By the way, what’s your own background, and where does it tie in with the Snarl collective?

Sub Bass Snarl is myself Yellow Peril – a New Zealand/Aoteroa-born half-Pakeha (white NZ) and half Chinese; and Lex Luthor a British born dreadlocked lad. We hooked up at uni in 1991 and played hundreds of raves and were heavily involved with and influenced by the free party politics of the Vibe Tribe, and the artistic design freedoms of Punos.

Despite the current widespread misuse of the concept “underground” – there seems an anti-greed anti-corparate stance to your events and publications (I noticed with interest your editorial for CD#11 on Urban Expressions Finale) which is truly aimed at a self organising grass roots approach to subculture. To what extent would you say the dance/electronica scene in Sydney is compromised through corporate sponsorship (or its absence)?

The dance scene, and most other scenes around now, are made of people who were growing up in the late 1980s. At that time the Government was privatising everything, and encouraging entreprenuerialism. Rave owes everything to the idea of the entrepreneur – how many rave promoters do you know who paid tax? But at the same time rave was about community. SO you have the two tendencies creating a creative friction. When the venues for raves and related events disappeared as a result of police crackdowns in 1994/5, things shifted to the clubs. Clubs brought alcohol back into the scene and the music shifted accordingly – club venues and the way in which crowds interact with club spaces bring certain musical constraints.

I can understand why people engage corporate sponsors as a kind of venture capital for their events – particularly in terms of touring internationals – but I don’t think people consider other methods such as collective capital enough. Collective capital means that a large group of people put in money – if, say we wanted to tour a band that cost $5000, we might approach ten people who also really wanted to see that act come to Sydney, and get them to put in $500 each. Then if the party only makes $4000 the $1000 loss is spread over ten people. At $100 each, the experience of spending time with a band you have wanted to see for a long time etc, is often a fair trade off. Of course, ten people with money invested will probably each work as hard as each other in promoting the event and therefore you are also maximising promotional efforts.

If you do have to engage sponsors then it is important to realise that they are getting something from the deal as well. There is NEVER a need to jump around on stage thanking sponsors – the sponsor is getting their thanks from being associated with an underground event in any case. In the instance of the Freaky Loops benefit parties for 2SER sponsors are used by 2SER to underwrite the costs of the event, and in return get associated with an underground event of massive scale. People have to understand that when you get sponsored by people like Levis, that they are in a position where their market share of the ‘youth’ segment has fallen massively over the last ten years and they are using the party/event to regain that market – really they don’t give a fuck about the music or the people. Similarly when engaging alcohol sponsor you should be aware that alcohol is the cause of massive amounts of violence at events not to mention raft of social problems.

Snarl Heavy Industries have done one or two things of late – as well as Frigid …So what do you do with all your free time (aside from taking interviews)..?

Free time? In terms of the Snarl collective, I do the webpage, edit the zine with Dale Harrison, write in the street press and elsewhere, and work in IT and teach media and social policy at UNSW and UTS for a day job. Lex makes sounds with a studio of equipment and works in IT during the day. Neither of us have been able to sit at home and watch Sunday night television for three years!

Um…anything else…plans for the future???

More releases, another Cryogenesis event in December and the hopeful continuation and diversification of Frigid.