Bangin’ down under

by JACK OATMON

In all honesty, wicked DJs are often just indulgent goons who have partied too much and know what makes for a good time. Apparently that’s the case with the Australian duo behind Bang Gang, whose eponymous record label and parties are just more evidence of their shenanigans. Including Ajax and Riot in Belgium in their ranks, they’ve released 12-inch vinyl from Bag Raiders, Muscles and others of the Aussie electro clique, which largely centres around Modular Records. Behold a representative snippet of the conversation I had with Angus Gruzman, aka Gus da Hoodrat, while his partner Jaime Doom hollered supporting statements from the background:

Mirror: How did you guys get started?

Angus Gruzman: There used to be some good parties in Sydney, and then all of a sudden we all found ourselves every Friday night at this shitty all-hours pub called the Courthouse. So we just drunkenly decided to start Bang Gang ’cause we were all sick of going to the same pub every week.

M: There wasn’t much to do?

AG: The party scene is good but there’s such a lack of venues. That’s why we stopped doing our party in the end. They’ve got these really strong liquor laws and the licensing is really controlled by big hotel groups and stuff. So all the good small venues slowly get trampled away.

M: How did you guys deal with that?

AG: We were lucky when we started our night because we found this little strip joint. And they had decided to stop being a strip joint and start being a cabaret. I think that was a pretty bad move on their behalf. The funny thing was that when we moved in there, they had no idea about doing parties and stuff because they had been a strip joint for so long, so when we came along we were just like, “Sweet, they’ve got no idea—we can do whatever we want!” So we just ran amok in this nightclub until they finally clicked onto it a year and a half later. “Wait, you can’t do that in our nightclub!”

M: Does that have anything to do with your name?

AG: Well, they sort of go together. The rule with the licence was that they had to have live entertainment at night, so we couldn’t just have DJs. So we had drag shows and strip shows and stuff. One time, we had this guest DJ and we thought we’d take him out for lunch, so we went to this strip steak joint where they serve you steak naked. We got down there and he showed up with his, like, art posse and they were all guys from Architecture in Helsinki and stuff, so they’re all really down to earth. We were laughing our heads off, but then things got pretty awkward and they ended up not having dinner with us. Then we asked these girls we met there if they would like to come and do a show at the club. We thought they would do a strip show or whatever, but it ended up being a hardcore lesbian sex show and one of them, like, slipped over on the lube onstage.

Check them out with Thomas Von Party and the Nu Ravers DJs at Coda on Saturday—and watch your step.

CRIKEY! jack.oatmon@gmail.com