Punks Jump Up are in Australia at the moment embarking on their first tour for music and their second for pleasure. I was lucky enough to get Dave out of bed to have a chat about what they’ve been working on, their fusion of fashion and music and what they’re plotting this time around.

So I see Punks Jump Up on the road a lot of the time and now you’re coming to Australia. How do you get time to make new music, remix other artists, run Cassette Records and do the fashion side?

Ha! Well we don’t have time for it all. Cassette Records unfortunately is dormant. We’ve changed it around so we put our music out through other peoples labels. Now we’re not bound by our time on that business side of things. We also suffered when a lot of the vinyl distributors in the UK crashed a couple of years ago – our distributor was one of them. In the end we had to decide what to concentrate on so it’s producing, remixing and our fashion label.

We took some time off over December and January playing only a couple of gigs. You get a good flow going the more time you have, having to go to Europe for a few days breaks that up and makes it more difficult.

So what’s going to be the next release?

Well we’ve written a bunch of songs and now it’s about shaping them up and cutting them out. We’re hoping to put out a few Kitsune singles.

For the album we’re working with some really cool people, vocalists, who unfortunately I can’t really talk about. At the moment it’s all about conversations with friends who’ve agreed to it but we haven’t had the lawyers in there yet. But let’s just say they’re some of the people we dreamed about working with! And they’re big!

I guess we can announce that we’ve got Joel from Shitdisco on a couple of the tracks.

We’d have loved to do a track with Lykke Li [after the remix of Breaking It Up] but she’s on tour all the time now and there just isn’t any time.

We’re also hoping to work with [fellow Kitsune label mate] Beni while we’re in town, we’ll definitely find some time to work together with him.

How do these colaborations come together? Is it just through the music scene or is it a lot of maneuvering behind the scenes?

Well we’ve been running a club night in London which is a good start but whenever we’ve wanted to work with someone we’ve just sent them an email or myspace and got in touch that way. Or with Zongamin we know him because he did a remix on Cassette Records and so we’ve kept in touch. He’s quite close to finishing the album, we heard one of the tracks [unreleased] and got back in touch to get the stems and get cracking.

It would be great to have a label or a manager involved but financially… The machinery the big label has got makes it hard, we love to do it like this. You get to know the people more and their is that respect for DIY. We started our own club night, we did the label, we used to run a punk fanzine – you just get out there and do these things.

Punks Jump Up play La Di Da tonight, Friday the 20th of March (mention Electrorash for cheap entry), Saturday night at Empire in Brisbane and next weekend in Perth and Sydney. Do get a feel for their set check out this promo mixtape for the Australian tour and keep an eye out for the album towards the end of the year.

Punks Jump Up – Australian Tour Mixtape

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To give you an idea of my history my very first interview was with Calvin Harris at his hotel in Melbourne. Being the super organised guy that I am I typed up all my questions onto 2 a4 pieces of paper and brought them along to read off of if I ran out of conversation. To make matters worse I’d included a section where I illustrated to Calvin how he was following in the footsteps of AC/DC who were also born in Scotland. Suffice to say that teaching the man some Australian / Scottish music history didn’t go off the best.

With Terje the issue was that I thought his last name was pronounced to rhyme with ‘surge’. My first question actually involved me saying the word no less than five times before I was corrected. Good times.

Todd Terje is kicking off his Australian tour this Friday night in Melbourne with a show at La Di Da before heading to Sydney next week to play the first Discoasis show. La Di Da have been putting on some great shows of late with Aeroplane, Tim Sweeney and the Fromage guys so this will definitely be one not to miss this weekend.

You can read the rest of the interview below the cut where Todd talks about studying physics, retiring from music and the album he’s hoping to pump out in 2009.

Enjoy these two edits including the Fate remix featuring the sample from Stardust  Music Sounds Better. I’ve also got the Future Classic mixtape that’s been burning a hole in my ipod this week.

Brothers Johnson – Aint We Funkin Now (Todd Terje radio mix)

Chaka Khan – Fate (Todd Terje edit)

Todd Terje – Future Classic Mixtape

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Todd you seem to go by a number of different monikers. Todd Terry, Todd Terje, Disco Terje, Tango, Terje Olsen, Wade Nichols…. Why is that?

When I started I didn’t want anyone to know who I was and I didn’t want each different project I did to be associated with the last. So each of the names is a different entity really…

Have you put out any tracks under names that people don’t associate back to Todd Terje?
Ha! Well there was actually one Lindstrom remix released through Let’s Practise that was like that. People have also put out edits and attributed them to me. There was some Jarlsbourg track or something. I’ve never even heard of the original track!

So music is a full time job for you at the moment, right?
I’ve been doing music for 2 years now full time and it’s been good. But soon I think I’ll go back to being a normal person, going to bed at normal hours and not watching Family Guy all night.

Before that I was studying. Physics. I didn’t finish it but I’d like to go back and do something… Nothing to do with music, that’s a hobby for me.

You’ve got quite a big catalogue of edits which to me shows a pretty hefty music collection. Have you always been into music?
Music has always been a hobby of mine but never something I thought I would make money out of. I always just listened to music, I was a real nerd. By the time I was 18 or 20 I was DJing and very nerdy about it all. I have a big collection of music but I’ve also got a phonographic memory for these things so I can recall a lot of stuff easily.

haha I also started singing in a choir quite young…

When I “retire” I hope I can meet someone like me but a lot younger to pass it on… I don’t think there is anyone like that though, anyone that nerdy at that age living in Oslo…

So where are you getting your music from today?
Well now it’s a lot easier. I can use ebay and amazon or beatport. It’s easier but everyone also has all the same stuff.

When you’re travelling are you swapping music or on the lookout for new stuff.
Of course. But I have to say I am pretty egotistical and don’t really hand out much of my stuff but people give me music all the time. A lot of it is crap but I was in Frankfurt recently and someone gave me a La Roux 12″. It’s gold, that will serve me well for at least a couple of months. It’s a hit.

What’s coming up in 2009?
Well I hope to work on the album but I can’t promise anything. I spend a lot of time playing music and I don’t really know how to work hard. I’ve got a bit of a studio and I really want to do the album so I hope it comes together. And I’m looking forward to coming to Australia!

Now things have come full circle and the Fromage guys are at the top of their game playing some awesome shows and making some nice edits along the way to help the rest of us out.

Hall & Oates – I Can’t Go For That (Fromage Yacht Rock edit)

Hall & Oates – I Can’t Go For That (The Paper Scissors cover)

Here is a mixtape that Agent 86 has put together which helped me get through a long night of cleaning ahead of a house inspection this afternoon. Very nice mixtape and exactly what I needed but I can’t go for the scratching. Really? Is that really necessary to do that? Was scratching even popular in the original movement?

Agent 86 – Fromage Funk Mixtape [mixtape updated]

Tracklisting is in the comments.

The Fromage parties are held every second Friday at La Di Da bar in Melbourne including tonight! We had the Tropical party there last week and I went for Aeroplane as well and it’s one of the few places I enjoy hitting the “d-floor”. See you there?

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Wear your best or worst beach gear and enjoy the tastiest cocktails in town with dj’s Luke McD, DJ At Night, A.D.D, G.L.O.V.E.S, Kablam! and Chestwig!!

$10 on the door or $8 on a list.

See y’all on the beach!

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