Mostly I hear that the DJ’s are dead and that their art died with them. If you believe this, I don’t blame you. I won’t say you’re wrong, either. As a twenty-one year old college student, my existence is irrevocably entangled with the “EDM generation”, festival culture, and Steve Aoki*. I wasn’t around for the classic nights featuring club residents instead of touring headliners. I was learning how to read when vinyl records and turntablism were replaced by digital media; my last physical CD purchase was probably a Fall Out Boy album. Usually I hear that I have absolutely no idea, and I never will. It’s too late. The moment is over. Sometimes I think I missed out. I did miss out on some things. But after last weekend’s trip to Los Angeles for Mass’s bassweight battle event, I suspect that some of that bitterness is misguided.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t go to Los Angeles for Joe Nice and 6Blocc. Don’t get me wrong: the battle between these American legends was easily the most impressive, energetic, entertaining display of live mixing I’ve ever witnessed. As a member of the sync-button culture I’ve certainly never seen anything like it, at least not in person. And by no means am I qualified to offer any kind of objective review on the performance. It was ridiculous; it was worth traveling halfway across the country for. But really, I traveled halfway across the country for the opening battle between Mass’s Homage and Sub.mission’s own selector Subliminal.
Like so many of us damn kids these days I took a wrong turn on the way to the EDM MAINSTAGE and stumbled upon dubstep. Maybe it feels like centuries but it wasn’t so long ago that I wandered upon a set by Subliminal nearly by coincidence, like following some call that I didn’t even realize I heard. I liked how the wind from the sub danced static in my hair, how my bones rattled with sounds I couldn’t even hear (only feel in my chest and my feet). I liked how the kids lined up against the stage swayed in lively, conscious unison instead of bouncing in disconnected desperation. Soon I was moving with them. I didn’t even know what the hell that was emanating from the subwoofers during Subliminal’s set. Dubstep? Are you sure? But this doesn’t sound like... I didn’t have a vocabulary for it at the time. I only knew that I was home. Once I caught a whiff of the bass I had no choice but to follow it, like a zombie stalking after human flesh. And that’s how I found myself in Los Angeles last weekend for Mass’s historic event, stapled to the speakers alongside fellow sub. soldiers, maybe not ready for Subliminal and Homage and 6Blocc and Joe Nice to blow us away.
The room went dark when Subliminal took the stage to begin the battle – pitch dark, so dark he had to pull out a lighter in order to see the buttons. And when he effectively proved the existence of a special selector sense by kicking off the first round with what I personally believe to be the quintessential battle track – “Shutdown” by Suspicious Stench & Flowdan – the crowd of 300 went wild. Not much can stand up against the epic Gangsta Boo shoutout that announced Subliminal’s presence in round two (“Sub.mission we in this bitch!”), but Homage won my heart shortly after with my new favorite tune, "And Again" – Wiley & God’s Gift. The night was officially in full swing.
Until last weekend, the farthest I’d ever traveled for an event was the distance between my apartment and Denver. But they say that art is meant to move people, and I was compelled to make a move. For the DJ, the saying isn’t a metaphor, either. As party conductors, they make art of the dance floor – the music is only their medium. A great DJ guides his crowd to a place he creates especially for them in such a way that each conscious on the dance floor might truly believe that they discovered it themselves. If there were ever a doubt, Subliminal and Homage relentlessly proved themselves great DJ’s on Saturday night. The set was a battle only in name and intensity: the DJ’s played off the crowd and one another in a display of back-to-back selector showmanship that can only be described as poetic. The art of the opening DJ is a delicate one; Subliminal showed his mastery of the subtle craft with an awesome grace. During each turn he heated the crowd to a rapid boil, then right as we bubbled he handed off the headphones to Homage to do his thing. I didn’t bother with a poker face when Homage was on the decks, not like I could if I tried. If there were a way to keep score the tallies would show that each man had met his match. When the set came (too soon) to a conclusion I threw my arms in the air triumphantly, confident that the winner was, in fact, myself. The rest of the crowd arrived at the same conclusion following the epic showdown between 6Blocc and Joe Nice, who played the dance floor like a dubplate-powered fiddle. The night was far more than just a show, or a DJ battle: it was a full-blown family party.
I could go on forever about all the reasons why I love dubstep, but the weekend in LA sums it up pretty concisely. What I experienced last weekend was epitomized by the lowest of frequencies and the highest of spirits; a collection of incredible people brought together by the bass. In today’s music scene this is an unfortunate rarity, but despite all the bullshit permeating our culture, something pure still exists – this little bass pocket that we call “home”. I experience it in Denver every Tuesday night at Cervantes, at Final Fridays at the Fusion Factory, and I found it in Los Angeles at Mass’s event, too. The biggest of “Thank You’s” go out to everyone at Mass who made this thing happen, 6Blocc and Joe Nice for putting on a show like nothing I’ve ever seen, Homage for representing his scene beautifully, and of course to Subliminal for leading me to it. I might still be a baby in this culture, but if there’s one thing I learned in Los Angeles, it’s that that’s alright. After experiencing the legends in action, it’s pretty clear: for some of us, the “good ol’ days” are only just beginning.
-Amye Koziel