Session Transcript:
Plastician (Plasticman)
Red Bull Music Academy, Rome 2004

The video stream for this lecture can be watched here.

Not a cartoon character, nor a Canadian techno DJ: Chris Reed a.k.a Plasticman makes dutty, dutty beats. In this session he spoke on the gene pool of the grime protoplasm: MS-Dubs provided some four-to-the-floor-niceness, then Genius came with what was known as 2-step, then it was all about Musical Mob's Pulse X, which many will agree was the track that kickstarted a revolution. From his beginnings spinning garage as DJ Darkstar, Plasticman jumped out on East London-based pirate station Rinse FM for the London massifff (via inspiration from South London’s Taste FM, and a stint at Streetsales distribution). Check Rephlex or his own Terror Rhythm label for more gully goodness, or bang one out yourself – as Chris says, it’s all about killer d.i.y. sonics.

RBMA: »So it’s Plasticman with a ‘c’ and not a ‘k’.«

Plasticman: »That’s right, yeah.«

RBMA: »And rather than, you know, talk about what we do; we thought we’d just kick it off with a tune from yourself. What’s this?«

Plasticman: »Erm, this is a release called Hard Graft, which I think it came out in 2002, 2003 sort of time – not that long ago but I think it was my third release. And yeah, I’m just going to play it for you now anyway.«

(music: Plasticman - Hard Graft)

RBMA: »Now, for a lot of people, that sound, right, and that whole style of music, might be very foreign. For people that don’t know, what are we calling this?«

Plasticman: »At the moment people are sort of labeling it as a new genre called grime, which sort of evolved from the old UK garage scene when it started getting a little bit dark. But people have labelled it grime. It’s like, a totally new kind of music that’s coming out of London at the moment and it’s starting to spread around.«

RBMA: »Now if you had to describe to your grandmother what grime was all about musically, how would you tell her?«

Plasticman: »I suppose it’s just energetic; dark; mainly instrumental, because most tracks are made with the intention of perhaps an MC to spit lyrics over the top of it. Or, I don’t know, it’s just quite high energy dark stuff, really.«

RBMA: »When you’re saying that you’re talking more about how the whole dancehall concept with, say, rhythm culture, and people come out with a riddim and MCs toast over it, and: it’s kind of evolved from that?«

Plasticman: »Yeah totally, it’s the same concept, yeah.«

RBMA: »Without a doubt in modern electronic music, I don’t think there’s been any genre that’s been more confusing for people. Like in the last five years you’ve seen the speed garage thing, (makes exaggerated counting action) then UK garage, 2-step; you had breakstep and then there’s grime, and sublow and eski, and it’s all a bit mad really! I mean, what’s the difference, and what’s up with all these different people calling their stuff different things when… (mimes action of weighing up)?«

Plasticman: »I don’t know, I just think that it changes so much that everyone’s just trying to stick a pin on it and say: “This is what it’s called.” And then someone will go: “I don’t want to call it that, that’s like… I’m not calling my music that. We’re going to call it this instead,” and it just got so confusing for everyone that someone just has to come along and just go: “Oh, let's just call it grime and deal with that and that’ll do!”-sort of thing. It’s just got to that point now.«

RBMA: »Everyone just sat there and went: “OK, we’ll call it grime”?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, I think – I don’t even think, I don’t know if everyone sort of, it’s not like an official name – it’s just like what most people call it now. So like, technically it’s not even the proper name for it, it’s just like what a lot of people would call it.«

RBMA: »(mischievous smile) So if someone says to me: “I make sublow," you just go: “No, you make grime”?«

Plasticman: »(laughs) Yeah, basically sublow is like a sub-division of grime but there’s no point trying to pigeonhole it any more. It’s such a small scene that it hasn’t really reached its full potential yet. So there’s no point trying to pigeonhole it even more. So I think if we just stick to grime, it’ll be alright.«

RBMA: »(bows head smiling) Yes, I mean, where did the word grime come from first of all?«

Plasticman: »When the whole thing switched from UK garage and it became quite MC-based and dark, you would hear MCs on the mic saying: “Oh, this is, this one’s grimier” – someone would go: “Oh, that tune’s grimey,” and then it got like, DJs were going: “Oh, I don’t really like grime, this grimey stuff." Like, the garage DJs would get on the mic and say, y’know: “We don’t support the grime.” It just stuck really, it just took a few people to start using the word and…«

RBMA: »Now if I was to look up in the dictionary the word ‘grimey’, what would I find?«

Plasticman: »Erm, dirt (laughs)!«

RBMA: »(fake astonishment) Dirt?«

Plasticman: »Dirt, scum, I don’t know!«

RBMA: »(laughs with delight then becomes serious) I mean, what you were saying before, I don’t think any genre’s evolved so much, and with all these different names; I mean, what I think would be cool is for a lot of people the word ‘garage’, conjures up the US images of garage.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, totally.«

RBMA: »Maybe we can kind of break down, over the last six or seven years, what it’s evolved from and, with some tunes, just to give people some ideas.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, definitely, I’ve got some old garage tracks as well, just so you can see the difference; how it’s kind of changed over the years.«

RBMA: »At what did UK producers take the old US version of house and garage; when did the UK producers start picking up on that and why did they pick up on the name garage?«

Plasticman: »I’m not too sure, to be honest with you. I think it was like when jungle and that was starting to fade out a little bit, people wanted something new. It started getting – like, again, this was like exactly how grime kind of split from UK garage. The drum 'n' bass scene split a little bit, when the old like vocal thing started coming in and the MCs were starting to get on the mic, and people were like: “Oh, it’s not how we used to like it.” Then garage came along, people were like: “Yeah, I’m going to get on this.” And then like (makes ‘ta-da’ action with hands), then that got ruined as well, and then, to them anyway, it got ruined. Know what I mean? It’s like everyone’s always looking for something new. So, I think that’s why everything evolves, it’s just a continuum. Everything just carries on moving.«

RBMA: »Nice. So what’s this record we’re going to listen to now?«

Plasticman: »This is an old track; let me just check that I’ve got the right side of it (holds headphones up to one ear), an old garage track, actually.«

RBMA: »Which is on Locked On?«

Plasticman: »This is on Locked On, which was a big garage label.«

RBMA: »And it kind of spawned out of, there was a record shop called Pure Groove, wasn’t there?«

Plasticman: »That’s right, that’s right; in London. They run the label. And this is an industry-standard track. This basically is like garage as we knew it when it first sort of started.«

(music fades in)

»(turns down the gain) So that’s garage, basically. That was what it sort of spawned from basically, that was garage.«

RBMA: »(mischievous smile) Speed garage or UK garage?«

Plasticman: »Erm… hmmm.«

RBMA: »Or was speed garage just a naff journalistic term that Mixmag magazine came up with sort of thing?«

Plasticman: »It was like, a bit of a mad one. I think speed garage was kind of a bit more bass-driven than that. That was more, a bit more like house, a bit more US style. Speed garage was a bit more bass-driven, like the 187 and that kind of stuff.«

RBMA: »There were a couple remixes that Armand van Helden did and…«

Plasticman: »Yeah, yeah, definitely, like some of his stuff…«

RBMA: »Sneaker Pimps and all that.«

Plasticman: »That’s right, yeah.«

RBMA: »Now, I mean, for you growing up what was your kind of entry point into this music and underground music in general?«

Plasticman: »To be honest with you, living in England, the whole country’s brainwashed by the UK charts, so I didn’t actually get into underground music until quite late on. I was probably about 15 or 16 when I started listening to jungle. And I was into it, but not as into it as a lot of people were and a lot of my friends were. So I was checking for nu skool breaks stuff and some of the old breakbeat stuff and the sort of stuff people were breakdancing to - I was just checking for old stuff. Yeah, when I left secondary school, 16 I suppose, and I went to college, I started listening to pirates and I was listening to garage at probably the age of 16. Which is what? About five or six years ago. So not that long ago, really.«

RBMA: »I mean for you, what was it initially about garage that made you go: “Damn, that’s me, I’m feeling it”?«

Plasticman: »I suppose at like 16, 17 you start thinking about going out and getting drunk, and at the time, that was the music that was played in the clubs and it was like: “I quite like this music.” And when you’ve had a few drinks it seemed even better. So it was just like going out with my mates and that…«

RBMA: »(laughs and falls backwards on the couch)«

Plasticman: »I was just like: “Yeah, I quite like this stuff,” and started buying records and then got into DJing like almost straight away, as soon as I started listening to pirates, I thought, 'Yeah, I quite like this'.«

RBMA: »I mean, if there was one point that was a bit of a catalyst for going: “Right, I like going out and rocking out to it, but I want to be playing it, I want to be making it.” What was it for you?«

Plasticman: »It was just the opportunity. I had to buy a set of decks off my mate, I just thought, 'Why not?' He had them going, they were dirt cheap, I thought, 'I’ve got to take the opportunity, I may as well have a go, as cheap as they are'. I think I paid like 150 pounds for like a full set of decks: turntables and the mixer and everything. And yeah, I just haven’t looked back since, really. I just got right into it straight away.«

RBMA: »So for you obviously the DJing came before the production.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, yeah.«

RBMA: »Was it out of necessity that the production side of things started to kick off?«

Plasticman: »When I first started, and even now really, I’m not really a musically-minded person, I just sort of know what I like musically. So, I remember a mate of mine telling me: “Oh, you’ll start making tracks soon,” and I was like: “Nah, I’ll never, I haven’t got the brain for that, I don’t have a clue how to use the equipment.” And it just got to a point one day: I was DJing and listening to pirate radio -and I think I might have just left the pirate station at the time - and I was listening to a pirate and there was a DJ on there who was quite a big producer at the time. But he wasn’t the greatest DJ and I just thought, 'Do you know what? This is just really annoying. I’m a better DJ than this guy but I’m getting absolutely nowhere'. So I thought, 'Maybe if I start trying to make some beats and I get lucky, I’ll have a set on the radio and that'. And, yeah, lo and behold…«

RBMA: »And you did.«

Plasticman: »It worked, yeah (laughter).«

RBMA: »When you talk about pirate radio I’m pretty sure everyone in this room knows a bit about pirate radio. For UK music and the evolution of UK underground music, over the last 15 years – well, 20 years or so – pirate radio has played a pivotal role. I mean, just how important has pirate radio been for garage and what kind of role does it play today?«

Plasticman: »It’s massive. Like, there’s god knows how many pirate stations, getting hit by the D.T.I. every couple of days, like, but they’re still going. I saw a list on the internet actually, somebody actually took the time to go through the dial and say: “Look, this is a list of all the pirate stations,” and there was over a hundred pirate stations on rotation, like sort of on and off, taking time on and off the airwaves. But the station that I’m on, Rinse FM, has been running for ten years now. And Kool FM still runs and they’ve been running from back in the jungle days. It’s just played such a big role in bringing forward new music.«

RBMA: »If you go back to the mid-'90s, every single pirate in London and up North, it was all jungle, all jungle, and then when the garage scene came, it kind of seemed with all these pirates there was garage on the pirates everywhere. Break down musically what you’re hearing on the pirates these days.«

Plasticman: »I reckon like 90% of it is like grime, garage, garage/grime. The traditional UK garage has almost gone now, so there’s like a couple of stations that will play it all day long and nothing else. And then there’s other stations what might play a little bit of garage during the day, and then night time it’s pure grime. And there’s actually now a couple of stations which play 100% grime, like MCs on every set, kids, everything. Mad. Them ones are mad though ‘cause they go on and off all the time ‘cause the kids heat up the studio and sooner or later someone finds out where it is and they’re having trouble staying on all the time ‘cause there’s so many people in the studio all the time.«

RBMA: »Is it still as bad as it used to be, to the point with the D.T.I, if you get busted, like £50.000 fines? I remember a guy who played on the pirates and he had about 50.000 records, they went round to his house and confiscated all his records. Is it still that bad, are they still actively…?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, they can literally take whatever they want. If they find you in a pirate studio at the time when you’re broadcasting, they can take what they want. There’s no law to say they can’t walk in your house and take all your records, your decks, anything. Anything on site as well, anything in the building that you’re broadcasting from. So it’s like…«

RBMA: »I mean, musically from that whole scene the one person who’s had amazing international success is Dizzee Rascal. Someone like Dizzee Rascal and there’s been a few other names, obviously like Wiley and all that have sort of cropped up over the last year or so. Without pirate radio would you be seeing people like Dizzee?«

Plasticman: »No, definitely not. Like, the commercial market in the UK, it’s really spoon-fed. I mean, no one will come through unless there’s a hype on them. Like, the whole Pop Idol thing, half of them aren’t good enough to be on television and to be seen. And then they’ll get signed by a major record label because they’ve been on television for the last six months and they last ten minutes. And then there’s actually people like Dizzee trying to come through. If it weren’t for the hype that he got on pirate radio and playing at raves and stuff, the majors wouldn’t have listened. He could’ve sent them a million demos and they would’ve been like: “Nah, what the hell is that? It’s too weird."«

RBMA: »Just quickly going back to the Dizzee thing, how is he perceived within the garage community? And, is there a certain element of: “Dizzee’s done a lot of good for the scene internationally”?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, totally. I think some people in the scene are split. More intellectual people in the scene are really pleased with him, it’s good to see that he’s doing stuff and he’s really sort of pushing boundaries lyrically with his sound, and he’s totally representing. He’s opened the door for people like myself to come through and show what I’ve got to offer. But then you’ve got the more narrow-minded people who are like, they used to go and watch him at the raves and they used to listen to him on pirate. And now, ‘cause you’re not going to hear Dizzee on pirate every Saturday and he’s not like comin’ and mashin’ up all the raves, they’re like…«

RBMA: »Hanging out at the local the record stores.«

Plasticman: »Exactly. They’re like: “Oh, he’s selling out. He’s not street anymore, he’s not real.” It’s like: "Get a grip, man. What would you rather be doing, like sitting in a record shop on a Saturday just chatting to people or like going out, flying all over the world playing your records, playing your music to thousands of people?" I know what I’d choose, y’know what I mean?«

RBMA: »Obviously, the thing you just played, the Locked On thing, was a UK garage thing. Shall we play another bit now that kind of plots out the course – evolution?«

Plasticman: »OK. Yeah, cool. After UK garage there was like 2-step which was slightly less dancey, but like a little bit more r ’n' b sort of styles going on.«

(music)

»It’s quite weird actually, listening to this again – I haven’t listened to this record for years. Even back then I was just confused by the speed of it ‘cause grime has sped up so much since 2-step and UK garage.«

RBMA: »What bpm range are you working with grime?«

Plasticman: »I think grime is about 140, sometimes more. I’ve looked on the deck when I’ve been playing out sometimes, and the CDJs and the bpm is getting near 149. This was produced at 136 sort of speed. And it just sounds so slow to me now, it’s quite mad.«

(music picks up and furious head nodding begins)

RBMA: »Who was that by?«

Plasticman: »This was by Genius Cru, who actually had a commercial release with a track not long after that. I think this was ’99 sort of time, ’99, 2000, and they had a release in the charts. What was it called?«

RBMA: »Oi!.«

Plasticman: »Nah, that was More Fire Crew – Genius Cru had Boom Selection. And they had another track called Course Bruv.«

RBMA: »(smiles ) Yeah, ‘course, bruv (laughter).«

Plasticman: »That was it! And then this label Chronic actually put out some of the early So Solid stuff before they got signed as well, so it’s quite a big 2-step label.«

RBMA: »Musically, with 2-step, we’re dealing with the same kind of bass hits and vocals as the four-to-the-floor stuff you were playing before, but now the beat pattern had changed.«

Plasticman: »The beat pattern had changed, it was a skippy beat; the bass, I suppose, was a little more punchy where the 4/4 bass was a bit more subby, more rolling and this was a bit more punchy and a bit more in your face.«

RBMA: »So in terms of that four-to-the-floor sound, people like Todd Edwards and all that; is anyone still actually doing that in London?«

Plasticman: »There’s a few, there’s a few people – it’s like music’s never going to die totally. There’s always someone in the world who’s going to be doing something. It’s never going to totally fade away. So there’s a few guys, there’s a handful, literally a handful of producers, like Qualified, MJ Cole’s still doing UK garage, Karl Brown is still producing stuff with EL-B and the El Tuff. Karl ‘Tuff Enuff’ Brown and EL-B are producing under the alias of El Tuff. They produce quite soulful four-to-the-floor garage stuff.«

RBMA: »But essentially, the garage scene as we have known it is pretty non-existant.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, it’s pretty much non-existant. I think it was when the first couple of grime tunes came around, all the kids loved it and all of the old garage people were like “Oh we don’t like this.” And a lot of people involved with garage at the time were like: “I’ve got nothing to do with this grime, I don’t like this stuff, I’ve had enough of garage now, if that’s the way it’s going.” So then half of them people went onto doing funky house and then you got the other half of people who were like – when the girls left, a lot of the Friday night drinking crew went out to Croydon and got mashed up and went and raved up to some garage. When the girls left the scene, they left it as well, so it was like they moved on to listening to some r 'n' b, began getting brainwashed by what was getting played on Radio One and Kiss FM and stuff like that in London. Yeah, it’s just like the UK way of getting brainwashed by what’s getting played on commercial radio.«

RBMA: »Right. I mean, there was this symbiosis with the garage scene, was the screw face element, there was that bad vibe.«

Plasticman: »It got too…«

RBMA: »A few stabbings here and there. I mean, when did that element [come into the scene] ‘cause that element really did give the music a bad name, didn’t it?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, it was when it got commercial and it was cool to go out and rave to garage, it was like such a bling. It was the UK’s hip hop scene, basically. It was like: “How you can go out and buy champagne and go out with all your gold on and that?” It got a bit boring. That’s when going out became… you sort of had to watch what you were doing. You’d be looking around saying: “Am I going to be alright in this club?” It got really moody, and that’s about the same time as the girls started leaving 'cause the girls don’t like seeing fights and stuff like that, it’s not happening, man. And that’s when it started to go downhill.«

RBMA: »Now you were talking before about one of the first grime tunes that came out – that was properly labeled grime as a track, called Pulse X. You got that?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, yeah, I’ve got that to play.«

RBMA: »And what year did this come out?«

Plasticman: »This came out I think 2001, 2002. About then, yeah, I reckon probably 2001. I still remember the first time I heard it, it was a Big Apple christmas party, I think.«

RBMA: »Big Apple was a record shop.«

Plasticman: »Big Apple was a record shop in Croydon and used to specialize in garage. From 2-step to four-to-the-floor garage, used to always be one of the main stockists in London. Definitely in South London, and I remember they had a Christmas party and they had Heartless Crew booked there and Oris Jay and Hatcha played there. And at the time it was still quite garage-y. Starting to get a little bit dark and a little bit experimental but this track, even when it started to get experimental, was just so different, it was like: “What is it?” It was just… (shakes head) a mad track. Totally different to anything that was being played at the time.«

RBMA: »And were you producing at this stage?«

Plasticman: »At this stage I was dabbling in production. I’d just got Fruity Loops off the internet and was messing about with it trying to fit beats that were terrible. But still, you got to start somewhere, d’ya know what I mean?«

RBMA: »So you’d say without a doubt, this tune was one of the tunes that made you go: "Damn, that’s kind of the direction that I want to…’«

Plasticman: »Yeah, I think this kickstarted the grime scene because it’s such a simple track. There was thousands of kids in London, like: “I really love that tune, but listen how simple it is. I’m going to get, I’m going to make a tune like that.” And there was a period of about six months when you were just hearing some poor, poor tracks, man. I was probably one of the culprits as well (laughter ). So I was like: “Listen to this tune!” And it’s terrible, but...«

RBMA: »(smiling) At least you can admit to yourself.«

Plasticman: »The whole thing of it was, someone would be like: “I’ve made a track,” and everyone would be like: “Mate, that’s rubbish.” “Yeah, but it’s as good as that, it sounds like that.” It’s like: “Come on, man. Gve it a rest, give it a few months and you’ll be alright.” But yeah, this is Pulse X, this is what kickstarted it all.«

(music: Musical Mob - Pulse X)

»See you get the gist of it, it’s like that the whole way through, but it was just so different to anything else that was being played at the time.«

RBMA: »Is this kind of around the same time as, there was another label which was being bandied about, which was 8-bar?«

Plasticman: »When this track came out, ‘cause obviously at the time there was no such thing as grime, everyone was like: “What is that?” All the garage people were like: “That’s rubbish, we don’t like that.” And then there’s all the kids and people like me, who were just starting to get into what was a bit darker in garage and that came along and it was like: “Wow, that’s a pretty cool tune.” I really liked it, and everyone called it 8-bar ‘cause there’s a change every eight bars. That even became a little kind of genre for about six months and it turned into grime when it got a little bit more like: “You can’t have every tune that changes every 8 bars, that’s just… (laughter) very tune sort of thing, what’s going on?"«

RBMA: »Now, I mean, the one thing that people first notice when they look at you, you’re not an old fellow at all, are you?«

Plasticman: »No, it’s…«

RBMA: »You’re a wee man, you’re 22-years old.«

Plasticman: »That’s right.«

RBMA: »But the thing is, funnily enough for that scene, you’re pretty old.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, totally! The kids, it is a young young scene, it’s like…«

RBMA: »Tell us how young 'cause, I mean, you were playing me a tune before that you were about to sign from someone who’s 14-years old.«

Plasticman: »That’s right, yeah. He’s a kid from Milton Keynes in England. There’s a whole group of kids who are… there’s even a…«

RBMA: »That’s Dave’s old stomping ground - Milton Keynes (points up at Zed Bias sitting in the audience).«

Plasticman: »Yeah, Milton Keynes. We have the grime crews like Roll Deep and Nasty Crew and Boyz In Da Hood and that. And like now, it’s got to the point where these kids are coming through and they all have these, like a b-team, the younger kids, it’s like a youth team. They call them like ‘Younger Nasty’ and ‘Roll Deep Youngers’ and the kids are like 12-, 13-years old getting on the mic and MCing. They’re on pirate radio DJing and the first ones to do it funnily enough were So Solid Crew. And they had one of the DJs younger brothers Skip and Frost. And they were eight-years old and they used to go on when So Solid were on pirate radio, eight-years old. They’re about 12 now, quite good DJs as well, but 12-years old. And they’re playing grime and it’s loads of kids, man. There’s a station called Raw Blaze and half the people on it are under 16 (laughter). You have to bunk school to go and do a set. They’re texting all their mates in school, like: “Listen to me on the radio.” They’re all sneaking out of school to listen on their mobile phones listening. Mad, but it is such a young scene. It’s good though, if you got youth, you got longevity and there’s definitely a big future for it.«

RBMA: »Now, the one thing you kind of touched on before, it’s a pretty funny thing, you got this old school, guys like you. You got the Dreem Team, Norris 'Da Boss' Windross, and all these boys, who were there when speed garage broke. And they’ve got their Radio One shows, and MC Creed, and they were all living the life. They get their column inches in all the magazines, they were feeling like stars and all of a sudden it seems like they felt their whole scene was robbed by a whole bunch of 14 and 15-year olds.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, man. It was like I was saying the other day…«

RBMA: » Now tell us about this committee thing man ‘cause that’s…(laughter)«

Plasticman: »They got together when stuff like this started to come through in the whole garage thing. A lot of the old guys got together, like the Dreem Team, Creed and a few other guys got together and it was like: “We can’t have this music, this is like totally ruining our scene, our beautiful scene.” And they got together and actually had a meeting of what they called ‘the UK garage committee’ (laughter) and actually started saying: “We refuse to play this on our radio show on Radio One," and the DJs, who were playing on legal radio were like: “We’re not going to support this, this is rubbish. This isn’t us at all.” And, lo and behold, a few months later they all lost their shows. Nobody wanted to listen to what they’re playing anymore because people were waiting so long for the end of garage and it came, finally. And a lot of people liked it. And everyone who didn’t like it just moved on to something else like r 'n' b or funky house and really the only people left in garage now are the DJs. There’s no sort of punters who are just going to check it out. Like still go out raving to it. There’s a few people who still go out raving and there’s a scene of DJs. It’s really close knit now and this UK garage committee totally flopped, man. When this track came along, the kids were just hearing it and they were like: "I can do that." They all downloaded Fruity Loops, or even Music Generator on a Playstation and stuff like that. It was just whatever you could get hold of. Young kids were just getting it and they were having a go, doing beats like that, basically. And there was a good six months, a whole genre of stuff like that. Half the scene was getting annoyed with it and half the scene was trying to get involved with it. And it was like a cleansing period, I think. It was like, anyone who was trying then – most of the people who came out then are still here today. They’re doing tracks, but it’s more advanced sounds, not just in terms of equipment that they’re using, they’re still using the same sort of equipment, but they’re using it more properly. They’re using it better and they’re getting better sounds out of it.«

RBMA: »When you started, [you used] Fruity Loops, and still [use it] to this day, Fruity Loops?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, I’ve used Cubase and Reason at college, I’m currently at college doing a music technology diploma. I went to college when I started. Well, I’d had about seven releases and I just thought like: 'It’s going really well and I’d kind of like to try and make a career of it'. So I thought, 'I want to go to college and actually learn it, something musical and get a bit of paper that says ‘Yeah you can actually do some music’. So yeah, I’m at college now.«

RBMA: »Something to show mum.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, that’s it, man. Keep her happy, keep her quiet.«

RBMA: »Now we got another track, we got a remix. I’m sure many people in this room are familiar with Alter Ego. A track called Rocker that was originally on Klang, part of the Playhouse family. It kind of crossed over. They just got signed to Skint, and you’ve done a remix of it.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, yeah. I’m just going to try and find that for you, actually. It’s in here somewhere (flips through his CD wallet). A guy called Andy got in contact with John at Big Apple records, in Croydon. And he was just really interested in what I was doing, and got in contact with me and said: "Do you want to have a go at doing a remix for us?" And, of course, I turned it down (mischievous smile). I thought Skint’s a really well respected label worldwide, it’s good to know that these people have started to find out what you’re doing, do you know what I mean? It’s good when you hear that these people are… It just goes to show how quickly it’s all spreading, sort of thing. At the moment (cueing music on headphones) it’s – I think that’s the track here. This is a remix I’ve just done for Alter Ego.«

(music: Alter Ego - Rocker / Plasticman remix)

RBMA: »Is there some set beat pattern that it follows?«

Plasticman: »No, not at all. It’s just like, so long as you’ve got energy and a nice fat… it’s not the bass, the bass is normally quite fat and warm as compared with some other genres of electronic dance music. It’s just quite a fat sound. Some of the stuff made for the MCs sounds a bit more hip hop-oriented with string patterns and stuff like that. There’s loads of different sounds going off in grime. It’s all based around sort of 140 bpm, though. So, there’s no strict beat pattern as long as it’s moving, basically.«

RBMA: »Now you also hooked up with Rephlex, you got signed to Rephlex.«

Plasticman: »Yeah.«

RBMA: »How’d that come about, man? That’s a pretty cool thing.«

Plasticman: »The track that I played at the beginning, Hard Graft, that came out and a few of the electronica shops in London picked up on it, they were like: "This is quite interesting, I might be able to shift some of these." And Grant Wilson-Claridge, who was running the label with Richard D. James picked the record up and he really liked it. And he came, I played a gig in London, a night called Forward, which is a night which supports the kind of music that we’re playing. It’s like a whole night of it at Plastic People in London and Grant came down and checked it out. I played a set there and he really enjoyed it. He got in contact with the guy who puts the night on, to get some beats off of me. Yeah, he was just really into it, and he picked out four tracks he really liked. He picked another couple of artists and he did the same with them. We all had four tracks each on this triple pack LP.«

RBMA: »Which was called?«

Plasticman: »It was called Grime.«

RBMA: »Yeah, and Grime 2 is coming soon, I believe.«

Plasticman: »Grime 2 is due for release next month, I believe. And technically it’s not grime. Technically it’s another genre.«

RBMA: »It’s another genre (laughter), called?«

Plasticman: »Called dubstep, which is like… (more laughter) garage! Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that’s it What do you call it? (looks up at Zed Bias) Garage.«

RBMA: »Now, I mean you’ve dropped the name so we better get an example. Dubstep’s another name that’s been creeping into the subconscious recently. People like Horsepower Productions and all that. Define dubstep and can you give us a bit of an example as well.«

Plasticman: »Alright, I’ve just picked this one up. This is a label – Big Apple Records actually own the label, and a lot of the stuff they put out is dubstep. There’s a few guys like Horsepower Productions, a label called Tempa, I don’t know if anyone’s heard of it. It takes influences from old dub reggae, but it sort of fuses it with 2-step beats, stuff like that. Some of it is quite ethnic, like bongos and stuff like that. There’s loads of different examples. I’ll try and get a… (searches through record bag)«

RBMA: »And so you, as a grime DJ per se, I mean you go out and you play a lot of dubstep?«

Plasticman: »Oh, yeah! I drop the odd bit of dubstep, but to be honest with you, I leave – like Hatcha’s probably THE Dubstep DJ, and another guy called Youngsta at Rinse FM. And them guys properly are pure dubstep. So I leave them to play all of the big tracks and that. I just pick out a couple that I like and might drop them. This is a track which came out on Big Apple Recordings by Skream. This a track called Skunk Step by Skream, which is pretty dubstep.«

RBMA: »Not a new genre.«

Plasticman: »No, not another new genre.«

(music: Skream - Skunk Step)

»Yeah, this is pretty dubby.«

(music fades out)

»Yeah, so that’s dubstep, which is kind of similar. It fits in nicely with what we’re playing in the whole grime thing. But technically, if you want to get deep, it’s not really anything like it at the same time. Another artist called Kode 9, who is like pure dub. Like, some of his tracks don’t even have beats and stuff like that. It’s pretty deep, and he plays at Forward and stuff like that. It all just kind of merges in, somehow. People are just picking up on whatever they can, playing whatever.«

RBMA: »Now this night Forward you’re talking about, historically any kind of new kind of music that emerges has it’s epicenter. Be it Paradise Garage or the Warehouse. Breakbeat hardcore had Rage at Heaven, jungle had AWOL. Bugz In The Attic have got - I mean, sorry, (rolls eyes) broken beat’s got Co-op. I mean, is Forward the epicenter for grime?«

Plasticman: »It’s hard because a lot of people in England even are getting confused. They’re calling the more technical grime Forward-beat. People are getting confused because it’s like Forward is more of a music-based night, whereas more of the grime is more for MC-based stuff, and lyrical clashes and stuff like that. Yeah, and Forward’s more of like a night to do with the music. So it’s like, you can come and play the same tracks that they’re playing at these MC nights, like Eskimo Dance and stuff like that. But at Forward it’s more to do with the music so you can drop the same tracks, it doesn’t matter. But more people are there to listen to the beats and dance to it.«

RBMA: »When you’re talking about the whole clashing thing, something that especially with grime has kind of risen up and shooting along at the same speed, is this whole warring thing, and, I don’t know. It kind of seems really self-defeating.«

Plasticman: »It’s mad, yeah.«

RBMA: »What’s the whole deal with the warring thing? It’s like: "I’m gonna clash you."«

Plasticman: »Yeah, it’s really mad, there’s DVD’s coming out now with studio-time fights on the mic and stuff like that. But it’s mainly staged, like the MCs sort it out between themselves. Like: "Me and you, we’re gonna get up on the mic," and start cussing each other’s mums and that. Get off the mic and shake hands sort of thing. But on the DVD they’re all in their face, telling them they’re going to beat them up and it’s mad. It’s like the MCs, I don’t know, it’s really weird. It’s kind of like hip hop but a bit more aggressive and a bit more blatant.«

RBMA: »And the problem is that a lot of young people look up to these guys as idols, and they don’t realize that it’s all for show, and a lot of people take it seriously, yeah?«

Plasticman: »I’m sure the kids, definitely. A lot of the kids don’t know it’s fake. It’s like watching wrestling, like when the kids are young they think that wrestling’s real and then they find out.«

RBMA: »WWF.«

Plasticman: »That’s it, yeah! Grime is the same! This whole MC culture, the MCs guys go and they stage a show. "We’re gonna go and get everyone excited by telling everyone that your mum slept with him," or something like that. It’s just mad.«

RBMA: »The other thing you were talking about as well that was kind of mad. At any kind of musical event a big tune is a big tune, purely on the fact that it sounds good, it’s got a wicked bassline or something like that. But you might have a tune that’s a pretty average tune, but it might be big at one of these, say, lyrical nights. Because someone chats a certain lyric or something.«

Plasticman: »My first ever release was signed purely on the basis that an MC got on the mic on one of DJ Slimzee’s sets, this was on Rinse FM years ago.«

RBMA: »Who’s Slimzee?«

Plasticman: »Slimzee’s one of the – at the time, and he still is - one of the biggest DJs in the dark side of garage and grime. And he was the one who sort of brought grime through. At the more commercial garage nights he would go there, he’d get booked and he’d play a set full of dubplates. I gave him a track, this was before I’d had anything released and he cut it onto a dubplate, and he asked if he could have it exclusive. I said: "You can keep it for a while." And he had an MC called Rico on his set, and Rico got on the mic just as the tune started coming in, and he starts cussing this guy from More Fire Crew. This was quite early in the whole clashing thing. It was quite unusual to hear it on the radio, so when you hear something like that, there was such an excitement. Big talk about it on the internet, loads of kids going: "Who heard this, who heard what he said about Neeko from More Fire Crew?" And it happened to be my track he was spitting over at the time. And the kids were like: "What was that tune that was playing when he was spitting? That was a big tune!"«

RBMA: »(laughs) So purely on the fact that he was dissing someone else…«

Plasticman: »If he’d have gone home, and the kids turned their radio off, I probably would’ve never got the track signed in the first place, it’s mad.«

RBMA: »Now another thing you were talking about with dubplate culture. Obviously, especially very much a UK thing with jungle and with garage, DJs were playing pure plates. And if you were a DJ that was carrying weight, you had to be carrying pure dubs.«

Plasticman: »Oh, yeah.«

RBMA: »I mean, with the advent of these things (taps the CD platter) how has dub culture been affected?«

Plasticman: »In grime not so much because it’s just such a young scene. There’s not many DJs, who can use them (shaking his head), it’s such a funny scene. Nowadays, the young kids are kind of lazy. [With vinyl] they’re like that (scratches the slipmat on the turntables), and with CDs they’re like (clueless impression, staring at the DJ CD player), it doesn’t move around, so they’re confused: "I ain’t touching that (points at the CD player)." So they’re sticking to that [vinyl], not spending all their pocket money on dubplates. A dubplate is like £30. On a 10” dubplate, which is supposed to hold one track per side, they’re cutting three tunes about one minute long on each side. The quality is rubbish, but they’re going home well happy. They’ve got a bag full of dubs, but each tune is only one minute long and of poor quality.«

RBMA: »So for you yourself, are playing much dubplates?«

Plasticman: »I don’t really cut much anymore, but I cut occasionally, it all depends. If I get a tune that I might know will never come out and I want to play it in a club. There’s actually a new cutting studio in Bristol in England that cuts dubs on to PVC. So there’s no metal core and they weigh less than a record. I’ve got one here.«

RBMA: »And you don’t have to pay 30 quid.«

Plasticman: »It costs about 30, but it’s like plastic (shaking the PVC dubplate in his hand), it’s not got the acetate inside it like a normal dubplate.«

RBMA: »So you’re missing out on the dubplate smell, though.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, but it still smells nice. We’ll pass it around later on. Please don’t scratch it though, it’s a really nice track.«

RBMA: »Maybe we should listen to another track and after that you’re going to give us a little Fruity Loops session.«

Plasticman: »I think I’ll just put this Wiley track on and show you just a little bit of the role of the MC in grime.«

RBMA: »You’ve also just done a remix for High Contrast.«

Plasticman: »Yeah, I just finished it now and the version I got here is the unfinished [version], but we got enough of it just to show you. So, let me get this track on here. This is Wiley, who has been just signed to XL and the track is called Take Chances.«

(music: Wiley - Take Chances)

»The whole tune is just like pure war. It’s like: "Don’t come and step to me with your attitude because you’ll get beaten up, basically (laughter)."«

RBMA: »I mean, it’s part of the success of the MC in grime and prior to that in the UK garage scene that as soon as you add an MC to the mix, you end up with the comparison to hip hop, and it’s the first time that the youth in the UK felt like: "This is our own type of music."«

Plasticman: »We had a chat not long ago back home about it and a lot of UK acts are doing stuff like this and making the mistake of putting an album together and doing hip hop on it. I think the reason that Dizzee Rascal has done so well is for the reason that he’s done stuff that nobody ever heard before. And people over the world are like: "This is amazing, what is this stuff?" There is so much of it that people wouldn’t believe it. If you came over to London and just went in a record shop and saw the amount of different grime acts there are, and different MCs and how many artists are involved, it’s mad.«

RBMA: »And white-label culture? People press up purely like 250 copies?«

Plasticman: »It’s getting better. I mean, this is a release that came out recently, this is a pure grime release as well and it was a big riddim for MCs and stuff like that. It’s got a full colour artwork sleeve and for me that’s one of the first ever grime releases that has a full colour sleeve. It’s mad, they’ve even gone to the extent of getting labels done (shows the vinyl).«

RBMA: »What you were saying before with someone like Dizzee taking it to the world and your Dreem Team’s and all that, are surely the biggest thing in the UK right now. But no one knew and then you’re playing outside of the UK. With grime, are you playing outside of England?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, last weekend I played Bruxelles at a 2.000 people event they call the White Night, which goes on all over the city at different nights. I played Amsterdam a few weeks before that and Austria the week before that, toured the states with Todd Osborn / Ghostly International. I think the Rephlex thing is totally open doors for me personally, but Dizzee paved the way for the rest of us to follow in his footsteps.«

RBMA: »I’ve got to ask with your name, did you have any angry techno fans banging on your door? No calls from Richie Hawtin?«

Plasticman: »Funnily enough, no. But apparently he does know about me, but nothing’s been done. John Peel, he’s got a radio show on Radio One in the UK, plays quite a lot of my stuff. He’s a big supporter of what I was doing and everytime he plays one of my tracks, he says: "Plasticman with a 'c'.’’ And now, when I meet someone they’re like: "Oh, you’re Plasticman with a 'c'," as if it be part of my name or something. Nothing really has come back, if anything, people are like: "Yeah, I think it’s cool that you did that." It’s sort of like the grime lot: we don’t give a shit about what you’re doing. It’s the whole grime attitude, it’s almost like I did it on purpose, but I didn’t. I honestly haven’t heard of Richie Hawtin when I started. I think I had about three releases before I even heard about him and I had another release before I heard any of his tracks.«

RBMA: »Within the whole grime scene, people are taking influences from a lot of different genres. But grime producers, they’re just feeling grime.«

Plasticman: »We’ve purely got the blinkers on, man. We don’t have a clue what’s going on in the world outside. Why it sounds a bit weird [in comparison] to most other stuff out there is because most of the time you hear a track and think, ‘Oh, I want to do a track like this’. We’re not listening to techno and think, ‘I must use those mad sounds in a grime tune’. But the whole Rephlex thing and getting remix work from labels like Skint and Lo Recordings, the tunes they have given me to remix, I sit there thinking these tunes are actually quite interesting, something I can bring into my sound. And the more people are involved in it, is just bringing my music a whole lot more forward, so it’s pretty cool.«

RBMA: »Should we go into one more track before we go into the Fruity Loops?«

Plasticman: »This is the remix I currently work on for High Contrast. It’s just finished now, but this is an unfinished version you’re going to hear. This is the only track I have ever done with a vocal on it.«

(music: High Contrast / Plasticman remix)

RBMA: »And this is your tune with vocals for the first time?«

Plasticman: »Yeah. But to be honest with you, I had tried once before with an acapella of a guy, who I know MCed on there. But for me, this is what I’m actually still learning, to record and master vocals myself. I don’t have the equipment at home to do it myself, so I purely do it at college to get a feel for it. But if someone can give me a decent acapella, which has already been mastered, I can get away with it. That track right there was originally 174 bpm, I had to time-stretch the vocals down to like 143, I think I produced that track at. It was a long process, but it was quite enjoyable just to get involved with doing vocals und just running them through Fruity Loops, just time-stretching them and cutting them to little bits so they fit 'cause Fruity Loops is not like Cubase, where you just drag it and time-stretch it. You actually have to cut it to pieces and have to put it here, there and everywhere on the drummachine kind of thing.«

RBMA: »Obviously you have been using Fruity Loops, but what about sampling?«

Plasticman: »Sampling I just use like Cool Edit or SoundForge. I just download samples off the internet, I just search hard for them. I might hear a track on the radio and think, ‘That’s clean’, and I go buy the CD, cut something out of it, distort it out a bit. You can get samples from everywhere, sample CDs even, getting them from friends and building up a good library. If you’re going to use Fruity Loops, it’s really important to have a good library of samples, unless you’re really amazing with synths and software and stuff like that, you’re going to find it really difficult to come up with a nice sound. The drumkits in there are like old school, the 808 kit is about all you get and a few samples on top of that.«

RBMA: »What about plug-in’s? Are you mad on plug-in’s?«

Plasticman: »Yeah, to be honest that’s again something that only recently come into play. I was using purely samples, every track was just waves. I was using wave basslines, wave drumkits, wave instrument hits and messing about with them and playing them in different keys, putting them through effect units and making them sound like something else. And since I started to go to college last year, I learned how to use VST’s and using whatever I can get my hands on and have a go. I just started to pick things up now.«