BLIMP
"I've been producing for about 3 years, and been playing live for two of those years. I guess what got me into electronic music composition was a love of that style of music. Even in high school I was really into groups like Kraftwerk, Ryuichi Sakamoto, SPK, and other stuff like that...I guess it was kind of different then because I went to a really Aussie school." Now out of such an environment Blimp is doing quite well, earning respect around Melbourne and beyond. He has had tracks appear on the Zeitgeist series of compilations put out by If- records, and has also recorded songs for the Creative Vibes samplers, Evolutionary Vibes. Yet by no means do these tracks (on Evolutionary Vibes) really represent the true music of Shaun Green. Socket, his new album, shows a much harder edge, crunching techno which in all its pulsating, screaming glory, also manages to sound commercially accessible, but without a hint of selling out. "For Evolutionary Vibes you're basically told what you have to do. They kind of ring up and ask you to do a track in a certain style. Mine was a French house type track, and by no means what I'd normally do. They even tell you how long it has to be. My song had about 30 seconds cut out of during the final compiling of the CD (this should explain the abrupt ending to his groovy Novadiscotia). The tracks can't be over five minutes long, or Triple J wont play them!"
The commercialisation of the music industry is something that frustrates Shaun immensely, so much so that he has established his own record label, Prefabric8. "I started it because basically I had to. There was no other option to release my music. I sent demo's to various record labels and people either didn't want to release it, or didn't have the money to release it. You try and deal with the major labels and distributors and they just don't want to help. So I recorded this and pressed it all myself, did all the artwork, have done all the distribution. It's good to have something in your hand that you know is yours, and you have put in all the hard work for." With such good intentions, one cannot help but have admiration for a man who has put money on the line to release his own work. Yet, some record stores have looked to profit from Shaun's kindness. "I'm selling it to retailers at around fourteen dollars, so that they can sell it for twenty dollars. Most stores are doing this, which is great, but I walked into (a certain local techno store) and they were selling it for twenty seven dollars. That means that I get about three dollars from the sale, and they get thirteen dollars. It's just greedy."
Blimp feels lucky to be part of such a strong local scene. With artists such as Ross Healy, Artificial, and Frontside charging overseas, and with local upstarts Soulenoid, Rhizo, Viridian, TR Storm and White Sirens producing world class music, Melbourne seems to be thriving, so much so that these guys could be releasing new albums every month. "When I finished Socket I probably had enough good material to release another full length album," evaluates Shaun, "and when I finish this next album I will probably be in the same situation." Blimp usually uses his live experiences to gauge how well certain ideas and concepts he has been working on in the studio go down with the public. "I guess most of the tracks on<
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