Just when you think you know a person, they reveal a hidden secret. Or just something that is common knowledge that you hadn’t come across yet. And sitting with a plate of homemade rhubarb crumble – ta, Val – talking with one Dave Orinoko (aka the Womble), querying his changes in music tastes over the years, I learned their origins.

“I started as a happy hardcore DJ.”

I had to laugh. Orinoko is definitely better known for his techno leanings these days, as well as his promoting efforts behind such parties as the upcoming Melt vs Logic party this Ekka Day Eve, and the Melt presents Deetron goodness scheduled for mid September. Apparently, however, it was originally the harder edge of the fours that had him hooked. “I’ve got a box of happy hardcore in my kitchen,” he almost too proudly states. “Happy hardcore, hard trance, hardhouse…”

“I really had a very, very, very broad mix of music. But then I went to the UK and fell in love with techno in the UK, ‘cause obviously people were playing it. I just happened to fall into the right couple of clubs, and parties at the right time, and liked what I heard; then went around buying it. So I came back from the UK, after DJing for a couple of years before I went, and didn’t play happy hardcore really much anymore and I was actually seeking out music.”

Despite the fact that Orinoko is a name that’s been around the Brisbane scene for the last seven or eight years, there’s a longer history to the story than that. He’s been into “electronic music since… – he laughs – about twelve years, thirteen years… no, actually probably about fourteen years. I’m showing my age! I moved to Brisbane from North Queensland, and just got into it from not liking the rest of the music that was around; getting played tapes from parties in Brisbane actually in the early 90s… Yeah, just loving that and finding out what it was. Growing up in North Queensland you had to find it. It wasn’t gonna come to you. It’s good though, it makes you more aware of what’s going on I think.”

Three or four years later, and the Womble made the switch from punter to purveyor of tunes. “It wasn’t straight away by any means, one, because it’s a very hard thing to pick up in Townsville I suppose because there wasn’t anywhere to buy records… Yeah, purely from going out and then going ‘I wouldn’t mind doing that’ and then falling into it.”

Nowadays, Orinoko has fallen into promoting; everything from importing international techno talent to throwing free raucous shindigs starring Brisbane only crew. The busy lad has two upcoming in the next month (lucky us!), first cab off the rank being the Melt vs Logic party, taking full advantage of the Ekka holiday the next day to bring the punters out of the woodwork. “The ethos behind melt really is just an outlet to play music that originally Damian and I wanted to hear in Brisbane. This one will be a bit more of a broad range than normal; tough house, sorta twisted electro, and techno. Of all sorts. Mainly techno. I’ve got a lot of music that I’ve just been buying in the last couple of months, I’m going to attempt to give a lot of that a whirl, and probably play a little differently from what I usually play, given that the Logic guys are involved.”

“They’re probably more on the housier, proggier side of things; so rather than being techno all night long, it’s going to be much more of a progression throughout the night. The Melt side of it will take over in the middle of the night.”

And once he’s recovered from that aftermath, there’s upcoming international acts to plan. 2005 Ekka holiday eve saw Melt bring Swiss techno dynamo Deetron to Brisbane. September 2006 will see the return of Deetron again care of Melt, something Dave is looking forward to wreaking upon the eager tech masses again (probably as much as Brisbane is looking forward to Deetron’s return). Brisbane’s a tough city to stage events in, but he wombles on. “Being small is the main problem with it I think. There’s not enough people that are willing to seek out other things to make it necessarily viable, but it’s not really about being viable anyway. Pros are it’s small as well though, because it means that there’s a nice, healthy group of people that know each other and don’t necessarily go to the same things but, you know, there’s a good core. Especially in the more underground scene there’s a growing core group of people who will go out to these things so it’s nice actually knowing a lot of faces when you do go out or when you do put something on.”

So will he be whipping out the happy hardcore again anytime in the near future?

“No.” Quite definitively. He then laughs, “we still get the old records out every now and again. If we’re really drunk…”

Valli affirms this cheerily for me. “When we’re really drunk. It happens.”

You can catch Orinoko playing at events such as Melt vs Logic on Ekka Show Day Eve and Melt Presents Deetron in mid September – check out ITM’s What’s On guide for more details