Another Mardi Gras weekend has just past and that includes another huge Mardi Gras party, but this years party has been groundbreaking for one specific reason; for the first time it musically represented the queer underground, and Mark Murphy was there to make history.
A DJ for five years now, Mark’s sound is distinctly techno… raw, dirty techno; “I don’t even like tech-house” he says. He best explains his sound like this: “The style I play is more tribal techno, and more suited in the morning. It has a little more darker, more dirtier type of feel.” He has only been mixing vinyl for two years, he had started off playing CDs and his style was more trance, but now he has moved on to techno; “acid techno, that Chris Liberator and DAVE the Drummer stuff. It’s just a natural progression for me”.
Mark Murphy is a passionate guy, passionate about his music and passionate about the scene he plays in. The queer underground as he calls it is both a musical and cultural phenomenon, it’s the minority of the minority if you will. “It’s people who like the alternative music”, explains Mark, but it’s also the way they dress, who they are, the more fetish crowd in the queer scene who embrace underground dance music. But it isn’t easy to make a living playing for Sydney’s queer underground collective; “the queer underground community is the hardest community to drag to a fucking party. I don’t know why, you try and try, but it is the hardest crowd to accommodate”.
Not all has been arduous in Mark Murphy’s DJing career, he has been part of many successful ventures such as RhythmFM, Mardi Gras and many underground parties such as ‘Bombed’ and ‘Ice’. His residencies are Milkbar, with Sveta and Mandy Rollins which is a gay night on Friday’s at the Icebox. He plays the very successful Ice parties every month or two months, he plays most Swarm parties, Acid Bunny, and this year is his first Mardi Gras, “We got the best venue too, CityLive which should be good.” “Mash is still going, once a month, they’re just trying to find another venue, it’s just hard to do Blackmarket when Dayclub comes in the morning; if you’re putting on a queer party and have a totally non queer crowd come in, it’s just not a good look, which is a shame because Blackmarket is such a good venue. The Bombed parties were quite successful, but was a lot of work.” As you can see there is quite a substantial representation of Sydney’s queer underground, but it is the wider gay community that seems to be lagging in accepting new styles of music.
I suggest to Mark that if the “mainstream” gay crowd were exposed to more techno they would possibly get to like it. “They don’t know the difference, they haven’t been exposed to it and it shits me.” He says, “I bet in the parade you will hear so many disco tracks and so many Kylie and Hi-NRG tracks that it’s such a cliché now, it’s just pathetic if you know what I mean. They haven’t experienced other types of music.”
Talk inevitably moves onto Mardi Gras and it’s main party, as this is the first year as far as Mark knows that Mardi Gras has added harder edged music to the bill. “There’s been a huge push, there’s been a lot of complaints about the music… I’m sure there were many board members pushing for a change” states Mark. Despite some quality house music, Mardi Gras had never played anything but girlie or commercial tunes it seems, but there have been many underground parties like the Fierce and Ice parties that made for an alternative option. It was in fact the Ice parties themselves that were instrumental to bringing harder music to Sleaze Ball last year. After many successful Ice parties, Mardi Gras grabbed the Ice line-up and gave them a venue for Sleaze, and it was hugely popular! Mark hadn’t been to a Mardi Gras or Sleaze party for 6 or 7 years, because it’s not his style of music. He played at Homoeclectus nearly every year which has been the alternative. “It’s unfortunate there’s not one this year, but I guess that is because Mardi Gras has finally taken the step (to playing new music), but it’s still unfortunate because there always has to be an alternative.” Despite his difference with some of the music played in Sydney’s queer scene, he has nothing but praise for his fellow Mardi Gras DJs, “Alex Taylor is such a nice guy, after all of the success he has had, he’s still a nice guy”.
We go on to discuss Sydney’s dance music roots, and the fact that it all originated in the gay scene. “In Sydney, the whole dance party thing began with Mardi Gras, and it began in the early 80s, and it was through the house explosion of the late 80s and it was Mardi Gras that led the way, and the Horden parties that were predominantly gay. Then the straight community started getting into it, then kind of taking over it and progressing more than the gay community.” “The gay community was the leader up until Kylie then got stuck on fucking Kylie, and everyone else moved on, and it just seems now that with parties like Filthy, Fierce and Fanny Palace and all the queer underground parties that we’re actually progressing more.” It maybe true that Sydney’s straight community has progressed quite a bit musically, but it hasn’t progressed into tribal techno. “There’s still the underground thing.” Mark reassures us, “Techno will always be underground in Sydney, no one is going to take a chance on a harder sound, especially with a crowd that don’t drink. Unless you’re going to see Jeff Mills or Carl Cox, clubs wont put on techno things because they know they wont get bar takings.”
So when did Mark first become involved in electronic music? “I was right into it when living in London in the 80s . I’ve always loved dance music, always, right from disco to upwards.” But what has attracted Mark to techno? “I don’t know, it’s just a logical progression really, I’ve always liked drug induced music, you like to be taken somewhere and that sort of music does it to me, it’s some sort of a journey”.
Mark Murphy is also more than just a DJ, he is heavily involved in Sydney’s dance music industry. Besides working at Reachin’ Records, he writes a monthly column for Street magazine 3DWorld and presents a weekly radio show for RhythmFM. “I wanted the 3D column to represent the queer underground community in Sydney, because lets face it, it gets read and there are DJs crossing over now and I’ve been writing that for 5 or 6 columns.” RhythmFM is also going very well, with his show having crossed live over to Ministry Of Sound radio in London for their Mardi Gras broadcast. Mark landed the RhythmFM gig through Damien Goundrie who used to work at Reachin’; there was a time slot at 8pm-10pm on Saturday night, then they were moved from 10pm-12am because their sound was a little bit harder (isn’t it always the way ;-P).
With techno not being the most profitable sound in Sydney in the past, where does Mark see his DJing career taking him? “I don’t know where its gonna take me to be honest with you,” states Mark with a deep breath, “I’m crossing over to more of the straight parties which is excellent.” “It’s hard. This is a good opportunity at Mardi Gras, but it’s a matter of timing as well, the right place at the right time. If a Melbourne promoter hears you playing and offers you a gig in Melbourne then that’s a step up.”
The future is never really certain for a DJ, especially when it comes to the changing face of electronica. But with his dedication and musical integrity, it seems almost certain that Mark Murphy has big things to come.
