Bassdrop.co.nz

Posted on on 24 February 2009 by Matty Baseline

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When you look at the number of gigs happening in Wellington these days, it's hard to believe that 10 years ago we were missing out on most of the big international tours coming through the country. Enter Bass Frontiers. In the past decade they have brought Welly to the forefront of the national drum & bass scene, with many big names listing it as one of their preferred cities to play. With that in mind, this Saturday they're celebrating their 10th birthday and, true to form, it promises to be one hell of a party. With two of the most respected DJs in drum & bass holding down the decks, it promises to be a night not to forget. Matt Baseline sat down with DDog this week to reminisce about parties past and look forward at what is to come.

How did Bass Frontiers start?

Bass Frontiers kicked off in 1999 when I was flatting with old school Wellington drum and bass stalwart, DJ Conspiracy. The Wellington scene had been lacking for a while and there were bugger all decent acts coming to Wellington, a lot were just hitting Christchurch and Auckland and missing Welly completely. I had already been doing a few gigs under the name Grind, which was basically just me and a few mates from Uni who wanted to put on raves in our big ass Garrett St flat. So I had a bit of experience. These nights tended to be crazy across the board things with techno, drum and bass, house, and hip hop; whatever really. Through these nights I really developed a love for drum and bass and decided that it was what I wanted to focus on.

I approached (Auckland promoters) Presha and the Subtronix boys and asked what it would take for us to start getting the internationals back in Wellington as they were not prepared to do it any longer after they had been burned a few times here. Presha said if we could prove ourselves with a good solid foundation of local nights he would think about passing on some acts to us. So one night when Conspiracy came home and said he had Studio Nine on board and keen to have us do a regular night it all kind of fell into place from there. I had met a few of the drum and bass boys through the Garret St/Grind scene so we approached them with the idea of forming a crew and branding it Bass Frontiers.  The DJs we approached I had all seen play and fully respected them, they all had their own unique style and I felt they all complemented each other enough that we could build nights that covered a wide range of drum and bass. We all got together and launched the Bass Frontiers crew and a regular Thursday night at Studio. After a couple of successful nights Presha offered us Grooverider as our first international and we haven't looked back from there. After Studio being a bit apprehensive of the drum and bass market at the start, we quickly earned their respect and established ourselves as the backbone of the club with many successful nights.

I should also mention that back in those days I had no real interest in DJing; I was purely motivated by the passion to put on good parties for the people of a sound that I felt deserved to be heard. It was a good 2 or 3 years before I started DJing seriously myself after the start of Bass Frontiers. I was happy just doing it for others and enjoying the parties myself.

 

In the last 10 years, roughly how many parties do you think you have thrown?

Hard to say, around the 200 mark probably.

Of these, which ones stand out and for what reasons?

So many! I will pick five, but man it's so hard!

1. Grooverider '99 - for obvious reasons our first international and first sell out.

2. The New Frontier NYE 02 - Bailey, Intalex and Digital - absolutely epic gig which brought together all the bars in Edward St and had some crazy shenanigans. Easily the best NYE I have ever had in Welly and huge crowd. Proved that Welly could in fact be a proper NYE destination.

3. Marky and Bryan Gee - Studio9 - January 02 - first time ever witnessing and meeting the enigma that is Marky. His vibe is just so infectious and has the whole club so happy and eating out the palm of his hand. Amazing vibes and amazing DJ, has never ever disappointed.

4. DJ Zinc '03 - Sandwiches - I don't remember too much of this gig but will put it down because it was our first proper international at Sandwiches and started a long and great relationship with an amazing club and the awesome people that run it. Big up Bryce, Jonny and Wade!

5. Drumz 07 - Doc Scott and Intalex - July 07 - my recent favourite brought back memories of when I first saw Scotty in the golden age of dnb in '97. Amazing vibes that just kept getting better all night until we had to pry Scotty off the decks at 8am in the morning. Then being told by Scotty it was one of his top 10 gigs of all time; which was such an honour coming from someone I respect and have been influenced by such a huge amount!

Who were the original Bass Frontiers crew and what are they up to now?

Sean - he's in Melbourne; doesn't do any dnb anymore just focuses on writing slower beats and DJing more lounge type shiz.

B.Lo - was in melbs, but back in Welly now; still DJing but no dnb anymore

Kava - still in Welly; no dnb either, more repping the Baltimore and fidget house with a bit of downbeat.

Pixie - in Sydney I think; don't know what he's up to

Ruffstep - Invercargill; doing an audio course

Nikal - not DJing at all; focusing on work and career

Conspiracy - still in Welly; writing drum and bass under the name Faction

Sal - not original crew but joined pretty early on in the piece; still in Welly repping BF

Over the years, has the Wellington scene changed much?

Yeah, the sound has definitely got a lot harder and techier. Most of the original DJs were influenced a lot by soul, funk, hip hop, techno and house. These days they seem to be mainly influenced by just drum and bass or harder edge sounds such as metal. DJs seem to pigeon hole themselves a lot more as to playing just a particular style of drum and bass whereas back in the day the sets were a lot more 'full spectrum' encompassing way more flavas.

As far as parties go the scene has changed loads, things seemed to be a lot messier and looser back in the day, things these days have calmed down a lot. There use to be a lot of multi genre gigs where djs of all styles came together in warehouses and all sorts of other places. The inner city apartment boom in the late 90's saw a lot of these spaces converted over or no longer able to be used because of noise restrictions. The late 90's everything seemed to become confined to clubs and there seemed to be less and less cross over between the scenes until it has become what it has now where gigs are very much one style of music all night and there is very little cross over except at the bigger festival style events.

You're also one of the hosts of Future Funk on Radio Active; how is the radio show different playing in a club?

The radio show I use as an opportunity to air a lot of music I perhaps wouldn't play in the club. These days I get given a lot of music and it's hard to fit it all into club sets so it's great to have a weekly outlet to play a lot of it. In the club I tend to tailor my set to suit who I am supporting, what the style of night is or what time I'm playing. On the radio it's kind of like whatever I feel like goes.

I see myself as a very club orientated DJ and see it as my job to keep people on the dancefloor and there buying drinks so I will tend to cater a lot more to the kind of crowd it is when out in the club.

What can people expect from Doc Scott, Marcus Intalex and the local support on Saturday night?

I wouldnt expect too much from the support, Scotty has been in touch and requested a 6 - 8 hour set so we will be looking at getting those boys on the decks as early as possible and letting them roll out the whole night. Gonna be a very special set from those guys they are claiming they have loads and loads of fresh music so basically we are gonna be in for a big treat. Scotty always unleashes a solid selection of older stuff as well so look out for some amazing selections from him.

B-lo will be joining us early on to lay down some classics. As many will know he has only recently returned from Melbourne but was a very vital part of the BF crew back in the day. You can also expect the usual high standard of upfront music from Presha, Sal and Myself.

Are there any DJs that you haven't brought to Welly that you would like to?

Would defiantly like to see more of the jump up sound that has always been a personal favourite of mine artists like Clipz and Hazard, I would like to see them do serious damage to the dancefloor.

But yeah I'm generally pretty content with what we have on offer I feel it represents a good range of what's good about drum and bass.

What does 2009 hold for Bass Frontiers and for you?

2009 is all about continuing the high standard we have set. Look out for tours incoming from the likes of Calibre and MC Drs, Klute, the Upbeats Album Release, State of Mind Faster than Light tour with C4C, London Elektricity, Lynx and Kemo, DJ Marky and many many more.

As always we look to promote the artists we feel represent everything that is good and cutting edge about drum and bass today as well as looking after those we have established long running and healthy relationships with and have become crowd favourites here.

Lastly, how about a current top 10 of tunes you're feeling?

I don't really do top 10's anymore cos it's too hard to decide; here's 10 in the crate that I'm feelin' this week in no particular order

• State of Mind - All Mixed Up
• Ed Rush and Optical - Chub Rub
• Zero T - Refusal (Calibre remix)
• The Upbeats - SFX
• Trei - Sound Down
• Lenzman - Bear Trap
• General Degree - Papa Lover (Serum remix)
• Digital - No Wicked
• Vicious Circle - Havana
• Loxy and Resound - Storyboard