ok so here is the LOVE that was promised. bask.
for me, growing up in canberra was a pretty boring experience. whenever we recieved word that someone good was playing it always a pretty big thing.. there were only 4 local djs that ever excited me-
pred from lot,
stunami, and
vance musgrove and mikah freeman.. AKA the ASTON SHUFFLE.
from humble beginnings the Aston Shuffle have now nearly taken over the world.. you might know them from their chuggtastic remix of Claude Von Stroke's 'The Whistler', or from their bouncetastixxx track 'For Everyone'.. if you havent experienced their energy(+)tastic live shows yet then its time for you to go and either become a seasoned A-S live show veteran or introduce your ears to the NEWNEWNEW Ministry Mashed 3 cd mixed by none other than the Aston Shuffle
(and Kissy Sell Out).
Oldhand blouse attendee Rach shared a number of words with Mikah from the Aston Shuffle. These words are featured below.
What has the Aston Shuffle been up to lately?We just finished mixing one of the disks for the Ministry of Sound “Mashed” CD along with Kissy Sell Out which was an interesting experience because we’ve never done a proper release mix CD before. So we’re now on tour with Kissy Sell Out, having lots of fun, travelling around and playing some really hot shows.
I thought Kissy Sell Out would be a bit of a token prissy superstar DJ but he’s not at all! He’s really cool and got a lot of time for people and you can tell why he’s so successful. We haven’t started cracking any good Pommie jokes just yet but he’s cracking some very, very funny Aussie slang, all the token “G’day mate” sort of stuff. Pretty funny hearing it from him.
Other than that, the Aston Shuffle has recently become 2 – Vance and myself. One of the members left about 6 weeks ago to pursue his own stuff which is totally cool, we’re all still good mates. The vibe of the Aston Shuffle’s music is definitely still the same and our work rate and our sound and our vibe in the studio won’t change.
What’s going to happen when there’s a disagreement?! Two of you can’t gang up on the other.Yea no 2 vs 1 situations anymore! But it’s all about the 50-50, giving and taking, and being able to vent on each other and not take it to heart. That’s definitely a big key to making sure it’s all good and that we don’t fucking fire at each other after a while!
What was it like growing up in Canberra and starting out as a DJ there? It was great, we hung around at a few underground clubs like Lot 33 and Toast (which was very underground and raw and had a really shitty sound system!) We were all budding little tweakers in our own little right, just working on music ourselves and then we decided to start a record label and pursue our own music. It was called the Aston Shuffle and then we did a remix together, a really dirty dub remix we labelled the Aston Shuffle remix to promote the record label. But we came up with this fresh, new sound and alas the Aston Shuffle was born.
Can you compare Canberra people to Sydney people? Sydney people have no inhibitions! In a good way obviously! They’re more open and just tell you what they’re thinking and how they feel whereas Canberra people are very supportive of each other and stick to their own, if that makes sense?! Canberra clubbing people are really up for it, same with Sydney people but I think Sydney people are a bit harder to get going; you can’t play the token records and expect it to go off, you have to try something a bit different or try to trick them or surprise them to get the vibe going.
How do you stop booze getting in the way? By living in Canberra ha! We get asked to move to Sydney a lot but I think the benefit of not being surrounded by parties a lot 24/7 and going out and getting wrecked all the time. I think it’s best for us to be in Canberra!
We don’t go out as much as we used to because we spend so much bloody time together. I probably see Vance more than my wife at home which is a scary thought.
Can you give me the stand-outs so far? The highlight would have to be closing one of the rooms at Good Vibes this year. I was so down, I’m thinking it’s going to be terrible and the whole of Good Vibes would be rammed into the main room to watch him. But obviously people wanted to just dance their arses off and get totally damn wrecked which I think by that time everyone was! We had about 3500 people rammed into our tent and it was just spilling out the sides and sweat fucking everywhere and it was just one of the most amazing sets we’d ever played and it was just really intense party music and people were there with us the whole way. We were literally just vibing so hard after that set!
The lowlight would be being stuck in a small room for up to 8 hours a day and smelling each others farts and putting up with each other’s shit on a day-today basis, that’s probably the worst thing. But if that’s our lowest point then we’re doing pretty fucking well I think.
As for the weirdest moment, I remember one time when I was DJing down in Canberra just on a night off. This dude comes up to me and is gurning really hard...
Gurner: Play some fucking Aston Shuffle
Me: Umm yea ok no worries
Gurner: Do you know Vance from the Aston Shuffle?!
Me: Yea, I know Vance pretty well
Gurner: Yea that mutha fucker’s in the Aston Shuffle, man, they’re a bunch of a sick cunts!
Me [sitting back and thinking]: I’m actually in the group but hey man Vance is pretty cool, he’s a sick dude. Wow you really haven’t taken in who’s in the group, or what’s going on or where you are.
It was so weird, I was pretty taken back by it.
Has it all happened very fast? Definitely, I guess we’re a classic overnight success story but as soon as the Aston Shuffle sound came up we knew we were on to something good. It has only really taken off in the last year and it’s all just such a blur and the weeks go by so quickly. Yea we seriously pinch ourselves every day when someone big international plays one of our records!
We want to make sure we’re around for a long time too though, we want to keep adapting and changing. We want to be like Daft Punk when we’re touring ten years after our album drops coz we’re that shit hot! That’s our inspiration!
What about the decision to do it professionally?
It was a hard decision and if it wasn’t for the record label [Hussle/Ministry of Sound] we probably wouldn’t have done it. I’m a qualified chef and I was running a record store and on a fairly good income. Vance was just finishing a Law degree and a Chemistry degree so he has been in that for years and years so we were both pretty sceptical about leaving these jobs and doing it full time.
What does your Mum think? She’s very proud! I think Vance’s parents were pretty sceptical because he’d been studying a Law degree and a chemistry degree for so long then he decided to take a career in dance music. I think they’re still scared but they’re letting us live our dream.
How would you describe where the Aston Shuffle sound is going?We’re very much into the European, indie, nu-ravey sort of sound. We’re also into the little fidget, squidgey, ghetto sort of sounds. We’re into the techno sound. We really try to take all our influences and blend them into our sounds. You could say our sounds are very reminiscent of all those genres of music so we’re trying to adapt them and make them work cohesively within our songs. It’s hard to explain but all we can say it it’s meant to be fun, emotional and stupidly retarded!
Your Myspace page describes your sound as Christian Rap and Bossa Nova, could this be on the cards too? Yea totally on the agenda!! I think there needs to be more Christian rap in dance music at the moment so we’re just working on trying to find the right artist to fit within our sound ha!
When it comes down to it, people are over the serious side to dance music. We just want to make people laugh and have a really good time, and get emotional sometimes but make sure it’s not serious.
Let’s just get retarded and have fun. AmenIn conclusion, blouse would like to share some radical Aston Shuffle goodness.. as well as two top 5 lists.....
Shena - Electrosexual (Aston Shuffle Remix)Aston Shuffle - For EveryoneAston Shuffle - For Everyone (Stupid Fresh Remix)Aston Shuffle - For Everyone (Malente Remix)Claude Von Stroke - The Whistler (Aston Shuffle Remix)Aston Shuffle Welcome To The New Year Bitches New Years Promo top five influences 1)
red tube bahahahahaha2)
Cerrone3)
G.G Allen4)
Mighty Boosh5)
Club Limetop five tracks RIGHT NOW1)
Baby (Aston Shuffle's JUST WHOA Remix) - Pnau2) For Everyone (Original/KlausHill/Malente/StupidFresh) - Aston Shuffle
3)
Lover Lover (Drubuck & Klien Remix) – Tommy Trash4)
Never Too Late (Tommy Trash & fRew Mix) – Karton5)
Day n Night (Crookers Mix) – Kid Cudiand that officially wraps up what will probably be the longest blouse post OF ALL TIME
