silverdollarcircle

great article by dj/rupture, with a very interesting point about sampling.

Luka writes in to say that kano's 'focus' is 2 years old, so it was wrong and unfair of me to cite it as evidence of recent poor form. ooops. honestly, you shouldn't trust anything i say. sorry about that. [but the kano tracks that i do know for certain to be fairly new- his track with wonder, 'friday night' and 'baby' with davinche and 'so sure' and the one over a ruff sqwad rhythm- are still cause for concern]
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i just don't understand why i should give a fuck about mark thatcher.

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i really hate seeing people play mouth organs. i find it really creepy. ok, bye.

i been thinking a lot about why i'm quite bored of kano at the moment and i've finally got it: it's cuz he doesn't come up with decent hooks anymore. not since 'boys love girls' and 'true g' in fact. now he just gets a female r n b singer to do the hooks for him, which are always good, but i do miss him coming up with catchy flows that you could [try to] sing along to. all the other really big MCs- dizzee, wiley, doogz, d double- are hugely talented at writing hooks, but kano seems to have lost it. his recent attempt- on that song with the chorus of 'got to focus on the finer things and not the minor things'- is pretty shit really. so that's why i'm bored with kano.

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new ruff sqwad vocal- "all right". first time i heard this i was all hmmmm...ok, it's nice, but a little too restrained maybe? but now, a few dozen listens later, it's won my heart. the typical dramatic sweeps of ruff sqwad melody have been reduced down to gentle synth sobs, little repeated phrases, as plaintive a sound as cutlery rattling around an empty canteen. a bass line moves up through octaves, reaching out to the light, then dives inevitably back into the sludge, to begin that patented ruff sqwad graceful melodic undulation again. the requisite grimey cut up female vocal sample intones 'alright' but ruff sqwad know, and you know, that she's not doing fine. tinchy strider's first line goes something like this i think: 'You said you were [alright], but i knew you weren't ok, behind the sarcasm and front you'll may be slip away'. and they break yr heart once again. no one ones makes sadness sound as beautiful as ruff sqwad do. their music is now a fanatically rich emotional overload- EVERY sound is lifted up and weighed down with feeling and meaning. unlike most love songs, this song is deep like love, and it'll drag you under eventually.

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who remembers Nasty's 'take em out'?
"take em out, take em out! we will, take em out take em out!"

just thought i'd remind you of it, cuz i thought it might brighten yr day. it brightened mine.

hey there was a lot of storm and stress in the air today wasn't there. and then so calm.

two of my favourite blogs are the moment are www.evergreendaze.com-which is one of those blogs with an inspiringly perfect aesthetic- and kidshirt.blogspot.com which is, i think, nang. it's quite a new blog and it's got a really distinctive style, with kek often writing long posts which start on one topic and then move seamlessly into another one and it always works so well. and it's funny, and always interesting, and personal and really enthusiastic and really original and oh/sigh it's just *wonderful*. i think it's so good when new blogs come in and raise the game to a new level.

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oh, and kek from kid shirt's grime alias is 'cat snidey' so be told.

talking of which, it's good to see MPC recognizing the talent of MC shanty meddler. he doesn't get half as much praise as he deserves. he's heavy, gonna be huge.

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i got a good response to the offer of the infrared sound tape [they're copying as i write comrades!]. perhaps i should have said earlier that you only have to ask if you want me to make you a tape of grime. that's kinda what i write about grime for- so people can decide if they want a tape from me. so let me know.
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oh, and in case you didn't believe me about grime being like metal in many ways, the forthcoming ruff sqwad mixtape is called, quite magnificently, 'guns n roses'.
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in other grime news, wiley's left XL records. i suspect he wants to sign to the same major as roll deep [which i think is island]. a mistake, probably. i think major labels will fuck them over. xl would prob have stood by wiley even though he wasn't an instant chart hit. but i guess it was hard for wiley to go from being such a huge star on the underground to just being treated like another small artist on xl. a semi-struggling indie band can probably deal with that, but wiley's used to being massive in his circle, and running things like the top boy he is.
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oh, and i can't resist telling you that lethal b told me HIMSELF that his solo album, 'against all odds' is gonna be out next year.
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oi, oi geezers sorry for the recent quiet, hope yr all fantastic...

I AIN'T GOT MANY FRIENDS, BUT I GOT BARE ASSOCIATES.
...i love it when MCs say that, or some variation of it. INFRARED SOUND did it on the the dj cruiser show i wrote about last week [i was wrong- the MCs weren't from 2 twisted, they were both from infrared]. they're the best crew around from what i heard from them that night. i don't know anything about them, which kinda makes it all the more enticing and exciting. who are they, where did they come from? it seemed like they were on the fringes of the grime scene, as they said that they didn't know some of the tunes that Cruiser played, even though they were really well known ones. they've got this hiphop complexity matched with grime ruffness, speed and aggression and it's killer [lile max cavelera would say].

if you want a tape of this all time classic set send an email + yr wish will be granted. the people i already owe tapes to will get a copy as well [sorry to everyone i still owe to- i haven't forgotten about you, i've just been slack.]

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grime is getting deliriously silly at the moment: first up, we had roll deep's 'salsa' which i've written about before and is a summer anthem right now.
and now Demon's done a track with a proper early slayer death/thrash metal riff on the rhythm! and best of all, the chorus goes, 'rush rush RUSH, CAN YOU FEEL THE RUSH?' oh my god, absolutely wicked! the real sound of teenage kicks. the links between metal and grime are quite interesting, as i've said before. from reviews of grime raves, it sounds like the kids are actually MOSHING when a big MC comes on the mic!

also, there's the new terror danjah cut, 'boogey man' which is easily the silliest grime has ever got. one of the best terror danjah rhythms ive heard, with OTT 'pyscho' showerscene string stabs and a twisted music boxish melody that sounds like the soundtrack to tim burton's 'nightmare before christmas', if memory serves [or, if memory doesn't serve, what the soundtrack SHOULD sound like]. taliban trim [new member of roll deep] takes the chorus and his relaxed slurring rasp sounds perfect for this knowingly stoopid slice of horrorcore grime. riko and wiley are on it as well, but best is d double who sounds better than ever before. he's raised his game massively in the past few months. he's so honest and so funny and so rhythmically inventive at the moment. just after quipping 'i an't scared of the boogey man, how could i be, man?' he puts in a touching, if weird, lyric about his baby daughter: 'wanted a little man, but i got a little girl" but don't worry, he's well pleased with his family life. did you read that OMM article where he talked about teaching his daugher to do his 'mui mui'? what a cool fuck.


the great thing about this track is how the MCs use the repeated exclamations of 'boogey man' and 'man' as stable points in their careering, twisting flows: those repeated phrases give some structure to these chaotic, boiling over, double-backing vocal screes. it's like the Wiley thing of the one-line flow taken to a new level.

what's interesting about grime is how very loose structures are used to make this fiercely out-there music accessible:- vocally, the MCs are using tricks like one-line flows, or d double-esque trademark weird sounds, or repeated phrases, to give us something to hold on to as their imagination surges forward, faster and faster, pushing the boundaries, and contorting hiphop + dancehall influenced MCing into alien shapes.

when grime production was at it's most insane phase, last summer,the loose structure of the 8 bar rhythm was used to made things a little more comprehensible. within the simple, strict rules of the 8-bar, producers had freedom to be as anarchic and arhyhmic as they wanted. it's significant that as grime production started to settle down a bit rhymically last autumn, the use of 8-bar rhythms also died away- with producers using more recognisable, on-beat rhythms, they could do away with such a rigid, if sketchy, set of stylistic rules without fear of the whole thing falling apart into non-danceable, non-head nodding clunk and mush.


...which is why 8 bar grime's font [see simon reynolds] would probably be really rushed, flowing handwriting, where you can't quite make out every letter but you can understand what the word is by looking at the whole thing, or even the whole sentence. like that, 8bar grime often didn't make sense for the first few bars, and it was only when you heard the 8-bar sequences repeated for a few times that things started to fall into place. only within the context of those 8 bar repititions could yr mind deal with this overload of stuttering electrics.

oh by the way, silverdollarcircle ain't nuthin t'fuck wit'

THE GRIME ALIAS GAME.

ok, so far we've got:
philip sherburne= filch
jack dripdropdrap = cheeky banter
my girlfriend = lady titch

and i want to be either 'Mr Kid' or 'kid serious'. maybe i'll have two names like tinchy stryder/tiny tantrum.

keep em coming!
[and then we can form our very own crew]

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hey! south londoners,
delight 103.0 fm is back on, finally, so you can gorge yr ears on lovably unprofessional and good humoured grime broadcasts to yr hearts content. they're definitely kind of the friendliest and funniest grime station out there- one show i caught about 6 months ago had DJs challenging each other to play the worst songs they could. as soon as one of them wheeled out blazin squad it was all over.
and they do phone ins where people spit their lyrics over the phone to the beats in the studio. it's like creating a virtual school-gates over the whole of london.

dj cruiser and 2-twisted crew were on together tonight. 2 twisted were so amazing. i don't remember them ever being this good. they were better than nasty crew, and i really mean that. they have this really fast, dynamic style, piling ideas on top and each other, flitting from one theme to the next. makes a nice change from one-track minded guntalk drawls. they had a really funny, clever lyric but i've forgotten it. i'll listen to the tape again and get back to you yeah.

SOMETIMES GRIME CAN BE SO BEAUTIFUL AND SAD IT'S HEARTBREAKING>>

also caught a tiny bit of flava fm, dunno what dj, but he/she played this gorgeous soft as feathers, ruff sqwadish grime track, all flute stutters and chinks of brittle, decayed beats. hearing stuff like that unexpectedly is one of the best feelings in the world. when i heard it fight it's way through the noise and interference, this perfect slice of tenderness, this ruffed up + fuzzed up pop ambient, surrounded in mystery, existing purely as itself with no context, i fell in love with this music once again. that keeps happening, over and over.

ILOVEYOULILOVEYOUILOVEYOU...

i think i might actually really like that new natasha bedingfield song, the one with the chorus of those words up there^^^^^^^^

that's a Guilty Pleasure right there!


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the other day i was talking about my favourite sounds in music and one of them was the hollow, twangy bass sound often used in ardkore. turns out the same sound crops up in 'renegade snares' and dizzee versions and corrupts it on 'sittin here'.

that's the Hardcore Continuum right there!

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i used to hate waking up in the mornings. i didn't hate life or anything. i've always liked life, for as long as i can remember. it's fun and sometimes amazing innit. anyway, i used to hate waking up. those first few hours were purgatory at best. BUT then we got one of those radios that goes in the shower, surely the greatest invention of the past 20 years. now, waking up is often the best part of the day, by some margin. i stumble out of bed, drag myself into the shower, turn on the radio, tune it to Kiss FM, or deja vu if i'm feeling frisky, and the day has begun in the most wonderful way. there is no better way to start things off than having a shower while listening to sugababes, nina sky, beenie man and babycakes all in a row. i mean, it's like you've only been up 5 minutes and yr already dancing to great music! and in the shower!

truly, we live in the future.
whoever invented these waterproof radios, you are my god and i bow down before you as your humble servant.


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BLOG ENVY

i really like the way MPC and dripdropdrap blogs have those circles of colour on them that make them look like kompakt 'total' album covers. that's wicked. i want my blog to look like that.

just to clarify: when i said that the new dizzee album sounds like it could be my favourite album of the past 2 years that was EXCLUDING KANYE. he's on a next level thing. [sorry, ting]

if you live in london and you like soca, or you'd like to know if you would like soca, you should probably listen to martin jay's show 'the caribbean affair' on Choice 96.9fm sundays 7-10pm.

i'm toying with changing the name of this blog to 'All the Leaves!' but i dunno; what do you like best, silverdollarcircle or All The Leaves! ?

WOEBOTNIK has got a great grime round up for y'all. the thing about terrah danjah sounding [or feeling] like steve albini in places is so spot on. a kinda 'yeah, THAT'S it' moment for me.
matt's comments on babycakes a bit unfair though? like, ok, it's totally a revival thing, but apparently the track is at least a couple of years old, and some people say it was done in 2001. so it's more a rediscovery of a track from the end of ukg's heyday, than a conscious attempt by producers today to counter the grimeyness. it's a lost classic being brought to our attention. and also, it's a sweet tune.

matt doesn't like the way the plink-plonk melody has been ripped off some other tune, but that kind of thing's never bothered me at all. one thing i like about grime is the bootlegging/refixing culture- like, everything's public property, with grime producers feeding off each other, referencing each other. listen to new brand flex's shows to hear some crazy bootlegs where all the grime classics are mashed together in ultra-condensed form- i luv u's squelches, delta'a african drums, eskimo's whummp, youngstar's disorted bongos [which are the best example of grime defending the previously indefensible!], jon e cash's synth smears. i don't think producers should have any qualms about ripping people off. if it's good, use it to make something else that's good.

but isn't that lazy, showing a lack of creativity? well, may be. i mean a lot of the time these people aren't sampling in any particularly inventive way- they're just lifting really wellknown riffs and beats wholesale.
But...but i still find it kind of charming and nice. it's like compilation tapes: ok, there's not much 'creativity' there, but it can still be wonderful to hear the compiler's love and enthusiasm for the music shining through in the way he/she configures it. it's a disarmingly human touch. they're labours of love, born out of a desire to get involved, SOMEHOW, in this music that means so much to those fans who compile the tapes.

and that's why bootlegging and ripping off music never worries me. sometimes it's done for cynical financial reasons, yeah, but i don't think that's the case with babycakes, or [some, most] grime bootlegs that i've heard. i prefer to think of them as quite a personal glimpse into what the producers in question hold dear. these small tributes have a meaning and motivation that i really appreciate.

or may be i'm just being too naive here.


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ok, i want to talk about L.Man from brixton/stockwell grime crew n nouble a for a little bit [n double a are as close as i get to having a 'local' big grime crew]. there seems to be two big names in N double A at the moment. on the one hand, there's Narstie, full on and agressive, who's often an oddly bullying, hectoring presence, a little bit like crazy titch. a 'gangsta for life' kind of MC. BUT, on the other hand, there's the hyper-well read mass of neuroses and social consciousness that is L.Man. at the core of N double A is a kind of ying/yang partnership. Narstie presents the gangsta's point of view, with L.Man countering it, imploring narstie to tear off all this front and admit that he's just as scared and lonely as everyone, gently taking the piss out of him and himself: "i worship jesus christ, you worship 50 cent", he teases.

n double a have done a track in which narstie wonders aloud whether he should commit an armed robbery. L.Man come in and tries to discourage him, tries to get him to step back from the gangsta life. what could sound drearily 'worthy' and didactic becomes compelling because of the clash at the heart of the track. grime is a music of clash and conflict- between MCs, between men and women, between SOUNDS, between allegiance to the underground and ambitions to escape it: everything clashes together. but this is a different kind of clash- a clash of ideologies WITHIN the strength-through-unity structure of the crew. and this track isn't just a one off- listen to them live on radio [ON Top 95.5 Fm-they make guest appearances on most shows there, it seems, at the moment]and you'll hear this scene be repeated again and again in different contexts. and it always sounds vital, fresh.

L Man is more spoken word artist then MC, with an almost languid, dead pan calm about him, and he lays out his history- put into a children's home, abused, bullied at school, fell deeper into poverty, starting self harming- with unremitting honesty, then, still in the same slow, measured monotone, moving onto world history, of struggle, of fellow sufferers.

a lyric of his:
"i hate guntalk, and i say this frequent...i believe in freedom, like frederick douglass".

on his own he might be difficult to listen to for a long period, although he does have a really authoritative tone that's quite compelling, but when he trades this sort of of stuff with narstie's posturing [i don't mean that in a negative way] there's a unique kind of fireworks. he never gets phased by narstie's threats and self-hyping, but continues, patiently, to lay out a different point of view, sounding like he could, and would, go on forever, until people start to listen.



[i should point that L.Man is the MC on the lord of the decks dvd doing a poor eminem impression, 'begging american' and all that, and that he's actually much, much better than that clip would have you believe]

taking up blackie lawless fanclub's list of best ever sounds in music, here's my favourites:

-the 'lord have mercy' sample often used in jungle.
-the synthetic orchestral hits that are used all the time in soca, which stelfox memorably likened to lightning bolts. i can't do better than that, so i won't try.
-sped up vocal samples as used in ardkore tracks and also kanye of course. there's just something about them that goes right to whatever part of me it is that feels pleasure, everytime.
-the hazy, whistling synth that ruff sqwad producers rapid and dirty danger often use [e.g 'gone', 'anna' and 'headbanger']
-ever so slightly out of tune female vocals- nina sky, babycakes, and the original and best; lumidee.
-that ray-gun sounding effect used by loads of jungle and dancehall producers and also dj scud, that sounds like may be a synth hit put through a delay.
-swirling drifting keyboard lines like in aphex twin's SAW 85-92 and junior boys' 'teach me how to fight'
-that weirdly hollow, twangy bass sound used a lot in ardkore.
-the scratchiness of early talking heads' guitar.
-the metallic, clinky sounds that wiley often uses in his beats [e.g 'i was lost']
- d double's 'ohhh, unhhh' and 'mui mui'
-the ghostliness of early 20th century southern baptist songs, as heard on harry smith's anthology.
-grime's use of string samples to make stirring, epic mini-symhonies [jammer, sticky, target]
-pockets of silence: dub, junior boys, grime.

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wiley was on the roll deep show on freeze last night. the first time i've heard him on a pirate show for ages. he sounded better than ever: really committed and energised, with loads of new rhymes. brazen from roll deep is amazing as well- quite fast and high pitched like demon, and i think grime needs more of that kind of hyperactivity, as grime's tempo seems to be generally slowing down slightly from the UKG-speed verbal torrents, getting a bit more hip-hoppy, with a lot of the big newish MCs- trim, bruza, napper, narstie- being more comfortable when chatting slow drawls or broken fragments. if you look at it from say a decade long perspective, there seems to have been a gradually slow-down since the mid 90s; from jungle to speed garage to 2-step to wiley/PAUG/dizzee early grime to the grime of today. the MDMA left the scene relatively quickly but it's influence on musical approaches, and tempos in particular, has been much more longstanding, with its reign only now coming to an end. and even when tracks aren't actually that slow, much of grime today FEELS slow, draggy, skunked out- check out the frontline rhythm, or creep crawler, or wonder's what [which, amazingly, is 150bpm, i've heard], or even jammer's destruction. often it's for the MCs to provide the pace, excitement and energy to these tracks. which is what's happening, so that's good.

but [slight concern]; where ARE all the big new rhythms? loads of good new MC tracks out there, but aren't we due another igloo/ice rink/thuggish ruggish? i'm counting on ruff sqwad.


ashman [i think he might be from either foreign format or south enders, i'm not sure] has a similar style to demon and brazen, and he's one to look out for.


a great lyric on the foreign format show on On top fm last night:
"boy, i'm like leukemia; i'll cut off yr hair and then i'll torture yer"


dizzee's new album is getting rinsed by the pirates. roll deep played loads of it, so i guess there's no [or not many]hard feelings there. i must have heard most of it by now- at least 8 tracks. and from what i've heard, it's going to be the album of the year, may be the past two years, for me.

"ballerinas...she's crazy about ballerinas".



















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BABYCAKES was out properly this monday. you must get it. really. it's the greatest pop song of the modern age! i think it's going top 10, easy.


dunc at theuglyvision.blogspot.com has written some really good stuff on shystie and the lovable self-hyping/paranoia thought cycles of many MCs.

wow that AKUFEN fabric mix cd is a strange one isn't it. lulls you into thinking that it'll be nice unobstrusive background music, - which it is, kinda,- but you really have to turn it up loud to really fall for it. i think you've got to get it loud enough for it to get yr body involved as well as yr mind. lovingly relentless party music!- and who'd have thought it? i love the way most of the tracks- exception = senor coconut- are all incredibly dense and elastic: they have this lush, constantly shifting textural side to them, despite the 'micro' elements that they're built out of. they sound solid, full, plastic, even kind of sticky and messy: never dry and clicky. i wouldn't say that there's much beauty or emotion in many of the tracks [in contrast to the tracks off todd burns' microhouse mix] but there is movement and joy there, may be even a kind of muscularity, which draws you in. i also love the way there's such freedom on offer- it's like, which bit of this sprawling soundworld do you want to latch on to and dance to?- most tracks, there's a solid bounce, a stutter and twitch, and a drifting tonal thing all going at once, all making demands on yr body. this is *rigorously* danceable music.

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that new sigur ros ep, Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do is one of the most disarmingly, completely, LOVELY things i'v heard in ages. must admit i kind of lost interest in sigur ros after the first two fatcat eps but i was perhaps wrong to on this evidence- like, have they been THIS good for long? i can't get over how gloriously beautiful it is, how it seems to be about only the sublimity of sounds. the cut up vocals, the sparkly music box pings, the softly dramatic paino, even the tendrils of digital noise at the end, combine to make a delicate, ghostly piece that often sounds like it's struggling just to continue, like it's teetering on the edge of non-existence, and that's so gorgeous the world seems to stop when you listen to it. i want it to be winter so i can put it on my walkman and run in the snow to it.

london! tune into on top 95.5fm NOW! n double a are on + are totally beautiful- massive change of direction, all conscious with prayers to god and everything! do it do it do it.

Quotes from a recent wiley interview in The Independent [going from those that only cause slight concern to those which are truly scary]:

"I'm feeling warmer"

[on the Roll Deep album, out on Island soon]: "we're being clever by giving [island] what they want. there are a few tracks that could be British hits"

[on why he wants to distance himself from the 'grime' tag]: "Grime has no feelings. It's just people making noise" [is 'intelligent' grime round the corner? grime becomes 'sophisticated' nu-jazz mukak for mercury coffee tables, with established scenesters claiming that they were never 'grime' anyway? spare us please spare us]



and the big one:

"i'd love to work with alanis morrisette- she's heavy. i can see where she'd fit into my thing. i know what i'd want her to sing"

what the fuck. has the world gone mad? stop thinking these evil, destructive thoughts, wiley!
it's quite tragic. wiley and roll deep's big chance of being successful must lie in them being the most fearsomely inventive, hardcore and true grime outfit out there [i.e keeping on as they have been doing]. trying to compete with AOR on it's own terms, or conforming to a major label's vision of what grime is, would not only be shit, it'd be totally self defeating.

mark my words, THIS WILL END IN RUIN.


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on a more positive note, i went to one of those parties on the circle line on friday. you know, these people send out an e-mail telling everyone to gather at a tube stop at a certain time and then you all get on a train and do laps of the circle line. it was fun- we danced, we shared sweets, and we got drunk. and we felt naughty. and we felt OK talking to strangers even though we were in a big city.
but so hot. oh so hot.

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last night we drove through camberwell on the way to a lene lovitch gig [best not to ask], and i saw a poster for a mixtape called 'grimey limeys'. anyone know anything about this? sounds interesting.

also, when i got back i happened to catch a short documentary on channel 4 about wiley, which was really good- showed you the making of the 'wot do u call it' video, and interviews with most of the big names. best bit was kano talking about the impact that Eskimo had. he started singing the main riff, "DUNHH, da-de-duh..." and his eyes sort of glazed over, and you could tell that he was transported back to that state of bubbly excitement that most people have when they first hear eskimo. he was right back there again. a grin flashed across his face- "there was NOTHING that sounded like that back then". to have been there at the start, to have realised that this sound was going to change uk music so much, was about to take over london, must have been about as special as music gets. the birth of a new sound, a new generation arriving, the old sound dying.


ring the alarm!

Which is what the MC [not sure of his name} that plasticman had with him on a rinse show a few weeks back wailed and slurred. which brings me to:

GRIME RECENTLY HEARD PART III: PLASTICMAN AND GOTH-GARAGE.

"ring the alarm, a soundboys dying..." the MC repeated over the sludge and clink of plasticman's beats, twisting tenor saw for his own purposes. cuz the soundboy who was dying was the MC himself, cuz he'd committed suicide, cuz he was a manic depressive, and 'By day, i'm hell's receptionist, should be locked in a mental institution-alist". on and on this awesome, ultra dark poetry went, a tireless, remorseless catalogue of failures and failings, self-loathing and self-harm.

finally, plasticman's music really made sense to me::: it's futurist-goth. it's linked to the dance/rave history by means of transmission only- pirate radio, white label 12"s, huge club soundsystems. from those links, you, i, expect it to fit into the general dance idiom, and set our critical faculties at the appropriate level. and then we, i, get disappointed. no joy, no manic excitement, not even thrilling brutalist harshness pummelling you into submission. just a stifling, grinding deathly dark atmosphere which swamps and suffocates, just as the bass is so hideously inflated it seems to ooze stickily out of control, drowning the beats like oil slicks do sea birds.

but say it's not dance music. say it's industrial goth. then it doesn't seem to matter that the music lacks dynamism or hooks or contrast or, well, a decent groove. it's like complaining that The Swans lack a certain rushiness. they do, it does, but *that's not the point*. it's goth for kids raised on terminator and blade runner and i guess it should be treated and appraised accordingly.

and yet, even making those allowances, i find this music hard to love. [may be that's not the point either]. there's a kind of perverse pleasure in seeing what the sunshine, glossy sound of 2-step has eventually become- a kind of wonder of 'how the fuck did we end up here?!', and the sheer enveloping, almost obsessive steely mechanical bleakness of it is kind of admirable, but admirable often means unloveable.

the music lacks the [best] grime's slightly ramshackle melodic charm. it's like, plasticman is canary wharf, and grime is a ruined church with trees growing in the middle of it [like the one in liverpool city centre]. both are equally imposing and impressive, but i can only fall in love with one.

shitting crikey i get back to london after a 3 week absence and the grime pirates all seem to have gone down- i can't get rinse, raw blaze, or freeze at the moment. only on top seems to still be around. rumour has it that rinse got raided pretty seriously with slimzee getting arrested and all his musical possessions taken by the police, who are now the owners of thousands of one off dubplates.

so, like simon reynolds wrote a few days ago, where's the grime?
well, when the stations get sorted again, it'll be here: [courtesy of rwdmag forums]

MONDAY

ATL: 6PM - 8PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
KIDZ IN DA HOOD: 6PM - 8PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
NRC: 8PM - 10PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
RUFF SQUAD: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
OT CREW: 9PM - 11PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
2FACE CREW: 10PM - 12PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
EAST CONNECTION: 10PM - 12PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
BLACK OPS: 11PM - 1AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
15 FAMILY: MIDNITE - 2AM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
NANDI LIONESS: MIDNITE - 2, 9NINE3, 99.3FM, WWW.9NINE3.COM
HIGHGRADE CLAN: MIDNITE - 2AM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM


TUESDAY

FULL FLEX: 4PM - 6PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
SP1: 4PM - 6PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
SCIENTIST: 5PM - 7PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
EAST CONNECTION: 6PM - 8 PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
FOREIGN FORMAT: 6PM - 8 PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
HATCHA: 7PM - 9PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
RENAGADE FAMILY: 8PM - 10PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
THE MUCKY WOLF PACK: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
REAL DEAL CLAN: 8PM - 10PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
QUIET STORM: 9PM - 11PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
00 SQUAD: 10PM - MIDNITE, HEAT, 96.6FM
SOUTH SOLDIERS: 10PM - MIDNITE, ONTOP, 95.5FM
VENOM EMPIRE: 10PM - MIDNITE, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
2ND IMAGE: MIDNITE - 2AM, HEAT, 96.6FM
ELITE 3: MIDNITE - 2AM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
RATTLEPACK/GANJAH FAMILY: MIDNITE - 2AM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM


WEDNESDAY

YOUNG BLOODS: 4PM -6PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
ZIMBON: 5PM - 7PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
SCREAM SQUAD: 6PM - 8PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
SPARE NO-ONE: 6PM - 8PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
GRAHAM G: 7PM - 9PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
ANTIX: 8PM - 10PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
ESSENTIALS: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
TMT: 8PM - 10PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
YOUNGSTA: 9PM - 11PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
BRAINDEAD: 10PM - MIDNITE, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
DIRTY FIRM: 10PM - MIDNITE, HEAT, 96.6FM
MATRIX CREW: 10PM - MIDNITE, ONTOP, 95.5FM
DISTANCE: 11PM - 1AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
LIVEWIRE CREW: MIDNITE - 2AM, HEAT, 96.6FM
PIRANHAS: MIDNITE - 2AM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
STEADY: 1AM - 3AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM


THURSDAY

ROWDY SQUAD: 4PM - 6PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
COMBONATION: 6PM - 8PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
TOTAL PACKAGE: 6PM - 8PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
KODE 9: 7PM - 9PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
FOREIGN FORMAT: 8PM - 10PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
NEW BRAND FLEX: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
REBEL ALLIANCE 8PM - 10PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
HOTFLUSH: 9PM - 11PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
AFTERSHOCK CAMP: 10PM - MIDNITE, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
BUN DEM CREW 10PM - MIDNITE, HEAT, 96.6FM
ROADSIDE: 10PM - 12PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
15 FAMILY: MIDNITE - 2AM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
X RATED: MIDNITE - 2AM, HEAT, 96.6FM
DARKSIDE RIDDEM: 1AM - 3AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM


FRIDAY

OTP: 4PM - 6PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
SLEWDEM CREW: 4PM - 6PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
FEEDBACK CREW: 6PM - 8PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
LEONA H: 6PM - 8PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
LOGAN: 7PM - 9PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
BOYZ IN DA HOOD: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
MORE FIRE CREW/FIRE YOUNGERS: 8PM - 10PM
REGAL PLAYERS: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
SLAUGHTER MOBB: 9PM - 11PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
EAST CONNECTION: 10PM - MIDNITE, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
ROLLOUT: 10PM - MIDNITE, HEAT, 96.6FM
URBAN LICK: 10PM - MIDNITE, ALL, 96.9FM, WWW.ALLFM.ORG
OT CREW: 11PM - 1AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
RIDDIM RIDERS: MIDNITE - 2AM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
SMALL SOLDIERS MIDNITE - 2AM, HEAT, 96.6FM
SOUND BOY KILLERS: 2AM - 4AM, HEAT, 96.6FM


SATURDAY

2nd IMAGE: 10AM - 12PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
NU BREED ENTERTAINMENT: 12PM - 2PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
SCREAM SQUAD: 12PM - 2PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
SOUTH AGENTS: 12PM - 2PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
BLAZEDEM CREW: 2PM - 4PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
REAL DEAL CLAN: 2PM - 4PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
STIRLING: 3PM - 5PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
A TEAM: 4PM - 6PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
COLD AS ICE: 4PM - 6PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
GODDAZ: 4PM - 6PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
NASTY CREW: 6PM - 8PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
TOTAL PACKAGE: 6PM - 8PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
ZERO TOLERANCE: 6PM - 8PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
PLASTICMAN: 7PM - 9PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
EAST CONNECTION: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
EASTWOOD: 8PM - 10PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
TOP BOY SHOW: 8PM - 10PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
TARGET: 9PM - 11PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
KAMIKAZE MAFIA: 10PM - MIDNITE, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
SOUTH SOLDIERS: 10PM - MIDNITE, ONTOP, 95.5FM
SEARCH & DESTROY: 11PM - 1AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
DOGPOUND: MIDNITE - 2AM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
KRONIK & WACKY: 1AM - 3AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
FRAMPSTER: 2AM - 4AM, ONTOP, 95.5FM


SUNDAY

HIGHGRADE: 10AM - 12PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
THE DANGEROUS KID: 10AM - 12PM, SUB JAM, 104.7FM
RAGGA D: 12PM - 2PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
ROLL DEEP: 2PM - 4PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
SPECIAL DELIVERY: 2PM - 4PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
SLIMZEE: 3PM - 5PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
MACKIE: 4PM - 6PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
TMT: 4PM - 6PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
ROSSI B & LUCA: 5PM - 7PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
SOLO & TYPAH: 6PM - 7PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
SLK: 6PM - 8PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
N DOUBLE A: 7PM - 10PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
TUBBY: 7PM - 9PM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
GRIMEY LIMEYS: 8PM - 10PM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
REBEL ALLIANCE: 8PM - 10PM, HEAT, 96.6FM
KUDOS: 10PM - MIDNITE, ICECOLD, 96.1FM
MUSICAL MOBB: 10PM - MIDNITE, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM
NARSTIE & L-MAN: 10PM - 11PM, ONTOP, 95.5FM
SILVER FOX: 10PM - MIDNITE, HEAT, 96.6FM
ROLLDEEP: 11PM - 1AM, RINSE, 100.3FM, WWW.RINSEFM.COM
CRAZY G: MIDNITE - 2AM, HEAT, 96.6FM
REMAND CREW: MIDNITE - 2AM, RAWBLAZE, 90.0FM


there's a lot out there but you do have to search a little bit. but that's part of the fun.

--------------
TOP 10 GRIME ALIASES.

1] tinchy stryder aka tiny tantrum
2] dizzee rascal
3] tiny temper [not sure if this is another tinchy stryder alias or not]
4] riko dan
5] sharkey major
6] taliban trim
7] the alias
8] jammer
9] terra danjah
10]lady sovereign

a good game= if you were a grime artist what would you like to be called? my girlfriend wants to be Lady Titch.

-----------------
the other day in the budget record shop in clapham junction, next to Dub Vendor, i bought a 2cd boxset from 1994 called 'ultimate jungle' for TWO POUNDS! [early to mid 90s rave being 'trash' like simon reynolds says has definate advantages- you can pick up cds called things like 'rave anthems' with people like dj seduction and and slipmatt and foul play for a quid at the same shop]
'ultimate jungle' is so good- all the classics like worries in the dance, renegade snares, original nuttah, dred bass etc and loads more. it'll hopefully cure me of some of my ignorance- i was born too late you see. my favourite, though, is by babylon crew and called 'press up'. it's really minimal- a jungle break stripped down to the kick drum and occasional snare, with the hook being a grainy voice repeating 'press UP/press UP'. like grime, it's got this fascinating sketchiness to it- like it's more a suggestion of music, than music itself. at first listen it's a full on jungle rinse-out but then as you pay more attention you realise that there's actually very little going on- just a series of triggers to imagination, getting you to fill in the blanks.
riko and target's 'chosen one' is a good example of how grime uses this tactic- it SOUNDs very lush and busy, almost orchestral, but in reality it's incredibly sparse. all the lushness is in yr mind- the music encourages you to think of more music, like joining up dots to make a full picture.

-constructing something, something wonderful, in the nothingness marked out by the music.


i think that's kind of interesting.

yikes, feel that global warming!

ok, i'm back innit. sorry for the absence. just couldn't be bothered really.
munkyfest was great. joe and ian and dunc have already written great things about it.
it was indeed, as joe says, a particularly messy one. great fun but i think we'd all taken the fun about as far as we could by 4 in the morning. my vision of a naive, innocent camping site filled with people gathered round a lit up xmas tree listening to acoustic guitars and drinking soup was, perhaps sadly, shattered. mostly by me. ooops.
highlights for me were Tokyo Adventures who are one of the greatest ever pop bands, and The Unpleasants who did an epic laptop take on jewish wedding music that made us think of soldiers with swords running over moorland just like jammer does.
oh, and also 'DJing' my wiley white labels and seeing people dance to them. that was amazing.



anyway, must go now. will write some more soon.