Australian Shuffler - SHFL

Some may have noticed the MSO logo appearing on the Australian Shuffler / So You Think You Can Shuffle website and publicity flyers. (pic right)

Please note that MSO is in no way involved with the Shuffle Hard For Life (SHFL) event or the So You Think You Can Shuffle contest, mainly because MSO thinks it's too cheesy and sounds dodgy.

Despite rumours, MSO and Garry Shepherd will NOT be screening shuffle videos at the SHFL event, nor associating with Australian Shuffler / So You Think You Can Shuffle / Mark Midro and Bexta (Rebecca Poulson), in any future projects - because I don't trust them.

comments:

Templeth said...

"because I don't trust them"
Love it

March 10, 2009 1:07 AM

Garry Shepherd said...

Thanks Templeth. Yep sad but true, It's not the 'first official' shuffle meet-up at fed sq anyway, there's been plenty. The first official meet-up was Cup Day Nov 2007 and it was free. I was there, it was a great meet-up. These SHFL jokers haven't got a clue, You'd think at least the PHD Dj would know that.
No offense to the shufflers who have entered or the other prize sponsers, but when a dance competition offers a pro DJ turntable as one of the major prizes you know they're not shufflers, how many shufflers even own old vinyl records?.
And who is this video clip for, what act ? - make sure you get a signed contract with them before you appear ;)
And what Malaysian meet-up? It doesn't even have a name, yet it's the main prize !!
All that says to me is...
DODGY DODGY DODGY

March 10, 2009 1:07 PM

Garry Shepherd said...

here's the link to the REAL 1st Official Shuffle Meet-up Melbourne Cup Day November 8 2007. It was arranged by shufflers on the melbshuffle forum. It was a great day. I'm surprised the PHD dj didn't know about it with 1000's of PHD hoodies there. Maybe he does know but he's sold out. dunno
But judge for yourselves, it was a huge successful event run by shufflers on a shuffle forum, all for free. Even the security guards and Fed Sq management were impressed with how well behaved everyone was. There to shuffle, not to cause trouble.
I'm proud to have been there and will defend it's title as the 1st Official Melbourne Shuffle Meet-up to be held in Federation Square.
There's some superb shuffling in this vid, well worth a look.
[CUP DAY] Shuffle Meetup Nov 8 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buifqypY2F4

March 10, 2009 2:31 PM

Garry Shepherd said...

Apparently now they're calling it the 'First ever national shuffle comp' Since being caught out with the first fed sq shuffle gaff.
But the title for First national com is laughable seeing they didn't advertise it, or hold local state competitions first. So it don't count, (no offence to whoever was named Australia's top shuffler) but I doubt one small meetup qualifies as a 'National Competition' whereever it's held. Good god, these SHFL people are hopeless
The day was a dud in crowd size. There were 90% empty seats and just a couple of dozen on the dance floor. Pretty poor compared to the other shuffle meet-ups that draw 100+ shufflers.
I've seen a few melb forums horrified at SHFL and they can't believe the dj's were involved in such a shonky event. Some of them ripped right into Bexta and Mark Midro over it, suggesting they go back to sydney...but I wouldn't force them on our sydney shuffle friends either.

April 3, 2009 3:30 PM

Shuffle Music: The Twist

mix title: The Twist
shuffle music genre: rockin
purpose: to learn The Twist
level: beginners > advanced
speed: slow rock
time: 7 mins

The Twist is a twelve bar blues song that gave birth to the Twist dance craze. The song was written and originally released in 1959 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side to “Teardrops on Your Letter” peaking at 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Chubby Checker in Melbourne 1962

The song, and the dance the Twist, was popularized in 1960 when the song was covered by Chubby Checker. His single became a smash hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 19, 1960 and then setting a record by being the only single to reach number one in two different chart runs when it resurfaced and topped the chart again on January 13, 1962.

For Shufflers looking for a slow rockin feel, the twist will suit you fine. And it's easy.

Try shuffling to the music as a warm up/warm down track.

Chubby Checker gives a sophisticated and masterly demonstration of the Twist in this 1960 TV clip.

 

Our good shuffle friend from Russia pcKOT, has sent us this fantastic 1967 Russian movie clip, featuring a short tutorial on how to do the Twist. I wouldn't be surprised if this technique was the inspiration for the Twist in the first place :D  

Сheck it out, Garry, this is the short cut from an old Leonid Gaiday film "Kavkazskaya Plenica" (Kidnapping, Caucasian Style), 1967. Its the first time people in USSR saw this dance, as you can see it also includes a short tutorial =) It was a real cultural breakthrough for those times.

 

Here's the Ray Charles / Blues Brothers brilliant and infectious homage to the Twist, the Fly, the Swim, the Boogaloo, the Monkey, the Mashed potato... See how many of them you can do.

Ray Charles Blues Brothers - Twist it (Shake Your Tail Feather)

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