Andrew Weatherall – Sydney Festival

Overview

According to Resident Advisor, Andrew Weatherall was the world's first "proper punk DJ". It might be the first (and last) time that "proper" and "punk" are used in the same sentence, but there's no arguments that Weatherall has earned such a distinction.

After starting his working life as a music journo, often writing under the pseudonym 'Audrey Witherspoon', he soon tried his hand at mixing. His first studio work was a club mix of 'Hallelujah' for the Happy Mondays, in collaboration with DJ Paul Oakenfold. Since then, he's produced the likes of One Dove, Beth Orton and, most famously, Primal Scream, playing a crucial role in the creation of Screamadelica.

Along the way, he's developed some interesting ideas, among them that both the downfall and salvation of human beings lies in their being "glorified chimpanzees" and that "anyone over the age of fourteen who Twitters can never really truly be [his] friend". For a DJ, Weatherall is remarkably technologically averse.

Despite — or perhaps because of — that, he's incredibly up-to-date when it comes to modern electronica, having remixed a list of names as long as the Nile, from Bjork to the Manic Street Preachers to My Bloody Valentine to James. His live shows are famously hypnotic, seductive affairs, combining post-punk, dark electro and house.

The bad, sad news? Weatherall's one and only Sydney Festival appearance — the late Australia Day set in the Spiegeltent — is now sold out, so you'll have to sign up to the waiting list or try the Tix for Next to Nix booth on the day.

Image by Steve Gullick.