By Nicole Fitzgerald
Who: Dirty South
When: Thursday, Dec. 7
Where: Tommy’s
Tickets: $15
Melbourne’s top electronica talent can’t even divulge the craziest thing a fan has ever done.
“Too rude to mention,” DJ Dirty South replies on his way to the Melbourne airport to kick off a Western Canada tour that touches down in Whistler Dec. 7 at Tommy Africa’s.
But in the same breath, he presents his Miss America moment of what does the world need more of is — no, not love sweet love — more crazy fans.
His music is spreading faster than a STD with Pete Tong picking up Dirty South’s Evermore remix of It’s Too Late for Tong’s Essential Selections Radio 1 show. Tong dubbed Dirty South the “hottest remix DJ” Down Under.
“It became quite big in Australia,” Dirty South said. “It went global after Pete Tong picked it up and started playing it on his weekly show. After that, the rest of the world caught on to it and this basically opened up a lot of doors for me overseas.”
The Aussie native has come a long way from his days of teaching himself to mix on twin cassette players with a pause button. In addition to spinning, megamixes got him jacking music off the Internet to produce his own remixes of sordid club anthems and nasty chart hits.
His mash-ups and bootlegs eventually surfaced from the underground on Australian Radio network airwaves. Joining the Vicious crew, his remix talents extended to Depech Mode, Chris Lake, Fedde Le Grand, Roger Sanchez, Midnight Star and TV Rock, leading to two ARIA nominations and number one spots on global charts.
“Right now I’m still working on house/club/electro/big room type tracks and I think that’s where it will stay for a while because it’s relevant to what I do as a DJ,” he said. “At the moment, I’m working on a bunch of remixes and some new original material. In the future, I might do an artists-type album which wouldn’t have just club tracks.”
In the meantime, the jetsetter continues to bring his music to the masses with laptop always packed, but not necessarily an iPod.
“I don’t get much time to listen to other people’s music these days with all the traveling and craziness,” he said. “It always changes (what album I can’t live without) as I get bored very quickly, but if I had to name one artist that I think is timeless then that would be Bob Marley.”
Jamming electronica style, Dirty South seeks out his own path to legendary fame.
Meet Dirty South before the show from 7 to 8 p.m. at The Mix.
Sydney’s DJ Jamie Vale warms the crowds up.
Advanced $15 tickets are available at The Mix, The Hub and Tommy’s.
