Many friendships, marriages and families remain the legacy of Melbourne’s Teriyaki Anarki Saki nights
Many friendships, marriages and families remain the legacy of Melbourne’s Teriyaki Anarki Saki nights – the brainchild of DJ Slack and DJ Dee Dee aka David Dudek. For nine years, the party ventured through some nine venues around the city, putting on over 400 club and warehouse events, all the while championing a brand of underground techno unlike which was available anywhere else. And they all came too – the performers, the artists, the trashbags, the party kings and the party queens. Much like the summer of love, according to Dudek, the heady, acid house days left their impact on all those in attendance, and changed their lives forever. “Our third partner Telford later joined Teriyaki Anarki Saki too,” adds Dudek. “Our parties were always fully-decored, we had at least one performance per event to give it another dimension and frankly, to freak people out, or at least to get them thinking outside the box we all abhorred! We always had a dedicated chill room that allowed us to showcase the weirder more avant-garde artists and performers we loved. We also had the pleasure of hosting a lot of international and interstate artists whose records we were playing every week.”
Put simply, ‘Teriyaki was an institution that attracted thousands of people from all over Australia and around the world to embrace a unique, underground Melbourne lifestyle. But as all good things eventually come to an end, Dudek claims that two years ago it came time to try a whole new challenge – and location. Byron Bay, of all places, in fact. “South Golden Beach – it’s the spot to live!” he enthuses. “I moved there in 2009 to support my daughter Taemah through her HSC. Now I’m keeping busy settling back into the rhythm of Melbourne and getting back into making loads of music. Melbourne has the most relaxed population. There seems to me a lot less pretension here. I’m not saying none, but less. Ultimately, my friends keep me coming back here and my favourite watering and feeding holes! Small towns – yes, you too, Perth – seem to me to breed a self-importance in local DJs and promoters out of proportion to their real value. I’ve seen egos the size of buses on some ‘playaz’ in both Perth and Byron Bay, and Melbourne, yeah, but it’s the magnitude of it that’s surprised me. The smaller the town, the bigger the ego!”
Surely, there’ll be none of that at Dudek’s long-awaited return to rock the dance floor of Technoir at Miss Libertine this weekend. Joined by fellow Technoir residents Simon Slieker, Tronikelesch Live and Ranjit Nijjer, the boys are joining forces to bring us a tireless set throughout the night. Following his usual penchant for fun, punchy and diverse party music, Dudek claims clubbers could get anything from minimal techno to disco-flavoured techno. “To me, party music is a combination of fun, sexy, bass-heavy, disco-flavoured music delivered relentlessly. I choose tracks with character, soul, the ones that move me, and the ones that I want to move the floor constantly. To many a bar manager’s disgust, I don’t want people leaving the floor for any reason! These days I’m less puristic about music – I’ll playing anything that fits the night, which draws on where I came from originally. I used to mix in tracks like Donna Summer’s I Feel Love with super-hard acid techno. There’s some electro-house.”
To those who claim electro is dead, however, Dudek begs to differ – perhaps a better word of description is ‘mashed up’. “Why do all the download sites have an electro category if it’s dead? The same thing happened to techno in the early 2000s – it’s still here, it’s just not the techno of old! Genres are fusing to create new genres – electrodubtech? Electro’s not dead, it’s being transformed continuously.”
Birdie
Dee Dee [AUS] plays Technoir at Miss Libertine on Friday March 25, 2011.
