Yes this was here in Melbourne. You certainly are well more into the scene than I am now, so my memory is a little stretched
When I first got into NJS in the early 90's, DJ-C was the main man with DJ Swingbeat. Prior to that (and before my time) there was a club called the Copacobana club or the Caribbean club (memory is stretched
) where if I recall correctly Bobby Love and some others were spinning Soul/Funk/R&B and as you mentioned the rest of the country was listening to Men at Work and the like lol There were rumours that Swingbeat sold all his records and turntables - days of mourning followed My introduction to NJS was in the underage clubs of Chevron (closed down now and turned into a cluster of ridiculously expensive apartment blocks). Back then DJC and Swingbeat were the residents and had all of the crowd dancing to a whole new infectious sound and the crowds wanted more. For me back then it was the underage clubs that had it all happening. Even after some of us had turned 18 we'd still hit the underages as it just had a much better vibe and DJC and Swingbeat were spinning at both types of events.
During this time there was quite a bit of competition for the saturday afternoon underage funk/r&b crowd, and competiting promotors opened up places like Billboard nightclub. It was such a tight crowd back then so another club opening up was going to kill the other one - which it did. Some new promotors worked with other DJ's and started up a new mid-afternoon Funk/R&B scene opening it up with a huge dance-competition with prize money and the like. Billboard nightclub was one I remember that opened up and took the crowd. Then Inflation nightclub on seedy King St opened up too.
In the mid 90's Warehouse (changed name to Salt early 2000's) in South Yarra (now closed down due to many famous/infamous violent incidents). Warehouse had Wayne Fernandez as the resident DJ with Craig G and Bobbylove as regulars also. There were many guest DJ's which I'm sure got started there and are probably still spinning today. They promoted old-skool NJS also and either one of them or another DJ would usually spin in the side room (piano bar) which would attract the old-skool NJS crew.
From memory, DJ Ken Walker and Wayne Fernandez had a radio station going and were spinning at Monsoons and Salt/Warehouse night-club. Silvers in Toorak also had a Funk/Soul/R&B/NJS night and I think it was around about that time guys that started off in the underage days were now DJ'ing...
I stopped following late-ish 90's probably because the flavour and vibe of the old-skool jamz just wasn't there anymore.
I'm sure someone-in-the-know could probably clarify a few of the points, but that's how i remember it when I was in it!
