Sydney’s Goodgod Small Club closed its doors last week. From humble roots in the bowels of a questionable Latin cantina, Goodgod became an iconic institution that fostered emerging Australian sounds and a tight knit creative community. Captained by partners in business and life – Jimmy Sing and Hana Shimada – Goodgod was a space where musical experimentation was unencumbered. We captured the final hours inside, as Jimmy Sing commanded the dancefloor one last time. But first, Boiler Room’s Erin Flanagan takes a look back on the moments that defined an instrumental chapter in Australian club culture.
Goodgod was born in a climate where Modular Records ruled Australia. Goodgod’s Jimmy Sing remembers “most club nights in Sydney were either ‘Modular’-style electro where everyone DJ’d tracks that were released that week on a blog or super genre-specific nights for hip hop or dancehall where it felt like there were age-old rules around how you were allowed to play those certain sounds. So myself, Hana and Spruce Lee wanted to create a space where we could play literally any record from our collection and escape those parameters. We were particularly excited about 80s funk, 12” dubs, early Chicago house, afrobeat and all that, but we also really wanted to play that alongside punk-influenced rock’n’roll records by bands like Eddy Current Suppression Ring or GOD.” After discovering the hidden back room of a Spanish Cabaret restaurant, the trio started throwing monthly parties known as Goodgod Small Club.
To access Goodgod, you had to walk through the Spanish restaurant at the front. This invariably involved stumbling through a dark and empty room while Gasolina and eurodance Justin Timberlake remixes played over offensively loud, distorting Behringer speakers. Once inside, the first thing you noticed was a wave of blue and white. Goodgod enforced a utilitarian dancewear uniform of blue jeans paired with white tee or white jeans and blue tees. This simple trademark had deep repercussions, creating an egalitarian dance floor where punters put their complete trust in the hands of the resident selectors and lost themselves in the music.
The dress code may have been strict but the rulebook went out the window when it came to the music. Goodgod quickly developed a passionate following, and soon brought friends and family into the fold to host nights in the space each weekend. Jimmy recalls, “Daniel Stricker from the Midnight Juggernauts started Siberia Nights, the Canyons guys did Hole In the Sky label parties with artists like Pond & Steele Bonus, Dave from Freda’s and Tall Mikey did a 50’s-60’s throw down called Jingle Jangle, Anna Lunoe, Nina Las Vegas and Bad Ezzy did their rap and club music thing Hoops, Cut Copy did some Cutters label parties, DJ Dreamcatcher and Jungle Snake came in as young guns and shook up the disco and house scene with their Slow Blow parties. Plus we started hosting a lot of bands that we loved such as Royal Headache and Straight Arrows. A year or so later we had so many of our best friends throwing totally different nights that were all popping off in their own way that we were full time down there and Goodgod had grown from being a monthly night to being the name of that room.”
It wasn’t long before the Spanish restaurant at the front suddenly went bankrupt. Facing imminent closure, Jimmy and Hana acted swiftly to take on the lease of the full venue. Jimmy recalls, “we were totally naïve to the business side of it, never having worked in hospitality but there was such a community that had become attached to this space that we were really headstrong about doing it. We’d never planned to start a venue but here we were.” The club that community built quickly ascended into a fully functioning two-room venue.
Hana oversaw the creative vision of the expanded club, with her signature illustrations defining the club’s playful and unique visual aesthetic. Expanding the space across multiple rooms gave the opportunity to showcase a broader variety of sounds and larger volume of artists to bigger audiences. Many important Australian and international acts performed at Goodgod in their early days and it soon became the go-to venue for underground artists on the rise. When asked to remember and stand out performances from that period, Jimmy said, “you always get an immediate sense if someone has the ability to be big, it just comes down to whether they want it. We’ve had early shows for people like Chet Faker, with Flume in support (ha ha!), Courtney Barnett, HTRK, Kirin J Callinhan, Lorde on her 3rd show ever and relatively unknown internationals at the time such as Little Dragon, Ben UFO or Big Freedia. Blood Orange played to about 40 people. All of those you see and you know they’ll get there without a doubt.”
As the club grew into its new, expanded form, Goodgod became synonymous with forward thinking and groundbreaking curation, giving a voice and platform to emerging sounds. When asked how he approached the curating process this Jimmy explained, “Experimentation entertained us more than anyone. We always wanted the space to be spontaneous, to shock and surprise people, most of all us. One of the best instances of this was early days at Siberia Nights, there was a regular jam band called FLRL that would setup a whole bunch of analog gear in the middle of the dance floor and play a mix of noise and some kind of kraut-rock techno. We then had a tradition of getting this same band to go by the name of the Goodgod House Band and do live band karaoke where they’d play garage rock versions of 90s dance hits for punters to get up and perform. I was looking back at photos the other day and people playing and singing in this setup include Kirin J Callinan, Stricker and Vinnie from Midnight Juggernauts, Jono Ma & Gab from Jagwar Ma, Kevin Parker from Tame Impala, Santamaria brothers from Motorik, Sudek from World Champion, Mikey Touch Sensitive, Deep Sea Arcade guys, Izzy from the Preatures, Jack Ladder. I mean judging by what they’re all doing now I’m pretty happy they had a spot to experiment.”
It’s no surprise that Goodgod was chosen to play host to the first ever Boiler Room broadcast from Sydney, with a line up curated by Jimmy himself. Prominent Sydney promoter / manager Vic Edirisinghe of Astral People remembers, “my favourite Goodgod memory would have to be the first time Boiler Room came to Sydney. The line up consisted of some of our own locals including Cliques and Tuff Sherm but also featured legends like Canyons and Michael Ozone. Jimmy always had a habit of curating line-ups that may not have been the most fluid on paper but will always be the most memorable in retrospective. Something that I’ve tried to replicate in my career but can never get close to the big man’s vision! I remember this night vividly because it was also the same night that we (Astral People) won a FBi SMAC Award. This was first award we ever won so naturally we drank ALL of the free coronas and stumbled into Goodgod not knowing what was awaiting us. One of the most inspiring nights of music I’ve heard in sometime. It was an education in the most inviting and sincere manner. That was Goodgod.”
When asked about the memorable nights in the club, Jimmy reflected “The nights where we’ve had crazy big artists request to play Goodgod so they can get right side by side with people have been incredible. Thom Yorke, Erykah Badu and Jamie XX all hosted beautifully intimate nights of selections with queues around the block. Fourtet played an incredible 7-hour set. Diplo came through about 5 times including a mental one with Skerrit Bwoy when daggering was thing and Aziz Ansari got in on the act. And then another one when Major Lazer returned to play a front bar set. There was a pretty crazy B2B throw down one Tuesday night with Skrillex, RL Grime, Nina Las Vegas, DJ Snake & What So Not. One of the most indulgently glorious line-up ever was an impromptu party I put together with Young Turks that had flowed in the order of Bullion, Sampha, John Talabot with Caroline Polachek, DJ Oneman and finished off with SBTRKT. Then there’s all the memorable nights when it’s euphorically packed for a locals only night with Astral People, Mike Who’s House of Who tropical and disco throw downs in the front. And I’ll never forget a little tradition we had with DJ Levins called ‘the most beautiful song competition’ that would close out a night through until 11am or so when we could go for a hotel buffet breakfast.”
Goodgod Small Club has closed its doors, but not without one final throw down to farewell a true institution. The party went into the early hours of Dec 12, 2015 but there was only one man for the job of the last ever set. Future Classic’s Chad Gillard commented, “Dancing the night away while Jimmy expertly helmed the final dance was both blissful and bittersweet, but it couldn’t have ended any other way.”
Goodgod created a space that encouraged us to experiment with sounds, challenged us to lose ourselves in music, and inspired a generation of club goers to embrace the unknown. Hana Shimada and Jimmy Sing’s Goodgod Small Club was and will continue to be a comforting reminder that music connects people in the most powerful and abiding of ways.
Listen back as Jimmy Sing plays from the Danceteria one last time and bask in the final magic moments of Goodgod Small Club.