MDC interview#35 "Toecutter"
Q.Please tell me where you are from. What kind of environment did you grow up in?
Where are you based now?
I grew up in a rich white suburban beachside called Palm Beach, it was mostly used for holidays for super rich people but we lived there all year, but it was very quiet/isolated.
My dad was a pretty damaged person who was self medicating with alcohol and working as a television critic, my mum was a yoga teacher and a bit of a handy, DIY person who has esoteric tendencies.
I now live in the Northern Rivers of NSW, 3 hours south of Brisbane with a bunch of folk at a rural property we call Ponyland.
Q.Since when are you interested in music? Which vinyl was your first one to buy? Which work influenced your music mostly?
I am interested since before I can remember; my dad gave me a record player I could use since I was three. I had a lot of kids records like Spiderman and Batman produced by Arthur Korb as the producer
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1069090-Arthur-Korb?filter_anv=0&subtype=Production&type=Credits
I found a few examples in my cassettes of the use of digital sampling and this was a really impressive thing, so now I still use a lot of this technique in my music!
I really loved Yello as well; their production was so cool, aggressive sampling and very strange stuff, but they made their own samples!
Q.When were you interested in Hardcore, Breakcore & Noise?
My first expirience was getting tapes from friends at school, techno mixes by DJ Nick TT, DJ Geoff tha Chef and DJ Vagas, Sydney hardcore days like 1994!
And I bought this from Central Station Records in Sydney the same year
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Hardcore-The-Torment-Of-Hell/release/241526
Q.Do you remember the Australian music scene around 1994? Do you know Australian producers and labels that released Techno / House?
and, Before Bloody Fist Records, did Gabba's scene be in Australia? Who is the originator of Australia's Hardcore techno?
Yeah, my expirience with Techno in 1994 was CDs from Europe and Tapes of mixes in Australia, and going to raves and clubs.
I was not aware of much outside of the crew that changed everything for me; Vibe Tribe, who were a Sydney-based Free/Squat Party crew who put on illegal parties in Sydney around that time. I have no idea about producers, as most of the music was vinyl played by the DJs; no playlists!
Q.About "Bloody Fist Records". Did you go to their event and record shop? Have you been influenced by them?
What is your most favorite Bloody Fist Records release?
Went to a few Bloody Fist Parties. But I remember really well when I was about twenty going to a house party and there were kids playing hardcore records and I thought it was the stupidest music I ever heard and out of interest I leaned over to see what the label was and on the centre was stamped the red bloody Fist logo, so it wouldve been probably FIST 001 or 002. I was disgusted. LOL
Yeah, I love bloody fist, they make real good stupid aussie music. I saw Mark N play an all vinyl 7" "breaks" DJ set (as in soul/funk) early this year, and it was so so good. What an interesting journey for that bloke!
Most favourite today is https://www.discogs.com/Hedonist-Hedonist-EP/master/544263
Hedonist sits well into house music DJ sets.
Q.You made a remix of "The Shaftmen". Is this official?
No.
Q.Did have a Hardcore label other than Bloody Fist Records in Australia?
Yeah, I like BLOWN Records, By Geoff da Chef
My favourite release ; https://www.discogs.com/Geoff-Da-Chef-Blown-004/release/52868
Q.When did you start the activities of "Toecutter"? What you doing before that?
What is the origin of Toecutter's name? What kind of music you made the beginning?
I started DJing as Toecutter as early as 1996 I think... I played the piano as a child, and i watched my mates making music with Amiga in 1994 and 1995, but I only started making music in 1999.
I was mostly inspired by the Texas plunderphonics group "Culturcide" and their Album "Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America" The term Toecutter is from the Sydney gangs in the 1930's who would get information, money, drugs, etc. by cutting off people's toes. Violent criminals who usually steal from other criminals. Mark "Chopper" Read is a good example of a Toecutter.
I just thought it was a tough sounding DJ name, but just like the Toecutters are criminals who steal from criminals, I am a musician who steals from musicians...!
Q.When is Toecutter's debut live? What kind of equipment did you use to make songs at that time? At that time,From which scene was supported to Toecutter's records?
My live debut was really in Belgium at the Breakcore gives ME Wood party in March 2004, and I played off my laptop, CD player (!) and sampler.
I like the Boss series of SP303, SP404 etc. Cheap and easy to use! Used Fruityloops 1.0, and SoundForge XP for most of my music-making life until I got a crack of Abelton.
Now I am using The Abelton instrument, I forgot what it is called, but it's OK, not great... I guess the breakcore scene has been most supportive, but I still dont feel like I properly fit in there...
Q.About "System Corrupt".
When was the System Corrupt started? Who is the original member? Where was the system corrupt sound system based?
Did support the Australian music scene for System Corrupt?
System:Corrupt was a DJ/Band project which started with me and Al Corrupt, making music to go with the music we were DJing, a lot of DHR and Ambush Records, and our own stuff which was really noisey post-techno, i guess. Then I went to the US and the name System:Corrupt was used as the title for a loose collective of people interested in doing free/squat parties in Sydney, so I was not even there for the first Sy:Co party!
Original members were (I think) Al Corrupt, Hamy Caldwell, Kirralee Zeitgeist, 7u?, Passenger of Shit, Null Object, Leigh Rustle... And others...? It would be cool to do some remembering of this. There was really nothing like this going on in Australia, or much elsewhere, so it was an interesting time to be around.
Q.System Corrupt has released Patric Catani's "Gabba Dance Queen" and "Scum Like Us". Where did you meet him?
I met Patric in 1999 while I was working for DHR in Berlin. I was an animator and collaborating with Phillip Virus and others on making a documentary about DHR. I lived with Patric for most of '99. The Scum like Us release was all the best (my favourite) unreleased stuff, the stuff DHR had no interest in!
Q.System Corrupt has also released many records. Why did you make a record? Is it a lot of risk to press records? In which countries did your records sell best?
DJ Zeitgeist was the person behind the record releases, it was all due to her tireless effort and sheer bloody mindedness.
Al and I were perhaps the main instigators of making music in the core crew, and Zeitgeist suggested we do the first 12" as a split.
There were a lot of people who helped us get distribution, but you'd best ask Zeitgeist who did what.
I DO remember that Simon Underground in the UK was very very insistent on paying the absolute lowest amount for the records, always beating the price down to a minimum, so I always thought he was a scum-bag capitalist, but that's a long time ago.
The best countries were the U.S. and France, maybe...? Doormouse took a pile of the first record, coz I sampled him on the track "Sodomecstacy". I remember he said "Milwaukee buys!" or something like that.
Q.What is your favorite release of System Corrupt?
The first CD is the best I think, it was so raw and really captured the producers we were involved with at the time.
Q.When did you first go to Europe? What was your impression at that time?
2004. Was a great tour with Shitmat and Sickboy, very loose and wild times, those guys were so young!!! I was 28, had a great time, but felt like old man/dad a bit...
I found all this great music, but when . I went back in 2006, it was almost all exactly the same; this was so dissappointing!!
Q.Your music has its own "cut-up groove". How do you keep the groove in sound collage or cut-up?
No idea how i do it... i just have "Genuine Funk"
Q.What is your sampling philosophy?
How did you gather the material to be sampled? Did you use only the material you like? Or did you use disliked materials?
Nothing is sacred, except the self-help cassette my mum gave me by the spirit-channel Lazaris (pronounced La-ZAA-ris) called "Lazaris on Anger" which is about expressing your anger in a heathy and positive spirit.
I capture it onto my computer, usually a 2nd hand laptop, using SoundForge XP. I even know most of the key-strokes!
I use stuff which gives me a feeling, usually one of intensity, but no judgement, just any sounds, really!
I was looking for a record I liked (Gerry Collona - Music for Screaming) in Amoeba Records in the U.S. and they looked it up on discogs and it was under the genre of Non-Music. It was then that I found my spiritual home of genres. I also really like "fake" music, Like A Tim, Die Antwert, DJ Viberaider, Captain Ahab, etc.
Q.How was "Best Party Ever" made? What did you think when this song was hit?
I recorded the song by Kool and the Gang onto a cassette when I was like 7 years old and then years later, like 2003, 2004, I sampled off the cassette and looped it up into a Roule style house track.
I debuted it at a new Year's Eve squat party in 2004/2005 which was called Best Party Ever. People went crazy to it, which was so funny, coz it's so raw and the synth-thing is so massively distorted...
Q.Do you think Toecutter is a Breakcore artist?
Not really. No.
Q.What is the best live / tour memories you've experienced?
Playing Bristol on a Wednesday night this year, it was maybe the funniest set I have played, except maybe for Brisbane 2017 when i supported All Seeing Hand.
I sang a 16 verse Australian Bush Ballad acca pella and no one made a sound. It was kind of amazing. And my "stand-up" improvisation was superb that night!
Q.Australian music is very noisy/bad taste and felt angry. (Lucas Abela / Bloody Fist / SPK / System Corrupt, etcetc)
Why do you think that such music/style will be born? Did you put anger and bad taste in your own music?
There's a lot of material for criticism in Australia, it's kind of a horrible nursing home for old ideas, ways of life, and I feel like there is a heavy culture of cynicism in Australia, healthy cells eating away the rotten... Bad allegory. Also, my dear friend Garry Bradbury (ex-Severed Heads) said "Give people the music they DESERVE". I feel like I'm often doing that.
Q.What most your favorite Toecutter's work?
Right now I am collaborating with my 6 year old doing some downbeat distorted synth work which is awesome, and I am making live acid with Abelton Push which is pretty satisfying.
Q.You have stopped the activities of Toecutter. why?
Well, not really, I just have had kids which keep me really busy, and I'm a pig farmer, I had a herd of 50 free range pigs last year, so I havent had a lot of time for music or touring!
I just did a tour of Europe in April May and I play this Rotterdam Festival RVLT in October (next month).
I am looking forward to tour Europe in Summer 2019 with the NZ band All Seeing Hand
Q.Please tell us your future plans.
More farming, more music, more sex outdoors! Do a festival on our property, Ponyland!
Q.Please give a message to your fans at the end.
Don't eat animals that have had terrible cruel lives!!
Grow vegetables at home with friends!!
Be kind, honest and sexually generous!!
Always wear a condom!
Take psychadelic drugs like careful medicine, at least twice a year!!
Make your spirit terrified, and FLY!!
Make careful choices where you spend your money; don't give it to evil stupid people or businesses!
Spend time with other people's kids, and make them excited about the world, show them things are strange and beautiful!!
Check out Lazaris
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