DJ Mashy P
DJ Mashy P is responsible for the creation of the Sunny Solar Sound System that came together by merging lots of wheelie bin sound systems.
Sydney late 80’s, early 90’s
Since the late 1980s, DJ Mashy P has been playing music.
Late-80s Sydney was a wild place. When the Berlin Wall fell, two houses in Glebe ( 214-216 Bridge road ) tore down the fence between them, using the timber to build an outdoor stage and a raised walkway linking two second-floor rooms. Thrash bands like Monroe’s Fur played outside, while Mashy P , then performing as DJ. Pete Strong cranked funk, post-punk, dub and early electronica inside, on a sound system he cobbled together from mismatched parts and cheap belt-driven turntables.
At the time, Sydney was on a global scale one of the most vibrant nightlife cities on the planet. Early rave culture collided with the huge lesbian and gay all-nighters at the Hordern Pavilion, where many of us first encountered a new musical matrix called Acid House.
That chapter ended when the College of Fine Arts, which managed the student accommodation, eventually evicted the house. By the early 1990s, Mashy P had relocated to Newtown, where he connected with the Jellyheads collective and, through a process of cultural osmosis, became part of it DJing and performing live, politically charged electro-dub with the band Mahatma Propagandhi at community events and at the anarcho-punk-inspired, collectively run venue in Chippendale.
From Jellyheads to Vibe Tribe
The Jellyheads venue in Sydney evolved organically from hosting vegan food nights, queer events, and film screenings focused on contemporary social and environmental justice campaigns, to Crass-inspired punk band nights, and eventually an embrace of dub, hip hop, and early techno.
As Sydney’s rave “cargo cult” began to grow, Jellyheads was evicted and transformed from a place into a crew. From that displacement, Vibe Tribe was born: carrying the same anarchist politics, but now staging fluro-light-drenched, affordable often free all-night parties that would help seed what later became Australia’s bush Doof phenomenon.
DJ Uncle Bulgaria, and Morphism (now DJ Mashy P), rolled with the Vibe Tribe crew — designing flyers and posters, co-creating the atmosphere, and DJing across a multitude of parties. The sound drew on early techno, breakbeat, touches of goa, turntablism and beat-mixing, played to diverse and steadily growing crowds. DJ Morphism play live analogue techno on samplers and Roland machines with the Vibe Tribe house band Non Bossy Posse.
For a full rundown of this history check out www.ohmsnotbombs.net
Ohms Not Bombs, Reclaim The Streets and Earthdream
By 1996, after three years of techno party mayhem, Vibe Tribe splintered — but not before helping seed Ohms Not Bombs and Reclaim the Streets, movements that built the underground music and protest-party culture through the rest of the decade, culminating in the landmark Earthdream 2000 event.
Earthdream saw thousands of folk from around the world descend on Australia to travel in a makeshift convoy festival through the outback hosting free parties and protesting against Uranium mines destroying First Nations ecosystems.
DJ Morphism took off with the travelling sound system and the social and environmental justice “awareness-raising circus,” delivering a mash-up of styles on dancefloors across Australia — from reclaimed city-centre streets to dusty paddocks, forests, warehouses, and community halls.
Graffiti Hall of Fame to Uber Lingua and Sunny Solar Sound System
The new millennium rolled on, Mashy P D.J’d on, playing fund raisers, organising campaigns to use the dancefloor as a recruitment ground to shed light on important issues particularly first nation lead. Graffiti Hall of Fame became a centre of events and organising, travelling bus repairs with the charismatic Tony Spanos who ran the Grafitti covered space.
In the late naughties Mashy P joined the Uber Lingua crew pushing global sounds from folkloric to electro grroves. Global Bass, Arabic, Eastern European, Cumbia, Subcontinental, multi lingual Hip Hop was the theme, big multicultural community parties in Sydney and Melbourne inspired Mashy P to merge the Techno, Breakbeat and Dub into a global set.
This selection style has influenced Mashy P to this day with the current set style at Parramatta Lanes and Sunny Bins events. The naughties and twenties has seen the growth of Sunny Bins the Sunny Solar Sound System where Mashy P mostly D.Js these days in Sydney and beyond.
Check out the latest sets here–The Music
Book Mashy P here–Bookings