Sweat and Taxes

The only thing the distinctly separate worlds of DJing and tax have in common is they can both make you sweat.

While the DJ can make you sweat in a good way, a visit from the taxman can also cause beads to form on the brow for a whole other reason. So it’s a good thing New Zealand-born, now Brisbane-based Melissa Robinson — aka Disko Diva — threw in her day job as an accountant to launch headfirst into DJing. “I am actually a chartered accountant – but when I was sitting at the desk I just knew this was not what I wanted to do,” the bubbly Kiwi says. “I (also) used to work at a student bar and managed the bar … and we’d talk about the music to play and things like that, but really, I always wanted to play the music!”

Her enthusiasm is paying off, with Robinson now carving a niche for herself on the local scene with her funky electro hardhouse playlists. She’s headlining the new Femme Fatale Thursdays at The Exchange alongside other up-and-coming female DJs, and on this Friday morning, she was paying for a particularly successful evening. “Last night was a big night; it was the third of the nights. It’s getting a bit of momentum. We keep a pretty similar line-up each week, but may have a few new guests from interstate from time to time. We have three DJs in the main room and one on the rooftop bar.”

Like a lot of other industries, DJing is still a field where women are outnumbered by their male counterparts – but Robinson thinks this is slowing starting to change, especially with the advent of similarly-themed ‘ladies nights’, where female DJs can show off their chops. “I think about any ‘movement’ – there are always people who are just doing what they love doing – then there are those women who see that and think to themselves ‘that looks good, that looks like something I want to do’ and go from there,” she says.

“But it is very much a man’s world, although I think maybe some promoters have thought there is a bit of a niche there, and it’s nice to have some ladies playing their shows.”

Disko Diva plays The Femme Fatale Thursdays at The Exchange. She will also perform at Summafieldayze, Future Music Festival and at The Met NYE show.