Oxjam's Party-Starters Look Back on Their Wildest Events So Far

To celebrate Oxjam finally making its debut on Australian shores, four party figureheads from this year's event calendar tell us their top moments from putting on raucous celebrations over the years.

Benjamin James – Mutual Friends / TBC Club
Our friend Basenji from Sydney unintentionally shut down our club (long story), so naturally with 3 days notice we organised a BYO warehouse party out in the suburbs… that ended up being so epic, we did another the next weekend. Both finishing around 7am, a group of people even ended up in Thailand for the week after the first one before returning and heading back in time to attend the second party straight from the airport. Indian Summer, Danny T, DJ Butcher, Airwolf and more played, Oskar Key Sung rocked up & Chevy from Indian Summer somehow hung off the roof and then crowd surfed. Fire extinguishers were let off, police came and left, there was lots of goon, and the vibe was high. No fights. Everyone was stoked we had a place to party. They will go down in history. Mutual Friends was born.

Kat Dopper – Heaps Good
Byron Spencer put aside his camera and fashion shoots for a set at Heaps Gay early in the year. After playing songs like 'Don't Want No Short Dick Man', he soon became a HG resident DJ. One of his epic sets ended in the entire pub busting out into a song from Sister Act — Heaps Gay the choir! Oh, happy days.

Paul Stix – UNDR ctrl
"One of my favourite weekends of the year is the Secret Garden festival and my first one in 2011 was probably one of the best days I've had since living out here in 'Straya. The photos help illustrate some of the LOL's we had, as a fantastic rave squadron of loose party heads was formed including my best mate (Anil) visiting / DJing from the UK. Normally we camp for the weekend, but on this debut occasion we had a mini bus smash n' grab approach and it was bloody ridiculous fun! Highlights included praying to Anil's DJ photo (on the hour every hour) in the backstage area, playing my first DJ set in Australia and getting confused over who played Shaggy's 'Bombastic', the entire minibus (in fancy dress) taking a piss on the side of the motorway in a long line and the many other excellent unspoken stories and 'high'lights that followed…"

Scott Armstrong – I OH YOU
For I OH YOU's 4th birthday party, the label took over Flagstaff train station in the Melbourne CBD for a one off celebration. A bunch of our friends played sets from open till close, and I just remember thinking how great it was that everyone in the room had a unique connection to I OH YOU and wanted to celebrate it. Everyone was beaming by the end, covered from head to toe in sweat. One of those nights you could never try to recreate, really.

Oxjam begins tonight, with events running throughout August. Check out the full offerings, including East Coast events from Noisey, here.

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