Funky/London/UK House

Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
The whole dubplate exclusive part of the culture is a big part of it I think, but (from what I can gather) at least with Jungle and garage the vast majority of the really big tunes would make it out in some form eventually. I'm guessing the market just isn't there to make it worth releasing stuff like there used to be, but I did have slightly higher hopes for Funky I must say. Its all seems to have dropped off since the Grime era. You would have thought that the mp3 revolution would have helped people get these tunes out to buy and make money from, but sorry, ukfunky.com and a small smattering on Itunes, Amazon and Boomkat just isn't good enough!
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
are there more djs than there used to be? cos the main people buying the tunes was always more aspiring djs wasnt it? youd think there would be more djs cos of mp3s making it easier, but maybe artists feel they have to be more protective of their tracks now for that reason. and so its become more exclusive.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I don't necessarily reckon mp3s makes it any easier to get into djing. You still have to fork out money for CDJs or a laptop at the very least don't you?
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Benny B said:
The whole dubplate exclusive part of the culture is a big part of it I think, but (from what I can gather) at least with Jungle and garage the vast majority of the really big tunes would make it out in some form eventually. I'm guessing the market just isn't there to make it worth releasing stuff like there used to be, but I did have slightly higher hopes for Funky I must say. Its all seems to have dropped off since the Grime era. You would have thought that the mp3 revolution would have helped people get these tunes out to buy and make money from, but sorry, ukfunky.com and a small smattering on Itunes, Amazon and Boomkat just isn't good enough!
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Agree 100% with all this. I guess the problem is that people worry that as soon as a tune is available to buy as a stand-alone mp3 then it's going to get stuck on filesharing services and too many people will get it for free to make it worthwhile profit-wise (esp seeing as you can't charge much for an mp3 in the first place). I think this is why a lot of people release vinyl first and hold back the digital for a month or so.
Perhaps the fact that there's a mixture of formats about with different people having different favourites is part of the problem too. I mean you have some people that won't touch a tune if it's not on vinyl, some that won't touch a tune if it's not on digital, so it sort of splits the market for any potential release. I do reckon though that physical releases still sell more than they're perceived as selling, if you see what I mean. Again it's sometimes a case of just taking that risk.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
gumdrops said:
you can get tunes a hell of a lot cheaper though cant you?
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True but CDJs are so expensive (I wish I could afford even one of them!) and surely thats what you want, especially djing out in clubs. I could be wrong but I still doubt that mp3s make things easier for djs.

I do think you've got a good point about producers being more protective about their tracks though, one leak and you're fucked. That must be really galling.
 
O

Ory

warp drive
a lot of the big tunes get leaked. like right now, "kiss me there" and the champion remix of "bad girl" are both available in 320 if you know where to look. hhb "colonel" as well. it's a shame really, as i'd love to buy them all on vinyl.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Ory said:
a lot of the big tunes get leaked. like right now, "kiss me there" and the champion remix of "bad girl" are both available in 320 if you know where to look. hhb "colonel" as well. it's a shame really, as i'd love to buy them all on vinyl.
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aye...and Funkystepz 'For u' among others. I feel bad even mentioning it :eek:
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
Benny B said:
The whole dubplate exclusive part of the culture is a big part of it I think, but (from what I can gather) at least with Jungle and garage the vast majority of the really big tunes would make it out in some form eventually. I'm guessing the market just isn't there to make it worth releasing stuff like there used to be, but I did have slightly higher hopes for Funky I must say.
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Funk Butcher was talking about this on Twitter recently. Seems a lot of Funky producers actually charge the DJs for dubs, which means they're not really all that concerned about releasing the tracks to the public at large in order to make money.

Not sure how much they charge - £20 or £30 maybe? They could sell each tune to just 4 or 5 DJs and make as much money as selling 500 or 600 downloads through places like ITMS.

Plus, since the DJs are having to pay for dubs, they're less inclined to share / leak what they've got, so they hold their value. In business terms, it works very well. But of course it totally cuts out the bedroom DJs and single buyers.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
^^^ yeah that seems a likely explanation. I've even seen producers offering dubplate exclusives to DJs on their myspace pages. £50 a shout.

edit: Then again, you'd think that the producers would still want to make money from releasing their tunes eventually, after they've done the rounds of the djs.
 
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Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
hint said:
Funk Butcher was talking about this on Twitter recently. Seems a lot of Funky producers actually charge the DJs for dubs, which means they're not really all that concerned about releasing the tracks to the public at large in order to make money.

Not sure how much they charge - £20 or £30 maybe? They could sell each tune to just 4 or 5 DJs and make as much money as selling 500 or 600 downloads through places like ITMS.

Plus, since the DJs are having to pay for dubs, they're less inclined to share / leak what they've got, so they hold their value. In business terms, it works very well. But of course it totally cuts out the bedroom DJs and single buyers.
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Thanks for this, it's something I'd been wondering about. I was aware that producers in the scene charged for specials with the DJ id'd on them, but I wasn't sure whether they charged just for regular dubs.
I can def appreciate how it works well as a business model, and also I guess it leaves the producers relatively free of the hassle of dealing with record labels, publicity etc so they can just get on with producing. But it is a little bit frustrating from the pov of a listener and music buyer (not that they have any 'duty' to us, obv) and perhaps more importantly in the long term it might hinder attempts to promote the music outside of the core London pirate network. But I guess then it's up to us to keep listening to radio and keep bigging up all the good tunes and producers that we hear, hopefully that way people will keep finding out about it.
 
B

BareBones

wheezy
you don't really see much money from record sales these days anyway do you? all the money's in dj bookings and remixes from what i know, which admittedly isn't a lot.
 
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Tim F

Well-known member
A quick guide to the key Mad One tunes:

House Girls Part 1 - "GIRRRRRRLLSSSSSSSSS!" - raw military funky
Tribal Conga - hypnotic beat, sludgy menacing tuba bass, dinky little keyboard riffs
Gotta Have It - Big piano hooks, complicated broken beat-ish groove, fantastic scat vocal
Night Train - stripped down hard techno funky
unknown - samples that euro house tune "badaba ba ba, ba ba, ba ba, babadabada..."
Tribal Daydream - eerie pulpit MC funky
People Keep Dancing - brilliant epic post-Donaeo tribal-pop
House Girls Part 6 - Dennis Ferrer's "Hey Hey" turned into a slasher film
 
W

Webstarr

Well-known member
Does he have a myspace or soundcloud?

Also djs paying for dubs is nothing new, some grime mcs and producers used to charge for dubs/specials aswell (and probably still do)
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
I heart Night Train. People Keep Dancing is always a highlight in any set too.
Never Coming Out 2 & Dirty Funk are the other ones that I remember as being good, not heard them in a wee while though.
Between the latest House Girls version and that still-unamed (right?) Ill Blu tune, it's turning into drum meltdown season. Which I totally approve of.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
you lot realise you can join facebook groups and add these people as friends and they will send you mixes and information on an annoyingly regular basis right?
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
luka said:
you lot realise you can join facebook groups and add these people as friends and they will send you mixes and information on an annoyingly regular basis right?
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Yeah I know mate, I know - I have this daft thing where in my head I prefer to use Twitter for most of my music things and keep Facebook for my 'real-life' things, but I've just going to have to get over than because fb does seem to be the main way to contact a lot of the funky guys.
 
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