bassnectar's blog on his myspace wrote:
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.
