(Where are we now? Wallflowers bassist Paul Howland describes his current musical adventures in the very cool cyberworld of Dubstep. Check out the links and the P Man’s own online radio show!)
I first encountered Dubstep when I downloaded a recording of a radio show on London Pirate station Rinse FM from barefiles.com. The show was the “DJ Youngsta” show with his longtime MC, Task. As I remember the first tune was one by an artist known as D1 entitled “Degrees.” I was immediately intrigued by the sound.
I started downloading more sets from Rinse, including “Stella Sessions” by Skream. One of the tunes Skream was playing a lot at the time was Conquest “Hard Food.” I looked around on barefiles and saw that Quest had a show, so I downloaded a bunch of his archived shows. I ended up purchasing “The Hard Food E.P.” from dubplate.net, along with D1 “Degrees” and a bunch of others.
The first tune that I awaited the release of was Loefah’s “Rufage” after hearing
Skream play it on his show.I kept listening to Radio and buying the tunes I liked. I would record tunes onto my PC and make unmixed compilations of them to give to my friends. At some point I realized that I could listen live and talk to the DJs on MSN during their shows. I struck up conversations with a lot of the DJs particularly, on React.FM (mostly Heny G and Conquest and H.O.D).
Quest told me that David M was recording a lot of shows. I downloaded some software and started recording as well, mostly ReactFM. Will Goff at Lou’s Records told me about an upcoming all-Dubstep night that was gonna happen — the first one in San Diego, Dubstep 101. It was my first time hearing the music on a sound system, and I was even more hooked:
DUBSTEP 101
San Diego’s Premiere Dubstep Event
Friday, March 30th, 2007
Featuring DJs:
STAYPUFT DJ (Cutetheory, Nasty Sonix) LA
BENJIE (Bigsky) LA
JASON (Almost Famous, CSL) SD
KINETEK (Blends) SD
THE MENACE (NME, Resonate4FE.com) SD
MEZI (SD)
Located in San Diego @
THE BEEHIVE
1409 C Street (corner of 14th and C in Downtown SD)
San Diego, CA 92101
21+ | 9pm – 2am | FREE ALL NIGHT!
I attended and there met The Menace, Misk, Staypuft DJ and Mezi. Mezi and I became fast friends. He showed me the basics on how to mix; we hung out a lot and mixed at his house. I ended up buying turntables and a mixer so I could practice on my own.
We also attended a lot of Dubstep events in LA, put on by Smog and Pure Filth.
Near the end of 2007 I contacted Ruff One at react.fm and expressed my desire to do a radio show on the station. He took me through the necessary technical steps to broadcast online. The first show was really special for me, as a lot of the DJs that I listened to all the time were locked on and talking to me on MSN during the show.All the DJs and the management of React have been super-supportive and encouraging, even to the point of sending me tunes that haven’t been released yet. My show is on every Sunday 6 to 8 pm Pacific Time www.react.fm or myspace.com/reactfm. MSN for the show is reactfm@hotmail.co.uk.
I’m starting to make inroads to playing in local clubs. Nights that feature Dubstep in San Diego include Elav8 every Wednesday at the Kava Lounge on Kettner Blvd and Broken Beat (where I’ll be playing June 7) the first Saturday of every month at Kadan on Adams Ave.
Maximum respect to the whole React.FM family and all the listeners.
Lately I’ve been buying my tunes from Jason, who has been playing drum and bass for many years and lately Dubstep also. He’s been schooling me on some of the finer points.
I’ve been making tunes for a while also. At first I thought that was gonna be my main focus, but DJing kind of took over … I have a stated goal of getting one of my tunes signed by the end of 2008. I’ve got some up on my MySpace page.
Dubstep Links
People can download my sets here:
https://serato.com/playlists/The_P_Man/the-p-man-show-19-nov-2014-sub-fm_1
Here’s a nice thread with tons of old youngsta task sets:
http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=22956
Excellent article about Dubstep here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubstep
http://www.myspace.com/pmandubs
http://www.myspace.com/reactfm
http://www.myspace.com/remadubplatedee
http://www.myspace.com/djhenyg
http://www.tempa.co.uk/index.html
David M’s MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/david__m
Listing for Dubstep 101:
http://www.myspace.com/smogla
MySpace.com/purefilthdubstep:
http://www.myspace.com/djruffone
http://www.myspace.com/reactfm
http://www.myspace.com/remadubplatedee
http://www.myspace.com/djhenyg
— Paul Howland (a k a The P.Man)
Hi Paul,
It’s cool to hear from you. I like the weird syncopation on the The Drunk. A few years ago I was thinking about the time when we all played and listened to music together in different formulations and did a google search on a few people/bands. I didn’t come up with much, but I did find a band called Unsteady featuring Paul Howland on bass. I’ve had the CD Double or Nothing since then. What a great big band ska sound! I’ll check out your show Sunday.
Paul Allen: “The Drunk” is my fave P Man cut, too!
Paul Howland was always one of the deepest, most intriguing musical minds on the scene. I’m unsurprised but very happy that he’s exploring new beats and new channels of distribution.
I concur.
By the way, “The Drunk” isn’t a Dubstep tune(just don’t wanna misrepresent anything)…But I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Sorry Paul, no show on Sunday, I’m attending my very good friends wedding. I’ll be back on June 1st though. Here’s a url for updates on my thing for anyone not on myspace.
http://pmandubs.blogspot.com/
Later
P
is it the James Brown instro?
If you’re talkin’ about “The Drunk” that those guys are referring to then no. It’s an instrumental I built and put up on my myspace.
I like the Deep End Mix.
I’ve always been intrigued by dance music and it’s different genres… What DJs actually do is still kind of a mystery to me, but I’d love to learn more about it.
So a dubplate is what you start out with as kind of the core song, then you mix other sounds into it? Sorry if I sound really ignorant…I really am interested, though.
A dubplate is a one off acetate that a DJ will have made so he can play a tune on a soundsystem at a dance or on radio. It looks similar to vinyl but is heavier due to the aluminum base on which the acetate sits. A lot of people are just using cd’s now or computer programs like Serato which enable you to play files straight off of your laptop using time coded vinyls to control pitch and cueing.Certain DJ’s prefer using vinyl or dubplates or “dubs”. Dubplates played a big part in jamaican sound system culture and it’s no accident that dubstep has the word dub in it as it follows a lot of the same norms as Jamaican dance music. A lot of producers are DJ’s as well and often they’ll play mostly their own material when they play at dances. Some DJ’s don’t produce but are able to get tunes from producers based on their reputation as a DJ as well as friendships and networking. Some DJ’s play exclusively or almost exclusively dubs. One of the managers of the station I play on (react.fm) has as his dj name “Rema Dubplate Dee”, it’s a very rare occasion to see him play anything but dubs. The whole thing about dubs is that DJ’s are playing music that has not been released on vinyl yet. Part of what sets a DJ apart and makes him or her a desirable person to book to play on a night is whether or not that DJ has access to a lot of good material on dub. A lot of tunes are “Exclusives” or “Specials” which means that even as dubs they are very limited numbers of DJ’s who can play these tunes and in some cases only one DJ will have access to a tune. I’m including the url for the frequently asked questions page from transition mastering. They are one of the mastering houses that many of the London dubstep DJ’s use to get dubs cut. In fact one of the guys who works there has a succesful carrer as a DJ as well, (DJ Chef). Chef is gonna be playing in LA at the Echo Room at the end of this month. It’s gonna be big. He has tons of dubs. Good ones.
http://www.myspace.com/remadubplatedee
http://www.myspace.com/reactfm
http://www.dub-plates.org/
http://www.myspace.com/smogla
Yeah Matthew, there’s special vinyls you use which send timecode to the pc. This allows you to do rewinds scratchiing cueing and anything else you can do with vinyl. Here’s the software/hardware i use.
http://www.torq-dj.com/products/main_Torq_conectiv_cd_vinyl.php
My only problem with it is that once i start digging through the box of real vinyls i kind of forget i have torq hooked up sometimes.
Dubs do wear out faster than vinyls.Some times DJ’s will re-cut a tune if the dub wears out. Peep the transition mastering FAQ
http://www.dub-plates.org/
and this wikipedia entry about dubplates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubplate
There are also “Vinyl Dubplates” those are made using a similar process as regular dubs but they are cut on to a vinyl blank instead of an acetate. Those are supposed to last as long as regular vinyls. I’ve had a couple of those cut. From this place.
http://www.dubstudio.co.uk/dubs/
P
Paul, Im not sure I understand the reason for creating the dubplates…if the music is all created digitally, why wouldn’t a DJ just play it from a laptop or cd player?
Im really feeling like a dinosaur. *strums guitar*
Dubplates are old tech. It’s one of those cases where the old tech is better, like tube amps.And like tube amps there are new things out that capture a lot of the qualities of the old thing. No matter how good amp simulation becomes though there are still some people who are gonna use tube amps, and in some cases it’s still gonna be the better technology. In the case of playing tunes on a really big sound system a lot of people are gonna try and cut dubs because the sound quality is better, a big system magnifies small defects in sound. When a band is playing on a big system the sound engineer eq’s, compresses and effects each instrument separately. When you get a dubplate cut the mastering engineer puts the tune through a final stage of eq and compression. Vinyl and dubplates have a smaller dynamic range than cd’s which actually turns out to be a plus because it’s difficult to “fit” a poorly mastered tune on to dub or vinyl. So that’s why dubs sound good on a system. Cd’s can sound good too if they are mastered with a sound sytem in mind. I’m actually trying to finish up at least one of my tunes before my upcoming gig June 7. Partly so i can hear it on a system and see what needs to be fixed mixing wise. Also it’s finally sinking in that the best way for me to get “specials” is to make them.
how come some of my comments show up instantaneously and other ones don’t seem to show up at all ?
Thanks for the heads up J.
Two of the original architechts of dubsep are playing in San Francisco. Anyone even mildly curious should check this one out.
http://sanfrancisco.going.com/event-273262;SKREAM_AND_BENGA
Try these mixes out, these are the DJ/Producers I mentioned above.The essential mix series is nice ’cause it’s on radio one, so they’re a little less loose than some of the pirate shows, but what you get is a lot less talking and a lot more mixing. The Skream one is monumental, I haven’t listened to the Benga one yet but the tracklisting is pretty massive.
Skream Essential Mix
http://tinyurl.com/6yag4j
Benga Essential Mix
http://www.getdarker.com/?id=3&aid=76
Paul Howland is my favorite.
it looks and feels just like a vinyl record, except instead of audio it puts out a series of beeps and bleeps which go through a hardware device and in to the pc, the software on the pc uses the information encoded in the beeps and bleeps to get time information . this information is used to play the audio file stored on the computer at the correct point in time and the correct speed . this allows the dj to play files off of the pc as if they were vinyl records. so the dj only needs to bring a laptop and 2 time coded vinyls, instead of a heavy ass box of dubs… as long as the pc doesn’t crash .
http://www.torq-dj.com/videos/index.php
I really love the way dance music has stayed so completely underground. It seems to change and evolve much faster than any record company could move to exploit it.. and with the producers of the music making it available to everyone (thanks to new technology), the recorded music becomes something that isn’t “ownable” the way it’s always traditionally been.
It’s interesting that technology made it possible for companies to record music and own it, but now technology is making them obsolete.
Hey Paul. Since I believe you are The Baddest four string monster I have ever encountered from this town (next to myself of course…and possibly Stickman), are you still playing bass at all?
Hey Barney, not really playing much bass at the moment. I play once a year for the Lindley Lopez Circus Christmas Show “An Angels Gift”. I’ve been meaning to get back to my reggae studies… but I’ve been kind of busy…Nice to hear from you.
I might as well mention that Paul, Bobby, and I had a short lived band together in the early 90s called Cholla. I think Bobby has a recording of that.
And it is my opinion that Barney Firks and Paul Howland are two of the baddest bass players to grace the SD music scene. I was going to post some Worm Drive mp3s, but I can’t seem to get the downloads on their Myspace profile to work correctly, so I’ll just give a link to that profile;
http://www.myspace.com/wormdrive1
And, Barney, I don’t know who is running the WD Myspace but no one has logged onto it in awhile and my friend request is still pending.
Chris, I think Bobby Lane has or has access to the studio recordings of Cholla which were done at Vinyl Communication. Also I think he has some live recordings of the band too, he called them “Hessian Sessions”.Cholla will always have a special place in my heart I was sad when that band broke up, but at least it was together for a while. Thanks for your comments about my bass playing, I appreciate it.
Wow. I never realized how much you really liked the band. I mean, as band members go, you gave a 100%, always showed up to practice, never pulled any flakey shit, contributed amazing skills, etc. But I always felt you were a little out of our league and were just being a good friend by playing with us. Cool.
Chris, OK lemme go on record about that. I never felt like I was out of you guys league at all.For one thing I never played much with a pick, before Cholla. I had to work hard to get my picking together to have the speed and clarity to play Cholla music. Secondly, the musicians that I like are the ones with interesting ideas, regardless of levels of technical expertise.Furthermore, It does take a lot of technique to fast punk music so never sell yourself or the other guys short in that dept. I just don’t really do favors like playing in peoples band if If I don’t really like the music (well I’d do it if there was a fair amount of money involved but that was never the case in Cholla of course, haha ). I played in that band because I loved the music, hanging out with you guys at shows and practices was a bonus. I really liked that whole scene revolving around the Santee house too…
Oh hell, this whole conversation is giving me some very, very serious thoughts about the direction that music (and by extension all culture) needs to take, something I’ve been thinking very seriously about for some time now. Oh no, this is gonig to keep me up at night now. Oh great, here we go…
So Paul, is dubstep the punk rock of the ’00s?
Well…
Anywhere Paul Howland is punk rock by default.
“Anywhere Paul Howland is, is punk rock by default.” (Blackberry thumb-typing is less than accurate.)
Twenty years ago, I used to wonder what music would be like now… but it hasn’t changed much in all that time, which is pretty weird when you think about it (especially when you realize there was probably only about five years between the first Beatles album and the first Black Sabbath album).
It’s great when you see a type of music that just evolved on its own. Im always in favor of music and culture being created by artists, as opposed to big business.
Dave, you are a wise man indeed. There are a couple of upcoming southern cali dubstep nights, on SD one LA this week.
http://tinyurl.com/4kpqa3
http://tinyurl.com/4yt3or
Hey, I’ll support the revolution, but don’t take my guitar away. After nearly 30 years I think Im finally learning to play it, and I’d hate to think I wasted all that time practicing!
Paul, those links aren’t working…they just take me to my myspace page. Is there another way I can get the info? I think it’d be fun to go if it’s not too far from here.
Daves, Rinck first… I usually tell my Barber “I want a haircut”. Now to Mr. Ellison, I haven’t got rid of my basses(well I retired from music completely for a few years and got rid of all my instruments but it didn’t take).I’m not advocating anyone get rid of their instruments, just for me right now it’s taking an awful lot of time getting my producing and DJ’ing skills together so I’m making a conscious decision to focus my energies in those areas. 3 of my favorite producers in dubstep are Mala, Quest, and Silkie all 3 of whom play instruments (Drums, Bass, and Piano respectively).
“Think,think about the good things,think about the bad things.Think about the right things,think about the wrong things”
Hey all. Not sure if anyone is watching this but you might want to check this out. Anyone in SD even mildly curious about dubstep and grime should check out MRK1 at the Kava Lounge this week. Read more here. See you there. P
You still the baddest, sho’ nuff.
p man…i’m much diggin this “mellow” set.
i love the chaos-breakdown jam about 2/3 thru….then bringin it back….then REALLY bringin it BLAck.
crisis…what crisis?
keep going.
it was awesome to sit and listen at kava a few weeks ago. esp when you busted out the “we are the mods” bit.
paul, you spin like an angel… an angel on 78/45/33 rpm… or maybe on an OS.
Bruce, just a little heads up, the Daves might not still be watching this thread, the posts you are referring to are over a year old. I think some of the confusion stems from people getting re-directed to “Enter P Man” from “Embrace the new fakeness”. Anyway, those wanting the new pman podcasts and interview head on over to “Embrace the new fakeness”. And please leave comments there or on my blog.
Thanks for the kind words Ava,Robin, and Clay. Ava, yeah, 33 and 45 (33 when the pc is in effect, it’s the Torq (at least ’til I can afford to cut dubs)).
Paul- If you ever want to mix in 78 blues and jazz, I can hook you up with the technology.
Robin. I played a 5 hour set once at a friends wedding reception and included jazz, rhythm and blues, boogaloo, reggae, rock, and blues (I saved the dubstep ’til the end when people had been drinking for a few hours).
Interestingly, technics makes a turntable model for the japanese market that is basically the same as the model 1200, which is standard issue for DJs, but also includes 78 speed. The same things that make the 1200s an excellent DJ turntable (high torque direct drive motor, low feedback) also make it a good audiophile/archiving deck.