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Honeysmack

Author: Ben Shepherd
Sunday, January 1, 1995
"I'm not a musician and I don't like music," states David Habberfeld, aka Honeysmack, aka Pura, aka Graham Mono, Melbourne producer, DJ, music lecturer, radio presenter, street press writer and loud mouth of Melbourne techno. As well as producing, David also runs his own label Smelly, which he plans to expand on later this year, "Smelly has been kept quite since December of last year, and I've been working on something to take my records to the next level, which is great and very exciting, and it will be still me and it will be me working with other people, and there will be other artists working alone on the label. I have a new project with Mad Rod, one of the pioneers of Melbourne Dance, Adam Raisbeck(Soulenoid, WhateverMan) I will also be putting up.

From media at RMIT, to juggling various music degrees and diplomas how did David juggle the time to actually sit down and write tracks- "I was studying film and soundtrack and when he realised there would be no way to make films that I wanted to make in Australia because we are strangled by government grants and if your film does not have natural history in it then you don't have a film. I wanted to do exploitation films and I just realised, 'hey, hang on a sec', because music technology was in front of me, I can manipulate this. Releasing music was more of like an acceptable form for an audience to release." As well as releasing thoroughly affable music to the public through the recorded medium. Honeysmack also puts up a great live show that has been well received by many Melbourne punters, so well that in fact that the 'smack is booked solid until next year. "I was never really tentative towards the local audience, and I was really quite suprised to see people were accepting of the music, so it was really quite a humbling experience." Anyone who has seen Honeysmack perform his travelling bubble and squeak roadshow live, in all its crunching, squealing, vitriolic smacking glory, has not walked away disappointed. As well as giving us a super musical experience, Honeysmack is a personality, a face behind the boxes and keyboards. Hell, this is the guy that is known to wear a "will fuck for Coke" T-Shirt around, and in public. Such untamed wildness can't be a true reflection of the real David H, can it- Is it just a necessary by-product of the rock element of performance. "Playing live is something I didn't want to do for a couple of years because I couldn't understand this mentality of seeing a live electronic artist. Because it was the DJ who has the finished product in his hand, and the job of the DJ was to provide the final journey, so to say, of the music. Even people who think they are part of this scene, have sort of a rock mentality when going to see an artist, even though there are people who have never been into rock music that have always been into dance music come across as a rock ethic in that we have to see someone up there doing it. I account for that, and I have this type of rock attitude because the Australian audience to me still thinks they are watching a rock band.... You'd be right to say there is a rock element there, its because the audience wants to see the act actually doing something, if you see someone up on stage twiddling a couple of knobs you may as give the finished product to a DJ. Yet live its a show, so I put on a show. I'm not just there playing the music. Any artists that can do this can give it that extra element."

With people like Honeysmack, Voiteck, Soulenoid, Steve Law, Blimp, Artificial et al producing world standard music right at our doorstep, it seems right now is the time to embrace the local product, because frankly, it doesn't seem do get any better than this. But in the true tradition of the Oz, we reject any good, person or otherwise that doesn't come with a stamp of approval from overseas. "I guess its just an Aussie thing and this has been going for years even before dance was a major thing. It's just a r

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