Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fatboy Slim Norman Cook.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
He will be in town at Burswood Park this Sunday,
May seven from five o'clock. Tickets are through Ticketmaster and we.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Are very wrap to having joined us.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Now. Good morning, good morning, Perth. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Very good now, Perth is really looking forward to Sunday show,
of course to have you here. But the other thing
that's happening this weekend is the release of your documentary
right here, right now, that's going to be on the Telly.
It's been twenty years since the Big Beach Boutique, that
iconic Brighton Beach party where forty thousand people were expected
(00:37):
and over two hundred and fifty thousand, quarter of a
million people turned up. I can't even get my head
around what that must have looked like when you stepped
out and there was just a sea and ocean of people.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Well, it was two things. It was very very beautiful,
but also very scary to see that many people in
my my home city. But also there was way too
many of them we could really deal with. We ran
out quickly, run out of toilet facilities, alcohol, the whole
city ran out of alcohol.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
And yeah, so we were silent at Swan, So it
was it was a near disaster, which I think is
what makes the documentary kind of interesting. Yeah, we were
always just flirting between triumph and disaster.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Oh, it could have gone either way. It could have
been really bad.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah, the behavior of the people who did come that
we didn't have any serious incidents. So yeah, it's quite
it's quite an edgy story, and which is why we
thought twenty years later it was worth making a documentary
about it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
There was a lot to do with the crowd, like
it was an olymp biscuit crowd or something.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Well, that's the thing that we do at the time,
was that the Woodstock ninety nine experience in your mind,
because that was a very different event, but a feral
crowd that that one I remember.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Which came first. I haven't really thought about that.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, I mean the difference in the behavior of the
Woodstock crowd and my Brian crowd was markedly.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yes, it is more affable, not a much distraction.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Not saying they weren't both as drunk as each other,
but one was a lot more good natured.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Also it is testament to you because I mean the
thing about being a DJ is you truly do hold
the crowd in the palm of your hand like nothing else,
and you know they respond to you, and they really
must have responded to you on that day.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, I think, I.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Mean also, I think one of the purposes of dance
music is to bring people together. It's like you could
listen to these records at home, but there's something that
happens when we all commune and we all get together, absolutely,
and a lot of it tends to be based more
on love and a feeling of community and togetherness, whereas
some rock music may maybe more you know, in terms
(02:49):
of getting rid of your excess aggression. So rock gigs
can have an air of aggression about them and individuality.
Dance music in tensibly more about a coming together or
being a you know, a kind of loved up group.
So I don't think. I don't think it's just me.
I mean, i'd like to think that they would do
if if I had to go on on the mic
(03:10):
and move likely to listen to me.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
But I'm not sure that that's necessarily true.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
Yeah, I've spoken to a few people recently and they've
told me about the love for you and that part
of the world in Brighton, that must have helped as well.
I mean, not only to get their numbers there, but
for it to be such a successful event when it
could have as you say, it could have gone.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, I mean that's another thing that comes out.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I think when you watch the documentary, it's kind of
a it's a love letter from me to the city,
and the city does seem very proud of me, and
so yeah, I mean for the last thirty five years
there's been this ongoing love affair between the two of us.
And I think because what happens is where I live. Generally,
if you become successful, is automatic that you move up
to London.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's I don't know if you have the same.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
In Perth in Australia.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Time.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yes, So I think everybody in my city respects the
fact that I still live there and I still love it,
and like I said, it's an ongoing thing and it
ties in with the football team and a lot of
the stuff I do for the community, so it's yeah,
it's a sort of it's a two way love affair.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And that show on the Beach.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
One of the reasons why that show was so popular
was it was a kind of celebration of my relationship
with the city.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Now, did you ever think growing up and I'm old
enough that I've watched the sort of this return to
DJing with a couple of decks and at the rise
of all that, did you ever think as a kid
growing up in seventies Britain that being a DJ could
end up being a lifelong career on your own performing.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
When I was young, it wasn't even a career, let
alone in life long career. Jay's were kind of we
were just the people who stood in the corner, were
the people who's stupid enough to have.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Bought all the records?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, kind of a bit nerdy, and we were the
people who were standing in the corner and play records
to people and largely.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Ignored by people.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Yeah, something has happened during my career and during my
lifetime where we've been elevated to this kind of superstar stage. Yes,
which a glorious ride for me because yeah, I mean
I always DJed as a hobby because I love music,
but as a career I kind of thought being in
a pop band e The House Martians, Yeah it was
that's the career move and the DJing was just a hobby.
(05:22):
And then somewhere along halfway through my career, I realized
that more people wanted to hear me.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
DJ Thana.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah you were really right place, right time. Move You
were really right place, right time for it.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
A bit like I mean, it's a bit like me
and my Hawaiian shirts. If you do something, it comes
in fashion.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
A broken crock is right, exactly right.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
It's funny you say that because I read an article yesterday,
you know, and I was one of those DJ's that
was the idiot in the room. I bought every record,
so I had no money, and you're just hoping everyone's
dancers to everything you're playing. But I read out of
yesterday that says that a large percentage of people buying
vinyl now now that vinyl's cool again, don't actually have
a record player at home. They're buying vinyl. There's a
keepsake they have no they had no tim able to
(06:10):
play it on. It is bizarre, But it's really come
back in a big way now, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
On one level, I can totally understand that, because there
was something you must know. If you were a vinyl junkie,
you must know there's something about owning a record, it
means you're buying into the story of it, or you're
buying into the gang of the band that you like,
and when you get it, you feel like you're part
of it. You know. Streaming is just like you kind
(06:35):
of you just wander past things and you have access
to them. But there was something about buying something and
taking it home and looking at it. I mean, obviously
I would have advocate playing it on a record laer
as well. It's going back to that some kind of
sort of tribalism, some kind of you know, buying into
a lifestyle. Yeah, and which you don't get, which you
know that you don't get that with streaming.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, well they don't get to lie.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
They're on their stomach reading the out them, you know,
all the notes.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And everything from cover to the back and the putures
of the artwork.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
And showing it to your friends.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I mean, when I was younger, if I'd gone back
to a girl's house to cop off, the first thing
I do to check out our record collection, because you
can tell a lot about someone's character about record collection totally.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So what's there, what's cool, and what's not. When he
did start out.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
While she was making the coffee record, I'm going to
do a swift exit or.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Not its you were still there? Would you go back
with the coffee.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Rollers?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
How about?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
So when he did start out, sampling was a very
new thing, and then the law got involved and it
got very complicated. Is it still complicated now to sample
other people's tracks?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It's not that complicated anymore, no, because we we all
know the rules. It was complicated at first because it
was like the wild West. It was like all this
and no one knew you could get away with what
you could. And then with you know, there's a there's
a very old adage in the music businesses with the
hits come to the ritz and if people smell there
to be made, ambulance chasing noise will get on it.
(08:08):
So it did get very very bad. But at the time,
but I mean, no, I mean I feel for poor
old Oh who's getting sharing. You know, he's getting by
people on really tenuous you know, tenuous things. And at
least with sampling, you know, if you sample someone or
not a machine. Now it's getting a lot easy because
(08:28):
with Shazam and that, you know, machine.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Can tell you what what you've done and what you haven't.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
So it's a bit more it's a bit more clear
club when you sampled rather than when you might unconsciously
borrowed a card.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Progression and now they're sampling you. It's come full circle.
I meant, or a song praising you is awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I love it. And she said, crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
That meme or that samples on its third generation.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Now, I think that's a beautiful thing, especially because Camelle Yarborough,
who I sampled. She said, she wrote that about the
civil rights move in the early seventies, about black kids
coming back from Vietnam, and it's a love letter there.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Wow, And she said he loved it.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
That like thirty years later some guy in England just
took some of the words out of it and but
it made it, didn't I mean, for me, it was
more about a kind of relationships or you know, sporting.
My football team plays it at the end of every match.
You know that that actually come a long one together,
fished a lot of people. But then Rita has now
turned it back into a sure enough love song.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You know, yeah, it really is.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
It's just a love letter to her new husband and yeah,
it's lovely that it's it's got a new generation and
a new new life to it and there's.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Been Yeah, it's been great fun working with Rita.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
I can ask you by the way, yeah please you
know the Eurovision Song Contests.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Why is Australia and the Urish.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
It's as big a mystery to us.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
It's developed over the last few years.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
We've been trying to work it out.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I think we got invited as some kind of weird
let's let's, you know, have these guy's over as guests,
some kind of wild card type of friendly and then
we just kept we kept coming back.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I'm not saying you're not welcome.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
A mystery, yeah, all right, okay, and.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
It has a huge fan base here. We represented there
this year. It is pretty amazing. Ford of the World.
All right, well, very good. The show is this Sunday
from five o'clock.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Tickets through Ticketmaster for Fat Boyceliam at Bursley Park and
the documentary The most Frightening thing that Norman may.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Have ever seen in his life looking out at that crowd.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
He is also on Saturday night on Binge. I can't
wait to watch that and it's been an absolute treat.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Good to catch up with you.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Thanks for having me Sunday.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, we'll see you