yron Bay born Melbourne DJ TigerFunk (known to his parents as Ezra Harvey) has a simple checklist when it comes to a good club night.
“The loyalty of patrons, audience getting involved, passionate performers, a good sound system, awesome outfits.” Byron Bay born Melbourne DJ TigerFunk (known to his parents as Ezra Harvey) has a simple checklist when it comes to a good club night. Currently calling Bimbos home on a Tuesday night, Harvey is not a man afraid to enjoy his night as much as his audience. “For me it is mostly my jumping up and down. Just getting excited and translating that into the music and movement. Vocalization as well, if you can get away with it. Whooping and screaming.”
That being said, Harvey is far from what could be called a self-indulgent DJ. Though he is passionate about the music he spins, he admits, “It really depends on who you are dealing with”, when it comes to planning his set. Rather than being holed away behind his decks, he reveals, “I am always trying to find some way to include them, to the point that when it is dead, I will actually walk around the room and undertake a survey of what people are actually into. Then I can play that for them.”
Though prepared to go to extreme lengths to ensure that the dance floor is buzzing, there are clear limits as to how far Harvey will go to tailor his evening for the individual. With an admirable honesty, he reveals, “I hate when people request songs, but it is ok when people request genre. I am a lot more willing to give back to them when I know what people want to hear. I hate it though when people hear their one song and then head off the dance floor. I love it when people are like ‘have you got any dirty, phat, tech house?’ I am just like ‘yeah! I like that too!’”
While it may at first seem a little odd that the crowd pleasing DJ refrains from going the extra mile for the individual, upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the logic behind his slightly closed approach is more than understandable. He confesses, “I would prefer to play something that people don’t know, not for the education factor but for the creation of a full feeling,” before offering “Do you want to hear the whole theory?”
His candid approach is irresistible to any journalist. Rather than closely guarding his secrets, Harvey is willing to entice further audience participation by explaining at length his expectations. “When people go out, there are two things going on. One, people who go to hear what they already know. The cheese factor. The classic example is Michael Jackson, but it can also be what is played on the radio at the moment. What that does, for an audience member, for me, when I go out, it transports me back to the first time I heard that or a moment I shared it with my friends. So I am sort of exited from the moment. Whereas, if I go somewhere and hear something I have never heard before then there is a greater chance that I will be transported into a new moment. I could make a new memory. I can just be caught up in the now and create a new memory. Forging new paths instead of treading old.”
Given that as a DJ, he is far from wishing to be an educator, what is it that the introduction of new music feeds him? “When you get that synergy between a crowd and performer, when it is totally there, in the music. I don’t get that so much with older music, everybody knows how it goes. Whereas if it something they are not already open to, they find themselves being elevated.”
While he describes himself as a “genre whore, I will pretty much play anything”, he admits that his adversity to the song request could also be related to the fact he has “had some horrible requests. Anything from Matchbox 20 to god knows what. You know, when you are playing dark ass breaks and someone requests that, you obviously have to question mark it. You just go ‘What?!?’ I just wish people would get creative if they are going to be that stupid!”
With his rules clearly defined and his expectancies of an evening set high, Harvey has proved himself to be a defining feature of the Melbourne scene since his arrival some six years ago. Given that Melbourne has access to everything, the question remains, how have people responded to his “genre whore” attitude? “It is not so much about the genres, it is more about the energy of it all. People know they will get an up vibe. It really depends on how open people are, but lots of people want to operate on that frequency.”
Tigerfunk [AUS] plays the Best Of Both Sides Festival at Lucky Coq, which runs from Tuesday April 19 until Monday April 25.
