No Good are one of Sydney’s freshest little labels, specialising in the arcane arts of weird hip hop, alternative electronica and all round artsiness. We caught up with Jasper Clifford-Smith and Maatzi in the basement of The Petersham Bowlo at their Winter showcase over the cheapest craft beers in Sydney.
Jess: Maatzi, this is Alex from Happy, Alex this is Maatzi and Jasper, oh and this is Alex’s mate Oscar
Jasper: Hey my brother’s name is Oscar!
Oscar: Yeah it’s a pretty awesome name, your brother must be a cool guy.
Happy: Woah hang on Oscar, isn’t your brother’s name Jasper?
Jasper: No way.
Oscar: Yeah man, for real.
Jasper: You’re fucking kidding me!
Happy: For real dude!
Jasper: I still don’t believe you. Shit, maybe this is some sort of Sliders style parallel universe? Do you remember that show?
Maatzi: Yeah man, I remember Sliders. I still think about that show a lot.
Happy: We’re not familiar with Sliders…
Jasper: You know that guy uhh, Jerry O’Connell?
Maatzi: The guy from Tobey Maguire. No hang on, Jerry Maguire? Tobey Maguire is that actor.
Oscar: Yeah isn’t that Spiderman?
Maatzi: Yeah, Phar Lap, that guy.
Jasper: Yeah! Wait what? Oh yeah. Okay. I didn’t watch that for some reason.
Maatzi: Why are we talking about Tobey Maguire again?
Now that Game of Thrones is over, why not check out Sliders?
Jasper: Cause we’re talking about Jerry Maguire cause we’re trying to talk about Sliders. So in Sliders, basically this builds like a portal to go into parallel universes and some of them are just completely different, like dystopian societies or like they’re run by aliens. But some of them are exactly the same as earth as he knows it, and they’re super parallel with like tiny differences.
But then, there was that one episode where after like, four seasons he gets back to his real world after hopping from universe to universe, and it was absolutely the worst writing for anything. He gets to this universe and he gets to his mum’s house and when he opens the gate, the gate doesn’t make a noise, like it’s supposed to make a noise when he opens the gate, so he just turns around and goes Uhh nup, I give up! It was just the dumbest thing, and I completely stopped feeling sorry for him after that episode. You’re a complete retard and deserve to be eternally floating through parallel universes.
Maatzi: He was very handsome though.
Happy: That sounds really similar to Rick and Morty.
Jasper: What’s that?
Happy: It’s based on the same like parallel universe concept, but it’s this bizarre high concept sci-fi adult swim cartoon written by the guy who does Community.
Maatzi: I like Community, that was a good show.
Jasper: Didn’t they axe it again?
Maatzi: Yeah, I think Donald Glover left the show and so they canned it cause half the original cast are gone now.
Jasper: Isn’t John Oliver in that show? I dig his new series, it’s pretty solid.
Maatzi: Hasn’t that just replaced Jon Stewart?
Jasper: Nah, it’s a whole different thing – it’s like more of a current affairs sorta show, there aren’t really guests or interviews like on Jon Stewart. It’s really funny cause all the American conservative writers and stuff are up in arms saying “It’s all just liberal bullshit – John Oliver isn’t even American”.
Happy: So apparently, I’ve heard you guys are part of something called No Good?
Jasper: Yes. Yes! That’s what we’re here for right.
Happy: What is No Good, if you could explain it from the top?
Jasper: It started as a bit of a collective – me and Maatzi and Simo (Soo), and like a ton of people that have been involved like a couple of guys who now live interstate, and now there’s B00BJ0B as well who played earlier today who was fucking dope. Now, I guess it’s moved sorta more into a label, like a promotion, party sorta thing.
Maatzi: I think there was like a bunch of visual artists and videographers and stuff, not just musicians. It’s still like that in many ways, we get people who make videos and graphic design for all the label stuff, it’s like a big collaborative project.
Jasper: Yeah, we’re involved in everything that sorta builds towards the aesthetic. We’re all now a bit more focused – we had to do all this legit stuff like registering a business name, getting a business bank account, which is what I run, all the administration side of things. Our first couple of releases are coming up over the next few months, Maatzi’s EP, Simo’s stuff too.
I told you No Good were purveyors of the arcane arts.
Happy: When’s your new stuff dropping Maatzi?
Maatzi: I think there’s a single coming out in like… two weeks?
Jasper: I don’t think it’s gonna be two weeks bro, we’re looking at like, a month now.
Maatzi: Yeah, well, I guess there’s a single ready for whenever people want it, and there’s that EP that’s pretty much ready too. Everything will be out there in the next few months, that’s the timeframe that we’re looking at right now, which should give us enough time before we destroy the planet*.
Happy: Awesome, we’re looking forward to hearing it all before the inevitable apocalypse. You talked earlier about the aesthetic of the label that you’re trying to work towards. You’ve got a real variety of acts on here tonight, is there any central definition of the No Good aesthetic?
Jasper: If you were to map out Sydney at the moment, you’ve got like Astral People doing their sorta thing, Big Village doing like a hip-hop sorta thing, and I have massive respect for both those organisations. I guess we started because we didn’t feel like there was a home for the visual, musical sorta shit that we were all doing. Big Village or other Hip Hop labels for example probably wouldn’t touch Maatzi or Simo Soo, they’re just a little too freaky.
Maatzi: It’s true though, even though I’m under the broad umbrella of Australian Hip Hop, I never really fitted in with the Aussie Hip Hop heads. I guess the aesthetic is really different, and like the lyrical content was totally different as well, so when I played at shows that were like Aussie Hip Hop shows, I got a really weird response, but when I played more indie nights people were much more open to the different genres going on, similar to what’s happening today (at No Good: Winter). I guess it’s because they weren’t exclusively hip-hop heads they weren’t coming from such a critical Aussie Hip Hop perspective.
Jasper: I mean, we’ve got Loose Change playing today, which has Joel Rapaport in it who basically does for Big Village what I do for No Good, but he’s like four or five years of ahead of us, but they’re really good. I probably wouldn’t get the majority of artists on Big Village to play a night like this – they make some pretty pure hip hop but I really dig them. We’re not purists in any way, I mean it would be really boring if we decided to focus on one single style. There’s massively different influences and stylistically it’s pretty different to hip hop in any form – Simo especially has this like queer thing going on, which I don’t think Aussie hip hop is ready for at all.
Maatzi: Where hip hop seems to be now seems to be like ten maybe fifteen years behind where America is with hip hop in terms of like incorporating different stuff and branching out.
Jasper: Nah, I don’t think that’s the case bro, I think the attitudes towards music in general are just different.
Maatzi: Yeah the whole Triple J, mainstream focus definitely reflects those attitudes.
Jasper: Yeah, I don’t wanna rag on Triple J too much, but like with our approach, we know our artists won’t be played on Triple J. We’re focusing our ideas and our style and stuff on getting blog coverage overseas and approaching the mainstream that way – bypassing the whole system so that Triple J or whatever won’t have a choice but to play it because that’s what people want.
It’s like this cultural cringe sorta thing and Triple J are totally guilty of that in such a massive way, which is why I’d never sign an artist that makes straight up Aussie hip hop. It’s boring man, I don’t mean like the music but it’s really boring for me to work with an artist like that. If they’re a good rapper then good on them, but unless there is something interesting in their music or there’s some weird shit going on in their heads and it comes out in their lyrics or whatever, it’s a waste of time for us. Leave it to the other guys who do it better and are committed to that one sound.
Once we’ve got Maatzi and Simo’s records out, we’re gonna start recording with this band called Orange from Melbourne. It’s just noise. It’s like suicide or something, and we’re gonna put that out on No Good. On the bill tonight too, you’ve got Yon Yonson doing their thing and then Tanned Christ come on afterwords and then there’s Moon Holiday too. It’s all about diversity.
Check out Orange’s sounds of suicidal noise at their bandcamp – soon to be involved with No Good
Maatzi: I mean you’ve got different parts of your brain and you have to light up the synapses of all those different parts. If you stick to the one genre, you’re only really massaging that one part of your brain.
Jasper: It’s all about stimulation. I mean that in a kind of non-sexual way, but if it gets sexual then, that’s cool too.
Maatzi: Stimulate like that Eminem song. It’s from when Eminem was good, when he was like 19. It’s a good reference, you should look at it. Music is meant to stimulate so if you’ve got your whole brain going I guess you’re getting closer to enlightenment.
Jasper: That said though, it’s probably doing us a disservice not branding ourselves as a particular style of music with No Good. I remember when Astral People used to do hip hop nights and shows and stuff and they don’t do that anymore because they’ve gone down that electronic thing, which is great and it’s working out for them something fierce. But y’know, I don’t think we could do that sort of thing – I don’t think there’s one genre of music that deserves our 100% attention yet. It hasn’t been invented yet.
Maatzi: Nerd Rap Gangsta Forest Pop. You heard it here first.
Happy: That’s the best! We’re all about inventing genre names here at Happy.
Jasper: Did you guys invent chillwave? I like that genre. I realised I was making chillwave way before I’d even heard of chillwave. Then I heard that the name popped up like one or two years ago and I was like. Aww, I’m just another one of those douchebags making chillwave on the internet…
Happy: Awesome. Well, I think I’ve only asked about two questions, but we’ve got enough material for like two or three posts worth, on TV shows alone, so I’m gonna wrap it up with the classic Happy interview question: What makes you guys Happy?
Maatzi: That’s actually a great question hey. Is it like a personal thing or a generalised philosophy? I mean aside from being happy, which is like the fundamental…
Jasper: That’s not an answer bro…
Maatzi: Yeah it is! It’s about the fundamental choice to be happy.
Jasper: Some people don’t know how to be happy.
Maatzi: Or some can choose to…
*Philosophical silence*
Jasper: I reckon being happy is a learnt thing, like society teaches you how to be unhappy and you just gotta break out of that man, like I just moved from being one of those guys who is like, responsible for other people’s welfare and stuff to just moving into a house with a whole bunch of musicians. All I’m doing now is looking after myself and so I guess it’s independence that makes me happy. Like, if your passion is music and all you’re doing is making music then there’s no stress, even if sometimes you get stressed out about music, you’re essentially still going to be Happy cause you’re just dealing with stuff you’re passionate about.
At the same time though, that makes me sound like a massive cunt. A selfish piece of shit. You know what I mean? You know what I mean.
Maatzi: Yeah I know what you mean. For me I think it’s stuff like seeing in colour. The fact that I can see in colour is amazing, and that makes me truly happy. I wake up every day and I’m like oh shit, purple and yellow and all the colours, like, that’s amazing. Any form of gratitude on that level makes me Happy.
Jasper: And you know what sucks? Most people see in colour and are still miserable as shit, like Aww fuck. I gotta avoid talking to such and such at work and then I gotta blah blah blah blah blah. Like people don’t take control of their own happiness, they just do what they’re told.
Maatzi: Question everything.
Jasper: And when you find the answer, run with it. And that’s coming from one of the Happiest guys on earth.
No Good are Jasper Clifford Smith, Maatzi, Simo Soo, and B00BJ0B. Stay tuned for Simo and Maatzi’s upcoming releases, as well as more awesome events from these dudes, because No Good: Winter was pretty ace.
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*Destroy the planet by being destructive Homo Sapiens, not destroy the planet with Maatzi’s tunes, obviously. Maatzi’s a lover, not a fighter.
