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.

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.

Heaps Decent were lucky enough to have been invited to talk at the Producers Conference in Melbourne a couple of weeks back, about what we do and how we do it. As the name may suggest, the Producers Conference is a conference for producers that delves into the technical side of computer music production, as well as showcasing a number of different products and some extremely thorough demonstrational lessons on software such as Ableton Live (which we use as our go to production and recording software at Heaps Decent).

I was invited to speak buy Nick de Friez from a like-minded non-profit organisation called Jazz Crimes who are responsible for running the Producers Conference among other things. Nick presented a couple of tech sessions on the day and also (excellently!) hosted the event. Jazz Crimes are a Melbourne based organisation that scout talented local young producers and invite them to their regular “beat invitationals”, seminars with established producers that help with the development of their production skills and offer them insights into the music industry and the world of music production. What they are doing is such a well-focussed initiative and Heaps Decent really sees eye to eye with their organisation.

I was devastated that I had to leave to get back to Sydney, as after the conference they threw a party with the likes of Mt Kimbie and Lorn playing live in an incredible new venue, the same building that the conference was held in, that was a converted factory! Thanks to Nick and the guys for having me, we really appreciate the opportunity to spread Heaps Decent word!

- Charlie

LIMITED EDITION HEAPS DECENT x EVAN MEISTER TSHIRT ON SALE NOW!

We’re super proud to present the HEAPS DECENT x EVAN MEISTER t-shirt!

This tee is a limited run with an amazing unique ‘Heaps Decent’ print donated by designer Evan Meister. We’re wrapped with how it has turned out and it wouldn’t have come together without the help of member of the Heaps Decent extended family Marc Hendrick of Das Monk tshirts.

The t-shirts were printed by the guys at Day Old Blue Clothing on t-shirts from AS Colour.

DON’T MISS OUT!

We only have a small run of these tees, they are very limited! Make sure you get in quick. The price is $40 (including GST and shipping.)

Sizes

Small $40.00Meduim $40.00Large $40.00X-Large $40.00XX-Large $40.00

SHOPFRONT: AUDITION CALL: OPEN WORKSHOP

Our good friends at Shopfront are looking for creative young people for their major project:

16 April, 2-4pm at Shopfront Contemporary Arts & Performance

 
MACHINE ATLAS, directed by Caitlin Newton-Broad is inspired by performance collectives and individual artists from around the world who invent, design, build, record and perform all their own work. 
 
Shopfront is looking to work with up to 20 young people and emerging artists aged 16-25 from May to August 2011. Explore the whole gamut of image-making and use your own experiences of Change and Consequence. 
Supported by experienced artists in design, sound, performance and film from Australia and the UK, the ensemble will come together to create, from the ground up, this year’s major outdoor performance event. 
 
For more information, go here
 
To Register:
Email a short statement of why you would like to be involved, highlighting skills and interests PLUS a drawing, a piece of writing or photograph you have made
 
Send your Registration to Shopfront’s Producer by April 2
admin@shopfront.org.au
 
Enquiries: (02) 9588 3948
www.shopfront.org.au

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.

Presented by Koori Radio, Yabun returns tomorrow for another celebration of Aborginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Each year Sydney’s Victoria Park is filled with amazing performances, dancing, sport and food. Tomorrow our boys Stunna Set will take the stage alongside Trindoe, Casey Donovan, Indigenous Intrudaz, Stiff Gins and a stack more. It’ll be a huge day!