Q45 arrives for our interview seeming somewhat vague, but looking surprisingly good considering his reported lack of sleep the previous evening. He pulls out a cigarette and explains himself. “A few of the Sublime regulars dropped by last night, so I invited them back to my place at about 6 this morning.” Tom mentions that he really enjoys his regular spot in Sublime’s ‘breaks’ room every Friday night. “The kids are so enthusiastic, half of them don’t even know, or care, what style of music they’re dancing to. You often find an older crowd will stand around at the edge of the dancefloor looking bored half the time.” He grins. I chuckle guiltily and admit there’s definitely some truth to that viewpoint.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Q45, better known to his friends as Tom Howell, is one of Sydney’s best breaks DJs, regularly billed alongside best friend, and flatmate, Kid Kenobi. From the burgeoning Fuzzy Breaks parties, to Thursdays at the Globe, if it involves irregular beats, and phat basslines, you’re likely to see Mr 45 on the play list. Yet another English ex-pat I seem to have run into lately, Tom has been living in Australia since 1990.
The pair were part of a team responsible for Green & Jazzy, a night I can credit with introducing me to a world of music beyond old school rave, and the house scene I progressed on to. A reasonably regular event, Green & Jazzy was held on the second floor of the Burdekin hotel (pre refurbishment), and treated punters to an eclectic range of sounds – from breaks to hip hop. The guys obviously weren’t in it for the cash. “I think we came away with about $30 each from our first night, which I thought was great.” He grins, “I was getting paid to play all the records I love.”
When I mention that I was a regular way back in ‘96, Tom cheekily comments “Jesus Christ, I thought all our regulars were married with kids by now, people age so fast in this scene.” I am happy to report that no, we’re not all doing the above just yet.
We chat about Sydney’s increasingly healthy breaks scene, and the name Fuzzy inevitably comes into the conversation, in particular their first serious foray into breaks promotion, BeatFix. Held at the old Sublime every Thursday, the club night attracted a somewhat cult following after about six months. Tom has nothing but praise for the promoters. “I am eternally grateful to Jon and Ming for really doing something for breaks. In effect, they took a million dollar club, and decided to take a risk. They could have done a house night on Thursday night and filled the place.” Combining breaks with a top quality sound-system really showed the genre in the best light possible. “For us to play every Thursday night to a couple of hundred people, we never would have thought that was possible back then.”
He mentions that quality sound is something that has really been a problem in Sydney. “There’s always been an ethic of having really big lighting, really big decorations, really big promotion.” He laments the fact that many promoters have not paid enough attention to getting the sound right. “You can stand in a blank room with lots of lights and lasers, but the sound is the party, it’s a trade show otherwise.”
Scoot along to 2000 and Tom is promoting The Blueprint with Mr Kenobi. A weekly breaks/drum and bass night, The Blueprint is held at the Globe every Thursday. For a ‘school night’ event, the night certainly attracts a healthy crowd on a weekly basis, recently featuring UK “visionary” Paul Arnold on the play list. Having trotted along more than a few times myself I can report that the beats are always of an extremely high quality, indicative of just how much damn good music a breaks DJ can choose from these days.
But the man’s talents don’t stop there. “Would you like me to write a list?” he laughs, when I ask if if DJing is all he does. Silly me. Tom has also recently completed an Honours degree in marketing and has been known to dabble in a little music production every now and then. “I make music to relax, I don’t have time to spend six hours a day on it like some producers, but I spend as much of my spare time on it as I can.”
Tom spends a maximum of 30 hours on the average track, experimenting with various ‘genres’. “Last Sunday Jesse [Kid Kenobi] was playing around with some deep house in our record room, so I decided to try my hand at that.” He mentions that he listens to a lot of different sorts of music, and that comes across in his music. While I must confess to not having heard any of his work (yet), the guy can’t be too bad, having had a track featured on a recent compilation ‘Wired Modulations – Radio Raw’, and a 12” due for release on vinyl in February.
Which leads me to 2-step (well, at a stretch). Q45’s name and 2-step seem inextricably linked at the moment. So what the hell is it?! Well if you want poorer commercial examples of the genre think Artful Dodger, and even the stuff Posh Spice is doing. “People don’t know how to react to it right now. It’s very urban, very London. I think it’s gotten a bad rap this year because of a few overly cheesy vocal releases.”
Tom cites 2001 Vibes headliner MJ Cole as a standout, and personal favourite. He believes that it’s a style of music which will really take off in the next year or so. Given the amount of 2-step they played at the recent Freestylers gig in Sydney, I’d say Q45 and co are reasonably keen to make sure that this is the case. “There are a lot of kids out there making this stuff who haven’t grown up with dance and therefore don’t play by the ‘rules’ which most producers work with. They throw in whatever they like.” He grins. With producers such as Freq Nasty, Dee Kline and Rennie Pilgrem starting to get in on the act we’re sure to see a lot more 2-step in 2001.
To tie things up I decide to ask Q45 the big one. What exactly is breakbeat? Tom groans understandably at the predictable genre-definition question. “How do you define a style of music? It’s drums and bass – based around that. The break beat is really brought into the limelight by funk, and a lot of samples. It’s the sound of what a drummer does, you don’t find many drummers who play strictly 4/4 beats. Side-stepping the question he adds that it draws heavily from hip-hop and electro: “See hip-hop and add 30 BPM”.
“I really like breakbeat music, whether it’s at 80 BPM, or 180 BPM. There’s just something about it, it’s for the more rhythmically inclined – it’s got the funk.”
Catch Tom this evening (the 28th) for a Green & Jazzy revival at The Blueprint. Over the weekend he will play at Welcome 2001 Sydney, and The Village,as well as Embrace 2001, and Afterglow on NYD.
The boys are also taking care of the Kush (breaks) room at Planet Earth on the 13th of January at Sydney’s UNSW Roundhouse. Well worth a look.
