SICK TAGS
Local graffiti artists Flite and Luna took Key College student Kaykz out to do her first piece on a legal wall in Newtown. Aspiring sick graffiti writer Mani Chin came along too.
Add comment | June 17th, 2008
7287pwkr
KEY COLLEGE
Since February this year, Heaps Decent has been doing weekly music workshops at Key College in Sydney.
Key College is an independent high school in Surry Hills. It operates under Youth Off the Streets and has been running since 1996, catering for anywhere between 5 to 15 students between the high school years of 7 and 12.
It’s a pretty unique and wonderful place. Min and Ben, the two main teachers/carers at the college are, for some of the students, the closest thing to parents they’ve got. They were extremely welcoming to us when we started coming in and very eager for us to do whatever we wanted with the students.
It was, as expected, pretty daunting and awkward working with the students at first. Understandably the teenagers didn’t trust us to begin with but in the last few months we’ve gotten to know each other and have become pals.
Some weeks we bring in decks and a mixer for DJ lessons (thanks to DJ Benzi for providing Heaps Decent with music for the last year!), other weeks we bring in a pro tools set up and record covers of their favourite r&b jams. It’s been crazy watching the students get more and more interested and improve their skills each week. We’re a little scared of them become better DJs than us by the end of the year (it doesn’t even need to be said that they’re already much better singers…)!
Shout out to Pat, Heather, Kay, Aaron, Jaz, Chris and Matt!! You guys are making us proud!!
We’ll upload some photos of the college and the students real soon, if you’re lucky we might even have a mix by one of them!
Add comment | June 17th, 2008
7287pwkr
KING SISTERS GO CRAZY
Heather and Cleo go crazy. This video is unnecessary proof.
Add comment | June 13th, 2008
7287pwkr
ABOUT TO GO CRAZY
It’s been a while, but the next few months are about to go crazy. FOR REAL.
We’ll have new tracks, new projects and a crazy workshop tour all around the corner! Stay tuned bros.
xxnina
Add comment | June 12th, 2008
7287pwkr
BYE BYE STUDIO
We moved out of the studio that we lived in for the last 8 months. We were sharing the space with our mad good friends teenagersintokyo and it was sad to leave. Nina cried. I was by her side for support and testosterone.
Here are some photos from the last month or so there:
BYE STUDIO WE’LL MISS YOU
Add comment | March 17th, 2008
7287pwkr
RADIOCLIT SHARK ATTACK
UK’s Radioclit and Ears came by the studio for a workshop after their Good Vibrations tour of Australia.
They were joined in the studio by our good friend Heather May who worked with Spank Rock earlier in the year. Together the awesome foursome worked on vocals for a new Esau Mwamwaya track. Heather wrote the vocals herself. Hopefully it’ll make it on his album when it comes out…
Add comment | February 17th, 2008
7287pwkr
PARTY LIKE MAD
Happy New Year from Heaps Decent! Hope you’ve partying like mad as we have been over the last few weeks.
It’s been a busy time for us at Heaps HQ, we’ve been acquiring bits and pieces for our studio and meeting new people to work with as often as possible. Shout out to all the girls who’ve been regularly visiting us over the last few weeks, you guys are gonna become better DJs than Diplo soon! How hard could it be?!
Huge thanks have to go out to Chris Rockswell and Pase Rock of the mighty Spank Rock crew who found a spare day in their hectic (turbo!) touring schedule to come and do a workshop with us. Chris and Pase put together a track with our friends The King Sisters, which we’ll hopefully be letting out into the wild soon. In the meantime prepare to learn the hot new dance: “Crank dat Koori girl”! Chris and Pase wrote about their trip on their Fully Fitted blog and there are some photos of the Heaps Decent workshop too. Also make sure you check out the Party Like Mad video while you’re there!!
We’re gonna have some more workshops with some talented friends visiting us over the next few months, hopefully we’ll be putting on another Heaps Decent party in the near future too. Keep checking back with us! And please feel free to contact us if you want to be a part of the Heaps Decent world - send us your beats, any old equipment we can use in the studio and as many helping hands as possible!
Eat your carbohydrates,
xx Heaps Decent
Pase Rock & Chris Rockswell in the studio with the King Sisters
Proudly flying the flag!
We need a new blackboard cos this one is chockers!
Add comment | January 22nd, 2008
7287pwkr
HEAPS M.I.A
Wassup from Levins and Nina at Heaps Decent HQ. It’s been a crazy week. Maybe the craziest week since we started our sweet little project in January this year - and now we’re both on a new level of tiredness we never knew existed.
Early last week we got an email from M.I.A.’s management saying that M.I.A. was keen to get involved with us while she was in Australia for the Parklife festival. “Hell yeah!” we excitedly replied, and a few days later we were in the lobby of the Sydney Hilton with Maya and a bunch of Frenchies.
Turns out these Frenchies were pop starlet/gangsta rapper YELLE. and her producers and bandmates TEPR and GRAND MARNIER! We were big fans of them too, so we asked them if they wanted to come and help record the greatest song ever. Lucky for us they did.
The next day we hit the road with M.I.A., Yelle, Tepr and Grand Marnier plus Nadja and Gabe, M.I.A.’s beautiful manager and tour manager; splendid Sydney DJ Anna Lunoe and our friend Dave Regos who we asked to film the whole experience.
After an hour or so of driving we reached our destination - an all girls school in a juvenile justice centre where we would spend the next two days making beats and rhymes with the small student population. Other things we made while we were there included friends, sandwiches and the HOTTEST CLUB TRACK YOU EVER HEARD!!
Produced by Tepr & Grand Marinier and featuring M.I.A and the girls from the centre this new song we did is CRAZY. I don’t even know what it’s called. Although M.I.A. screams “popo mind control!!” on the hook so maybe it’s called that? How about we say it’s a crazy hot new jam with the working title of POPO MIND CONROL?
Anyway the song is being mixed right now by none other than SWITCH. We’re gonna release this jam legit - with all profits going back to Heaps Decent so we can continue projects like these. Seriously it’s the club anthem of the year. Maybe we’ll put a preview on our Myspace soon - or maybe you’ll just have to wait it out!
A huge thanks to everyone who helped us out this time round - especially M.I.A., Yelle, Tepr, Grand Marnier, Nadja, Gabe, Anna, Dave, Tony, Juzzy, Mark and Daryl at the School, Last Kinection, Radical Son, Michael Hutchings, FBi Radio and all the amazing girls at the centre!! Shout out to Crest who got out on Friday! Holler at us! Let’s start an army and take over the world!
xx
levins and nina
HEAPS DECENT
L - R: Nadja, Levins, Dave, Tepr, Yelle, Anna, M.I.A., Grand Marnier, Nina.
M.I.A. meets with Indigenous artists Last Kinection & Radical Son at the Heaps Decent studio.
Add comment | October 4th, 2007
7287pwkr