A couple of weeks ago I explored part one of this series, highlighting how Perth’s DeadWeight crew are a fine example of an Aussie crew throwing real shows and how their niche of dubstep and grime is instrumental in keeping the healthy underground scene of Western Australia alive. Now, I’m venturing into the second chapter of these features with ICSSC – or the I Can’t Stand Still Collective – and figuring out how they came about, their aspirations for the future and also sharing the mammoth and simply impressive back-catalogue of artists they’ve brought out for shows in our small town of Perf.
In a nutshell, “it’s about making sure we get to experience new sounds here, as they happen, and not have to wait 2-3 years for Australia to get the artist touring when everybody making really exciting stuff has already moved on to something else.” That’s according to ICSSC‘s Daniel Dalton, and he’s absolutely correct – I wouldn’t be able to count the amount of times I’ve walked out of his shows previously not knowing much about the artist playing but immediately adding a Facebook ‘like’ to their band page and following their every release. Think ridiculous diversity from Oneohtrix Point Never to Objekt, Shed to Baths, and Cashmere Cat to A1 Bassline. When I featured DeadWeight last week it was a tight focus on the spectrum of ‘bass music’, and while ICSSC has brought out some producers who perfectly fit into that category – Loefah, Chunky, Mike Midnight – the general sound of the collective is not easily defined. That’s because there isn’t one: their variance of so many different sounds within the electronic music compass is outright impressive.
The crew’s origins date back pre-2009, but Dan tells me that people only really started hearing about it after that. While “the initials were always around, scrawled in the corner of my first ever flyers,” the little events in bars with Does It Offend You, Yeah? and The Klaxons firing through “terrible” sound-systems initially used odd stuff with decor, “giant hanging letters, piles of car tyres with bubble machines at the bottom of them”. But it got way too busy to hold many events like that – they only threw five – yet they are still apparently some of their best parties to date. Like many, though, Shape Bar was the spiritual home for Dan through turbulent years of the dying popularity of British punk bands to the aid of electronica, and following a UK club-filled Euro trip circa 2007, it helped catapult his musical interests in another direction. Giving massive thanks to Saran and Warwick through their approval of a new wave of Perth-based parties, ICSSC realistically started with Dalton’s eight ‘Easy Tiger’ shows at Shape which booked the first round of his now long-listed international booking archive.
Flume – now one-half of the growing What So Not duo and a huge international name himself – was first brought here in January 2012 by ICSSC on a Wednesday night at small inner-city bar The Bird, and for $5 you could see what is now one of the fastest rises to fame in modern music. It was just before he started to become a household name, and following that was a secret location party featuring a massive line-up of Rinse FM’s Oneman, Jonti, Bullion and John Talabot before Ninja Tune’s Dark Sky came out to play in June and Needwant’s Chaos In The CBD in July. Later that year saw a 5 (!) international-headlined show at The Bakery featuring JetLife’s Smoka DZA, Hyperdub’s LV, Ninja Tune signees Jesse Boykin III and Melo-X as well as Ghostly International’s Shigeto – who at the time getting ready to release his album ‘No Better Time Than Now‘. Action Bronson was the first hip-hop show of 2013 with Shlohmo and Ta-ku tearing up the Hellenic Centre after that, before the collective threw an enormous all-night rave at Gilkisons with Night Slugs boss’ L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok – L-Vis even tweeted about the show afterwards.
Black Acre and Hemlock man Fantastic Mr Fox followed, with the Oneohtrix Point Never & Actress show with {move} coming just a month later. From there it was XXYYXX, the first Untzz 12″ showcase and the massive Loefah and Chunky Swamp 81 gig before Lapalux debuted in Perth before he released his debut album ‘Nostalchic’ on Fly-Lo’s Brainfeeder in mid-2013. Recent Laneway touree and Norwegian lord Cashmere Cat came out for ICSSC after that along with Lil’ Jabba, with Mad Decent and Fade 2 Mind dude Mike Q coming out to the distant land of WA in June last year – a collaboration with The Monarchy. Working with Good Company following Mike Q was another all-nighter with oOoOO – touring for his ‘Without Your Love‘ LP on Nihjgt Feelings – Butterclock, the USA’s Maxmillion Dunbar, Hugo Gerani and Galapagoose, before another Night Slugger came to The Bakery in September, Jam City.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. When I asked Dan who the one producer is who he’d really love to get out to play but doubt will ever be able to, he tells me how Clams Casino – one of his favourite hip-hop artists – doesn’t play many shows at all. “He’s happy working his day job and producing from the worlds biggest hip hop names on the side. He’s a perfect example of something that just seems like it won’t be able to happen…”
Hyperdub’s ‘Chance Of Rain‘ princess Laurel Halo and Objekt played for ICSSC later last year, with 50 Weapons hero Bambounou – who Dan says is “the coolest, nicest guy ever” – laying down an unrelenting techno set for small Northbridge venue Geisha Bar. Next Hype and ICSSC came together in December 2013 to throw the loosest rooftop party ever, with Oneman, garage veteran Zed Bias and Untzz 12″ gracing the helm for what may have been the party of the summer, before Chaos In The CBD came out again with EPROM for a DeadWeight collab, and yet another Night Slugs member in Paleman came to release their grime-influenced side of techno. It was then the Humanshu Suri gig, followed by anonymous animal Trippy Turtle, Djemba Djemba and DJ Hoodboi, Baths, A1 Bassline and Morri$ last month, with the UK’s Numbers and Well Rounded legend Deadboy set to play The Bakery this weekend.
This is all without mentioning the likes of Giraffage, Designer Drugs, Villains, Gloves, Knightlife, Classix, Kill The Noise, Steffi, Templar Sound System, Doc Daneeka, Bad Autopsy, Whistla, Balam Acab, Rainbow Chan, Dro Carey, Mickey Pearce, Mr Carmack, Egyptrixx, Shed and Mosca to name just a few.
Commenting on which show has been his favourite from the beginnings up until now though, comparing all house and techno acts to all dubstep and bass-heavy producers to the experimental sounds of several others, the ICSSC boss remembers Action Bronson and Himanshu from Das Racist in particular, as well as Warp’s ‘R Plus Seven‘ man Oneohtrix Point Never, ‘Ghettoville”s Actress and Hessle Audio’s Ben UFO.
“I’m a huge hip-hop fan so it was pretty special for me to put on Action Bronson, and Himanshu from Das Racist has also been a favourite forever … We did a rooftop party with him and it was turned alllll the way up. In terms of performance Action Bronson was 100%. But for me personally nothing will ever surpass the Oneohtrix Point Never and Actress show as well as the first Ben UFO warehouse party we did with HUMM at the much loved Unit 9 space (R.I.P). It was so hot in there – the roof was dripping -nobody left the warehouse from fear of not being able to get back in, Allstate played an all-time classic warm up set that everybody remembers and Ben UFO displayed why he’s one of the best. It’s hard to describe a vibe and that’s what makes a good party, not novelty drinks and huge line-ups, just the right DJ and the right people. As for Oneohtrix, nothing speaks to me on a personal level like his records and to see it all live was a bit of a dream come true.”
But when asked if the New York-based, Vice and Atlantic Records-signed rapper born Arian Asllani and MC Himanshu Suri aka Heems were his most memorable shows as well as his favourite, he points to how each show is individually special and unique in its own way with hardcore fans from each scene at each of them – with some non-electronic events being more sui generis than others: “We did Baths last weekend for example, 500 people came out on a Sunday and there were some really serious career-long fans there. You don’t really get that kind of fan reaction with DJ’s.”
Speaking to editor of Perth joint SixThousand, former contributor to X-Press Magazine and freelance club music writer Danielle Marsland, she owes a large proportion of her musical appreciation to Dan and ICSSC with the promoter “introducing me to so many awesome acts and labels I wouldn’t have otherwise known about.” Getting to know the team back in the MySpace days when Dalton was pushing ‘Bitch Please!’ at Bar 138, she was endeared by Hickey – Dalton’s former DJ alias – because of his ability to start his own club brand/business at such a young age.
“Besides, it was a hyperactive time at that point in the clubs… Bitch Please! showcased local DJs playing bloghouse, electro, dirty disco, crunk, hip hop, that kind of stuff – Dan modelled it on those hyperactive LA club nights that were big at the time, like Check Yo Ponytail! and Oh Snappp! (it was also a big time for exclamation marks). He was already ahead of the curve even back then, introducing Perth’s young clubbers to music from the burgeoning European and US electro scene that was taking hold, music like A-Trak, Boys Noize, Uffie, Does it Offend You Yeah? Justice, Surkin, South Rakkas Crew, and so on.”
But really, Dan was just doing “exactly what he wanted”. Asking him about the following he’s garnered over the years, it seems that instead of purposefully throwing gigs to appeal to the masses – albeit ahead of the curve – he never actually planned to start ICSSC, he just went to Europe and the music exposed to him over there affected him so much that when he came home he started throwing parties: “most people that come to the shows now tend to think we’ve only been at it a year or 2, but really we’ve been here for about 5 if you looked hard enough.” Interestingly, too, he explained how he thinks a lot of promoters treat their audiences and crowds like they’re dumb, and whether that’s from fear of appealing to the masses he’s not sure, but clearly, “I like to treat mine like they’re intelligent people that will know good music when they hear it. I manage to do this full time now and I’m extremely blessed to be able to do so.”
Danielle’s personal highlights over the years range from How to Dress Well to Ben U.F.O. to Butterclock, as well as “Chaos In The CBD, Oneohtrix Point Never, Bambounou, Teengirl Fantasy, Dark Sky, Schlohmo, and Ryan Hemsworth, as well as boutique music festival ‘This Is Nowhere’ in 2012. I.C.S.S.C. programmed the Dolphin Stage (thus Dan’s earning of the nickname ‘Dan Dolphin’); and brought out crazy Hyperdub princeess Ikonika who totally tore it apart, alongside the East coast deconstructed techno of Dro Carey and the divine keyboard mayhem of D’Eon.” In 2013 though, Dan collabed with fellow Perth promoting company Metric to throw Circo Festival and helped to bring out artists like Groundislava, Keysound’s ‘Signals‘ man Wen, Djemba Djemba, Mensah aka New York Transit Authority and Evian Christ, and according to him it “was pretty damn fantastic.” As Dani recalls, he was put in charge of adding a touch of odd waviness to the event by way of the Blue Room where Dan programmed some of the more underground acts of the day, and it “demonstrated his uncanny ability to throw a bunch of completely different ingredients into the line-up pot (grime, abstract hip-hop, brain numbing bass, industrial hip-hop) and despite all odds, have it turn out a delicious dancefloor soup.” She also gives thanks to ICSSC for allowing her to chill with a few touring acts along the way, granting her the ability to write about those experiences in places like Vice and Acclaim.
They’re in the middle of planning Circo 2 at the moment and other local party crew Pilerats have just got Dan on board to head the imprint since recently becoming a Warner-distributed record label, but in 5 years time, ICSSC simply hope to just keep “doing their thing!” And while he notes how it’d be good to have a permanent venue one day, since it’s his full-time job, he doesn’t really like to think of it as a business – “I still have some weird moral issues with being a ‘brand’; selling people something.” But their parties are that good that they need to be sold, and while he may not like promoting the monetary side of live electronic music, the growth of ICSSC is undeniable. Dani explains to me this modest, unpretentious side of Dan, saying how he’s one of the most on-point and enthusiastic promoters Perth has to offer.
“Dan’s a humble dude who doesn’t like to have the spotlight shone on him so it can be very difficult to give him praise, but I will say that one amazing thing about him is that he’s always 100% behind every single act he puts on – no matter whether it’s giving a button-pushing kid from Perth his first live gig or bringing out a big US rapper – every act, local or international, is equally special and gets the same level of ‘big ups’ from Dan. Taking such a personal approach to promotion is truly what has separated Dan from his fellow promoters, locally and nationally. While I don’t question that a lot of other promoters I deal with know really enjoy the music of the acts they bring, there’s not many that are willing to be as up front and verbose about it on social media or that have that same level of believability as ICSSC does when he tells you he’s been looking forward to bringing a certain act for years and that it will be a really special night; you put 100% trust in him.”
This is all evidence of how ICSSC throw real parties – ridiculously great ones. Go here to check them out further.
Dolphin Dan
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