Bassnectar?

[Redpill]

Though I will admit I had never heard of dubstep before 2008, I'm not one of those "mainstreamer scene kids" everyone seems to hate. I have been a drum and bass and electronic fan for so many years I have lost count. Living in South Florida over in the USA, we don't catch wind of stuff in Europe very often. Especially something as underground as how dubstep used to be. Eventually I got turned onto Bassnectar and fell in love with his music (still years before I found Dubstep).Finally, within the last few years I found dubstep. At first, it was such a huge shift from D&B and glitch hop, I hated it, save a few singles here and there. Then Bassnectar dropped the Cozza Frenzy album, and I sort of gained my taste. Now I can't get enough of this shit. But something bothers me. Almost every "dubhead" I meet seems to despise Bassnectar. I understand that the majority of his work is not dubstep, it just incorporates elements from it (for those unfamilliar with him, his goal is to combine elements from all forms of music to produce a unique sound). However, he also has a few tracks that are DISTINCTLY dubstep:



There's nothing "mainstream" about Bassnectar. Half the electronic crowd in the US have never heard of him and that's where he's from. He has his fans and that's about it. And he sure as hell isn't doing songs with Britney Spears ::cough::what?:: So here I am, in the heart of dubstepland, probably making a fool of myself when I ask: Seriously...why the hate on Bassnectar?

[brokedjs]

Were big fans of Bassnectar,

When we used to spin/produce breaks we would always chuck in a Bassnectar track, ('Everybody' is a great example of their earlier stuff).

[apmje]

I like Bassnectar.

[jackbass]

yeah i dont think anyone is hating on bassnectar. he has his own style of dubstep that is functional in many different settings

[brokedjs]

Bust out a huge live set aswel

[wicked sway]

Hey do you work for his publisher? hehe. Bassnectar is a badman. Has cult following here in the USA.

[Olux]

First time i heard dubstep was Bassnectar at a festival. Up until then i was all for psytrance and chill. It was when he had written his 'heads up' tracks. When it started i lost my shit, had never heard anything like it.

[my name is not billy]

I'm a massive bassnectar fan, but also cause i play a lot of glitch hop out! havn't seen that much hating on him over here!

[FauxReal]

Bassnectar throws down

[Dark Reign]

Almost everyone I hang out with loves Bassnectar, Ive seen him live over 10 times and he always puts on the best live show, plus his tunes are really good. His album mesmerizing the ultra was my fave cd for over two years.

Don't know where you get the fact that hes hated from.

[Adam-Rockz]

that metallica remix is what got me into bassnectar!

his latest album 'Cozza Frenzy' and the 'Timestretch' are very very good, worth looking into!

[1017_duck]

He generally gets a lot of flack for the following reasons:

1) his bread and butter is playing nirvana/metallica remixes
2) his cult following is generally in the "smelly hippy" circle, and they are generally despicable human beings
3) he posted a rather long rant in '07 hating on dubstep, saying it's was either too "eyes down" or "aggressive and angry"

fair play to him I guess, get paper any way you can!

[Redpill]

Hey do you work for his publisher?

Me? nope. I spoke with him briefly through his youtube account a few times though. Other than being a fan, thats about my only connection

Don't know where you get the fact that hes hated from.

It might just be a local thing, then. I know a few Bassnectar fans here in Florida but its like they don't mix with our dubhead crowd that much. Granted, there are a few exceptions.

He generally gets a lot of flack for the following reasons:

1) his bread and butter is playing nirvana/metallica remixes
2) his cult following is generally in the "smelly hippy" circle, and they are generally despicable human beings
3) he posted a rather long rant in '07 hating on dubstep, saying it's was either too "eyes down" or "aggressive and angry"

fair play to him I guess, get paper any way you can!

1) Well, I have seen him three times and never heard him play Nirvanna...however, if he did I would enjoy it. Yeah I have heard two Metallica remixes, both of them were free. And he has several full length albums of original material, what's wrong with a few mixes?
2) though i'm no smelly hippy, most of his fans are. i'll give you that. lol
3) really? any way I could read this? is it on his site?

[1017_duck]

It was a myspace rant long ago, I'll look around for it when I get home. I know a kid that is militantly anti-bassnectar that has it saved to his HD somewhere

[wrecked]

He generally gets a lot of flack for the following reasons:

1) his bread and butter is playing nirvana/metallica remixes
2) his cult following is generally in the "smelly hippy" circle, and they are generally despicable human beings
3) he posted a rather long rant in '07 hating on dubstep, saying it's was either too "eyes down" or "aggressive and angry"

fair play to him I guess, get paper any way you can!

This post sums it up pretty well.

I actually like do like his music, i think he really stepped it up within the last couple years.

- g

[kizza2435]

Bassnectar is fucking rad!! He's doing really well for himself, have you seen that footage of him playing at Coachella...fucking epic!! Even if the people in here all hated him, i dont think he would care...he's tearing it up!!

[trapeez]

whats up with DUBSTEP!?
a discussion forum recently wondered what was up with all the dubstep. i found it an odd, but timely question.

i am reposting the original post, and then my response, for anyone curious on one of the many aspects of my musical interests:



ORIGINAL POST:

I saw Bassnectar at Sonic Bloom in Winter Park ,CO last month.. and I was sad to hear the set was mostly dubstep (editors note: out of 90 minutes, it was about 45 minutes). My heart sank and I waited for the next DJ to come on... after trying hard to dance but being unable to really feel any magic in it. Just boom, boom, gloomm, vrooom, boom.

I remember the same feeling when drum-and-bass started getting played in the chill rooms of rave parties, rather than ambient or trip-hop. Some people were like "wow!" and other people think it's just inferior, more urban, lower vibration music.

Yeah, I know Lorin plays all types of tunes (I've heard The Cure, Shpongle remixes, swing, hip hop) and over the years he's had wicked taste....but I definitely dig the faster, cleaner breakbeat sound much, much more than dubstep and glitch shizit. I find it easier to dance, too.

What do you think? What are your feelings on dubstep sets at the peak slot of parties?




RESPONSE FROM BASSNECTAR LABS:



hi!


im glad you brought this up

first off, i hate current dubstep. its monotonous, dreary, boring, dead, bad vibe wankoff.

O.G. dubstep was the 2 step stuff that ammunition and tempa and horsepower was pumping out years ago that had snare on the 2 and the 4 of every beat, and a super thick dripping vibe...one of those cuts is on freakbeats for beatfreaks.

when i first heard "the new" dubstep, i was like THATS NOT DUBSTEP! THATS DOOM METAL!!!! and it is...exact same tempo, exact same beat, same emphasis on slow, heavy, grinding crusher vibe

but even my deep affection for doom did not make me excited about dubstep, cuz i coudlnt stand the damn reverb overload, the uneventful meandering, the ridiculously obligatory SPOOKY vibe, the lack of musical originality, etc etc etc.

then i began finding ONE or TWO tracks that i was like... Well ill be a stuck pig in the back of a 67 dodge, this is fuckin GOOD.

and even so, i just used loops of it, and mashed it up with the buildups from played out breaks remixes (ala my Bongo Bong mashup... http://www.bassnectar.net/podcast) ((which combines Deekline's bongo mash with a nasty dubstep beat by Reso)


and then i was working on a polka remix (december 2006) and was like "well hellooooooooooooooo" to discover that the double time absurdity of bouncy polka can be applied to dubstep....140 bpm, not 70....and holy shit...all those ridiculous psy trance records i have that i can never play again with all the INCREDIBLE SICK sounds and samples and breakdowns...all that will fit right in too!!! WOW! and i started going apeshit.
making it, collecting it, hating 95% of it.


now it is a genre just like any that i am bored to tears by (electro house, glitch hop, etc) but would be a FOOOL to disregard completely because like anything, there are DIAMONDS in them there ruffs.

also how nice it is after the burnout on nubreaks to have a GENRE FOR SALE AGAIN!!!!!
any non DJ will not appreciate this, but there was a period from about 2003-2007 that i could NOT BUY RECORDS anymore because they all sucked furiously. now i can actually go online and spend 5 hours and find 3 or 4 seriously SICK tunes...and THAT IS FUN for a DJ!!!!


on to more exciting points:

taking the hard shuffle of 2step (which totally won me over in 2000, 2001...during the time of Float, Grampa Whams, Opalescent Egg, Rythm is, and the first real Bassnectar dancefloor tracks that WORKED at 130+ bpm) and hi passing the loop, putting the snare ONLY on the 3 (the MAIN snare) and either a breakbeat kick pattern or EVEN A 4-4 kick pattern, as long as the accent is on the 3,

FOLKS>>>>>> IT PRODUCES ONE OF THE MOST FUNNEST EVER DANCES KNOWN TO HUMANKIND.... an almost sideways undulation of insane bouncing, and spring-board hopping, an exultory jiggle, THE BEST HANDSWAT EVER, and a pulse that pounds with abandon and DOUBLE TIME ENERGY

so yes, 99.9% of dubstep at 70....slyt my wrists.

50% of dubstep at 140....HELL YES!!!! it BUMPUMPS!!!

i dont know if there are any copies of that Bassnectar track Art Of Revolution floating around...(i hope not, it will be out in octoboer or so) but that is what i mean....and that doesnt even have the shuffle. add that hard shuffle, and yu have some Rusko shit.

and anyone who can hear Cockney Thug (minus the lamer than lame vocal samples which i instantly removed) and not happily bounce around.... i dont know what to tell you.


next time you hear GOOD dubstep....try bouncing double time. stick your hand up high...straight arm and let it kind of lead you like a sail.
count:
"one. two. THREE!!!! four. one. two. THREE!!! four."
and if you really cannot feel it, then suspend judgement until the next time we cross paths, i will show you what i mean.



lastly, and least important, but i wanted to address: sonic bloom.
i was SO HAPPILY AND INTENTIONALLY mixing heavy amounts of dubstep.
because for once in my life i wanted to do yet another style of mixing, opposite from what i usually do these days (which is constantly bounce genres and grind the tempos like a roller coaster) and go back to how i used to mix when i spun psy trance....seamless, flowing mix of one genre.

i wanted to mix a consistent FLOW of music.
so i rocked 140 for like 45 minutes, then shifted down to 70 for one song, up to 85 and rocked it at 85 for another half hour

and i LOVED DOING IT

i had a special intention that night to do something different, and to leave dancers to their OWN devices, to fend for themselves, and get EXPERIMENTAL with dancing,....hoping people would figure out how to create DOUBLE TIME DANCE MOVES even if their ears tricked them and told them it was slow.... watch me if you are confused. was i dancing slow? no, i danced so hard that night i pulled a muscle in my back that is hurting to this day and which is causing me to need to stop typing right now

suffice it to say, if i did sonic bloom all over again i would do it EXACTLY like that. i play hundreds of sets a year (THAT IS AN EXAGGERATION, but it fucking feels like it and most of them are totally different themed, or have their own motif, or a special central point they orbit around, or a certain track that leads everything else, or is purposfully self-referencing, and much more complex than it might appear on the surface (which is one of the goals...to have the intentions be subliminal, behind the curtain) ...at this point if you have been with me for a while musically, you should just trust me. and enjoy it cuz next time around it very well may be totally different. and if yu expect it to be different, maybe it will be exactly the same, and then you will be nice and practiced. NO RULES. NO LIMITS>


suffice it to say

dubstep is here to stay. like most genres most of it is un-noteworthy, super overly masculine, uninventive, and locked into a series of ultra disapointing rules and needless limits. but SOME of it is GOOOD, and there are also good lessons that can be taken from it, and applied to other genres, so be thankful for this next step in music. as for me it is definitely by no means the most current "step" ....but that will have to be something you experience live


L

PS...in closing i would like to quote the ever witty Satsi who once said:

Dubstep is a lot like LSD: set and setting are of utmost importance, and it's not for everybody.

[Redpill]

well it makes a bit of sense now. but when it comes down to it, i'm sure many other dubstep artists would say the same thing. do you think skream or coki like datsik or borgore? do you think 16 bit listens to benga? probably not. when it comes down to it, everyone has something they don't like about dubstep. when i first got into this music i would agree with everything lorin said. these days, i'm a bit more open minded. bassnectar seems to become more and more dubstep with every release and is always evolving. maybe hes come around a bit since that post, or maybe not. wouldn't surprise me though, opinions change.