June 4, 2008

Interview with Alex & Wes from Hobo Gestapo

  • Began: November, 2006
  • Based in: Sydney, Australia
  • Type: Party pics blog
  • Traffic: A minimum of 80,000 unique visits and 130-200,000 page views a month.

Alex, 24, and Wes, 26, also known as Carlito Mustafa and Lazarus Nellington the Second, are the founding members of Hobo Gestapo, Sydney’s answer to American party pic blogs like The Cobra Snake and lastnightsparty. I ask them about documenting Sydney’s ostentatious nightlife, and the story behind their notorious Kings Cross stabbing pics.

Why did you decide Sydney was in need of their own party blog?

Alex: I met Mark [of The Cobra Snake] in Las Vegas in 2005 and found out about The Cobra Snake from there. He seemed to be having a lot of fun and after spending a few months in the States I came back to Sydney and realised how boring and stale nightlife was in comparison.

Candy’s Apartment [Image: Hobo Gestapo]

The project was initially a way for me to start going out and having fun again, doing something different rather than binge drinking into oblivion then rinsing and repeating. Now I found myself binge drinking with a camera! True innovation.

The night I wanted to start it I met Wes who had been doing social photography stuff for street press and sites like inthemix. He’s been working as a photographer/assistant for three or four years now. I told him the idea and he was on board. Initially it was very much a hobby. It became more of a “business” six months later.

Wes: When I met Alex I was becoming increasingly jaded with the social photography that was predominately available to the general public. The guys at Pedestrian who I shot for occasionally had introduced me to lastnightsparty and The Cobra Snake and the more documentary style approach really appealed to me. I was about to pack it all in, when I met Alex and saw an opportunity to do something that we had creative control of.

Tell us a bit about your other contributers, and why you all have pseudonyms.

Alex: The other boys are a smorgasboard of age, height, eye colour and ethnicity. There’s four of us who are active right now and another three who are inactive due to things like university and influenza. We’re all really good friends. I think I met all of them while I was out at night. We all do it for fun but we pay them as well. I think that’s important. Milking people is bullshit and is something that irks me about inthemix’s photo section.

The pseudonyms were just something we did for fun. I liked the idea of multiple identities so we ran with it. To be honest they’re more of an annoyance now, as a lot of people get confused about whether I am Carl [my pseudonym] or Alex. Unless you’re really willing to run with it and be known by your pseudonym it’s just going to cause headaches. I thought it was great that everyone began calling Ben by his pseudonym (Barnaby). People would come up to me asking, “Hey have you seen Barnaby?”

Do you tend to just photograph parties you happen to already be going to?

Alex: We only actively pursue media passes for events that require them; concerts and music festivals. Other than that we just document whatever situation we find ourselves in. It’s more organic that way.

What’s a key ingredient of a decent trashy party pic?

Alex: One where the viewer sees the subject in the photo and begins questioning the precarious existence of our species.

Wes: Even if we don’t always achieve it, one of the ideas that has continually resurfaced in our constantly changing ethos has been a desire to tell a story. I think our photos don’t just show who was at an event or provide a pretty picture that someone can download but more actively captures the feel and vibe of what’s going on.

I bet there are a few pics on your site with mad stories behind them.

Alex: Well there was the Thousand Reasons party for their 2007 RAFW show. At the afters they had these little candy hearts and for some reason Em crushed some up on the bar and snorted them. That was slightly insane.

[Image: Hobo Gestapo]

Or the time I was in Byron Bay for New Years and this nightclub (La La Land) closed at around 3am. So I’m walking out and these two girls kidnap me and take me to some warped rave party. Then they drove me to a lookout point on the coast, just past the beach to watch “the first sunrise of the year”. I thought I was going to be sold into slavery. Wrong!

[Image: Hobo Gestapo]

Then there was the Kiss My Grass festival this year put on by Kiss FM down in Melbourne. Seeing Tranter [from Gameboy/Gamegirl] smothered in whipped cream and honey was… poetic.

[Image: Hobo Gestapo]

I wanted to find out more about the quite confronting Kings Cross stabbing pics that ended up on Hipster Runoff.

Alex: [Our contributor] Deckland was the one that took the photos so what I do know is from what he’s told me.

Where and when in the Cross did it happen?

Alex: Bayswater Road. The same old stuff was going on, taxis, fast food and escapism coming together in a holy union. It was around 2am.

Did Deckland feel uneasy about taking the photos?

Alex: It was such an automatic response for him that there was no emotional feedback. He was the one that called 000 and found someone to administer first aid.

And how did you feel about posting them on your site?

Alex: I still stand by my decision to do it. It’s funny how many people judged me for it but that’s a pretty typical human response. I told my girlfriend the motivation for doing it and I’ll repeat what I said to her: the delivery of the content was blunt and in some ways thoughtless. But I knew it was a compelling, provocative and disturbing image and I thought something with that much power needed to be given a greater level of visibility than the other mindless stuff we post.

Would you say the photos move away from “party pics” and into the arena of “photojournalism”?

Alex: I think party pics are photojournalism, or documentary photography or fashion photography or ad photography. It’s not the subjects or the scenes in the photographs but how they’re used. Sure there are websites out there taking mindless “party pic” photos for no real purpose or reason and that’s where we started, but as Wes said; one thing we’ve always focused on in is a narrative component and that’s just something we want to keep developing.

And do you know if the guy is OK?

Alex: As a testament to the warped power of blogs my only knowledge of his condition is through random comments on Hipster Runoff. Who knows whether they’re true or not. But based on those, he had surgery and is fine.

So onto a more trivial look at Sydney’s nightlife. Best place to party?

Alex: It all depends on the kind of music you like and the people you want to be around. However I find myself at Bandits (now back at Phoenix) a lot. I’m also at Candy’s Apartment, Oxford Art Factory and Club 77 a fair bit.

Bandits [Image: Hobo Gestapo]

Wes: I’m a Hey Now and Doomfoxx groupie, so wherever they’re at. Apart from that I just let Alex tell me what’s good. Maybe I’m getting too old.

Best one-off party ever?

Well I thought Peco’s “Gay As Fuck” party at Porky’s was awesome. He brought Larry Tee out from NYC and there’s this horrible, horrible sound system. The speakers are cracking and there’s a mix of gay people dancing and going crazy and heterosexual strip joint patrons trying to watch the girls performing. I mean, who has a party at a seedy strip joint? Brilliant.

However I think for sheer enormity, the Parklife meet and greet after party which doubled as Hianta’s farewell claims first prize. She contributes to fluokids and works with Modular in Paris. It was at Moulin Rouge and you had all the Parklife artists there, a very large chunk of Sydney’s DJs and the requisite hipster set. I ended up at Al from MSTRKRFT’s hotel room with Ajax, Kato, Dave from Goose, one of the washed up guys from Gerling and a bunch of girls. I spent the entire time in the toilet. When I apologised Al was like “Nah dude, don’t worry about it. It happens all the time!” Poor guy.

Does Sydney hipster culture hold it’s own on the international front? What makes it distinctive?

Alex: I’ve seen hipsters in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Tokyo, New York and L.A. and for the most part it’s all the same. Hipster culture is global, thanks largely to the Internet. I will say that Sydney hipsters dress better than L.A. hipsters. But come on, you’ve got me talking about hipsters. Even the word “hipsters” is an abomination. And now I’m bashing hipsters; that’s almost as original as party pic websites.

Coachella / Anthem Pool Party [Image: Hobo Gestapo]

Well would you be able to choose your favourite city in the world to photograph, party pics wise?

Alex: I’d say New York. I might be bias because I love the city and I’m moving there in a couple of months but the parties there are out of control. You get major acts coming through regularly, playing at the Hiro or Bowery Ballrooms or Studio B. There are many different social scenes and cliques. And some of the best parties are on a Tuesday night. Who goes out on Tuesdays? One of the best experiences I had was at the PS ONE parties at the MoMA in Queens. Thousands of people, great music, great art and ridiculous beer prices. A compelling combination.

Wes: Big fan of Paris. Don’t know why. Love Stockholm as well for sheer prettiness. London is pretty cool too. Love to spend more time in NYC.

Have you heard of any big names who are fans of your site?

Alex: I know Pedro Winter likes our photos (aka Busy P, manager of Daft Punk and owner of Ed Banger Records). Justin Hemmes likes what we do. But let’s not kid ourselves; neither of them are Julia Roberts circa Pretty Woman big. I’m interested in big names who are detractors of our site.

Wes: I’m suprised you know who we are.

To get techy on you, what’s your traffic like?

Alex: It fluctuates from month to month but you’re looking at a minimum of 80,000 unique visits and 130-200,000 page views a month. It really depends on what we photograph and how much we promote our photos.

Daft Punk Australia tour [Image: Hobo Gestapo]

The biggest we’ve had was 200,000 unique visits after covering the Daft Punk shows in Melbourne and Sydney. Those photos have been considered some of the best to have been taken of their performance. The combination of lackluster security and low stage height let us get some great images.

And future plans for the site?

Alex: Well we’re finishing up what I would consider our second iteration. I think the first “version” of the Hobo site was “hey let’s go out and party and take photos and do whatever”. The second iteration saw us getting hired to cover events, bringing people on board and developing our ideas and our approach to how we documented Sydney’s nightlife.

Our third iteration is going to be pretty major for a lot of reasons. We’re redesigning our website entirely for starters, thanks to flipcreative. Anyone with half a brain can see the similarities between ours and Mark’s. The new design is going to let us define ourselves aesthetically and will allow us to display non-photo content a lot better than we can right now. While staying photo-driven we’re going to begin producing some video and written content. Do you know any sassy, jaded journalism students who want a job?

We’ll always have our party photos as the majority of our content but we want to start doing more shoots in the studio and on-location projects separate from the parties. I think the new direction will see us as a kind of blog or online magazine hybrid.

The other major change is my impending move to New York. I’ll be contributing from over there and I think the differences between the two cities will create some interesting parallels and amusing comparisons.

Wes: And I think keeping the quality of the photos the same. I’ve always loved the way that the photo essays are such a dominant part of what we do. I don’t think the changes we’re thinking about will mar those in any way.

Can you name some of your favourite photographers?

Alex: For me, I really enjoy Nikola Ambrel’s stuff. I also like Martin Parr’s work on consumerism and Rankin’s portraits. I have a lot of respect for what Bronques (lastnightsparty) is doing. Who would think that a photo blog featuring a lot of nude women could lead to a Europe-wide Converse ad campaign? I have a lot of time for anyone that’s successful by walking down a different path. Thomas Demand’s sculptural photos I also find fantastic. The blandness of his recreations is so out of place with reality. The resulting photos I find striking as a result. And in one paragraph I’ve transformed myself into a hokey art wanker.

[Image: Thomas Demand via Manystuff]

Wes: Really love the work of a lot of the guys I work for, but I grew up photographically on Edward Weston and Ansel Adam’s. Adam’s notion of visualisation and imagining a final shot before you take it has always been one of the things I have worked on. Also really like Bronque’s stuff. But more of the 35mm found scenes that he has intermixed with his more conventional style.

And lastly, let’s hear about some of your favourite sites. And are there any bloggers you’d want to read an interview with?

Alex: For me it would be Sydney Morning Herald (it’s been my homepage for years), Gawker, Lost at E Minor, Hypebeast, magCulture, Designing Magazines, A Photo Editor, Home of the Vain, you call this photography?, Seth’s Blog and Gaping Void. I’m subscribed to way too many blogs and newsletters.

Wes: d-d-photographics.com. Alex loves it to. Alex is the one with all the knowledge about that Gen-Y stuff. I’m still getting used to not shooting film.

Alex: Oh, and I think interviewing other nightlife bloggers like Bronques and Mark and Alistair from DirtyDirtyDancing would be interesting in terms of exploring the individual motivations, experiences and drivers of each person.

Other than that I have a lot of respect for Zolton. He seems really connected and in tune with a lot of whats going on.