Breakspoll 2010

Last Thursday was Breakspoll, the annual breakbeat awards held at Fabric.

In 2009 I won the award for Best Small Club, which was totally mega exciting. Except when I later saw a video clip of it, I realised my outfit – which included turquoise tights – combined with an air punch at the end, made me look like Supergirl. So this year I invested in a full-length mirror and wore clothes that didn’t resemble a fancy-dress costume. It was a good start to a jolly fun night.

But poor breakbeat. It’s suffered so much in recent years. Despite always attracting a great, friendly crowd and possessing some really talented DJs, the scene has almost ground to a halt. The music that’s released now is uninspired and certainly not groundbreaking. The DJs can’t help but drop a range of genres in their sets because breaks on its own just doesn’t do the do. And flagship breakbeat nights such as Chew The Fat have now altered their music policies in order to stay afloat.

Since the beginning, breakbeat has suffered an identity crisis. The scene was afraid to boldly state what it was. About ten years ago I called up Rennie Pilgrem, the daddy of breakbeat and the man who coined the term ‘nu skool breaks’. I wanted his advice on how to label the genre in press releases. He told me not to pigeon-hole myself, to keep it broad. And this, I think, is breakbeat’s biggest problem: everyone listens to it, everyone likes it, but ask most of them what they’re listening to and they won’t have a clue. Now compare this to drum n bass. EVERYONE knows when the DJ has dropped a drum n bass track.

The breakbeat slide was visible at last week’s awards. In previous years, tickets sold out well in advance. The queues to get into Fabric were an hour long, even for guestlist. And the club was rammed. This year, we walked straight in, were able to pick up tickets on the door, and there was so much space on the dancefloor I even did the airplane.

Dance music legends and super-nice guys Shut Up and Dance therefore had a tough job getting the dancefloor going for their 10.45 set. But their trademark jump-up styles did the trick, and room one was finally stompin’ – tellingly, however, the track to kick things off was a dubstep one.

The awards ceremony came afterwards (click here for the full results downlow). The usual array of breakbeat royalty bagged prizes: Krafty Kuts (rightly) won Best DJ, Stanton Warriors and Plump DJs took Best Remix and Annie Nightingale – Radio One stalwart and the only person in the world to rival Bono for wearing sunglasses – won Best Radio Show... again.

Mother-of-all-labels Finger Lickin’ – responsible for bringing artists like the Plump DJs to fame – was noticeably empty-handed this year, though its head honcho Soul of Man didn’t seem bothered, telling me he was happy to see other names coming through.

Production duo NAPT took home a bunch of prizes, as they do every year. Bumping into Ashley at the bar, I was at last able to solve the biggest conundrum in breakbeat: they’re called N.A.P.T, not Napt. ‘Hence the capital letters. It’s an acronym,’ he added. Glad we’ve got that sorted, then.

BSD won best breakthrough producer and played a live set in the main room at 4.15. The music wasn’t particularly trailblazing and neither were the pair’s freaky Dr Who-style masks (pictured above). Don’t they realise Breakfastaz were doing the masked thing years ago?

Most deserved win of the night was former Kiss DJ Jay Cunning for Outstanding Contribution to Breakbeat. As I’ve blogged before, the man is a legend who has earned this award ten times over.

Shut Up and Dance, Future Funk Squad and Swifty B b2b DJ Lock-up (in room three) were highlight sets of the night. Admittedly I did miss Ctrl Z and Krafty Kuts b2b A-Skills, which I’m sure would have been brilliant. But overall, I wasn’t blown away by the majority of DJ sets. Here’s hoping breakbeat comes out of its recession and makes some headway in time for next year’s awards.

Noisia 'Machine Gun': not a naked woman in sight

There are lots of dance music videos out there that I find lazy and, in extreme cases, offensive. The artists that commission them think it's cool just to have semi-naked girls wiggling about to flacid beats, often in stupid sunglasses or holding riculous props (stop sniggering at the back, please).

By my calculations, I've been clubbing over 600 times in the last decade - and not once have I done it in a bikini. So why the need to portray this image of women as sex objects?

It's therefore refreshing to come across this video for 'Machine Gun', the next release by Dutch drum 'n' bass trio Noisia. It's the first release off their debut album 'Split The Atom', which comes out on 5 April.

Directed by Superelectric, it's a world away from Ministry of Sound-style glitz and cheesy glamour, instead basing itself loosely on the story of Frankenstein with a healthy dose of destruction, war and gore thrown in.

It's a clever, inventive music video and the graphics are brilliant. Just don't watch it if you're on anything!



Big high five to DJ Tom Central for sharing this with me.

FWD returns to Plastic People

FWD, the club night that launched a thousand dubstep careers, has returned to Plastic People in Shoreditch.

This groundbreaking party, which championed dubstep, grime, funky 'and everything in-between' from their early days, is now a big player in the club circuit, with residencies at Matter and Bloc Weekend.

Plastic People is a funny old venue, but one which I adore. Down a flight of stairs, this tiny 200(ish)-capacity club has skanky toilets, no air conditioning and a booming dancefloor that's utterly pitch black and dripping from the ceilings. But it has a great mix of people, good security, cheap drinks and an awesome lineup of DJs.

I loved heading down there for a Sunday-night FWD rinse-out, but the event tailed off over the Christmas period. It's now back in its original Thursday-night slot, with the first party on 4 March featuring N-Type, Youngsta and Zinc.

The promoters say: 'The change to Thursdays brings back memories of how amazing original FWD Thursdays were, before dubstep and Shoreditch itself had crossed over, as well as a chance to make fresh, new memories.'

For more details, click here.

SeOne club shuts down

Last Saturday Raindance, a club night that's almost as old as me, celebrated its Slightly Late Valentine's Ball at SeOne club in London Bridge.

I'm gutted I didn't make it, because yesterday it was announced that the venue, sited right next to London Bridge station, has shut down.

SeOne was the capital's biggest club, playing host to nights as varied as DJ Mag's Top 100 awards ceremony, fetish shindig Torture Garden, accessory heaven Hat Club and ravers' favourite Raindance. 

SeOne boss Marcus left this message on the club's site:
'It is with great sadness that I must inform you that SeOne London ceased trading on Monday afternoon, 22 February 2010.

After eight long, hard and exciting years, SeOne London has fallen victim to the recession and hard times felt in nightclubs all over the UK.

I would like to thank all the promoters, DJs, clubbers, staff, suppliers and anyone who has worked and partied in these now legendary railway arches.'

I've partied countless times at SeOne and I'm sad to see it go. It had a grimey, ravey edge that rival large-scale venues such as Matter and Ministry failed to - or rather, refused to - imitate. And SeOne has had its fair share of tough times in the past, most notably the murder of a 24-year-old man at a rave in the venue in 2008. 

Throughout the last 12 months there were rumours that SeOne would fall prey to a compulsory purchase order related to the rail expansion that threatened Borough Market and neighbouring arts den Shunt. However it would seem from the club's statement that in the end, plain old economics ushered in the grim reaper.

We need to talk about Wiley

I'm dedicating this extended blog post to east London grime artist Wiley. Not because I think he's great, but because I think he's, well, a bit weird.

Every interview I come across, he rants about another artist. He's well known for hating Lethal Bizzle. But who else is on his target list?

EXHIBIT A: an interview he did with Time Out magazine last year. He says: 'You know what, yeah? People think I'm mad. I understand why, but I'm not mad. I am actually quite sane... I'm tired of all the talking. I just want to make music.'

He then has a dig at Dizzee Rascal (nothing new there, then. But I'm definitely with Team Dizzee on this one - having known him for three years I can safely say he's a very nice chap indeed.) Wiley also throws in a dig at pop cutie Tinchy Stryder, bizarrely proclaiming: 'I am Tinchy Stryder. I literally am him.' Right.

EXHIBIT B: this hilarious video with my new buddy Nabil Abdul Rashid, a stand-up comedian who interviewed Willy, I mean Wiley, for his comedy sketch programme, The Sho Sho Show, on urban music broadcaster Channel AKA. Doesn't seem like Wiley's 'tired of all the talking' here, huh?



(If anyone can explain why he says his new name is Joe 91, please do. Frankly, I'm baffled.)

EXHIBIT C: Wiley vs J Weezy - an MC battle outside Iceland, no less. J Weezy clearly has some sort of hyperactive ADHD thing going on, and Wiley takes this opportunity to show off his amazing MCing skills. Sorry - did I say amazing? I meant turd.



EXHIBIT D: Wiley's track 'Never Be Your Woman' (the Herve mix is out at the end of the month.) It's a remix of the 1997 White Town original, and it's utter gash. It follows the Wiley formula of bragging about himself, his cars, etc etc. But why he's picked this vocal is beyond me - why can't Wiley ever be my woman? Gravity Skanker thinks the lady doth protest too much.

I'll end this piece with a fantastic retort by grime hotshot Skepta. Yes, you guessed it - he's been on the receiving end of Wiley's potty mouth, too. This is what Skepta, a north Londoner like myself, has to say in return:

Run DMC: It's Like That

Something to get you going for your Friday night, kids....



I'd love to be at Sin City at Plan B this evening (David Rodigan, N-Type and co - the lineup is sick), but instead I'm off to relive the good old Leeds days with Iration Steppas at University of Dub, in the infamous and, ahem, classy La Scala.

Having watched the moves on this video I now have much more ammunition in my skanking gun. Bring on the weekend...

DJ Zinc and Ms Dynamite: 'Wile Out'

Must say I'm loving this new tune by DJ Zinc and Ms Dynamite, 'Wile Out'.

UK garage artist Ms Dynamite has been re-emerging in the dance scene over the last year, making lots of live appearances at clubs and events following a two-year hiatus from music.

Similarly DJ Zinc, producer of 1995 anthem 'Super Sharp Shooter', has been reinventing himself recently as the father of crack house (I promise I'll do a blog post soon explaining what that is!).

They've got together to produce this skankin' track, which was released this week. I'm interested to see how well it does in the charts.  

The journey to 'Let Me Be Your Fantasy'

Music website and online store Drum&Bass Arena has just released the Little Dragon back catalogue.

The label is owned by Floyd Dyce, the man behind Baby D and their 90s seminal dance music hits 'Let Me Be Your Fantasy' and 'I Need Your Loving'.

I met Floyd a few years ago and he's a really sweet, nice guy. Everyone from my generation loves these tracks and he should be proud of producing them, but I know it's been a long and dark battle for Floyd to have them finally recognised as his own. It's a hard lesson in the value of a good contract.

D&BTV has produced a short film looking back at his work in relation to the early years of acid house and hardcore. Check it out here:
Floyd Dyce on D&BTV

Fabric members lose CDs

London mega-club Fabric has just announced that its FabricFirst members will no longer receive a monthly CD.

Instead of getting those sexy tin-clad musical beasts in the post, they will be emailed a link to download a digital version, starting from the club's 101st release (which is by DJ T).

If members still want a physical copy, they can email the club to receive a basic burned version - boo.

The club's label, Fabric Records, will still sell the proper CDs through regular shops - yay.

Sasha and John Digweed: thirsty work

I've just got my hands on a copy of Sasha and John Digweed's DJ rider. It's the document that sets out the conditions of their tour bookings.

So promoters, listen up. If you've booked the trance/prog house duo to play at your club, this is what you have to arrange for them:

3 bottles of Grey Goose Vodka
1 bottle of good quality champagne
2 cartons of cranberry juice plus additional mixers
1 carton of orange juice
Assorted cans of coke, tonic, club soda
24 cans of Red Bull energy drink
24 bottles of still cooled mineral water
24 bottles of good quality imported beer (Heineken, etc)

They also want two 20lb bags of fresh, clean ice. In addition to a restaurant-quality meal, they request a 'pre-arranged snack. Healthy options besides pizza, please, where possible'.

Cool. Anything else?

Yes, actually. For larger events, they want up to 100 tickets. For free. The tour crew would also like 'a well-groomed, courteous and sober driver with a valid driver’s license, driving a newly-cleaned, late-model vehicle that holds at least 8 passengers.' Okey doke.

And how would they like the dressing room? With 'freshly vacuumed carpeted or rug-covered floors.' Check. 'DIMMABLE incandescent lights (NO fluorescent lights).' Um, OK.

Don't forget to throw in twelve newly-washed large bath towels, twelve newly-washed hand towels, eight newly-washed face cloths and three new, wrapped bars of Ivory soap. And 'NO BAR TOWELS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' (their punctuation).

Oh, but wait. Please arrange for a box of Kleenex and to have one package of 'Nag Champa incense + hippy stuff: patouli oil, candles' left in the production office.

I'm left wondering what they get up to backstage...

Dreadzone album release

The incredible Dreadzone have just announced the release date for their next album.

The breaksy reggae band, one of the late John Peel's all-time favourites, are dropping 'Eye on the Horizon' on 26 April. You'll even get a signed copy if you pre-order from www.recordstore.co.uk - wowsers.

Dreadzone have been around for yonks and are an absolutely wicked live band, so catch them if you can. They do the festival circuit every year and are also celebrating the album launch with a DJ tour headed up by bandmeister Greg Dread. For info go to www.dreadzone.com.

Check out this clip of a performance of the classic 'Return of the Dread'. That's MC Spee throwing shapes at the front.