Redfern Community Centre celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture throughout the month of July. There will be several events held with the theme being “Change”. Theatre, song, dance and film events will showcase the abundance of talented local artists, writers and performers in Redfern.

For more information, please contact the Redfern Community Centre.

The Home Base crew welcomed AC Slater, one of the several guest artists that have come down to work on some production

Our drop-in project Home Base has been running for almost 4 months now! Being set up at the Redfern Community Centre affords us a great facility and location for anyone to drop by and make music with us. We started off with 3 attendees and now have a regular attendance of 10 or more. The young peoples’ ages range from 14 to 20 years old and they are from all parts of Sydney.

Kobie and Jack are the youngest artists that attend and have a love for 90’s hip hop. They have been working hard with our facilitator Kristy Lee on some original hip hop tracks for Triple J’s unearthed high competition and the Mad Pride event coming up soon. The guys hava amazing flow for their age and turn up every week, without fail, ready to go.

Adrian as always has been an amazing inspiration all attendees at the Home Base session. In the studio he has been writing new raps every week and putting together a good collection of original songs. Also bringing new friends to the Home Base sessions and helping them use music to express themselves.

American superstar DJ/Producer and all-round nice guy AC Slater imparts a wealth of knowledge to budding dubstep producer Tom at a Home Base session

Tom and our facilitator Jeremy have been cranking out a lot of awesome dubstep production. Recently, Big H aka Henry put down a verse on one of Tom’s dubstep beats which was amazing. It was great to see the boys collaborate and both be a part of different styles of music they normally wouldn’t have been.

Henry, aka Big H and Sai have be working on a couple of collaborations together. Sudeki has also been singing some amazing hooks for the guys on their tracks. This guy has an amazing voice and the boys are almost lining up to get him to do a chorus on one of their tracks. Big H is also starting to plan a new EP and we have got two songs down for this already which we have made in the Home Base sessions!

The boys looking at home in the studio. From left to right: Adrian, ‘Big H’ - Henry, Jack, Kobie, AC Slater & Sai

I could not be happier with how the sessions are going. The turn out has really been amazing, sometimes overwhelming, and always inspiring. I’m looking forward to the coming sessions and making some good music!

Words and Photos Adam Bozzetto

Jeremy, Pipemix of Sydney’s Generic Collective, has been coming along to help out on a weekly basis at Heaps Decent’s “Home Base” workshops at the Redfern Community Centre. Here’s what he has to say about it (oh, and the original chord progression sounded nothing like Barbra Streisand, just sayin’):

‘The Home Base workshops have been a melting pot of unique talent and style that have showcased Heaps Decent’s young guns and Australia’s potential future of music. I’ve been working with one talent in particular; the dubsteppin’, metal lovin’, bush doofin’ Tom.

Tom has developed a passion for the increasingly popular genre of dubstep, and with the abundance of dubstep at this year’s Parklife it looks like he’s about to ride the proverbial wave that is now associated with that unmistakeable WOBBLEWOBBLEWOBBLECRUNCH.

Coming into the workshops with little musical experience, Tom quickly flourished in the world of Ableton with guidance from myself (at Home Base) and from Adam Maggs of LiveSchool (outside of Home Base). Boz and Charlie got the ball rolling with a chord progression that resembled that of the one featured in BARBRA STREISAND. After listening to the same 3 note hook for weeks on end, Tom and I decided that its time was over. Tom began altering the notes and came up with a hook that is the perfect blend of subtle and sinister - if only he would record the devilish ‘OHHHKAAAAY’ sample that he’s been describing for the past month!

What has resulted is a BANGER of a toon that is sure to bust subs ‘n’ heads. Big H of Stunna Set has since laid some killah vocals that will hopefully see the light of day on an alternate version of the track.

This new version of the track that Tom has come up with is testament to the talent that these guys (and girls) at Home Base have. Hopefully everyone can hear their finished products soon!’

Over the past month or so, Heaps Decent has put all of our facilitators through a training course at the only Ableton certified training centre in Australia, Liveschool. Here, a great deal of knowledge and skill was imparted on us all but Adam Maggs, the Ableton certified trainer in a dynamic learning environment that covered the varying production levels of all our facilitators.

Over the four sessions for each of the two groups, we managed to train up 16 people in total for a new level of assumed knowledge held by all of our workshop facilitators! We’re extremely lucky to have so many great people on board, so thanks to all the facilitators for coming along and getting involved! The timing couldn’t have been better as we’ve taken on more workshops than ever, over the next few months we’re going to be running up to 6 workshops a week!

A massive thanks goes to Adam Maggs at Liveschool who really looked after us with his great course! If you’re dabbling in production – get yourself along to one of his courses!

One of the latest additions to the Heaps Decent facilitator crew is the talented Kristy Lee. An asset to Heaps Decent, she’s a bit of a star and CAN SHE SING?! Currently, she’s working with Heaps Decent’s production main man Adam Bozzetto as a production duo called Ennio Lee. They are about to unleash their talents on the world, so keep an ear out - I’ve had a sneak peek and it’s incredible stuff!

Each year Kristy, along with a bunch of mates, throws a fundraiser and this year they’ve decided to help out Heaps Decent with cash raised from the aptly named Hoes & Does (Ladies & Donations) event. It’s all going down this Saturday night at Chingalings on Oxford Street so make sure you get there for a fun night of girls (and Adam) DJing/partying! Entry is free and they have a stack of great giveaways to get rid of on the night. For more details go here or here.

Next Thursday is Sorry Day and Redfern Community Centre are hosting their Hugo & Vine event, drawing together some of Redfern’s diverse pool of music talent – professionals, students and keen amateurs – to share their songs and stories with local  residents, community and each other.

Hugo & Vine features some fabulous artists including the East Coast’s favourite Aboriginal blues-woman and Koori Radio presenter Marlene Cummins, local (guitar) hero Arne Hanna with jazz adventuress Jess Green in their retro country trio Pre-Loved, music students from Eora College, blues/gospel vocalist Aunty Rhonda Dixon and the Koori Country Connection (from Koori Radio Saturday mornings) as well as Tim Bishop, and Redfern Community Centre’s Block Harmony & Guitar Band and a special cultural treat in the form of local Bosnian guitarist Samir Kos.

 It will be a great event so bring your friends to what promises to be a night of great live music, of personalities, stories and friendly community.

TUNED IN:

NSW Reconciliation Council are throwing a party with KOOLISM, BRIGGS, THE LAST KINECTION, TUKA, STUNNA SET and RAISING MONEY FOR HEAPS DECENT!

Reconciliation Week is about bringing everyone together, so the amazing folk at NSW Reconciliation Council are getting the best of Indigenous and non-Indigenous hip hop and creating a party to raise money for HEAPS DECENT workshops in Juvenile Justice Centres.

Incarceration rates for Indigenous young people are currently 28 times higher than non-Indigenous people of the same age!!! Here’s a great opportunity for you to be part of the solution to this problem while havin a good time/shakin your groove thang/cut a rug/get crunk/electric boogaloo/sendin out a signal/gettin jiggy with it, and partaking in all other hip hop cultural references…

There’ll be a bunch of DJ’s and other ‘spesh’ things goin on. Tickets are $10, you can get them HERE.