Guest Writer: Darcy Johnson
“Hey man I love Dubstep!”
“Oh yeah, who are you listening to?”
“Excision, Skrillex, hey have you heard sweet shop? Such a tune!”
Let’s stop right there.
Rewind 3 years, when I was first introduced to Dubstep through the Fabric.37 mix by heavyweights Caspa and Rusko.
This was a simpler time, a time when a 140bpm or 70bmp for the halftime tunes, and a wobble bass pretty much personified the genre.
Freshly evolved from the realms of Drum and Bass and Garage, experimental producers were playing around with a sound that was gaining momentum in the UK, yet was virtually unheard of in Australia.
A Youtube search would return 100 or so results from the keyword Dubstep, and most videos had less than ten thousand views.
Putting it on at a party would clear a room, and I even remember having an argument with someone about the fact that Dubstep was not a dance move, but a musical genre that she would soon be very aware of.
Just last month I missed out on a potentially awesome gig, when Digital Mystikz (Mala & Coki) played at Brown Alley for “City of Lost Children”.
Why did I miss this gig you may ask?
Because Dubstep is the new craze, and the event sold out!
Every hipster and his Fixie is all over it like shit on Velcro.
If you asked half the punters there that night to name one track produced by Digital Mystiks, or either of the pair individually, you would most likely have drawn blank stares.
I am of course, what you may already have guessed, one of the elitist pricks who talks like he knows everything about the genre.
Now just because I was there when these gigs had 50 people in a shitty bar in Fitzroy, before they were selling 1000+ tickets for shows like this, doesn’t mean I am some sort of guru on the subject. But what it does entitle me to, is a decent opinion on the state of the genre, and it’s subsequent followers of late.
And frankly, it’s fucked.
Unfortunately due to the way the world works, talent is not everything.
A good PR team, or fame of a certain variety, will always trump the genius in his bedroom. Or even in this case, a massive producer in his or her own country, who has massive respect amongst the devoted followers, doesn’t get a gig, because your average sock dodging, jeans rolling, non prescription glasses wearing, ticket purchasing, asshole doesn’t know who you are.
Being from all four sides of the equation (producer, DJ, promoter and punter) I see and hear a lot of music.
I search out new artists almost every day.
And sadly most of them you will never see unless you go to the UK.
Why?
Because your average person has a one sided view of Dubstep at the moment, a sound pushed by the likes of Borgore, Doctor P, Skrillex and co. which represents a sensibility of trying to out do each other in the cringe factor.
And I don’t mean cringe factor as in how bad it is, I mean in terms of how bad it sounds, each trying to have a dirtier or filthier sound than the next.
Disregarding any notion of musical ability in the process, until we end up with a catalogue of interchangeable nonsense, that more represents the sound of Transformers fucking in a swamp than music. (With a snare on the third for good measure)
If you want to hear real Dubstep, pull your head out of the gutter and look for some real talent, because there is heaps out there.
And if not, Dubstep will go the way of Drum and Bass and turn into an oversaturated genre with more jokes than talent.
Guest Writer: Darcy Johnson
