Taking You To Heaven One Disco At A Time: The Misty Nights Story

Lazer lights and smoke machines. Some things just work well together. DJs Danny Hotep and Salmon Barrel (aka Simon Barry) also work well together. And together as the Misty Nights DJs they know exactly what makes a good party work well. For a while they've run a series of themed disco soirees in Melbourne, turning Misty Nights into hazy days for happy dancers. They've played alongside the legendary DJ Harvey, local favourites Andee Frost and Otologic, and their fame and influence is spreading. We caught up with the duo to discover their favourite tunes, hear how marijuana helps drive the themes for Misty Nights, and discover their own disco epiphanies.

Reuben: Do you find it difficult to DJ together? I mean Swedish House Mafia only really lasted like two years.
Danny: They are our main competition
Simon: I think if anything I find it more empowering djing together. I like djing by myself, I've definitely got my own taste, but because I think we both have separate tastes that come from a similar place and have a similar kind of sentiment about them, together it's just so much more powerful and rewarding. You've got this other person to creatively have a conversation with.
Danny: It's very different djing with someone than by yourself because you have to respond to someone, you have to try and be very in tune with one another, we're constantly telling each other what we're listening to, even when we're not djing together.

So how did the idea of Misty Nights come together?
S: We were having a pint
D: We were wasted
S: At the union, and we'd just gone record shopping together And then I think that Danny mentioned that someone had offered him a spot.
Dy: Yeah, Luke Pocock was working as the DJ booker for Boney at the time. And I was really keen to do a night, even though I'd just started djing. At first it was going to be a gay night, but then we just wanted it to be and we still do, just about the music. So Boney took a bit of a chance with us because we hadn't done anything before and it turned out well, is snowballed - a bad expression or a good expression?

It can be positive, you could say it chairlifted?
D: Yeah it's really chair lifted.

Misty does seem to be an environment that's pretty accepting of all kinds of different demographics, do you think that's something that was lacking in Melbourne at that time?
D: I don't think either of us had any delusions that we were doing something that radically different but at the same time people did say to us that that it was something they wanted, which was an all night disco and you knew that you could go there.
S: We never really discussed what do you think the audience will be like, or even really thought about it and it just kind of developed with our different friend circles and who they told, it just kind of made for this really open kind of space and to us it seemed really cool that we had this really great, different bunch of people.

What are your earliest memories of disco, why did it draw you as a genre?
D: Especially for a gay kid, I probably got into discovering and dancing to disco real late, probably around 23, 24 and I think when I started going out, I didn't ever really think about the music or the fact that there was a DJ. I used to go to all these shitty gay venues around smith st, where they used to play remixed top 40. And then when I was working at curtain house, I used to go down to the House De frost and then I slowly became aware that, that was something that I liked. And then from going out dancing with Simon, Simon's taste has influenced mine a lot.
S: For me it was a real progression, my friend took me to this gay night in Geddes lane called Trough. And he introduced me to all these people because I'd never been anywhere like that, the music was so strange and so new. Even the venue itself was kind of secretive, and behind the strippers and they'd just be all these cooky weird people around.
D: All the bears..
S: Yeah and the stripers who would be sitting in their dressing robes on the kegs and you'd go to say hi, and they'd be like. "Fuck off".
D: That's right, I remember that, in those bright blue robes.
S: Yeah, so I started going there and similarly to Danny I didn't pay much attention to who was playing the music, I'd just go out, get really pissed and just dance the whole night. It was just awesome; the party was so freaky and sexy. I probably started listening to dance remixes of all the "indie" bands that I used to listen to, and I'd say one of the main things that blew my mind was the Lovefingers  (insert hyper link) website, I started listening to mixes on that. That really got me into all the kind of disco stuff.

So the last theme for Misty was about Reptile queens. What drives the theme?
D: Marijuana…. Ha, but really the themes are to give the party a different outfit. If it was person, it's just a different dress.
S: If you so desire you can dress up and if not whatever, you might do something related to it.
D: I also like picking records for the theme in mind, which I didn't do as much for the last one because it was such a convoluted theme that didn't actually make any sense at all, and they'd be no music you could pick for it.
But for "lost at sea" and when we did a love themed one it was fun to let that influence the music that you pick for the night.

So what's the theme for the next Misty Night?
D: So the first theme was "Take Me To Heaven". So this time we're doing, "Take me to your Uranus"…yeah…there's nothing else to say.
S: It's our first birthday, the theme is take me to Uranus and it's kind of loosely…
D: I like the use of the word loose.
S: Because we are influenced by all the classic Italian DJs, Baldelli Cosmic, and Beppe Loda, etc. Space and Disco just go hand in hand.

So are you guys subconsciously exploring the different sub genres of disco?
D: Oh I thought you were going to say "Are you guys exploring Uranus". Yeah maybe subconsciously, but I don't think it's been deliberate. I think a lot of people's first impression of the party was that we play diva disco. Not that we're trying to distance ourselves from that at all but also we both classify a lot of stuff as disco that people don't think of immediately when they hear the word disco. I think of it as so many different genres, it's not just "Staying Alive". We've thrown some parties which have been pretty much techno, but it's more the way it's contextualised.

Definitely, it's a broad term. In the future looking forward for Misty. What are your plans?
S: We wanna bring out some of our favourite DJs locally and internationally and see them do their thing at a Misty, and just keep putting on good parties.

And meanwhile, what are you guys listening to at the moment?
Groovy track with keyboards by Danny Wang, produced by Eric Duncan, and "based on a rhythmic sample from Queen Samantha" - this has all our favourite things.

And this Cappuccino sexy banger which has become a fave end-of-the-night track.

The production of this last track sounds great, and the singer's voice has a gorgeous tone.

The Misty Nights DJs reveal more of the musical secrets here

Reuben Fidock has been to every one of their parties - past, present and future. Reuben brings tales from beyond the mists of time here