DJ TR!P celebrates a quarter of a century of Cranker Wednesdays
For 25 years, Tyson Hopprich has entertained the masses that flock to the Crown & Anchor for cheap schooners and good company.
Each Wednesday evening, East End pub The Crown & Anchor becomes a hive of activity.
Punters descend en masse for the cheapest beer in town. $3 schooners from 8-10 pm are the drawcard here – irresistible for anyone in Adelaide during the cost-of-living crisis.
It draws a young crowd for sure, but it also regularly attracts pubgoers of all stripes – from the hotel’s rusted-on punks to threadbare uni students and the perennially-emerging artists always just scraping by.
Entertaining them all, as he has done for 25 years, is Tyson Hopprich aka DJ TR!P.
2025 is his Silver Jubilee – a milestone in any career let alone for a disc jockey, and even rarer still for a residency of this kind.
As he tells CityMag ahead of his quarter-century celebration on 26 February, the pub has become his second home and a special place that’s a testament to the colourful tapestry that is the local music scene.
The Cranker was Hopprich’s first and most consistent residency, he says.
It started in 2000 when he was asked to fill in for one of his mentors at the time: DJ Smiley. He’s had just two breaks over the 25 years: for hip replacement surgery and when he was on Broadway in New York with Windmill. Two pretty valid excuses for a hiatus, we think.
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“I learned so many things at this venue and the community and audience has always been supportive and open-minded,” he says.
“This safe space has allowed me, over my years, to find my voice as a DJ. I feel when you do one-hour sets at different venues every now and then, or spots at festivals, you don’t get that opportunity to really craft and shape who you are.
“I learned that DJing is a lot more than just playing trendy stuff or retro stuff. The Cranker is a melting point of people, different ages, different backgrounds, subcultures and tastes. The requests I take are so diverse on each night and it’s given me the opportunity to be a better listener of music and also a better curator.”
Beyond the Cranker, DJ TR!P specialises in accessible DJ and music workshops for disabled adults at Tutti Arts. Photo: Nici Lucking
Calling the Cranker on a Wednesday night a “safe space” is an interesting choice of phrase, this writer suggests.
If you’ve never been or it’s simply been a while, picture bodies clamouring for cheap beer, which is being spilled errantly by attendees that have probably taken advantage of the $3 schooners a bit too liberally.
Hopprich has a solution for when times get tense on a Wednesday evening.
“One of my go-to’s to stop fights is I get between them sonically,” he explains.
“I play ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’, which sort of kills the gusto in a fight because everyone laughs and it makes light of the situation,” he says.
“People can’t continue punching on when that’s playing. It puts the fire out and takes the oxygen out.”
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Otherwise, the DJ leans into his personality and throws out a mixed bag of tracks across genres from current and retro pop to hip-hop, dance music and punk.
“I do play some kooky stuff too. I play a lot of video game music and jump around different genres,” he says.
“I’ve learned that there’s so many tastes in a room and because I’m there for five to six hours with no break that’s a big canvas to paint and a lot of songs to play.
“There’s also a lot of customers to serve so I’m reading the energy of the room. All of the sets I’ve done here I’ve never curated or pre-planned, it’s always improvised.
“The only song I like to plan is the first song to start, and I usually get here a touch early to see what’s going on. Every night is different whether it’s festival time or we’ve got the cyclists here. I like to watch people and look at the groups and ride the waves of the happy hours and when bands are on and that kind of stuff to make sure the music is right.”
Not just a pub DJ: Hopprich has played at some major festivals including Dark MOFO, WOMADelaide, Big Day Out, Illuminate Adelaide and more. Photo: Nici Lucking
It’s a menagerie of people that wind up at the pub on a Wednesday night, DJ TR!P says, who acknowledges “part of my responsibility is to serve the long-term punters and inspire and make the newer punters feel comfortable and energised”.
“I think a lot about the power of nostalgia when I’m working and how that energy links people to good feelings. It’s pretty cool as a DJ that you’ve got so many years of recorded music as your canvas,” he says.
“Over the years I have a little bank in my head of one or two favourite songs of many punters and sometimes I’ll play their song when they enter. I might see them walking outside or getting a drink and I know that that song is special to them.”
Hopprich’s rule is that he’ll play a request if it’s on his USB, and that one of the biggest lessons he’s learned as a music lover and DJ is that: “music you don’t like, it’s not the music’s fault. It’s your fault for not being ready for it”.
“There’s people who love black metal and country music and whatever, k-pop and all that, and there’s massive cultures based around it and they love it,” he says.
“It’s about being open to finding a space in your heart to find out what’s good in that genre.
“I think it’s a disservice to yourself to reject requests because everyone who comes up to you they’ve made themselves brave enough to come up to you. Some people are shy, and some people might think their song is pretty wild.”
Celebrate DJ TR!P’s Silver Jubilee on 26 February from 9pm at the Crown & Anchor Hotel.