Well.. This was quite a night. I've heard alot about Studio B in Brooklyn, seems like the best club around at the moment, been looking for an opportunity to go, thankfully i was booked for this awesome event. I was actually put on the flyer and announced as playing before I was asked to play, which was weird, but just an oversite. Not sure i would have accepted this booking if I was not already on the flyer, once i found out how it was going to work out. I was part of the Regional DnB Battle, with 3 regions against each other. New England represented by Nondeskript and Operation Breakbeat, Philly represented by Madame Bliss and Senseone, and NYC represented by Eshin and myself. Right off the bat i knew it would be weird, because all the dj's play completely separate styles of music.There was a horrible sound system in the room. There was a short stage but everyone was on it as well as on the floor, dense crowd of people, lots of dancing, amazing vibes in there, some of the thickest i can remember. The problem with the battle was just that, it was a battle! I personally don't really believe in competition. To me, a club experience and a gathering of Drum and Bass heads should be about collaborating, sharing, creating, not breaking that down by competing. The New England crew brought a bunch of people into the room, most of them were very cool, dancing to whatever moved them, feeling all of the DJ's, respect to that new england crowd, BUT there were a few people from New England who actually BOO'd Eshin while he was playing, cursing at him and giving him the thumbs down. It was so offensive to me to see people treat him that way, when he is simply making the crowd move, and doing a fantastic job at it i might add. One guy even told him he was done, which Eshin interpreted to mean his time was up. Only after stopping the record did he realize that they guy was just being an asshole and he had about 4 more minutes. Just horrible vibes at that point!
A few of the Dj's played music that i just did not understand, and i dont think meshed with the sound system. I knew we were playing in the 2nd room, which almost always has shitty sound, so i planned a set of tunes that were very clean sounding, which i knew would project well from the shitty system, i was right, my tunes sounded great and the crowd was responding well. As far as technique, the guys from New England were good but did not impress me, i think because i'm just not a fan of the music, both guys were cool thu, and talented. I wanted to hear more of Madam Bliss because the first few tunes sounded great, but that room was so incredibly hot that i could not stand it, i was drenched in sweat by the time i played.
The CDJ's were not set up properly, which was quite annoying, as we had 3 minutes of silence before i played. Most people hung around thu. If i would have been given a true, 60 or 90 minutes set in this 'battle', i would have ignored the battle aspect and simply play to the crowd, but instead they gave all Dj's in the battle 15 minutes! There is not much i can do in 15 minutes... I like long sets to take the crowd up and down... This did not give me that opportunity, but i wanted to be true to my style and not try and bash them over the head for 15 minutes. So i built it up to the last record, and they were going crazy. I played 7 records in the 15 minutes i had:
1. Nu:tone and Logistics - Take Me Back
2. Random Movement, Mixmaster Doc, Focus - My Sentiments (dub)
3. The Insiders w/MC Fokus - Got To Maintain (dub)
4. Calibre - Lectro
5. High Contrast - Racing Green
6. Icicle - Lost Hours
7. Adam F - Circles
8. Spectrasoul - The Tube
I was very happy with my selection and the response each tune got, with only 7 tunes to play i had a very hard time choosing.
The judging was problematic, because instead of have it be DJ against DJ, the MC's (who for the record were quite good this night) had the final competition be region against region. That made it so that New England easily won, because they had the most people in the room. Kinda fair, i can see how that should equal a win, but they could have trainwrecked and their people still would have voted for them, not sure thats the same with the NYC supporters. The New England Dj's played lots of very old stuff, amen, ragga, breakbeat type stuff, that i assume goes over very well in New England. But in NYC, i think Eshin and I played more to the crowd, and we had much more of the crowd dancing by all accounts. They played what i would call old school night music, while Eshin and myself played mostly newer stuff and a few classics from the last few years. No disrespect to the other style, its just apples and oranges to compare.
I did have fun playing my 15 minute set, but it sure was frustrating. Like i said, apples and oranges really. So many different styles of music by all the Dj's in the battle how can you compare them? And with the location bias and negativity it brought, it made the 'battle' aspect unenjoyable. Nevertheless, I did have fun Djing. Nice way to spend July 4th, surrounded by friends and DnB enthusiasts.
