Bid 2019 a fond farewell with Gold Coast DJ/ producer Wongo (aka Matt Ladgrove) who will be taking your New Year's Eve festivities to the 'next level'.
“Wongo is the extension of my breakdancing days,” Matt explains.“Wongo may have even come before then, but it was a nickname and now my b-boy name and producer name. I'm all about community within what I do, and humour – if you can't laugh with what you do I feel like it's not as much fun, so I try to create as much fun around me as I possibly can when I'm DJing and when I'm off the decks.”
Equipped with a party-hearty attitude, and describing himself as “the sore thumb of the Australian club world”, Wongo takes the stage at Nxt Lvl on the Gold Coast for their New Year's Eve celebrations. “I'll be redlining, I'll be pushing it as hard as I possibly can and having a great time,” he says.
“I've never played on New Year's Eve ever before, so this is my first-ever New Year's gig in ten years.”
Wongo's NYE debut comes at an opportune time in his career. This time last year, Matt made the decision to work on his music career full-time; a year on and Matt is proud to say 2019 is the first year he's been fully self-employed.
“I've been working in music for over ten years now and last year I finally took the plunge of quitting my day job and seeing if I could sustain myself financially just through doing music, between music production or DJing, and now I make a solid income month to month,” he says.
“I have good months and bad months like everybody, but I had to take the plunge to see if I could do it and now I pretty much work over 40 hours a week just doing music things.”
As a DJ/ producer and also head of his own label, Box Of Cats, Wongo says Nxt Lvl is meeting a growing demand in the region for top-quality live electronic music. “Nxt Lvl came in at the perfect time, where dance music needed to hit a wider audience,” he says.
“Ever since Fisher blew up, generally the Gold Coast crowd – because he's from here – was starting to gravitate towards dance music, and we only really had one other place to go to to listen to underground dance music. So now that they've opened up a large-capacity venue for people to get together, it couldn't have come at a more perfect time for the Gold Coast.”
As 2020 draws inexorably near, Wongo is also working on what he wants to achieve in the year to come. “For 2020, I'm definitely looking forward to not losing as many t-shirts at DJ gigs,” he laughs.
“I have a habit of giving the shirt off my back to people in the crowd. It's fine at the start of the set but by the end when I'm sweaty and covered in alcohol, you shouldn't be giving that shirt to anybody.”
