A week from now, on September 17, we'll be picking up Skream from the airport and bringing him to Champaign to perform at The Highdive for only $5. That whole idea still seems somewhat surreal to all of us here, but surreal isn't stopping us from being completely excited to welcome this dubstep legend to Illinois for his first performance in the state. Big ups to Red Bull Music Academy and the Pygmalion Music Festival for making this possible.
Just in case you haven't seen a flyer or read our initial writeup about the show, here are the down and dirty details: Geist, Belly and Mertz will be opening up and have the always hype support on the microphones from Harsh and Agent Mos.
Highdive is 19+ to enter and doors for Skream will start around 8:30/9:00.
Tickets are actually $7 at the door the night of the show, so you'll want to snag $5 presale tickets either at Exile On Main St. in downtown Champaign, or online from the Highdive's online ordering page. There's a good chance we're going to be at capacity, even at Highdive, so make sure you snag tickets NOW.
Whats good people, SKREAM tix go on sale this weekend, and we happen to have some to sell!
HERES THE THING!!
We are totally 100% appreciative of our fans help! So we have a lil something special set up for you folks! If you come through and buy 5 tickets, you receive an invite to a special Skream Pre-Party at The Highdive. So those of you who want to come out a lil early, get your drink on, and get the party started right, and possibly rub elbows with some Dubstep elite, get your friends together, sell some tickets, and your in! And yes for every 5 tickets you get an invite, so you know 10 people who want to go? Get at us and you get 2 invites to the preparty! These tickets are CHEAP too! 5 bucks for THE leading name in DUBSTEP?? All made possible by you guys!! All of the Massacre DJs will be holding down tickets, or comment on this post for a way to get ahold of us! We'll be putting the list together starting this weekend so nows the time!
WE WILL HAVE TICKETS TO SELL AT DUBSTEP MASSACRE 7 if you can't find us before then!
As most of you know our shows hit capacity everytime anyway, but as this is a part of Pygmalion Music Festival, and having freaking SKREAM on the line up, you KNOW this is going to be packed, you WILL need to get your tickets ahead of time!
Heres some video of Skream spinnin a set in France, just so you know what your getting yourselves into!
See you guys next weekend at Dubstep Massacre 7!!!
If we haven't made it clear enough let me make it crystal clear:
DZ IS COMING TO DUBSTEP MASSACRE 7!!!!
It's going down at Cowboy Monkey on August 28, which is the first Friday that the University of Illinois is back in session. In other words, GET THERE EARLY because we're going to have the biggest party in town that week! Cover is $5 before midnight, $2 after.
Have no fear though, we're giving away FIVE FREE ADMISSIONS that we'll be drawing randomly from the list of people that are on the confirmed list on the Dubstep Massacre 7 Facebook Event.
AND we're bringing in the biggest and best sound system in town, so if you thought past Massacres have had a lot of bass, you have no idea what bass is!
Peep the web flyer, spread the word, and get to Cowboy Monkey EARLY on Friday the 28th, cause we are going to be packed and rocking ALL NIGHT!
As you read in the past few posts DZ is coming into town to rock our collective socks off. We caught up with the Badman himself and asked him a few questions concerning what hes up to, where he came from and the like. Some good reading here, check it out ya'll!
World On Fire: First off what's the story about how you got started as a DJ/Producer?
DZ: Not much of a story i guess, i was born with it in me somehow, i remember losing my shit when hip hop found me, and the break became my heartbeat. add some rave and hip hop's re-invention of sorts post 1993 and the rest is history, or so far at least...
WOF: Can you remember the first dubstep song you ever heard, or first time you ever heard a DJ spin dubstep? What was your initial reaction?
DZ: First tune was 'lightning' by Skream that a friend brought me back from England, and a tape of the "Dubstep Warz". I dug the production but couldn't get into it at first until I listened to the Dubstep Warz show a few times.
WOF: How is producing and spinning dubstep different than being part of the drum n bass scene?
DZ: The only part I had in Ottawa's DnB scene was the fact all my boyz spun it and the foundation of "Badman Press" is breakbeats in general, from breakbeat/hardcore to acid & bigbeat thru to nuskool breaks and jungle/dnb. Ottawa is a house city so it was always breaks & jungle/dnb that would get put together in the side rooms, so it was only natural that we repped each other's genres up as the underdog material. As a producer I am a breaks fanatic, from growing up (like many) on NYC hip hop, so I built DnB not so much to get tunes signed, but to understand the different ways of using the same break. Spinning it was fun, but the bar was so high to begin with skill wise we started to adopt the 90 second rule when mixing, which meant as soon as the needle touched the wax, dude has 90 seconds till he's done. That was ok, but was it fun? Not half as fun as playing a dubstep set with so much diversity within itself as a blanket term to keep even an hour set fresh and driving.
WOF: What has been the best party you've played at so far, and what event or city surprised you the most as a DJ?
DZ: Best party bar none was NYE 2008/09 at 1015 Folsom in San Francisco. Diplo & Jesse Rose were the main headliners and the dubstep room consisted of rastatronics, the spit brothers, antiserum, plastician, mrk1, kromestar & myself until 4am, then I went down to the main room and played to a packed place for another hour while mrk1 & kromestar just vibed. dubstep and sublow owned that night, very special indeed!
WOF: Hip hop samples seem to run through some of your tunes (obvious ones like Oooh or Regulate or less obvious like the Steinski sample on "Wildstyle"). And we know you got started out spinning old school hip hop, electro, breaks and hardcore. In terms of where you find sample inspiration, do you mainly rely on the classics that you know, or are you are trying to keep up with newer songs to nick things from? What qualities does a sample have to possess for you to use it in a song?
DZ: Man, there are sooooooo many classic samples that have their firm place in our culture, it's nuts... for me, it just kinda fits if it fits, I build a lot of tunes that the process is like a piggyback, or call & answer session, where the sounds play off of each other. I think it's just in my nature to keep using hip hop and funk samples because I know them, they reverberate with me as memories and feelings - always back to when I first heard it used and went 'damn, that was fucking witty!'. it's not quite an OJ thing, but if it fits, it fits.
WOF: What are you listening to when you're at home?
DZ: samples, synths, old accapellas, funk, the voice in my head that keeps asking me why I don't have a beer in my hand, lately I haven't been listening to much unless I am working on it, spare dubs from the lads when I get my head out of my arse and need to assemble the weapons for shows.
WOF: How has being a father influenced your music?
DZ: 100% or more directly, in drive and determination. I don't have the relationship with my daughter that I had hoped for, but to hear that she is proud of her father has really helped me get through some tough times and stay focused on what I am trying to achieve with my music.
WOF: Where do you get your inspiration to make such ridiculously heavy tunes?
DZ: The desire to hear something I have not heard before I guess, we used to get treated to ridiculously big breakdowns and drops in breaks in the 90's and they were fun. I see that and feel that in dubstep as well, so when I build a chune and hear it out, my headspace is in the crowd vibin onit. A bunch of my tunes aren't procuced as crisp and meticulous as most in dubstep, but I'm not a fan of constantly re-visiting a tune and fiddling with the idea that spewed out in the first place. I like raw shit that bumps, it's what drew me into the scene in the first place, that 'dub' aesthetic, pure vibesssssssss....
WOF: Conversely, tell us about the Bobby Caldwell track... what has it done for your producing and DJing career in terms of opening doors? And how does someone making heavy tunes in a heavy genre end up listening to that original song and think "I should make a dubstep version" ?
DZ: I like this story... I had a studio session that lasted a couple days and was on fire, and wanted to do something different while I had the spark going. My girlfriend's birthday was coming up and she had just recently sent me an mp3 of her fav tune ever, "What You Won't Do For Love". I thought it would be a cool lil project to try and about 6 hours later that track was done. I couldn't hold it back and sent it to her, she loved it, and I said "wouldn't it be cool if it came out some day?". Sent it to a few lads, including Starkey, and it just started blowing up hard. Starkbot asked if i'd be interested in putting it out on Slit Jockey and the rest of that is blogfare history. Opening doors-wise, I am not sure. I'm not a blog junkie by any means and try not to hear what 'they' say when it comes to hype, but when I started doing a lil googlin' trying to get reference points for my last bio, I noticed it did some major damage across the globe in the dances. I still think that my JOTS remix was the one that probably got me a bigger look. Who knows, cause I sure don't, and it's better that way I reckon.
WOF: You've also done dubstep remixes of Pink Floyd, Crookers and Major Lazer... is there any genre or artist that you keep off limits in terms of remixing? What artists (dubstep or not-dubstep) would you like to work with or remix that you haven't gotten the chance to yet?
DZ: There are so many, I have a wishlist for my real artist LP, but we'll see. I just always love working with different situations whenever possible, steady learning. I'll admit the Major Lazer remix was calculated, I did it to get Diplo's attention by giving it out and not posting it on the Mad Decent blog - I think just to see if I could get him to holler for it. I'm not trying to mimick styles sounds or techniques necessarily, I just don't want to do what I did yesterday.
WOF: We know you've got some nasty tracks hidden away. What's the word on new releases coming up?
DZ: In the last month Badman Press 002 (vinyl) has come out and is selling out like mad (AWOL/Crack), I have a dubwise release out on DubsAlive, a track out with Excision on EX7 (Ying & Yang), a track out on Rottun (Oooh) & my "Coast II Coast" EP just came out this week on my Badman Digital Media label. Coming up you can expect my 13 track digi LP to drop (DZ - The Proliferation Sequence - BDM004), my 10 (or 11) track house LP after that (DZ - The Flophouse - BDM005) and SamXL & I just signed off 2 tracks to Contagious Records, so keep an eye out for that as well. Oh snaps, and the Crookers ft. Wiley & TJ "Business Man" remix on Southern Fried any day...
WOF: Please finish this thought: In ten years, dubstep will be......
New release from DZ on his record label Badman Digital. Looks like these tracks are exclusive to Beatport, so preview them below, and snatch them up! They're killer!
Oh, and in case you've forgotten, DZ is coming to town August 28th to play for Dubstep Massacre 7!!! It's going down at Cowboy Monkey, and it features resident dubsteppers Mobius, Lincoln & Substr8 as openers. Be on the lookout for a facebook event, it will be up shortly.
Take a look at that guy right there. We're very excited to announce that he's going to be coming to Champaign to play some tunes on Thursday, September 17th. Why are we excited? Because that seemingly unassuming guy does things like this:
"That guy" just happens to be Skream, and he is one of the rare musicians out there that you can say, without exaggeration, is responsible for an entire genre sounding the way it does now. To be very blunt, the sounds of dubstep that we all know and love would not exist in their current form if it were not for this 23-year-old from South London. (And yes, the fact that he's only 23 amazes and frustrates all of us as well)
Anyhow, Skream will perform on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17th at the Highdive in Champaign as part of the Pygmalion Music Festival. It will be his FIRST US Festival appearance and his FIRST appearance in the Midwest.
Dubstep Massacre DJs Belly, Geist and Mertz will all provide opening support, and we know our fans will be out in full strength to see this dubstep legend.
Now for anyone that has even a passing knowledge of dubstep, Skream is a household name. But for those of you that are new to the genre, we're going to do our best to do some educating on this blog between now and the show.
We could start with his wikipedia entry, which does a nice job of providing an overview of his career. Just know that if there is a major European festival, he's played it. He's played every major dubstep night on the planet. He's criss-crossed the globe, and he released one of the biggest tunes in the history of the genre, "Midnight Request Line."
Skream's productions are of the highest caliber, and have provided some of the most epic moments in dubstep's relatively short history. Between now and the September 17th show, all of us blogging at The World On Fire will posting up favorite Skream tunes. But here's a few to get things going:
LaRoux - Going In For The Kill (Skream Remix) Possibly the biggest crossover remix to date for Skream. It's a major hit in Europe, a top seller in record shops, and hopefully it'll soon be picked up by a certain Champaign radio station (hint, hint). And for all you interwebtweeter types, the YouTube video has well over 2 million plays:
Skream - Midnight Request Line The tune that changed the face of dubstep forever. Grime artists like Wiley were still down with the new more melodic sound and the change in the hook, and even techno artists like Ricardo Villalobos were mixing it into their sets.
The Klaxons - Not Over (Skream Remix) Like I said earlier, all of us will be posting up some of our favorite Skream tunes between now and the September 17th show. For me (Mertz) this Skream remix of the Klaxons remains one of my all-time favorite dubstep moments.
We'll have more for you soon and we will see you all THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17th at THE HIGHDIVE in CHAMPAIGN for SKREAM!!!
A week from now, on September 17, we'll be picking up Skream from the airport and bringing him to Champaign to perform at The Highdive for only $5. That whole idea still seems somewhat surreal to all of us here, but surreal isn't stopping us from being completely excited to welcome this dubstep legend to Illinois for his first performance in the state. Big ups to Red Bull Music Academy and the Pygmalion Music Festival for making this possible.
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