What has been the most positive 2020 discovery for you and why is it Papa Smurf?

So far, 2020 has been a wild ride. In the quest to focus on positives, however, one of the year's silver linings has to be the unexpected excitement around veteran DJ Papa Smurf. It all started earlier this year after he performed a trance classics set at Pitch Music & Arts Festival. It was his first high profile set in many years, so many that many ticket holders didn't even recognise his name when the lineup was announced. Of course, that has nothing to do with the man's quality; it just highlighted that the newer generation wasn't aware of him as it’s been a hot minute since he worked as a full-time DJ.

On the night when his set started, the dance floor was by no means packed. But it slowly filled as wafts of Faithless and Darude’s high BPM classics started drifting across the Pitch Black stage to lure passersby into its euphoric belly. Through a combination of Papa’s energy, the older crowd rediscovering some fond memories, and the younger crowd making new ones, the vibe started to ferment into something you couldn’t deny. By the end of his set, which featured multiple encores and went twenty minutes over his allotted time, the floor was packed and the consensus was clear: it was one of the best sets of the festival. And if you are rolling your eyes at this point, the 30K plays of that recorded set would like to have a word with you.

Pitch Music & Arts · Pitch Perfect - EP004 / Papa Smurf at Pitch Music & Arts 2020

After the festival, punters from The Songs Heard At Pitch FB group went into full detective mode to try and find out more about this mysterious DJ. However, with no real social media under his artist name, this proved hard - which, of course, only served to amplify the curiosity even further. ‘Anyone have any information on this mans (sic)? Nothing found on the internet. He is a god’, one commentator prodded. And after someone found his personal social media pages, they did so with a dramatic flair and a confirmation that they, indeed, have ‘found God’. Look, I’m not an atheist per se, but the idea of God turning up in a Melbourne-based FB group is a lot to handle. But just like the punters in that group, we were curious. We had to track him down to hear this story - and as expected, it was a good one.

The man, the myth, the model… Papa Smurf

Turns out ‘God’ resides in Preston, goes by a real-life name of Giovanni Polizzi and has been involved with Melbourne’s music scene for just under 30 years. Alongside his reputation as one of Melbourne’s most loved DJs, he started up and ran Majik Entertainment, a business that became synonymous with the local uplifting trance scene.

When you’re in the presence of Giovanni, you are in the presence of pure unadulterated enthusiasm.

His brain sparks at a million miles an hour, one story grows into another, the next quickly veers off into a completely different direction more engaging than the last. In a conversation that went for over an hour, he took us through many memories. Some of it, sadly, can’t be published, but all of it is a strong testament to an artist who lives and breathes music.

Where the Majik started…

Giovanni is a born and bred Melburnian who grew up in Brunswick. It was a move to Preston at the age of 12 which introduced him to a whole new group of friends who ‘didn’t act like your normal 12-year-olds’. In what must’ve been the coolest young crew in Australia, they introduced him to the world of underage parties, dance music, hip-hop and DMC culture. Initially, he was more interested with the socialising and community aspect the scene had to offer, but he was slowly drawn more towards the music.

He started to DJ at house parties with CDs bought from local music stores like Sanity and Brashers (think Apple Music and Spotify but inside a brick and mortar wall - with no suggested playlists). As one would expect from a 12-year-old, the music was pretty accessible. ’Back then we were more in the commercial tip, tracks like La Bouche ‘Be My Lover’ and Kodak ‘The Night Train’, the big Euro commercial big room stuff, megamixes, that’s what you would buy.’ And those first DJ gigs were as lo-fi as it gets. ‘We used to play at parties on two old-school Sony Diskmans and a Boombox.’ We’ll be honest with you, that last sentence just made our 2020 a hell of a lot better.

Before he knew it he had regular gigs at school socials, so he needed a name for the flyers. ‘Back then, using your name was just not the done thing, especially if you had an Italian name like mine. I was young at that stage and always watched morning cartoons like The Smurfs, so I thought, well, I’m short and pretty loud, so I became Papa Smurf’. Just. Like. That.

Gone Clubbing

The old Metro Nightclub top end of Bourke Street

It wasn’t long before the underage parties and school socials progressed into him frequenting the harder stuff: clubs. Straight off the bat, this included nineties institutions like Dome Nightclub, Chasers, Metro and Mansion. The best places for dance music, however, could be found in the gay clubs. ‘When I was 15 I was going out with a group of girls, friends of friends, that were around twenty years of age. They were always on my case to go out with them so I thought, well, I like to experience different things, and I was really getting bored of going to commercial, underage events, so I went with them to The Peel (the gay club/hotel in Collingwood).’ Getting into the clubs must’ve been hard at that age? ‘Ah, I can remember going to Dome nightclub and we were underage. We were standing in line so my mate and I held hands and pretended to be gay, we hugged… haha…. we did what we had to do to get in, ya know?’

For a straight teenage male raised on society’s rigid gender conformities, the energy he experienced in the gay clubs was a revelation. Even recalling those memories lights him up like a fluorescent bulb. ‘It was incredible, everyone was tops off, hands in the air, DJs playing proper house, and I was like, THIS is a fucking party! This is what it's all about!'

He encountered that same vibe at his first large scale rave, the 1995 WinterDaze event at the Docks. It was hosted by the Also Foundation, Melbourne’s original LGBTQI crew. Those events opened him up to DJs like Peter Mac, a stalwart who is still very much active today. ‘One of, if not my favourite, Melbourne house DJs of all time. I loved Peter Mac. Wherever he played, he fucking rocked.’ Those experiences opened him up to a whole new world, not just in a party context but a cultural one too. ‘The crowds back then were very special and diverse. It was gay and queer-friendly, people were dressed up, guys with chapped pants… there was no judgement, so you felt free to enjoy yourself.’

A DJ EDUCATION

It was a Central Station Records employee named Mickey B AKA Michael Bradley who served as Papa’s DJ mentor. As fate would have it, Bradley DJ’ed at Chasers. ‘I started following him and went to his gigs. That was tough as I was 17 back then and had to go to school the next day!’ Giovanni laughs.‘I used to sneak home at 6 am on Monday mornings, and not long after I got home my mom would ‘wake’ me up for school while I was still half-pissed.’

It wasn’t all drinks and teenage rebelliousness, and Mickey B used the time to educate Giovanni in the dark arts of the DJ. ‘He used to pull me closer during certain tracks just to point out how the track was affecting the crowd, highlighting small things like people slowly started to tap their heads at the bar.’ Not only was Mickey his mentor. but he gifted him his first club gig at Deliriums, a weekly Sunday night event at Chasers. That led to regular Saturday night slots at the same club where he played from 9-11 before local luminaries John Course and Andy Van. ‘At that stage, it was just house music,’ he clarifies, ‘there was no trancing Papa yet’.

Well, that would all change soon. Mid-nineties Melbourne wasn’t just filled with a lively party scene, it featured a wealth of local DJ’s putting together the foundations for what turned out to be one of the globe’s more talent-rich scenes. For Giovanni, this was the golden age of Melbourne DJs: John Course, Billy Solos, Sean Quinn, Mickey B, Phil K, Anthony Pappa.

Just mentioning their names evoke a multitude of memory threads to pull at. “When I was 14 I can remember seeing Anthony Papa at an underage show in Heaven Nightclub in King Street, he opened up with Marmion ‘Schöneberg’, and I can distinctly remember thinking ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!’ Of course, he had to have that track, but he quickly learned that it wasn’t just a matter of hearing it and buying it the next day. ’The way it usually worked was after you heard someone like Anthony Pappa play a track you would have to wait six weeks before it got released in a record store. And then there were only limited copies of every release so if you didn’t get it straight after release you had to wait.’ And of course, there was a DJ hierarchy which meant the higher-profile DJs were given priority access to the limited run of white labels and promos. So in many cases, if you missed out, you missed out.

Buuuuut there was one solution, but it was a solution so tainted you wouldn’t dare. ’You could get the single on CD but who the fuck wanted to DJ in a club on CDs?’ Ah, of course, a bit like today’s To Synch or Not To Synch debate being a hot button topic (ED: Very nice), the CD vs Vinyl debate split the scene into two distinct categories. ‘How can I put this without being rude: Back then CDs were for donkeys and vinyl were for the mad cunts,’ he laughs. And as we laughed together at the donkeys, I made a mental note to throw away my ten-year-old DJ/CD wallet when I got home.

MAJIK ENTERTAINMENT

Ah, we went off-topic, where were we… oh yes, trancing Papa. The nineties was a golden period for dance music, an incubator for many styles ubiquitous today, and trance was one of the decade’s main exponents. So a combination of Mickey B and Central Station Records, underage parties with Anthony Pappa dropping proto-trance classics, and the general Melbourne music vibe coalesced into Giovanni giving trance a chance. ‘I started listening to the sounds of Paul van Dyk; the sounds of Tony de Vit, my favourite; the sounds of Gabriel & Dresden; BT in 1995/96; Sasha & John Digweed. I mean we are talking about the sounds of the legends.’ His appreciation for those legendary sounds organically morphed into him creating Majik Entertainment.

The company started at the end of 2001 as a promotions team who had highly successful runs at many Melbourne clubs. Most prominent was the night at Zos which ran for almost five years, drawing a consistent weekly crowd of 1400 punters. After that, he moved on to Evolution Nightclub in Commercial Road where they held court for three years to a devoted crowd of 1800 a week. However, this wasn’t just Giovanni rocking up and playing shows, it was a business venture, and after Evolution, he took an eight months break.

By focusing on Giovanni’s million miles an hour charisma, it’s easy to overlook his strong work ethic and pride he took in his events. ‘You have to understand, I wasn’t just the main DJ, I was running the night too. I was doing the artwork, the bookings, I was doing everything.’ A big part of his success was an innate feeling of responsibility to make sure people left his nights fulfilled. ’When you have ticket holders coming to your shows, you have to give them the best experience they can get. If you fuck up the sound only once that will affect what they think when they leave. You have to create excitement for your next show.’ No doubt it is that energy which leads to Majik being voted Victoria’s number one club night four year in a row by the now-defunct Inthemix.

No one can argue the impact Majik had on the Melbourne scene. Still, no one could foreshadow the importance of a phone call Giovanni received around the inception of Majik Entertainment. It was from Daniel Teuma, the now director of Novel and Pitch Music & Arts Festival who was still at the start of his own career too. ‘Yeah, Daniel called me up back then and asked me if I would be interested in hosting Comic Gate.’ That conversation was the start of a longstanding relationship, and it was the fire lighting the wire exploding into this year’s Pitch booking.

Papa Smurf Music & Arts Festival 2020

The idea to do a classic trance set started two years prior when Daniel floated the idea with him. 'I can remember saying to him 'are you fucking for real?' he laughs, 'but I agreed… and then nothing. The lineup comes out with no Papa. So I guess I didn't make the cut that year. So nine months later I get the phone call again, same offer, but because the first time didn't happen I went get fukt haha!' Of course, that was meant jokingly, however, the second offer didn't materialise either. But Giovanni trusted Daniel's industry experience, and being a promoter too, he understood those decisions. He then goes silent for a second before getting serious. 'To be honest, if someone like Daniel calls you for a show… like that is enough for me, it's the prestige and acknowledgement you get that you are considered good enough to play with the world's best. I know Daniel well, so I know he was waiting for the right time to make this happen. So when he called me last year to finally make the booking, I trusted that this was the right time.'

Indeed, the decision was timed to perfection. The crowd was ready for it, and all that was required was for Papa Smurf to nail it. For many punters, the recent renaissance of trance classics popping up in techno sets meant they’ve heard a track or two, but for many, Papa’s set would be the first time they listened to a full set of trance classics. What followed was entertainment so majical you couldn’t script it.

‘I had a tear in my eye after that show, It was one of the best gigs I’ve ever done. After that show, I drove home for four hours on the biggest high of my life. I put Pitch right up there with a closing set I did after DJ Tiesto.’ For those who witnessed his set, it was a special moment, one of those rare dancefloor events that will fill your brain with serotonin whenever the memory is recalled. ‘It really was about the energy of the people, and the stage was rocking. To be honest, it was pretty dark so I couldn’t gauge what was happening in the crowd by looking at their faces. So at the start I was wondering ‘fuck me, what am I doing here? Is everyone rocking or not? So I asked my friend Dwayne what was happening on the dance floor and he just screamed back ‘PAPA LET’S GOOOOOO’, and then I knew!’, he laughs. Indeed, people were in all sorts of different raptures, from completely blissed out to intimately loved up. As he recalls: ‘When the lights came on, and I saw everyone happy faces I thought this is fucking insane! Everyone here is digging tracks that are 25 years old!’ To highlight that point, he slams the table excitedly: ‘THEY LOVE IT!”

And as a witness to the night, we can confirm: they fucking loved it.

INTERVIEW: Papa Smurf