TVU Crew - the Class of 1992

In this photo: Annabel Dundas, Simone Dumaresq, Brett Dumaresq, Russell HardCore, tricky, Duncan (doc) J Plank, Jason Knipe, Bolty, Krash, Hydi (Holding broom), Johnny Lad, Brewster Bee, Lee Dixon [spam], Scott Adcock, Garry Shepherd (With costume on), Clare O'Donohue, clare, shaun Viridian, Tricia Phelan, Jenny McNab, Melanie Taig, Mitchell, Zip Hed
Pic by Richie 'Rich' McNeill (1992)

If you know other names please let us know in the comments.

• PIC UPDATES:
  We've just had confirmation that it is Hydi holding the broom. Our collective memories have got it sorted. I remember Hydi near me, but I had my costume hat on and couldn't see anything but the feet of the people in front of me. Which is how I knew I was facing the camera :)
• Krash has the broom stick in the vid I shot of the same morning (see vid below), so the assumption was that Krash had the broom. So it's sorted.
• Of course we can't agree on the date of the pic at this stage just the year 1992, we all have different opinions of the matter... bloody typical oldskool lol. We're all in the same pic and we swear by different dates ranging from March 92 to Oct 92. It is worth noting that nobody disputes that the same crew could have been at any of those 8 or so alternate dates for the photo. It just blurs into one year long party.
• Brewster Bee has kindly invited everyone over to the PFP Purple Forest Posse facebook group to catch up and post more pic etc. I'd encourage new shufflers to visit and chat with these oldskoolers.
• You will be able to see the TVU crew, and many of the other oldskool crews live in action in the GLOBAL SHUFFLE feature documentary

This photo has just surfaced on the oldskool facebook pages. These are original Melbourne Shufflers or as we called ourselves then - Stompers.

It's at the TVU warehouse in Melbourne (Footscray) where many of us lived for most of 1992 running our own TV station and holding shuffle parties - hard life eh ? ;)

Crews would join together to hold events. TVU for instance was Television Unlimited, a formal crew with committee etc who could approach government departments to get test broadcast licenses for experimental TV broadcasts. Pirate TV crews also existed, but they were illegal and carried a 10 year jail sentence.

TVU had this amazing 3 roomed warehouse, each room about 5000 sq feet, and all joined by doors. We joined up with the Every Picture Tells A Story crew and broadcast dance parties live to air, along with our other experimental stuff.

Many of us lived in there between parties and broadcasts, mainly to keep an eye on the expensive broadcast gear we had there.

It was also a club house for us. People would be there every night of the week and weekends were just a long party from Friday night to Sunday night.

Here's one of our broadcast weekends from 2 months before the group pic. You'll get an idea of the other TVU crew from the tech and organisational side. We'd often have this much expensive gear laying around, hence we'd live there to protect it.

This is the TVU promo clip which was broadcast across Melbourne once an hour for the year. It's got footage of the parties held at TVU and the first ever Shuffle footage to be broadcast on TV. ! I edited this clip in this same warehouse in a mammoth 16 hour all night session.

NEURENERGEN by Garry Shepherd '92

We eventually got kicked out of the warehouse at the end of 1992.

It only lasted that year, but was the most significant early warehouse site in the oldskool era, defining elements of what a Melbourne Warehouse dance party was.

A definition that continued for over a decade and epitomised a true underground Melbourne Shuffle party.

This group pic above, is the morning after an Every Picture Tells A Story party in August (I think) Every Pic 3 or 4 ? Richie 'Rich' Mc'Neill wanted to get a group shot of the TVU crew to put on the flyer for his next Hardware party, but I think we were a bit intense for him. But that didn't stop a lot of us working on Richie's parties over the years.

It was considered ok to be a part of several crews at once, as long as they were not in competition with each other.

In the early days of the oldskool era, it was much like it is now in the Shuffle scene. It's generally too small for people to have big major clans in most towns around the world. And it's still all very new to everyone.

You just want to go out and meet other shufflers. You don't want to know about clan politics, who's cool who's not. You just want to meet up and have fun.

That's how it was in this 1992 pic, just like any shuffle meet-up group pic today.

Most of us were total strangers to each other from all across town at the start, but instantly, you become friends and nearly 20 years later, you're still friends.

These pics below are inside and outside of the party that night of the group pic. (Video shots of me were taken by Zip Hed) That's me roaming around the video art room in my party clothes.

Dutch Shufflers in Melbourne

 

I've spent the past few weeks explaining Melbourne's weather to Millie from the Dutch Shufflers.

Millie's on his way to Melbourne in a couple of weeks and I'll be showing him some of the historic Shuffle sites around Melbourne and interviewing him for the Global Shuffle DVD.

It's about zero degrees in the Netherlands on a warm day at the moment, and yesterday it reached a record 46C in Melbourne. It gets much higher inland.

But as quick as that peak is reached it dropped 20 degrees in about an hour when the cool change came through last night and now the next day it's a chilly 16 degrees and raining outside, and I'm thinking about putting on the heater !

So this is pretty common in Melbourne, these dramatic changes, and we take them in our stride, there's little else you can do about it ;) It's part of Melbourne character.

We live between two feuding jet streams in Melbourne. One to the north draws hot moist air from the tropics, then super heats it over 2000 kms of hot desert and blasts Melbourne with it, as you can see in the weather map of yesterday 7 February 2009 below. Melbourne is about where that bottom red arrow is, covered by the northern jet stream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then today 8 February 2009 the Jet Streams Collide. The southern jet stream has pushed it's way up north with cold air straight from the south pole over 3000 klms of antarctic ice chilled sea - Antarctica has 90% of the worlds ice.

Like these jet streams have the whole of the southern hemisphere to play in, and they choose to have a turf war directly over Melbourne !! Why not out at sea ! grrrrr

So what should Millie bring for a Melbourne summer in 2 weeks ? Plan for Everything :)

We'll be shooting around the Melbourne CBD in about two weeks. If you spot us come up and say hello.

Here's the latest from the Dutch Shufflers, with some great shots of the crew.

Dutch Shufflers

Shuffle Lion Dance

Now this is brilliant ! So much so, that I reckon it deserves to be a new shuffle genre !!! What do you think ? Leave a comment.

Shuffle Lion Dance

Body Building Shuffle Moves

In Advanced Shuffle Footwork I mention the choreography of Feet Of Flames - Warrior using body building poses as dance moves. The moves are examples of iconic images or gestures which you can use in your shuffle routine to convey meaning in your shuffling.

This can become part of your shuffle vocabulary ( 1 move = 1 word ). How you present that move is called the context. The context in shuffling is the moves before and after the iconic image or gesture. They convey whether you are taking the move in a serious or fun way.

To reverse this for the shuffler, here is a great vid of a bodybuilding contest. This guy uses the standard body building poses, and then expands his pose vocabulary with dance moves.

The person who posted the vid thinks it's a joke, but he's actually very good.

Dance by Bodybuilder

 

See the similar poses used in Feet Of Flames.

Feet Of Flames - Warriors

Shuffle Music: Practice Mix 2. Rock

mix title: rock
shuffle music genre: rock
purpose: to develop upper body and inertia motion.
level: beginners > advanced
speed: nice and easy 90 -120 bpm
time: 25 mins

Rock is often slower than usual shuffling and uses lots of upper body motion. From simple head banging boogie to complex upper body twists and arm moves.

Melbourne had a very strong and large live pub rock scene in the 1970's. Bands from around Australia and surrounding countries would move to Melbourne to 'make it'.

From Thursday to Sunday nights every week you could choose from over 300 live bands, all with a dance floor in front of the band, where you'd find people rockin.

With such a choice, the competition between bands for good gigs was fierce, and the pub crowds were unforgiving. If you didn't have the crowd on their feet and dancing within 3 songs, you would be booed off stage.

It was tough, raw, exciting and live. This was pre disco, this was rock and roll. This is where Rockin was born.

20,000 hippies, rockers and sharpies would turn up to an all day music festival, dance, get stoned, drunk and arrested (by Police), and call it all a good day out.

The most distinctive Melbourne Rockin style of all time, is that of the notorious early/mid 70's Melbourne clans and crews, called Sharpies.

Sharps, both male and female, were very particular about their appearance. From hair style to shoes, you had to 'look Sharp'!

And when you danced it had to be the sharpie dance, which involves a very distinctive 'elbow blow' move combined with an extreme upper body twist in time with the music.

Often girls would stand in a large circle facing in, all doing the same arm movements at the same time. Guys generally staggered around the crowd.

Footwork was a 2 step shuffle done in massive chunky healed boot like shoes. Check out their style in Greg Macainsh's 1974 film Sharpies. Greg is also the Bass player with Melbourne band Skyhooks , see second clip in the mix below.

Sharpies - Melbourne 1974. Greg Macainsh

ROCK DANCE THEORY

Rock as an oldskool shuffle style did in fact exist, though it was still called stomping. It incorporated traditional Melbourne rock type dance moves such as the Sharpie dance.

Oldskoolers Voodoo Phil and Voiteck using the Sharpie 'elbow' style at oldskool parties Global Village 1993, Every Pic/TVU warehouse 1992. Pic's Garry Shepherd

Rock is an exuberant 'loud' type of shuffle that moves around far more than traditional shuffling, and has far more arm work involved.

It became most popular from about 1993 -1996 when shuffle events had more space in very large warehouses. You had more room to move, swing your hands and arms around, and generally do freeform shuffling, without fear of hitting someone - painful for both you and the person hit.

So compared to the rather confined space of classic shuffling, rockin really stood out with the energy and carefree abandon found at an indie rock gig. As mentioned before, people started saying 'this place is rockin' because of the similarity.

I wont post a bunch of vids showing the style here. I'll leave that up to future posts.

Of more importance is understanding how to dance in a more carefree, freestyle rock like style, using more of your upper body.

You begin with the music ROCK, and you dance to the music.

It's a very physical raw energy dance. You have more of a flow to it, rather than the tight strict steps of hardstyle and classic Celtic dance styled shuffle.

Firstly think of rocking as a movement, you rock backwards and forwards, using the full weight of your body. Like on a swing or in a rocking chair.

It's not the sharp sudden burst like stomping your foot in hardstyle. Your whole body becomes involved, rocking from one position to another.

• Rock and Roll, was a slang term for having sex in the 1940's/50's, that's what rock means. It was a time when polite society did not say the word 'sex' in public.

You use the inertia of your body mass in rockin.

Inertia in shuffling is like when you spin and your body just wants to keep spinning, it's the weight of your body, your body mass, that's pushing you.

So instead of suddenly stopping with a jolt, you turn that inertia into another move. You use the energy of your moving body to help start a new move.

For it to be the most effective, your next move needs to be physically complimentary.

EXAMPLE: PHYSICALLY COMPLIMENTARY
1. Sit upright in a chair with your hands resting the top of your legs. Bend forward from the waist then return to sitting position.

2. Now add a Physically Complimentary move. Hold your hands to your chest in the sitting position. Then bend forward again, but this time, unfold your arms in time with the bend. Hands on chest at start, arms wide spread when bent all the way over. Then return to sitting position with hands on chest.

You will feel your muscle attention flow from your waist muscles to your shoulder and arm muscles and back again as each set of muscles comes into strength focus. Your waist and arms now compliment each others characteristics.

For most hardstyle shufflers reading now, you will have just discovered another part of the body to dance with :) Imagine what you can do when you combine both the top and the feet.

That gives you a flow to your style. That's how you get smoothness.

The slower music for Rock gives your body time to be smooth, it's way less stressful than hardstyle, letting your muscles naturally stretch and return. It's more organic, where hardstyle is more robotic (in a good way).

MUSIC MIX VIDS

These vids in the mix below are slow paced compared to hardstyle, but are equally danceable. Rock and Roll is after all, first and foremost, dance music!

For shufflers you'll find great ways to use your upper body. Try some of the moves seen in the vids, even the head banging by Canned Heat, to loosen up and strengthen neck muscles.

In fact you will find this mix a real pleasure doing your usual shuffle moves to.

If you are a bit confused about how to shuffle to rock, watch the last vid below, AC/DC Meets Girls Shuffling in Brazil. It is a shuffle remix using the great girls shuffling in brazil footage, to AD/DC's classic 'It's a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock n Roll)

There is no time changing or stretching between the shuffling footage and the AC/DC track. The girls are originally shuffling to hardstyle, but are shuffling in perfect time to Melbourne pub rock of 1975.

With the rock track, it's the same tempo as most hardstyle, but the bass/kick accent is on every second beat. Not every beat like with hardstyle. So it sounds slower, but you can dance 'double time' to it, as we say in Melbourne.

Try it as a warm up or warm down, or just to get greater fluid motion happening in your style.

You will see glimpses of Melbourne audiences rockin in the aisles to the Skyhooks track - Melbourne 1978. Read more about this banned track in High School Revolution.

BTW- The 1st 4 tracks in the mix, (excluding AD/DC), are what were called Shuffle tracks in rock music at the time. It's distinct for it's syncopated rhythm, a loose shuffling feel with a prominent off beat. Compared to the hard to the floor 1st beat accent of AC/DC's Long way to the top, which was just called Rock.

So have some fun :)

Ian Dury and the Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

What ever happened to the Revolution 1975. Skyhooks Live at the Palais (Melb 1978)

david bowie - fashion

On The Road Again - Canned Heat - Montreux 1973

AC/DC meet Brazilian girls shuffling. Melbourne 1975

Shuffle Music: Practice Mix 2. Rock

mix title: rock
genre: shuffle music - rock
purpose: to develop upper body and inertia motion.
level:  beginners > advanced
speed: nice and easy 90 -120 bpm
time:  25 mins

Rocking is slower than usual shuffling and uses lots of upper body motion. From simple head banging boogie to complex upper body twists and arm moves.

You rock to get loose or get into the groove as they used to say in Melbourne in the 1970's when Rockin was popular.

Melbourne had a very strong and large live pub rock scene in the 1970's. Bands from around Australia and surrounding countries would move to Melbourne to 'make it'.

From Thursday to Sunday nights every week you could choose from over 300 live bands, all with a dance floor in front of the band, where you'd find people rockin.

With such a choice, the competition between bands for good gigs was fierce, and the pub crowds were unforgiving. If you didn't have the crowd on their feet and dancing within 3 songs, you would be booed off stage.

It was tough, exciting and live. This was pre disco, this was rock and roll. This is where Rockin was born.

The most distinctive Melbourne Rockin style of all time is that of notorious early 1970's Melbourne crews called Sharpies.

Sharps, both male and female, were very particular about their appearance. From hair style to shoes, you had to 'look Sharp'!

And when you danced it had to be the sharpie dance, which involves a very distinctive 'elbow blow' move combined with an extreme upper body twist in time with the music.

Often girls would stand in a large circle facing in all doing the same arm movements at the same time. Guys generally staggered around the crowd.

Footwork was a 2 step shuffle done in massive chunky healed boot like shoes.

Sharpies - Melbourne 1974. Greg Macainsh

 

These vids in the mix below are slow paced compared to hardstyle, but are equally danceable. Rock and Roll is after all, first and foremost, dance music!

For shufflers you'll find great ways to use your upper body. Try some of the moves seen in the vids, even those done by the musicians in the head banging by Canned Heat, to loosen you up.

In fact you will find this mix a real pleasure doing your usual shuffle moves to.

If you are a bit confused about how to shuffle to rock, watch the last vid below, AC/DC Meets Girls Shuffling in Brazil. It is a shuffle remix using the great girls shuffling in brazil footage, to AD/DC's classic 'It's a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock n Roll)

There is no time changing or stretching between the shuffling footage and the AC/DC track. The girls are originally shuffling to hardstyle, but are shuffling in perfect time to Melbourne pub rock of 1975.

With the rock track, it's the same tempo as most hardstyle, but the bass/kick accent is on every second beat. Not every beat like with hardstyle. So it sounds slower, but you can dance 'double time' to it, as we say in Melbourne.

Try it as a warm up or warm down, or just to get greater fluid motion happening in your style.

You will see glimpses of Melbourne audiences rockin in the aisles to the Skyhooks track - Melbourne 1978. Read more about this banned track in High School Revolution.

You use the inertia of your body mass in rockin.

Inertia in shuffling is like when you spin and your body just wants to keep spinning, it's the weight of your body, your body mass, that's pushing you.

So instead of suddenly stopping with a jolt, you turn that inertia into another move. You use the energy of your moving body to help start a new move.

For it to be the most effective, your next move needs to be physically complimentary.

That's what fluiding is, it's like the energy flows from one part of your body to the next like a fluid. 

That gives you a flow to your style. That's how you get smoothness.

The slower music for Rockin gives your body time to be smooth, it's way less stressful than hardstyle, letting your muscles naturally stretch and return.

So have some fun :)

Ian Dury and the Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

What ever happened to the Revolution 1975. Skyhooks Live at the Palais (Melb 1978)

david bowie - fashion

On The Road Again - Canned Heat - Montreux 1973

AC/DC meet Brazilian girls shuffling. Melbourne 1975