Last Thursday night FBi Radio held their third annual SMAC Awards, an awards ceremony dedicated to awarding ‘the artists, musos, venues, promoters, creators and culture makers who keep Sydney’s creative heart beating’. Heaps Decent was among five other nominees in the ‘Best Collective’ category, and we are very happy to announce that we won!

It’s very fitting that we won the award for Best Collective, because a collective is exactly what Heaps Decent is - and a huge one at that. So we feel it’s important to thank every single person that makes up the Heaps Decent collective - we couldn’t have won this award without you.

Thanks to…

Erin, Charlie and Dan, our amazing staff who make sure every task we do is done properly.

Our benefactors Fuzzy, who for the last 2 years have donated time, staff and money that has supported every workshop we’ve run this year.

Our incredible workshop facilitators, almost 20 of Sydney’s best producers, DJs, rappers, singers and all round good people.

The 50+ volunteers who have donated their time at Heaps Decent events in the last two years.

Every touring artist who has joined us at a workshop and helped create a track with us.

All of the awesome organisations who have partnered up with us for a project, we look forward to being your partner again!

The radio stations, websites and blogs that support us and play our music.

Every incredibly gifted young person that we’ve met at our workshops - we do this for you guys.

Thank you.

We also want to thank everyone who voted for us, everybody who supports us and helps spread the Heaps Decent word. Thanks to FBi Radio for even considering us for the award!

Levins & Nina

Heaps Decent

Photo above stolen from Pedestrian.tv - check out their whole gallery here.

HEAPS DECENT RAISED ALMOST $43,000 AT PARKLIFE

A massive THANK YOU goes out to all involved with our Cash For Comp scheme at Parklife this year! At the Parklife festivals Australia wide, our amazing benefactors Fuzzy allow us to collect a $20 donation from the complimentary ticket holders. These donations, which Heaps Decent couldn’t function without, were only made possible by our generous donors, our fantastic volunteers (who you can see here) and the ever amazing FUZZY!

Thanks for the write up on The Vine, the article can be seen here.

HEAPS DECENT PARKLIFE VOLUNTEERS

A massive THANK YOU! goes out to all our volunteers for the Parklife tour! Fuzzy’s premier Parklife festival took place over the past couple of weekends, touring the country with a star-filled lineup from which Heaps Decent managed to poach a few artists for some amazing workshops. To make up the majority of the money that keeps Heaps Decent going, our benefactors Fuzzy also generously allow us to collect donations at the gate from holders of complimentary tickets.

Around Australia, we are lucky enough to have passionate supporters that help us by collecting donations at Parklife. Without them we wouldn’t be able to make this fundraising effort happen so we’re very grateful for their time and efforts!

Extra special thanks goes out to our boy Dan who worked for Heaps Decent at every Parklife on the tour, organising staff along the way. To say it’s a super tiring job is an understatement.

Check out www.facebook.com/heapsdecent for the full set of photos!

BRODINSKI, SINDEN, DJ MEHDI, JESSE ROSE AND AC SLATER FOR HEAPS DECENT

Heaps Decent was a hub of energy last week with three amazing workshops over three days; Heaps Decent playing host to a spate of world class producers, in town for the Parklife tour.

On Tuesday Brodinski and Sinden generously donated their time and skills, heading out to the all-girls Juvenile Justice Centre Juniperina to make some music with the girls who were elated to be joined by such esteemed guests (but mostly by the boys’ accents!) The day was a success, recording several rap verses over a mind blowing Brodinski and (UK producer) Solo beat as well as a couple of spine tingling diva RNB verses over a slowed down version of the same beat to really show just how far these girls have improved!

Wednesday saw the Heaps Decent crew head back to Juniperina where we spent the morning tidying up some gems from the previous day’s proceedings before being joined by Ed Banger Records’ super DJ/producer DJ Mehdi for a DJ workshop for the girls. To their astonishment, another French accent! and who better to run a DJ workshop?!

With a simple insight into the basics, it wasn’t long before Mehdi had the girls beat matching and looping for a fun afternoon, my favourite quote of his while talking to the girls, “that’s my job, it’s pretty easy, huh?”

Thursday saw us head over to the immaculate Gadigal Studios in Redfern for a session with Jesse Rose and AC Slater working on production with young Sydney artists Stunna Set. The boys were all business with Rhimi from Stunna Set laying down some vocals on a solid Jesse Rose beat with some tweaking by AC Slater. I’m really looking forward to hearing this one.

Following the workshop, we headed down to the rocks where the Parklife tour artists were subjected to a significant defeat at the hands of the triple j team, and specifically Heaps Decent’s own Nina Las Vegas! (I didn’t know quite who to cheer for)

We were super lucky to have been joined by such amazing artists last week, each workshop was incredible with the participants and the artists taking a great deal away from the experiences. All the artists we had the privilege of taking along with us were fantastically gracious and they all showed just why they are the successful professionals they are. We are truly grateful for their time and effort!

THANKS TO FUZZY

Without the tireless help from the guys at Fuzzy we wouldn’t have been able to take along the international artists. As well as running a national tour last week, in the form of the Parklife festival, the guys at Fuzzy helped Heaps Decent with a great deal of effort put into organising artists for our workshops. THANKS FUZZY!

For more snaps of the action, hit the Heaps Decent facebook page over here and keep an ears peeled for the fruits of the Heaps Decent labour.

THANKS!

Thanks for the Heaps Decent support on Friday night at the Heaps Decent Spring Party! It was a successful night down at Oxford Art Factory, a good time was had by all and funds were raised for furthering Heaps Decent projects. A special mention has to go to the staff from Fuzzy who came down and helped on the night, they were tireless after a long week’s work to back it up and volunteer their time.

We’re also super grateful for the amazing prizes we were donated for our raffle! Thanks again to Fuzzy, Oxford Art Factory, Mad Decent, Incu, P.A.M, Something Else, Insight, Activision, Spank Records, DJ Warehouse, triple j and Stylestalker for their fantastic contributions! We had a bunch of elated winners on the night!

Thanks also to Georgia Perry for her incredible artwork design and to Dashing Printing for our booklets and Evan Meister, Das Monk, Day Old Blue and AS Colour for their contributions towards our superb tshirts! 

Lastly a massive thank you to all the artists that donated their time on Friday night and played sweet, sweet music! Stunna Set were the highlight of the evening.

Keep an eye out for more photos to come, Hugh O’Brien took some killer shots so stay tuned.

FUZZY PRIZE PACK

Our ever fantastic benefactors FUZZY have generously donated a DOUBLE PARKLIFE SYDNEY PASS with a few drink tickets thrown in for good measure! This festival is Australia’s unparalleled electronic and indie music festival with a lineup that defines good music. You don’t want to miss it.

We’re lucky enough to be raffling this incredible prize and YOU could be lucky enough to WIN IT if you get down to the HEAPS DECENT SPRING PARTY after buying yourself a ticket. This party is going to be HUUUUUUGE!

Get your tickets to Parklife here!!!

When you buy your ticket, you’ll have the opportunity to buy the Yolanda Be Cool vs DCup Parklife 2010 DJ mix, which includes two Heaps Decent tracks! All proceeds from these two tracks will go straight back to Heaps Decent. If you go for the aptly named “More Expensive Ticket”, they’ll throw in the mix for free!

Keep an eye out for who we’ll be working with for our Parklife Workshops…

Get there!

The Parklife lineup has been announced! Go to the Parklife website to see what our benefactors Fuzzy have to offer you with their amazing festival!

Last year, A-Trak joined us for some ultra productive workshops, who from the lineup would you like to see us work with this year???

A BIG thanks once again to our Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide volunteers at Parklife. We’ll be able to announce exactly how much we raised in a week or so, but in the meantime HUGE thanks go to Neha, Sophie, Emily, Georgia, Ezzy, Tash , Kate, Chanelle, Maya, Katie, Sia, Tobie and Sebastion. PLUS our Melbourne crew! You guys made our ‘cash for comps’ system work, and we will be forever grateful. DAMN BABES.

Here are Heaps Decent’s brand new, first ever run of T-shirts, modeled by our AMAZING volunteers at Parklife Perth - Anthony, Simon, John & Tash.

Heaps Decent has been travelling with the Parklife festival, collecting donations at the front gate to fund future workshops and projects. Big thanks to Fuzzy for setting this up and to our our lovely volunteers - Anthony, Jeremy, John, Tash, Daniel and Cale in Perth and Nathan, Gemma, Patrick, Grant, Riley and Patrick in Brisbane! You da bess!