OLDIES' GUIDE TO GETTING THE HOUSE IN ORDER

We already know kids spend their weekends taking pills and going to
all-night raves.

But if you don't know your house from your hard-house or deep-house,
it might pay to watch tonight's documentary on the New Zealand dance
music scene.

The Mix (10.35pm, TV2) is a 101 for "the oldies" - Are clubbers on
drugs? What does a DJ actually do? What's there to like about those
repetitive beats?

But the younger viewers who've been around the scene long enough
probably won't learn much.

That's okay, though.

It's about time someone acknowledged the huge impact dance music has
had here.

Former TVNZ producer Neill Torbit and Wellington dance party promoter
Nic Craig, who produced and directed the doco, admit The Mix provides
just a snapshot of a scene which has been around for well over a decade.

But it's a pretty colourful polaroid.

What started off as a musical experiment in the predominantly gay,
underground clubs of New York and Chicago in the late 70s and early
80s found its way here in the 80s after catching the ear of one of New
Zealand's most notable music entities, Peter Urlich.

Armed with Depeche Mode and Human League records he'd picked up in
London, Urlich started a small club in the city, where, on Friday and
Saturday nights, Aucklanders could dance the small hours of 8-11pm
away.

"They went nuts for it," he says over some particularly entertaining
retro footage.

A decade later the scene had also established itself in Wellington,
and the careers of some of New Zealand's most prolific DJs Roger
Perry, Greg Churchill and Chris Cox had begun.

The documentary looks at the celebrity profile of the DJ and follows
three upcoming Kiwis learning the tricks of the trade at the biggest
DJ school in the world, The Red Bull Music Academy, which last year
was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

It also briefly discusses the changing pace of the technology used to
produce the music and examines the effect the commercial side of the
culture has had on the the scene.

"There's a general awareness and acceptance of how big this scene
actually is by the general public but that's about where their
knowledge stops," explains Craig.

"It is a credible genre, immensely large and popular, hugely
influential in mainstream music."

Still, it's just a shame The Mix wasn't made five years ago when dance
music was still on the brink of becoming a mainstream phenomenon.