It’s been a struggle getting this column off the ground. I’ve been hanging in underground clubs for almost nine full years and have seemingly a lifetime of DJ culture and partying to shoot my mouth off about. Over that amount of time I’ve accumulated an abundance of in my opinion’s, making brainstorming for v.1 super confusing.

However, Alex’s stellar debut of Holologic was motivation enough to just get started and see what flows out of this annoyingly overactive brain of mine. I’ve broken the process’ success down to bottling up a little of the passion (aka obsession) so that I don’t come off sounding too bitter and / or pretentious.

Because being misunderstood is always what I’ve been afraid of when posting reviews or making any type of critical comment on the web. I honestly love the scene more than most other aspects of my life; nevertheless, the club industry has become an incredible nuisance in so many ways. So much so that when I get on about my experiences, I too often find myself speaking in a very unbecoming tone. I definitely don’t want negativity to be the basis of my conversations and most certainly not this website.

But on the other hand, for the sake of my sanity and the longevity of my involvement in the underground scene, it’s imperative I let out some of this pent up frustration. I figure there’s no better place than the space we pay for to go off about all the shady and just plain ignorant moves I see taking place in the club world. For way too long I’ve watched the powers that be do very little to nurture the credibility of dance music.

It’s all the nagging behind the scenes bullshit that fuels this criticism. I guess to some extent it’s the disappointment we feel for the current state of the club scene that has us still working so crazily on the entire bringthebeats project. Because trust me, we’d all much rather be the crew that just shows up on the dance floor each week, drink in hand, smile on face, stress left at the door… oh man I miss those early Breathe days.

But the unfortunate truth is that the widespread perception of our culture is most certainly not underground. And its the businesses at the top of the scene who are th most to blame. Who would have ever thought bottle service and house music would be found under the same roof? That dudes with less CDJ skill than my girlfriend would be headlining festivals with their farting basslines and cheese ball electro? What happened to tight mixing? Fluid programming? Proper journeys on the dance floor? To club promoters who are actually into the music?

Our motivation to create something special on the web and in the clubs stems from the mainstream’s warped impression of what true EDM lovers do. However we’re CONVINCED the magic isn’t lost forever, and we know this scene can appeal to the mainstream without becoming commercial. We download two to three sets each week that blow our mind. If the clubbing corps would just give the new breed a chance again, the fresh talent on the peripheral of the industry would drive dance floors absolutely crazy. It would be a true house.music.re-evolution.

Instead, almost all the gigs continue to go to the legends. The ones that simply work through the motions to collect their fee. Promoters have stopped making it about the music and have concentrated soley on who can get the most people through the doors and into a drunk immediately. The same circuit of DJs dominate our clubs and it kills me. If I wanted to hear the same music over and over again, I’d listen to rock and roll.

So if you continue to read this column, think of it as constructive hostility. It’s my way of telling it like it is, under the pretence that it’s absolutely, 100% my opinion and nobody else’s (some days it seems that way). But if you do happen to agree with what I write here, please come to our parties.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Views, What's Going Down. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.