A musician first and foremost, Darden navigated through a number of local bands in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, primarily post-punk and hardcore, before becoming a fully fledged DJ. “I was always into hip hop but I kind of accidentally became a DJ because of my love of reggae and I just wanted to play roots and dub reggae.” Becoming friendly with local DJs and learning the tricks of the trade, the next thing he knew was overseeing his own club nights, playing hip hop, reggae and whatever he saw fit. “I can’t claim credit for it but I was definitely one of the first DJs in Chicago to do a night that was just a genre-less night and to kind of take the hip hop turntablist element and apply it to other sorts of music. It was kind of one of the many building blocks that contributed to the Hollertronix movement and Low Budget meeting Diplo. The whole thing worked really nicely.”
Now, Major Taylor, Low Budget and Dirty South Joe of Mad Decent fame will be bringing the wickedness direct to Melbourne for the Park St Party in Abbotsford on October 20. “I’m so excited to DJ with Low Budget at the block party. He’s a really, really good friend of mine and when he decided he was done with the whole ‘backpacker hip hop’ thing he and I connected and I was the one who kind of brought him into this world. It was like, ‘Fuck, just playing hip hop? You can play whatever you want. You have the skills to do it’, which eventually led him to doing the whole Hollertronix thing.”
The dynamic DJ trio will be taking over the second annual Park St Party presented by The Vic Bar. A free block party, the all day event will feature an outdoor stage with two sound systems, a BBQ and live graffiti installations from some of Melbourne’s finest.
After wrapping up his commitments in Oz the intrepid DJ and global musical ambassador is also hoping to head to New Zealand before he hits up Japan to perform at a Halloween party. “I left the States with the intention of writing an album and writing a bunch of songs. I’m always writing but this time around I was looking for a new inspiration, I guess.” DJs and producers have many common dreams and ambitions but as you may have picked already, Ralph Darden is not your average DJ or producer. He has fallen in love with surfing during his stay so far and wants to keep learning, although he is admittedly “terrible.” Already a student of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, he is also keen to learn judo in Japan and muay thai in Bangkok.
“I’m a man of many interests,” he says in a major understatement. Ultimately all of these experiences feed back into the music, as he wants to channel everything into his songwriting. “I’m just on this travelling music martial arts guy trip right now and I want to write about the whole experience.” All of his above goals, however, pale in comparison to his ultimate dream. “I really want to DJ in Antarctica, so if any of you out there have any connections to Antarctica holler at Major Taylor.” If this dream becomes a reality, Taylor will be following in the footsteps of fellow globetrotter DJ Spooky, who trekked to the uninhabited continent in 2009. “There goes my chance to be the first but at least I can be one of the few. It’d be nice to stand in a place and be like ‘I’m the greatest DJ on this continent right now’.” As a DJ you know that you have made it to the pinnacle when you are playing to a crowd of penguins and research scientists.
A purveyor of music without genre limitations or boundaries he is proud to spread the vibes wherever he can. “For me genre was never a thing, for me it was always good music and bad music. When you’re a kid and you want to identify with things you’re like ‘I’m a punk rocker, I’m a hip hop kid’ but as I got older I just let that shit go and now I just love music. I don’t care whether it’s some Indian club music or some reggae as long as it’s good that’s all I care about. You put songs together because they feel like they belong together regardless of what the genre is and that was always my approach to DJing.”
BY ANDREW ‘HAZARD’ HICKEY
