Rich:)e Rich Biography

Born in Melbourne, Richie Mc Neill is the face of Hardware, which is Australia’s largest techno organisation. Richie is one of the hard-working originators of the Melbourne and Australian techno scene. His commitments still include a regular working DJ, producer, remixer, promoter, label manager and currently now venturing into film and television score.

It all began with music in 1984 when Richie got into legends like New Order, Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet, Human League, Joy Division, Devo, Exploited, Sex Pistols, The Cure and Sigue Sigue Sputnik! As a total New Order freak, it was here where he began to acquire a taste for electro and hints of techno began to emerge. It was a lot of Arthur Bakers early work that inspired Richie through New Order, Madonna and Grandmaster Flash to get into more and more house, disco and rap music. In 1986, Richie and friends loved Hip Hop legends Skooly D, KRS1, Boogie Down Productions, Mantronix, Mille Melle and the Furious Five, Public Enemy and the UK’s Derek B and at the age of 16 and 17, started going to Melbourne acid/house club ‘Checkpoint Charlie’. After hearing this new sound, Richie immediately fell in love with the music of the future known as ‘electronic dance music’ and began to put all his energy into it.

In 1989, Richie began working as a busboy (glassy) in a club called Chasers for 12 months. He spent his money buying records, and then eventually he got a few gigs at some of Melbourne’s premier techno/warehouse style clubs like Xpress @ Chasers, Maze @ Commerce etc... It wasn’t until 1990 when Richie and some friends ran a club called "Illusion" on Wednesdays that it all really started to happen. After many residencies and a main break at Pure @ The Palace (Melbourne’s first major weekly Techno club), the rave scene began to blossom and DJ Willie Tell and Richie began working at all the parties, which became bigger and bigger as the months went on. He also went on to DJ around the country in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. At this time, Richie Rich and Will E Tell were really bringing the techno sound to Melbourne.

“I remember when me and Willie went into MDS every week to see our mate Colin Daniels, just to get the Brand-X fax sheet sent from New York which you used to pay for! Here we scanned the Brand-X top 25 and ordered all of those records from Vinyl Solution in London. They had a label downstairs Colin was buying from so it was perfect. We would get our records every week picked up with Colin’s MDS orders and would come in to Colin on Monday, pay for them, and collect them. This is how MDS began to form a relationship with me, and how MDS got more in-tune with the dance product. We used to basically help out Colin find new product. It happened with R&S, Underground Resistance, Rising High you name it… all of MDS first labels came to them via us or when I started working there, I signed them all up for them!” (richie sometime in 1994)

In 1991, Richie secured a job at Mushroom Distribution Services (MDS) where he started in the warehouse and moved on to be Dance assistant and was later asked to manage full-time when Colin Daniels decided to move to London for Mushroom UK. At MDS, Richie was in charge of the Dance Department for 4 years and highlights included setting up a DanceNet studio, dance exporting and picking up many of the worlds top dance labels. Richie is mainly responsible for where they were in 91-96 as THE dance distributors of Australia.

In late 1991, Richie had an idea from his father to do his own parties to raise money for his dad’s charity, Try Youth and Community Services. So doing this, Hardware was born on New Years Eve 1991.

In 10 years, Richie has organized over 120 events with Hardware also running clubs like "The Chinese Laundry". His DJ’ing has secured him a prime techno show on Melbourne’s Kiss FM as well as guests spots on radio around the country. Richie went on to set-up Azwan Transmissions, a label set-up to offer the world top class techno and trance for the sunny country. The Hardware Records shop and distribution ran for 5 years and closed in June 2002 due to the advancement of technology and the increasing drop in CD and music sales due to internet downloads and the CD Burner revolution.

From 2001 until now Richie has been working as Music Supervisor on international film “One Perfect Day” being released worldwide starting in November. The film features unreleased music from Unkle, Queens Of The Stone Age, Paul Van Dyk, Lamb, Groove Armada, Orbital and existing works from Sven Vath, Underworld, Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawtin and more. Also running the largest dance festival in the southern hemisphere, Two Tribes ran 6 shows in March 2003 across Australia and New Zealand to a record crowd of 52000 people nationally.

In 2002 Richie began working with youth group Reach Youth working with kids workshops on developing skills and inner strength amongst young people. A passionate volunteer job he fits in wherever possible into his hectic schudule.

Richie’s style varies from hard-minimal techno to soft-uplifting cruise, trippy break beats and funky house. Like most DJ’s, he went through the Underground Resistance madness of 1991, the EYEQ/Harthouse craze of 1994/1995, the Chicago Trax acid phase of 1988, the UK progressive time of 1993 and of course, the MFS trance bliss of late 1993/1994 and the Doof psy-trance of 1995. And now? Anything funky with a general uplifting party vibe.

Richie has worked at the following events: Big Day Out Festival, Hardware parties, Every Picture Tells A Story, Acid Reign, Gasp, Agent MAD, Strawberry Fields Festival 2 & 3 (QLD), Teriyakianarkisaki, Two Tribes, Welcome, Gatecrasher, Vibes On A Summers Day Festival, The Apollo Fesitval (NSW and VIC) and much more. Now he only works for Hardware and a few other independent promoters in Melbourne, those who are in it for the right reasons as most these days aren’t.

Overseas work includes gigs in New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, London and USA at clubs: Motor Lounge Detroit, Gallery, Tresor, Distillery, Stammheim, Stein Radio, Club Noxx, Movement and more

Most inspirational DJ’s - DJ Jeff Mills, DJ Richie Hawtin, DJ Kid Paul, DJ Sven Vath, DJ Laurent Garnier, DJ Ian Pooley, DJ Paul Van Dyk, DJ Gaetek, DJ Stacey Pullen, DJ Umek, DJ John Acquaviva, DJ Derrick Carter, DJ Marco Carola, DJ Adam Beyer, DJ Willie Tell (Aus), DJ HMC (Aus), Jayse Knipe (Aus), DJ Ken Cloud (Aus), DJ Simon Caldwell (Aus) and DJ Damian Laird (Aus).

Most inspirational producers: Joel Mull, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Cari Lekebusch, Derrick Carter, Ian Pooley, Ralf Hildenbeutel (Earth Nation), Underground Resistance, Der Dritte Raum, Adam Beyer, Marco Carola, Richie Hawtin, Herbert, Young American Primitive, Rabbit In The Moon, Patrick Lindsey, The Advent, Chris McCormack, Ian Obrien, Rob Hood, Peace Division, Halo and HippE, New Order, Lamb, Mark Ambrose, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Jazzanova, Orbital, Depeche Mode…

Rich:)e Rich Discography

Welcome 2000 CD
Welcome 2001 CD
Hardware 3 CD (Double CD)
Hardware 4 CD (Double CD)
Hardware 5 CD (Double CD)
Hardware 6 CD (Double CD)
Belfast CD

*remix* of 48 Hours “Track2” (Vicious Vinyl, Australia)
*music supervisor* for “One Perfect Day” (Lightstream Pictures, Australia)
“Call Of The Wild” Richie Ardvansaan (Hardware)
“Electro Life EP” (Hardware)

For bookings:
richie@hardwarecorp.com.au
www.hardwarecorp.com.au

GSM: + 61 419 444 419
FAX: + 61 3 9326 4083
POSTAL: PO Box 13162, Law Courts PO, VIC 8010