In a surprise announcement today, Camp Bisco revealed that Zeds Dead will be joining the 2013 lineup. The Canadian duo, a collaboration between producers DC and Hooks, have been performing since 2009. No strangers to the Buffalo music scene, the pair have become a touring and festival powerhouse, from their Living Dead tour with rapper Omar Linx to their recent performance at Lollapalooza Chile. Also added to the bill, much to my delight, is drum 'n bass pioneer LTJ Bukem. This addition is sure to please fans who have seen that genre underrepresented at the festival in past years. His Logical Progression series wore out my CD player for a long time, with it's lighter, jazzier approach making for great armchair listening in addition to rattling dance floors. Also added to the bill are Destructo, Samo Sound Boy and Gravity A, bringing together one of the more well rounded lineups Camp Bisco has seen in a while. VIP passes are still available, as well as layaway options, so go ahead and order that second Big Mac, treat yourself!
“Trust me, if you were there, you would have enjoyed it” pleaded James, defending his pregame music selection as we sat in his apartment before a night of Allentown hijinks. The music was Zed’s Dead, and James Wild, buffaBLOG’s own Drum Machine Reporter, was sticking up for the group upon seeing my face contort in a disapproving fashion. I’ve never been one for kneejerk reactions, so I couldn’t help but wonder why my body quivers with rejection every time I hear the familiar womps and breaks of the dubstep sound. I’ve always appreciated James’ taste in electronic music, so I felt I owed the genre some further analysis
There are differing opinions on where dubstep originated, but the first club devoted entirely to dubstep was Forward>>, founded in 2001 in London’s Soho by Ammunition Promotions. The genre wasn’t really given a concrete name until around 2002, when Horsepower Productions was featured on the cover of XLR8R magazine. A radio show on London’s pirate radio station called Rinse FM (where have I heard that word recently?) was hosted by Kode9 and featured such artists as Youngsta, Zed Bias, Slimzee, and eventually such heavy hitters as Benga and Skream. Early dubstep beats sounded much more like fractured R & B, with rougher drums and more melodic samples than what you hear today.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on the genre, so that’s where we’ll end the history lesson. The point of this article is not to educate, it’s to analyze. Where did dubstep go wrong? Why did a genre that flourished creatively and commercially overseas get met with such a divided reaction in the states? America has always been really fickle with its opinion on electronic music. Remember the big beat boom in the late 90’s? (For you younger readers, let me rephrase that: There was a big beat boom in the late 90’s.) Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers were paraded about by the American mainstream media as “the next big thing”. Then, something interesting happened, Americans decided they hated electronic music, and instead found comfort in the likes of The Backstreet Boys and Nickelback (a dark, dark time). Electronic music retreated back overseas with its tail between its legs and America deemed itself too masculine to dance to four on the floor beats.
Enter dubstep, with its roots in hip hop breaks and dub samples, there was certainly nothing uncool about it. Feeling weary of another “fruity European craze” though, the genre remained firmly out of the mainstream. Since hipsters crave nothing more than shit you haven’t heard of, it naturally gained momentum over the last decade. That is, until Britney Spears got her slimy, Disney hands on it for her single “Freakshow”, from the 2007 album Blackout, a word Britney is all too familiar with (zing!). Suddenly, the mainstream had taken almost a decade’s development of a genre and whittled it down to a collection of noisy womps and tired dance floor buildups. Now America could have its cake and eat it too, reviving the I’m-glad-it’s-dead candy rave culture for a new crop of artists armed with a new sound. Modern dubstep in America plays like a big beat do-over, giving young kids a chance to enjoy lasers and fog at half the tempo. The basic machinations are the same: big swells followed by a hard bass drop, rinse and repeat. The only difference was the underlying tempo. Twisted Records artist Ott famously said in an interview “you can’t dance to trance music without looking like you’ve shit your pants” (Okay, that wasn’t a famous interview, but it should be because it’s hilarious). The point is Americans now got to enjoy all of the fruits of rave culture without having to put up with that damn four on the floor beat.
So why then, do people like myself react with such negativity? Perhaps there’s a certain hypocrisy to my cynicism, as I too was once swimming in a culture of dimly lit warehouses and questionable pills with reckless abandon. Who am I to rob the next generation of that experience? Is it the music itself that I hate? I can easily acknowledge that the song James played for me required an impressive amount of technical prowess, as does much of the production in modern dubstep. Perhaps it’s the crowds themselves that I’m reacting to, a colorful rainbow of blissful ignorance and misinformed expertise, qualities that I no doubt possessed at that age. Have I become a curmudgeonly old coot, wandering through a sea of glow sticks with a figurative shotgun, hollering at candy ravers to get off my lawn?
If this is the case, the situation reminds me of the fall of disco in the late ‘70’s. People back then weren’t reacting so much to the music, but the culture around it. Out of context, I think a lot of the music produced back then is pretty rad, but I don’t have to suffer the scene that surrounded it, so my opinion can be more objective. That’s the inherent problem with the Pitchfork generation, which tends to focus on context over content. More attention is paid to why something is made and how it relates to the scene around it than allowing the music to stand on its own. That’s actually the problem with reviewing music in general, as it is a living thing that grows and develops based on the listener’s tastes and emotions. I’m curious what dubstep will seem like in 30 years, when the scene has gone away and all that remains is the music. I’ll probably be much kinder to it, only because I’ll be quietly laughing at the fans that denounce whatever genre is currently popular and take to writing articles like this one.
What a crazy weekend that was. Zeds Dead and the Mothership tour ripped through Buffalo leaving behind cauliflower dreams with brains ripped to shreds. Brains. Brains. Zombies abound. And they’re out for more skull crackin’ Be on the ready for more to come, because Buffalo around this time of year is just plain cool. Get that Bills sweatshirt out of the closet.
Big ups to Town Ballroom, MNM, AfterDark, and Factory Nightlife, for facilitating all of that ruckus. Personally I was very happy for, and impressed by Brother Bear opening up for Zeds Dead. ZD was frickin’ sweet. They are what I love about Electronic and Dance music right now. Pushing away from DJ sets that are stylistically linear and breaking it up with their own take on genre-bending. And the Mothership/Skirllex afterparty popped off over at Pure as well. “Celebrity” ridden, the rollie kids were lapping it up. I was happy to discover that Dillon Francis is actually a good DJ, of his own tracks; stone-cold sober, I could tell. Moombahton is not dead. Yes, It is a genre. A style, a type of music. That cannot be denied. Stop hating. No one said you have to like it. Just know that some of us do.
It’s quite bizarre to reflect on the “October Storm.” It being five years ago this weekend. I can recall going to save my helpless Grandmother in a suicidal cross-town drive, through complete chaos of downed tree limbs and power-lines. She has since passed, and much has changed in the last five years. By that, I mean on the grand scale. It can frightening to think about what disasters humanity may face in the future, including in our lifetimes. I think it’s important to always be prepared, but it’s also kind off fun to blissfully ignore it. At least thats what my Grandma would have done. She just wanted to listen to Bob Marley and dance her troubles away, while still being keenly aware of everything going on in the world around her. If you're voice is loud enough to provoke change, by all means shout it out! I’ll take the simmering, slow-cooked, back-burner approach where observation and opinion is carefully crafted.
Rise up Buffalo.
thursday 10/13
+frosty tone+
LIVE EXPOSURE
10p-4a
21+
DBGB’S
253 allen st. Buffalo, NY
Frosty Tone’s weekly party at Duke’s. This week features CHARLIE THE BUTCHER with MCs SHUTEYES and DEFINITION. Along with Frosty Tone DJs BIG BASHA, TEMPERS ROUGE, E-MISSION, and DROP-D.
saturday 10/15
JUNIOR BOYS
8p-12a
$15/18+
TRALF MUSIC HALL
622 main st. Buffalo, NY
Definitely a must attend event for lovers of Electronic music in Buffalo. JUNIOR BOYS have been around for a minute, and close by too, hailing from the Hamilton/Toronto area. Got first wind of them a while ago, and have continued to support them by snatching up all of their waxes. Their soundscape reaches out on multiple ends by blending realism with ambience in an electric world. Most recently they released the EP It’s All True, which takes on a more direct theme and sounds almost like funky New-Wave. Similar to newer stuff from Cut Copy, Chromeo, or Toro y Moi. A reversion to the more stripped-down sounds of the Eighties and a little on the lighter side. Also performing will be EGYPTRIXX, who I am familiar with from his appearance on Kiss with Sinden, and after that, from his full-length release, Bible Eyes. Which I highly recommend checking out. But you can see it all live, at the Tralf, on Saturday night. Canada’s underground sounds should fill that room nicely.
Shorter than an hour’s drive away will be famous Drum and Bass act TOTAL SCIENCE appearing at Cloud 9 Campground for Ghost Notes, a Halloween Costume party and campout. Bring your gear, but no glass and you can enjoy a night out in the country with loud bass music and friends. Also on the bill is FOOT FOOT and local DJs LOKI, BASHA, STUNTMAN, BERETTA, EMJAY BIGGZ, POTENT J, THE VERDICT, BROTHER BEAR, and THE MICK.
Last time around Soundlab got packed up for DROP THE LIME and Luca’s set was plain freakish. Of course that was a DJ set. And it was all over the place. He even played Drum and Bass! This, this is Drop the Lime with a live band! So I don’t know what to expect. Well, with the exception that it will be raucous and fun as hell. Luca just knows how to step away from the table and grab people and bring them in, literally. A skill not embraced by all musicians, but one that lends itself to the party atmosphere. Even if you work on Monday morning, plan to attend. Spinning post and prior will be AREHOUSE and MARIO BEE, two of my favs in BLO.
DC and Hooks make up what is known as Zeds Dead. No, not the Bruce Willis quote from Pulp Fiction, but one of the more dominant DJ pairings in the scene today. The two started out as a hip hop duo in Toronto, but quickly got the bass fever and began making their own style of dubstep. Pulling music from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Radiohead, and Sublime they have quickly climbed up the electronic dance music ladder and are bringing their heat to Buffalo this evening. Tonights gig kicks off around 8pm with Conartist(8-9pm) getting things rolling. Also on the bill is Brotherbear(9-945pm), Big Basha(945-1030pm), and Big Chocolate(1030-1115) and Zeds Dead taking the ones and twos around 11:15. Tickets are $17 and is an all ages event. Come start the weekend early and get your Thursday dubstep fix.
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