DMZ 002 on Ebay

[thomas]

PRessing from a press, weak, an artist would never do that. And for a fan to bootleg it would be pretty poor aswell.

If this is worth that much, i wonder what our records will be worth in 20 years when Dubstep has got to the level of other genres? (if it does)

Paying silly money for GR released Hip Hop records from just about 10 years ago still today

[owengriffiths]

I bought the first 2 when they came out because I thought Digital Mystikz were doing something very different. It really surprised me when they became the top dogs in the Dubstep scene. Not that they didn't have the talent, it was just that up until then Garage wasn't really noted for having a discerning audience with good taste.

As for the whole idea of 'lost tunes'. If there is demand for tunes then that should be satisfied. I'm sick of having to spend tons of money in a short period of time simply because if you dont buy a dubstep tune in the initial 3 months you are fucked for the rest of your days (or forced to buy on Ebay for quadruple the RRP).

DMZ seem to be taking things seriously with represses nowadays. It's a shame about the relatively small printruns of Deep Medi though.

'Lost tunes' is shit to everyone bar the few who managed to beg borrow or steal one in the first place

[4linehaiku]

Think Tempa used Hatcha's dubplate of Star Wars as the master for the Roots of Dubstep vinyl sampler as Benga lost all the files in his harddrive failure. That's why it's the "Hatcha VIP", because he had the only copy of it. Point is, that tune sounds pretty good, so that method clearly works. Not required in this case though.

[owengriffiths]

It's pretty depressing to think about all those tunes lost. The roots of Dubstep 12 sounded fine to my ears.

I wonder how Benga put the two 2003/4 tunes on his recent album (think one was called 'the visitor'), perhaps they were on a different pc

[ufo over easy]

Not that they didn't have the talent, it was just that up until then Garage wasn't really noted for having a discerning audience with good taste.

Come off it..

[owengriffiths]

I'll stand by that statement. I use the word Garage because back then Dubstep was so small that I didn't really take the word too seriously.

Garage fucked a lot of things up. At the end of the day I loved that music and still do, way back to the 4 to the floor days.

My point is that the mistakes that Garage made form part of the reason why there are a fair amount of people into Dubstep nowadays who like to deny it's Garage past. I'm not one of them, but I will list a few problems that Garage had.

1. The original 4 to the floor stuff was great, but one thing it didn't do very well was subtlety. Some tracks like the Cheese & Pickle EP were nice and relaxed, but most of the tunes weren't. They were too 'obvious'. Great while the fun lasted, but after a few hours it started to grate a bit. The fact that they were pitched to plus 4 at times also didn't help things.

2. The birth of 2-step was really exciting. People like Steve Gurley among others really killed it. But after a while few producers followed his good example. Vocal tunes stopped becoming sophisticated pieces of work, and started to rely more on a traditional verse chorus verse chorus structure. Garage pioneered the use of vocal snippets, and this was one of the most exciting things about it. It was a minimalist approach- only use as many vocals as you need. A good example (albeit 4/4) is Ray Hurley's 'Just Yourself'. He got Donna Cousins in the studio and she sung a full song. He had the balls to say "sorry love, I'll only use 10% of it".

3. It wasn't long before many producers were stealing vocals from US R&B. Some were creative with this, but others used the worst common dominator of million dollar R&B. I love a vocal tune like the next man, but there wasn't much sophisticated in the kind of accapellas they used. There's very little soulful about Destinys Child, end of story. There's no doubt about it, too many producers got it into their heads that you couldn't make a vocal tune without making it sound cheesy. This attitude forms the bread & butter of trance (in terms of synth melodies), and in some parts of the House scene as well (in terms of instrumental production)

4. when things began to get darker I was loving it, but as I got older I started to realise that some tunes were cruder than they first seemed. That's what is so good about a lot of the early ammuniton stuff, they were putting out tunes of a higher quality, trying to hold back the tide of poorly produced stuff.

5. Garage's problem with quality control:-
Promoters who put little thought into what would make a good night, instead just going for obvious big names.
The idea that 15 rewinds in an hour is a good thing.
The insistence of an MC in a club or on a radio show 90% of the time.
Shit remixes
The culture of ripping people off. Lets face it, VIP remixes are great if you get them for free (or as a b-side to a good tune). They're a tnuc if they cost £7 and you already have the original.

I could name more problems with Garage but I'm a bit tired and want to go to bed soon.

In the case of Digital Mystikz, I thought that they were too avant garde to be scene dons. I'm probably not the only person in 2004 to think this.

[shonky]

^^^Admittedly, having heard some of the recent organ garage tunes, I'd agree that they're pretty much 100% shit.

Having read the rest of what you've written, I'd say you've pretty much missed the point entirely. Garage wasn't a contemplative music where people would stroke their chins - it's for dancing. And there were some tunes that were pretty pop orientated and some that were more on an artistic tip.

So to discuss the points raised

1/ I own quite a few unsubtle garage tunes and indeed quite a few unsubtle tunes full stop. Sometimes subtlety is a good thing, sometimes it isn't. In some ways it's the ruffness of those tunes that is it's raison d'etre. It's the unsubtlety of a lot of grime which I like about it.

2/ I'd say that there's at least as many garage tunes from around that period that didn't use vocal cut-ups as used full vocals. Todd Edwards is not the beginning and end of garage.

3/ Not mad into full RnB bootlegs, but a/ quite a lot of garage heads come from that background (and there's been RnB house remixes since house came into being) and b/ it doesn't have to be bad (the Agent X remix of Ja Rule's "Always on Time" being a good example)

4/ You could say this about old house, old jungle, old hardcore - again the crudity doesn't immediately make it a good tune, but neither does more refined recording techniques

5/ Think this might as well be "any music's problem with quality control". If you've got the money to put a 12" out you can be part of the record industry - doesn't mean that the tunes actually worth putting out, just means that it's going to be an obstacle to a punter trying to find the good stuff. Rip-offs, rewinds, and omnipresent mc's is just as common in other genres let's face it.

I think the current dubsteppaz problem with garage is that it isn't underground/difficult/blokey/avant-garde enough, but that's their loss really. Witness the Timbaland disses elsewhere on this forum - some people have a problem with pop period

I can remember similar shit in the mid-80's between fans of Metallica and Bon Jovi and imagine it'll be the same shit 20 years from now

[elgato]

Think Tempa used Hatcha's dubplate of Star Wars as the master for the Roots of Dubstep vinyl sampler as Benga lost all the files in his harddrive failure. That's why it's the "Hatcha VIP", because he had the only copy of it. Point is, that tune sounds pretty good, so that method clearly works. Not required in this case though.

im pretty certain this is untrue. Hatcha's plate was a mess, ive got a set of his where you can hardly hear the tune for the crackle

[gravious]

Think Tempa used Hatcha's dubplate of Star Wars as the master for the Roots of Dubstep vinyl sampler as Benga lost all the files in his harddrive failure. That's why it's the "Hatcha VIP", because he had the only copy of it. Point is, that tune sounds pretty good, so that method clearly works. Not required in this case though.

im pretty certain this is untrue. Hatcha's plate was a mess, ive got a set of his where you can hardly hear the tune for the crackle

If this is true, I'd imagine they would have used the original digital copy, not actual acetate! Presumably hatcha would have a CD or sommat with it on in order to take it to get cut.

Mastering a tune for vinyl off of an ancient torn up dubplate would be a mission and a half I'd imagine.

[gravious]

Oh yeah, and 77 quid!!!

Fuckin mental, thats what it is...

It also means that in 10 or 20 years I may be rich beyond my wildest dreams!

As for beg/borrow/stealing the original copies, I don't remember there being a massive rush for them at the time. It was kicking about for a while, if i recall

[elgato]

quite interesting that thats almost exactly the same price it went for last time, ebay is usually much less consistent than that

and it was woebot who dun it! deep

[ramadanman]

i like the idea of there being lost tunes etc, and i really like the story of dmz 1 & 2, and the legend of the lost plates etc. i think it adds something to the music, a bit of mystique, and something special. i think too often these days people just EXPECT that they're entitled to every piece of music out there, when this is definitely not the case.

[RubiconMan]

£77....bizarre

[rich_c90]

i'm kinda surprised people are like "MY GOD! 77 QUID, THATS MENTAL"

sure, it'd be mental of me to buy it for that much, but if you're minted, who cares, do what you want with your money...

[RubiconMan]

but if you're minted, who cares, do what you want with your money...

true that, bizarre still

[4linehaiku]

im pretty certain this is untrue. Hatcha's plate was a mess, ive got a set of his where you can hardly hear the tune for the crackle

Yeah. I was typing rubbish. Pretty sure I meant what Gravious said:

If this is true, I'd imagine they would have used the original digital copy, not actual acetate! Presumably hatcha would have a CD or sommat with it on in order to take it to get cut.

Original digital copy, just that Hatcha was the only person who had it. I was temporarily confused.

[the wiggle baron]

Im still fingers crossed for the back-of-some-dodgy-looking-record shop, under-the-half price-jimmy cliff-singles £2 find of the century...

[wil blaze]

Im still fingers crossed for the back-of-some-dodgy-looking-record shop, under-the-half price-jimmy cliff-singles £2 find of the century...

]

word

[spooKs]

also rather than ridiculing the amount of money people spend on these plates its a hell of a testament to the DMZ boys. that's not what the record's being priced at: that's how much people are willing to spend!

[messsingh]

How funny!

I wasn't sure at the time if it was worth buying because one tune reminded me of that "yeah" tune by Usher and Little Jon.

Looks like I made the right choice

Jazz