If there’s one thing there can never be enough of in Perth’s growing dance music scene, it’s support. Enter the latest pillar: Perth’s new internet radio station, The Backyard Project. I asked my mate and one of the creators, Bex Logan, about it recently…

“The Backyard Project is the brain child of Josh Samuel and myself. Josh approached me in Sydney earlier this year about starting up an internet radio station. He’d been talking about starting a station up for almost as long as i’ve known him. I came back from Sydney in late July/early August 2011 when Josh convinced me it was time to make it reality. Music has always been a big part of my life and electronic music especially so, plus moving back to Perth to see friends and family was a sweetener. Broadcasting is my trade and in Sydney I was starting to loose interest in the industry, plus all the wank that surrounds it. The allure of working and building a project that was entirely my own was extremely strong, so we’ve been building BYP since August and launched December 12.

What we’re aiming to do with The Backyard Project is to provide a place where not only musicians can come and network, lay some tracks down and hang out with us all but to also provide a sort of creative hub where any one who’s interested in the arts can come and listen to music and meet like minded people. We actually have a graffiti art project that’s in the final stages of negotiation (where we’ve donated walls at Toowong for painting. Plus providing the paint. I also have a personal project in conjunction with BYP which we’re still planning but is a DJ school geared towards teaching women who have always had an interest in electronic music or DJ-ing. The DJ school is still in the planning stages but what we want to do is lift the number of female DJs in Perth (as there’s a shocking lack of em. Out of the 150 people we have teed up to play on BYP only 10 of them are women).

Along with those two side projects we want to also be in a position with BYP to host parties and ultimately begin to put out mix CD which feature BYP artists. The time line for that though? I don’t really know right now as we’re concentrating on consolidating the radio station and getting the website up to scratch. We’re also taking one of our artists Seb Morxx (melbs) up to Kuala Lumpur for a mad New Years party where Pete Tong is headlining in an empty multi-storey shopping mall, and filming the entire thing. Crazy, but true.

If you know of any DJs or Producers or Graffiti Artists who would like to get involved, and ladies who would like to take the decks for a spin (or learn how to), then contact Bex Logan. We also have an open door policy so if anyone wants to come down and check us out, say hello to Logan the Pig and Runty the Cat and bop along in the studio they’re more than welcome. Contact us through Facebook or email to find out an appropriate time.

Website: http://www.thebackyardproject.com.au

BYP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheBackyardProject