Yes yes, debating where to go for my boxing day party, either that house passion one or that one Arun Verone's playing which was posted a while back.
I played 02:31 this saturday, the launch party of 'midnight sessions' where it opens at 12 rather than 2:30. I was the warm up act, 12-1 and Tom Shorterz told me "keep it mellow warm up bouncy NO jackin" lol. Started with some garage house stuff and moved up towards deep tech for most of the set. Went absolutely off, biggest reactions came from Mind Your Step, Nothing to Fear, Bigger than Prince and Party Non Stop. An of course You Want Me, lol, so much for no jackin. Yeah this stuff's wicked, super excited to see where it goes next year.
Also had the privilege of having some long in depth chats with Marcus Nasty and Kane from Cause & Affect. Covered loads of really interesting stuff, with Marcus saying that the jackin guys really shot themselves in the foot by moving away from the jackin tag and trying to insert themselves into the wider house scene where they'll never be the top dogs - which was pretty much exactly my view on the matter. Kane argued that like, he was looking at the long term not the short term, and that garage, bassline, all these genres die, but house goes on forever. For him there was also like a moral element of it in that bassline and all those genres always had a strong degree of violence associated with the scene, whereas house has always been more about tolerance and love and all of that, which is why the 02:31 scene has managed to avoid the violence which plauged those other genres.
Kind of undermined his point about house when I asked him about deep tech though, he talked about how he liked the sound, but couldn't get behind the scene. He talked about how Mark Radford was playing Brum that night and that event always has stabbings and problems with violence, about how some of the producers are courting that ghetto image and attractive that sort of fan.
How does this square up with people's experiences of deep tech raves? Is it something lots in translation when this stuff moves out of London? Is it that jackin already has the mdma loved up raver contingent locked in Brum, leaving only a more street crowd for deep tech? What's the vibe in a London night? I know people are dancing, but is it love and peace, or is there some of that tension which has characterizes so many UK scenes (jungle, garage, obviously grime, a little bit with funky, not at all with dubstep lol)?