's due to a memorable childhood experience. I must have been eleven or twelve years old and one of my mother's cousin whom I'm really close to picked me up one afternoon to go for a ride in his black Corvette and grab an ice cream on the ocean front. Apart from the vehicule's crazy speed and the physical sensations that came with it, I remember the soundtrack to this little high speed escapade. I remember the loudness, a punishing kick drum, cold and futuristic sounds and a tempo that fitted perfectly the speed at which the landscape ran outside my window.
That was my introduction to Techno, not in a night club, not at some friend's place, but in a car going at 300kpmh. At that time it wasn't really my thing, I started getting interested in club music only years later but that experience stuck with me as somehow extraordinary and associated with a rather unique physical sensation.
I was in town last Christmas so I went to Transition Records to spend my Santa dollars. Located right in the heart of the city, tis record store for enlightened amateurs is the best adress to get wax in Adelaide simply because the selection is impeccable and the atmosphere so relaxed.
Hans, the shop owner, and his friend Phil kindly agreed to talk about their town its history with Techno around a few Cooper's.
Hans : I'm Hans Kempster, I run Transition Records here in Adelaide, I've been here all my life, no intention to leave.
Phil : Phil Rogers, I also work in the record shop amongst other things, Adelaidian and yeah, DJ, record store aficionado...
H : He's also a former night club owner, night club impresario...
P : (laughs)
And do you DJ as well Hans ?H : Yeah I do.
When did you start Transition Records and why ?H : It was in March 2011 and I found that I was spending a lot of money just buying records online as there wasn't a specialist House and Techno shop in Adelaide. There were some other shops which were quite good but my needs weren't met and I thought that Adelaide being a big city there must be enough people to make it viable so yeah, that's how it started.
And now, in retrospect ?
H : It was good ! (laughs) Kind of correct yeah. People still buy shitloads of records online and don't buy here. There are DJs who are playing two, three, four times a week who never show up here, like not once, so you know... When I opened Transition I assumed that those people would shop here instead but then there are also plenty of people who are buying records now who are probably only doing it because there is a shop here. There's certainly one customer of mine who doesn't buy anything online and there are a couple of dudes who only shop here, they seem to be keeping up with what's current... I mean, they've got big collections to start with so I wouldn't recommend someone only shop here if they're starting because you know it still narrows your focus...
P : Well a bit, not entirely, it's still a pretty wide selection I guess.
So you would say that you have a lot of faithful customers ?H : Yeah
And a lot of mail-order aswell ?
H : Increasingly mail-order, like probably just the past year we got a lot more. Almost entirely from Australia or New Zealand, mostly. A lot from Melbourne actually, maybe 75% Melbourne.
H : Not really, I think they have a couple but they don't seem to have quite the same formula as here.
P : The critical thing they lack is Hans (laughs) if you want me to be brutally honest. There is no one that is involved in their purchase and scouting as he is so people over there seem to appreciate more than the people here, I think so anyway. He won't say that but I will (laughs)
H : Oh ok
How would you describe the Adelaide sound as opposed to other Australian cities ?H : I think Adelaide has much more an influence from Detroit Techno. Whenever I buy somebody's old collection there are certain records in there... there is always a stack of Underground Resistance, some European stuff like Anthony Rother, there is also I guess more loopy Techno, but yeah definitely much more of an urban, Detroit influence. Certainly compared to Melbourne which had more of a Trance and Progressive House thing in the 90's and Sydney was much more House and Disco.
P : Yeah I would agree, that's where it comes from historically and then you know, I suppose similar to all the Australian cities as it comes to the 2000's / late 90's it went more German and European, but we grew up on Detroit Techno.
H : I think you can't be involved in Techno in Adelaide without having Juice Records looking over your shoulder, everyone's got that in their memory, that's our lineage and that was very much connected with Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
Why do you think is that ?H : Well I guess some scenes start with just a handful of really motivated individuals. There were a couple of dudes that were just way ahead of anybody else. Somehow they were interested in that music in the late 80's / early 90's. Tristan Jones was a really important figure and Damien Donato who started Juice Records.
P : And a handful of music lovers and DJs, you had the people who were passionate about music and had been following change in sound globally, and then you had some people who were probably production, engineering types. So you had the Techno, you had the music lovers and then you know they probably started buying their things and...
H : Yeah and I guess those guys had quite a bit of power, not in terms of control but they had quite a bit of influence. Both Tristan and Damien were working in a record shop called Central Station, which is Hip Hop and Techno and House and that was pretty much the central point for that kind of music in Adelaide. Tristan was involved in organizing the first Underground Resistance tour in Australia, I think it was in 1991, that was just after Jeff Mills left and I think DJ T-1000 was the DJ for that tour and they played at a place called Le Rox which in the 80's was kind of a Wave/Blitz type club. Gradually they started playing House and Hip Hop and GoGo and stuff and eventually it became like a full-on Techno club, kind of a rave club.
H : Yeah yeah (laughs) I don't know maybe it's just me rewriting History there... yeah, and Adelaide has literally nothing going on, like we don't have a beautiful harbour, we don't have a large population and it's quite spread out, and Adelaide was largely here because during the 2nd World War it was quite a safe place in Australia, it was very hard for warships to get here so there was quite a bit of military factories here and then in the 50's motor car factories and it was a big part of the work force and it made Adelaide very spread out as a city so I guess people spend a lot of time driving around in their cars listening to Techno.
P : No, I don't think we had much of an illegal party scene. I mean, it existed but not that much... also the licensing wasn't too bad back then, it wasn't pushing people out of actual venues and as we all know it's much easier to run a party at a venue than it is to run a rave in the middle of 'the sticks', so they utilized clubs and had residents, all that sort of stuff.
H : I think pretty much all the warehouse parties I went to were right in the middle of the city, there were a few at the old Adelaide jail but yeah, pretty much everything happened in the city.
Phil, you had a club before, what was its name and for how long did you run it ?P : Yeah, it was called Cuckoo, the Cuckoo Bar. I think it almost got to seven years. My sister and I ran it together and before that I was DJing and working at record stores and bars aswell, I started in bars when I was 17 and Djayed at the last remaining after hours club for quite a few years and that kind of gave me like that late night Techno sort of addiction I suppose.
How hard is it to run a club in Adelaide ?P : It's pretty difficult especially when you're doing what we were doing. We saw that there was no late night club that was doing only House and Techno parties so we really focused on that, so we spent a lot on sound and we made it really good for Djs and tried to bring down acts that hadn't been to Adelaide ever before and really tried to invigorate the scene we thought was worth it I guess.
H : and they did that right to the end, they didn't put R'nB nights or some sort of cash grab, they stuck to it right to the end.
Because you think that a lot of clubs just try to make easy money with mainstream stuff ?P : I think you can come in with these great ideas and then in Adelaide especially, it can get pretty brutal and all of a sudden invoices and bills take precedent over your concept and you know, we were bloody close to going against our concept a few times, it was hard work but we stuck with it and I guess our ethos was if we're not doing what we set out to do then there's no point in doing it.
H : I could make a shitload more money selling Foo Fighters LPs. But why would you do that ? (laughs)
P : You know, if you set out with a goal in mind and fail at that, then maybe it wasn't meant to be so yeah, I don't know, I never saw it as a cop out.
H : And I think since Cuckoo closed almost no one has tried to do something culturally important. There are a lot of places that are just designed to make a lot of money for the owner with no interest in culture of any kind, just standard wallpaper music, just booze.
And as a club owner how was it like with the authorities and all the legal aspect of things ?P : We started with a 9 to 5 license so we could trade 7 days a week, it was totally fine. And about the fourth year they brought in the 3 am lock out.
H : Was it always non-smoking inside Cuckoo ?
P : Yeah always, the non-smoking laws had come in when we started and that's worth noting, it had quite an effect on clubs, worldwide, because everyone knows what it does to a club when 30 people get out for a smoke, it definitely does things to dance floors.
What's the general capacity of a typical Adelaide club ?H : 200 and under.
P : Yeah that would be typical. We were on Hindley street so a lot of people thought it was probably a bad idea to be in the thick of it when our clientele was not the people that were the foot traffic on that street.
H : But that's the only place you could get a 5 am license.
P : Yeah and I thought it was worth it. We went without major incidents in 7 years so it really goes to show it's about keeping the right people in and the wrong people out and you can run it smoothly and I think we did that pretty well. What got us in the end was development of apartments above us, we had to move out. Which was a long and arduous court battle but this is something that could happen anywhere it wasn't specific to us and Adelaide.
P : A bit of both I think.
H : For a few years there was an over reliance on international Djs and people would just ask for the set times so they could rock up exactly when the internationals started and then they could say " oh I saw so and so ". Nobody talks about hearing so and so, " I saw so and so ", like ticking off names on a list. And those guys might get paid 3 grand for a gig and local warm up Djs sometimes get paid nothing.
P : More often than not nothing, because you're doing a community service (laughs) But you know, it's hard to draw people sometimes without a name, that's the game.
H : Especially I think when everyone is sort of mid-way between a consumer and a producer. I've been to parties with a handful of people and they were all Djs and they're all like " I could be up there " you know and " if I'm not being booked then I'm not going to go to your show " (laughs)
P : That is a mentality with some people because they have glory in their mind, not music.
H : So you know sometimes you will have nights with a cascade of one hour sets.
P : Names on the bill, people in the door (laughs)Are there a lot of clubs in Adelaide still ?
P : Sugar has been there for 13 years and it's unfortunately the last proper club with a 4 am license.
H : They are predominantly House and Disco and they have a decent amount of international artists come through.
P : That and Ancient World are our only two picks really. Ancient World has a 2 am license and tries to focus on music in general which is a noble ambition, they try to support an array of different sounds and it keeps the doors open by doing that.
H : Because I think if there's only one place you want to go to you will get sick of it pretty quickly and I think that the guys at Ancient World realized that, so you know, they have Rock 'n Roll people, they sometimes put on talks for Science Week, they got a really girly R'nB night...
P : They do everything with kind of a tongue-in-cheek anarchist spirit and they do it really well.
So what happens next if the curfew's at 2 am ? Are there a lot of after parties ?H : Not really.
P: It doesn't happen as much anymore and it's really surprising. In my first 5 years as a DJ you always went somewhere after, always, and drag your records from the first place at 9 am and go to the next place until 5 pm you know.
H : I remember raves with two separate after parties in clubs.
I was asking that because you know, in European cities most people live in small flats on top of each other and stuff whereas here, people mostly live in houses and have backyards and that makes it easier to shield yourself from neighbors and what not...H : Well I think it doesn't happen that much because it's sometimes too complicated to get to the suburbs. Like, somebody lives way up that suburb, somebody way up there...
So the general setting of the city is what makes it more difficult ?P : Maybe, but it never really stopped us, we were always going to after parties like, we would pile up in 4 or 5 cabs and off we went. I think the scene here is just a bit different.
H : And people seem really focused on work, like I always hear " I have to get up for work " or " i've got Uni ".
P : Maybe they don't go at it as hard as I used to (laughs) The two guys I used to Dj with during my first club residency used to get up at 3:30, have their Weet-Bix, go to the club at 4 am, started drinking and finished at 9 but it was like they just got up so the rest of the day was theirs you know, so I guess that doesn't happen anymore, that was our life for four years.
So for you what were the golden years ?
P : The middle of Cuckoo I'd say. But in the last year we had DJ Koze, Mathew Jonson, Shed. We ran a party with Shed and Tama Sumo at the lane way which was 250 people in the lane way behind the club. Inside the club we had Djs, outside the club we had Djs, it was the best thing I had ever done.
That doesn't happen anymore ?
P : No, no one bothered risking 15000 $ to do something like that you know (laughs) I think people don't want to risk it and I hear people whinging about how much it cost to put on an international. We were lucky because we were a promoter and a club owner.
So if the turn-out wasn't so good you still had the bar...P : Exactly, so you could take a little bit from there you know, you had a buffer.
H : Although you weren't supposed to you had the buffer.
P : So a lot of people don't have the luxury and that's what made us able to put on the international acts and also what makes Sugar able to do that, their promoters are their owners.
H : Total minority, Australia is really a Rock 'n Roll country. So much of our national psyche is based on the country you know, people wearing big hats, riding a horse...
The whole Crocodile Dundee thing...H : Yeah, but Australia is one of the most urbanized country in the world so that has absolutely nothing to do with almost anybody but it still feels like a macho Rock 'n Roll country and I think there's a real reticence to show emotion. Dancing is seen as sort of an effeminate thing for men to do, singing is effeminate, so yeah, dance music in general, Disco, House, Techno, is something I originally only knew about from Greek kids. They were into Prince or Chaka Khan and break dancing, that's how I heard about it first.
That's really funny you mention that because it turns out my family here are Greek migrants and my mum's got a first cousin whom I'm really close to, he's 58 now and he got into Techno in like 89 or 90 or something... so I was at his place the other night and I told him about you guys and the interview and it's interesting because he said the exact same thing you were saying, that it wasn't an " anglo " thing in the early days and that they were listening to Techno in their cars. And he's a guy who like to have a good time so he has a Corvette and so he was basically cruising around with his mates and listening to Techno all night... doing pills in fast cars basically...P : (laughs)
H : (laughs) He sounds like a fucking legend to me !
Yeah really great and interesting dude... but yeah, to me that was crazy because you know, we don't have the car culture like you guys have here in Paris or other large European cities and I never really suspected it to be so linked to the whole going nuts in your car thing.H : Yeah, I think that's actually something that happens in Detroit too, like Omar S and Theo Parrish drive their Subarus around...
Like the Juan Atkins track...H : Cosmic Cars ?
yeah and that other one...P : Night Drive (Thru Babylon)
That's it !
H : But also the early House and Techno Djs here were from and Italian background. Like Cam (HMC) and Angelo, and I think that those kind of cultures are much more comfortable with dancing and showing joy through movement. I'm half German and half English which is the least funky combination possible.
P : (laughs) But I don't totally agree with that analysis of the Australian scene, like I don't think it is in any way a mainstream but it has pockets of success and as much as I would love to only rep Adelaide, Melbourne is doing much better in that respect than we are and they've got some good exports you know, like there's some good Djs doing good things, more like world class music, and their scene is stronger partly because their licensing is softer.
H : Yeah they got corrupt cops.
P : Yeah and it all comes back to drug culture in a way, like that's what keeps the party going...
Again, that's what the cousin told me when I asked him what got him into Techno, he flat out told me, drugs. He used to smoke weed and when he started doing a little bit of pills that was it...H : yeah I think that all makes sense.
P : I found I never really got it until I had a really loose moment and all of a sudden you hear it differently. And I think that there would be more people who had an epiphany like that than whatever the other entry is, like something pure...
H : Yeah like " I'm interested in electronics... "
P : Yeah (laughs)
I don't know if you guys would agree but a lot of people say that Adelaide has a big drug scene...P : Small towns often do.
And do you think there's a correlation there somewhere ?H : Hmm... yeah maybe, although it's hard to quantify, I couldn't really say.
P : I don't know, it was probably happening kind of everywhere so it's hard to separate things.
H : But in Melbourne they had some lock out laws like what we have here but they got rid of them again and it's quite easy for people to get long licenses. There are clubs where dealing is pretty blatant and they don't get closed down. And pretty much every young person from Adelaide would move to Melbourne. My cousin grew up in Canberra but lives in Melbourne now, and he says it's just full of young people from Tasmania, Canberra and Adelaide.
So Adelaide has a problem keeping its youth and artists ?P : Adelaide's got a massive youth drain and it's kind of a surprising thing as we're a university town. Like, we attract youths and then we basically scare them away with no youth culture.
H : (laughs) Yeah we bore them out of town.
P : We don't have laws that make parties easy to happen and help youth culture grow.
There are quite a few festivals in Australia and in Adelaide in particular and is it like in Europe and everywhere else where they tend to have more and more Djs on the bill and if so, do you think it competes in a way with the club culture ?H : Well, I sort of notice it here at the shop because sometimes I won't see some regulars for two months and I know they've gone to a festival. They've been saving up before hand and then they're broke when they come home and that's it.
P : I think it's affecting the scene in general.
How do you see the evolution of the Australian and more specifically Adelaide Techno scene ?H : Some of the kids really need to step up and start doing stuff.
P : it lacks enthusiasm.
You think the younger generation isn't as involved as for example you guys were ?P : Well there's not much to invigorate I get it, but I saw a lack of support and people trying to do something about it. I don't know, I'm turning into a jaded old man...
How old are you ?P : I'm 30 but I feel like I'm 50 (laughs)
H : I'm 40.
P : I guess I can't be bothered much doing much anymore... I think I gave it a good crack, both financially and emotionally. Once you've experienced varying degrees of success throughout the years it's hard to keep going at the same pace, other people have to do it.
So why is it that you guys are so attached to Adelaide ? You could have moved to a bigger, busier city I guess, why did you chose to stay here ?H : I think there's a realness here, in other cities it's just a bit of a theme park, it's just a lot of slip-streamers, people go somewhere and try to piggy-back on something that is huge and they just want to take a tiny bit of it. I guess here you can make a little bit of a difference and it's comfortable. And there's a genuineness about the people here that I don't always find in Melbourne or Sydney. People here really care, we kind of support each other. People who get into it stay in the scene for a long time. And people in Adelaide respect each other, even if there's a business or outfit that I'm not totally down with, I respect them for sticking to it because I know how hard it is to run a business here and I know how hard it is when you're trying to do something valuable and people are not on board with it.
P : I love my hometown.
H : And also it's a bit of a marketing ploy, you don't get any street cred for being in Berlin, the place is fucking full ! (laughs)
P : And we have a pretty rich History and it's something to be proud of and I think once you get involved in that you feel patriotic towards it. Some people more than others obviously because as we said, we do get a a creative drain to Melbourne in a big way and so people who really care generally stay, often to their own detriment (laughs)
I guess that's another similarity with Detroit, being proud of where you're from no matter what and try to do something locally...
P : yeah because if it wasn't for the people that had stuck around I wouldn't have been introduced to all that and my life would have been totally different and those people who introduced me were talented and could have more than easily been anywhere in the world and done what they did and be quite successful but they didn't, they stuck here and they introduced me to all that. It's important you know, without that the city has nothing.
H : Not many.
P : I guess it's a cycle, after a while they got fed up (laughs) and when your Dj career stumbles you start working day jobs.
H : HMC is still doing good stuff.
P : Late Night Tuff Guy aswell.
H : Damian Donato is still somewhat active.
Any current Adelaide based producers you guys are excited about ?H : Yeah there are a couple, Metamethod I really like, really cool modern Techno...
P : With no idea of what's going on modern...
H : He's completely isolated musically, and just makes his own sounds and I think he just builds it all up from FM synthesis.
P : He used to have a big studio and sold it all back in the late 90's. Basically he's a nerd and builds his tracks frorm single sounds and FM waves.
H : I think he's really underrated.
P : Totally, he was already underrated in the mid 90's. Off the radar for over a decade and sort of bubbles back up and people are like " you're still doing this ? " and he's killing it.
H : He's probably older than me.
P : Oh yeah for sure.
H : Phil is also an excellent producer with a very musical range of Techno and Electro and more melodic stuff, also underrated.
So what's your alias Phil ?P : There's a few... I did a release with the Untzz guys a while back but I don't think there was a name on the label. But yeah there are a few things floating about, most of it is on my hard drive (laughs)
H : Keep your eyes on the skies.
P : Yeah exactly, it's in the cloud (laughs)
H : Nightime Drama is a good Adelaide label.
P : People are trying you know, I ran Cuckoo Music for a while and we did two records and eight digital releases. We did the Carter Bros album, we only released Adelaide stuff except for the first one, Sleep D who's from Melbourne.
H : The Carter Bros actually released a couple of records on a Detroit label, Black Catalogue.
P : Rush Hour and then Tsuba re-released their album we did on Cuckoo Music which was cool. It was just nice to rep the local scene and show people what we're doing here.
Going through your racks in the shop I noticed how reasonable the prices were and I was surprised because Australia being so far away you would tend to think that it's really expensive to bring imports, ho do you manage ?H : I have a formula, I have to be quite strict about keeping an order under 1000 $ otherwise I have to pay import duty and GST, so that means I have to be really diligent in my ordering, getting the maximum amount but stay under 1000 $. So if a new record comes out via Hardwax and I want just one record, I can't order it because it's going to cost me way more in shipping so sometimes I have to miss out on that and wait for a repress. I tend to go more towards bigger distribution with a bigger catalogue, it's easier to get a good variety of stuff. Because a decent amount of my sales are not stuff that I'm all that into.
I also noticed that you had quite a few records from the good Antinote people, do you follow the French scene much ?H : Yeah a decent amount, there's some really good stuff on Favorite and Antinote is a fantastic label, I think there are a lot of very interesting artists coming from there. There are also some great records from Yoyaku, Concrete...
So how do you keep up with all the different releases ?H : I just go through every email I get. I don;t know, there might be 200 to 500 records out every week and I try to seek through that. I think that's really the only channel, I don't spend much time on Soundcloud, I sometimes read RA or DJ Broadcast, I don't look at the Facebook feeds. It's easy to get stuck in a bit of a rut, but with labels like Antinote it's just buy everything. I don't think there's been an Antinote record that's come out that I haven't had. It's just refreshing music, not too retro, not always dancey, some of it is quite challenging sometimes. I'd like to know more about what's happening in France but also, I think that isolation allows for evolution, if we all know exactly what everyone's doing all the time, nothing can really grow organically.
P : Even though it's hard nowadays to find isolation. It's nice when something refreshing comes out because it's so hard to find uniqueness these days. For example I always really respected the Sleep D guys for their lack of ego and insistence in doing their thing. I have a lot of respect for Tornado Wallace, because he has his own sound. There's people who find their own niche and push forward with that. There are a few heads in Australia who do that really well, the Carter Brothers aswell, there's no one else that sounds like them.
That's interesting because I sometimes feel that in Paris or other large cities there are too many Djs and producers and it sometimes feels like a competitive and no so healthy environment. Some have like a family/crew thing going on but often times you find that ego gets in the way...P : Yeah it's hard in really big cities, you lose the family thing you were talking about. But I think we have that here because of either being a small town and isolation. Some really good producers and DJs are even from the rural areas, like the Carter Brothers are from Mildura, Sleep D is from Frankston.
What would you like to happen in Adelaide ?H : Well, there are some parties called Park Jib which are run by Lenin, Jake and Henry and they're really nice young dudes, they're quite motivated and morally-sound guys and they will just take a generator and Phil's kickass sound system and go out into the park and have a day party and I'd like to see more of that. There's no alcohol and there's no money involved, just music.
P : I think that's the purest thing that could happen and if they don't take it by the horns I will probably try and move forward with that.
So you have plans ?P : Well, I have plans if they don't, I want them to do it and I don't want to step on their toes, like it's their thing and if they want to use my gear than I'm stoked because I want it to be used and I hate listening to music on shit sound.
H : Yeah and we have to let them grow.
P : I personally would like to legitimize it a bit more. I like doing things rough or illegal although it's not illegal, it's a grey area and it could be shut down quite easily and that just annoys me. I hate that it has an effect on the scene and future parties if things get shut down and also I like doing things by the book when there's expensive sound involved, so we'll see how this one goes. No one's had the nuts to do it proper yet and coming up is one of the first times that I can think of that someone actually had the balls to go out and give it a try, test the waters, dip the toe in and see how it goes.
H : Because these guys generally have never been to an event like they're putting on. They've never been to a rave in the 90's, all that knowledge is lost. My mate next door at Inbound Records, he can organize a rave in half an hour, he just makes some phone calls, he has his own sound system...
P : That's the Drum 'n Bass scene.
H : They come from that early 90's rave culture so that's not a problem for them. They're a bit more roughneck but the young dudes have never had that experience, they don't really know how to get started or they don't realize that such a thing is possible, for them Techno is in a night club or a festival.
P : I think it's got legs if people are willing and if you use the right key words you can get council onboard, you just have to talk about vibrancy and youth culture.
H : To a certain degree the state government realizes the state is pretty fucked, not much happening economically, manufacturing is finished, the mining is finished...
P : The only big investment is to universities and how they don't make the connection between universities and youth culture is beyond me.
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