Lowdown ina Showdown

I’m just going to come out and say it right away, Dub Step is the ultimate underground dance music.  Now that I got that out of the way, let me get down to some of my reasoning.

I attended the September 19th Lowdown ina Showdown  event at the Showdown bar in San Francisco, right next door to the legendary Tu Lan Vietnamese Restaurant.  This event is a free, monthly Dub Step dance party and BBQ that is also in collaboration with a weekly free Dub Step event across 6th St. at Anu called Ritual.   Really, how can you go wrong with two free events. (as of this writing, it is unsure whether either of these events are continuing)

So I called up some friends in the City, and we headed down to see what all the fuss is about.  The fuss is all about deep dark beats, MCs rhyming, bodies moving, and some good clean underground fun.

Ritual is the larger event, with a bigger dance floor.  It looks like there is a waiting list to get in, but what really goes on is that the club is 21+ so anyone younger than that just hangs out on the sidewalk in front, dancing, hanging, eating BBQ, even playing retro video games on some old NES consoles that are set up.  When you go in, Anu is dark, hot, and loud – just the alchemy needed to get bodies moving.  We set up camp along the side for a while, had some drinks (I had some water since I was driving) and watched the action and took in the sounds.

The one thing that you immediately notice when listening to Dubstep in a proper setting (loud dark club) is that the music is pretty stripped down, almost minimal and sort of slow.  That’s alright, because it is really the underlying bass line that serves as the meat of Dubstep.  I could go into a whole page on what makes a song Dubstep (versus, say Garage, Twostep, Jungle…) but it is better to just provide a link to the Wikipedia article on Dubstep to get you started.  I do like this opening quote attributed to the All Music description of Dubstep.

“its tense, almost oppressively dark sound was built on tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals”

Meanwhile, over at the Showdown, UFO! was getting ready for his set.  I have been a huge fan of UFO! back when I lived in SF and was part of the Jungle scene in the late 1990s.  In case you missed out on that scene, too bad, because the way that I feel currently about how Dubstep is the ultimate underground dance music, is the way I felt about the San Francisco Jungle scene back then.  I was familiar with the UK jungle that was popular, with all of its offshoots. But I was fortunate to see first hand how those building blocks were interpreted and transformed by a bunch of talented DJs and musicians, who created a very unique San Francisco Jungle sound.  Among them was UFO!  Part of the Phunckateck crew UFO! regularly filled the dancefloor wherever he played, mixing a tight combination of UK and local tracks, while keeping the beats gritty, dark, and full.  In addition to his spinning and mixing, UFO! was a character, sometimes stopping a track to yell something across the floor, then getting right back to it, without missing a beat.  Oh, those were some good times!

So I had this chance to see UFO! perform again for the first time in like 12 years.  Seeing that he is on a bill for some Dubstep, I thought that is a good change for him.  Wow, did I ever enjoy his set!  It was like a natural progression that took some 10+ years to get from the Jungle he was producing back in the late 90s to the Dubstep whatever you wanna call it that he was throwing down here in 2010.  I felt that the only thing that was wrong with things during his set was the mic hogging MC who couldn’t shut up!  There is a time for MCs to do their thing, but they don’t have to try to find a rhyme all the time (sorry).  And the lady MC who had the mic during UFO!’s set was just harshing things in a major way (and don’t get me started on the feedback from the mic).  Regardless of all that, UFO! worked his style into his mix, including his patented “stop the music to yell things across the floor” move (mostly aimed at the girl on the mic).

Driving back across the Golden Gate Bridge, through some of the thickest San Francisco fog I have ever seen with the sounds still fresh in my head, I smiled and sent cosmic thank you to UFO!