Ready, Steady, Go!
Get ready for, well, Get Ready: Sydney's newest 50s and 60s inspired Sunday night club has just opened for business, so Andrew P Street quizzes Nigel Chong-Sun about what he's offering for a good night out
Get ready for the retrofit, kids
You're mixing things up with Get Ready: what was the inspiration? It was basically just a chance for me to play all the music that I love. I hate how all the little subcultures have their own little genre of music and you have to dress a certain way. There's so much great music from the 50s and 60s and you don't have to restrict yourself to one sort of stuff. And I've noticed that the kids have been getting back into this sort of stuff lately - you go out clubbing and it's not like it's just the rockabilly kids or the Mod kids or anything like that. It's just that kids are going out and having fun again and it doesn't matter how you dress.
Are you seeking to capture the 50s and 60s youth club spirit, with a DJ spinnin' the wax while bands cycle through on the community hall stage? Definitely! Like, the old-school dances and stuff like that. You look at those old posters from the 50s and they had ‘show & dance', with old time bands and DJs playing. That's the sort of thing I'd like to see happen again.
Do you brief the DJs on what to play, or do you leave it quite open? I've just told 'em to try to stick to stuff from the 50s and 60s, but all the DJs I've picked I've see play in clubs and they've all got great taste in music. Most of them aren't proper DJs either: they're just guys who play in bands and really love music. I'm more concentrating on people with great taste in music than slick DJ skills.
And why is it happening on Sunday nights? [laughs] Because that's the night I got offered to do it! Yeah, it's a tough night - but since I started putting the word out I found that so many people don't work Monday to Friday 9-to-5 anymore: so many people have said to me ‘that's great, Monday's my day off and Sunday's my night to go out.' So hopefully it'll all work out.
Get Ready happens every Sunday night at Oxford Arts Factory from 7pm. Sun 1 June features DJs Soapboxx, Ramona Spanx, DJ Grumble Grumble and more, plus live music from The Straight Arrows.