Tell your friends!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/expansion-broadcast

Live broadcast by Ustream

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

Source: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Google has a petition you can sign over here: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/. Do yourself and EXBC a favor and sign it.

Happy Monday :)

Hootie B and all the guys behind the Sonic Butter events held at Sticky Rice in Baltimore are allowing us to takeover one night with an all bass music/future bass/future garage/not-dubstep/eric-step lineup featuring Harry Ransom, Refugee, and Erictronica (IllEffect).

This is going down Friday, June 10th, 2011 at Sticky Rice in Fells Point (1634 Aliceanna St., Baltimore, MD) and it’s free. This is one not be missed!

If you do the Facebook thing, please let us know you’re coming by clicking the “attend” button on our Facebook event page. Thanks!

EMB007A – Cranberry Goose by Embassy Recordings
EMB007B – Clicks & Whistles – Radiator by Embassy Recordings

As a bonus, Distal has done a remix of “Cranberry Goose” and has offered it up as a free download.

http://shop.ebay.com/ransom54/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

A few surprises in there perhaps, and I plan to list about 20 to 30 more batches like this. Almost all of them just promo copies though, and no, this does not mean I am getting out of DJing. I just really need to make space in my condo, and nowadays I would much rather have full artwork versions of releases.

Oh yeah, you can catch me playing a drum’n'bass set this Saturday night in DC at Drum & Bass-ment, a free event held at The Rabbit Hole in Adams Morgan.

And I have another drum’n'bass booking on Saturday, March 26th. More info when it is closer to that date. And super excited about the Forward Festival gig on March 31st!

Anyway! It all goes down this Saturday, February 12th at Jimmy Valentines (1103 Bladensburg Rd. NE Washington, DC 2002). Its free and it’ll be hella-fun. Hope to see you all there!

Let us know you’re coming on Facebook!

Catch me opening up for two major DJs on Saturday, February 5 at U Street Music Hall: Sinden (Grizzly / Domino – UK) and Willy Joy (Plant Music / Trouble & Bass – Chicago). I will be playing from 10PM until 11PM or so. It is 18+ to get in, $10 cover but if I hear of any specials or discounts, I will update this post.

Event invite/RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121608497912516

And then on the 12th I plan to get in as much dancefloor drum’n'bass and dubstep as I can during my set repping EXBC at our battle of the webcasts.

And not just any party, but the first party of 2011!

I am playing on a huge, local-focused line-up at an event called The Hangover Cure, taking place on Saturday January 1, 2011 at U Street Music Hall. The event is free for those 21+, and $10 for those 18 to 20 years old. Entry includes a free pho dog and a free Bloody Mary, and I will be sure to play a lot of bass driven music. Catch me on deck from 12:20AM to 12:40AM, just after the Uncle Jesse guys and Billy The Gent, plus lots of other great local DJs like Reed Rothchild and Jackie O. are on the line-up.

Facebook invite is found here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138678092856171.

HULK has nicely packaged up the 10 tunes that they have been giving away for the past 10 Mondays all in 1 zip file. Thought it would be a good idea to post it up for everyone to hear , so make sure to check them out.

Shouts to Encryption for passing this along!

Download the Great HULK Tune Giveaway zip file

His friends and family are asking that people donate to a memorial fundraiser to help cover the costs of services and other expenses. The Facebook page can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=117507664976869. There’s a link on the page to a Paypal page which will allow you to donate.

On behalf of everyone here at EXBC, our thoughts are prayers go out to Dave’s friend and family. Rest in peace buddy.

I’ll be playing some future garage and dubstep from 9-10 PM EDT and Mark/Redlab will be following up after me from 10-11. I’m looking forward to it! Gonna be a big show.

Ways to Listen

• iTunes / Winamp
• iPhone
• Real Media
• Windows Media
• Dsfm TV

In short, I have no idea. Basically, our site got hacked. H@x0rd. pwn3d. Beat to living shit. It sucks. And as for how it happened, I’m still not sure. I did my research and I’m trying my best to get things working correctly again. I had brought the site back up temporarily last night only to discover it had been compromised again! What a kick in the ballsack that was! So now what?

Well, I’m taking this very slowly now. As you can see, this is clearly now our usual design and none of the mp3 download links are visible. In “WordPress” speak (which is the content management system EXBC uses), those are what are referred to as “themes” and “plugins” respectively. I’m trying my best to narrow down where the problem exists. So by doing this step by step, I’m hoping I can figure out what’s causing/allowing the hack. It may be my theme, it may be one of the several plugins I was once using on the site. It could be something completely unrelated. I’ve already started a discussion with my web host to see if there’s anything fishy going on that they can help me out with.

Much like most of my relationships (present one excluded, obviously), this is gonna be a doozey. Please hang with us. I’m doing my best to get things back up. If you subscribe to the podcast via RSS, you can continue to do so I believe as I post the mixes they should still appear. The feed may be broken from time to time but as they appear, they’ll be there. If you’re already subscribed via iTunes, just hang on to that subscription.

Thanks in advance for understanding. I apologize if any of this malware has affected anyone.

And on top of that, I recently started my own radio show, on college radio station WMUC 88.1 FM College Park, MD. The show is called Break The Science and it takes place every Sunday night from 9PM to 12AM E.T., at least until the end of August. Shows are streamed live online as well, plus they are recorded and archived on my mixcloud account (link: mixcloud.com/r4ns0m).

If you want the dnb only feed its here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/exbc-podcast-dnb and the dubstep only feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/exbc-podcast-dubstep

Sorry for error folks.

Oh and…

In other news, we are looking for new (or old) artists to contribute to the podcast. So if you think you could pull together a pretty swank mix of drum & bass, dubstep, future garage, or whatever fits our usual M.O. – let us know! We look forward to hearing from ya.

[Editor's note] One of my motivations is the need to establish a ‘represent’ thing across expression and context. In the social/cultural, it’s establishing yourself as alive and vital. In music, it’s a combination of the Hip Hop ‘represent for your….’ as well as the notion that Dubstep, Jungle, Cumbia, and other soundsystem musics are quite regional. So, I’m really happy to share with you my first interview with a big supporter of mine (and so man/y other folks in the area) Greg Dillon, aka Whighzeguy, a DJ here in the DMV area. His development of music and DJing runs very close to my own And, I really enjoyed learning about his approach to working across different genres, and development of sets. It’s this building across Dub, Dirty South, Minimal Techno, and so forth that draws me in, and highlights why I love this music.

Tell me about yourself. How did you get into music and DJing?
I first got into EDM when I was in transition out of college and met up with a new group of friends who were into raving. One of my good friends picked up a DJ kit from Tower Records that included some belt drive tables and we started f’ing around. His mother was from England so he was exposed to a lot of the UK Underground sounds when visiting over there and began buying lots of 2-Step while I was into Trance & Progressive House. It wasn’t until I attended Starscape in June of 2000 that I really caught the fever for Drum N Bass. After that party I immediately began buying DnB records and really working hard at trying to become a solid DJ.

Where can I see/hear you play out?
You can hear me play on Expansion Broadcast roughly twice a month. As far as playing out, that doesn’t happen all that much anymore. I go through phases where I’ll really be itching to play out and then go months where I have no desire to do so. Unfortunately a lot of gigs I was getting were at places where the setups & sound-systems were really lacking and the fact that I’m a volunteer DJ made me take a step back and be a little more selective about taking gigs. Playing a gig at a bar with 0 sub-woofers just began to seem like a waste of time. I currently play out now as part of the Dubstep Legion of Doom (DLOD) collective. Everybody I play with is really cool and talented but it honestly gets a little frustrating when the only gigs you get are playing 3-4 tunes amongst 5 other DJs in a really crowded tag-team set. I love building a set and when you’re playing with so many other DJs who all have contrasting styles it makes it really tough to do so. Hopefully the crew can secure some bookings where we have 3-4 hour sets and are really able to present things right.

Tell me about DJing Dubstep, what is your approach? Angle? Objective?
I’m a real nerd and a perfectionist when it comes to programming. I almost never sit down and mix records continuously to practice. I will shuffle through tunes and take physical notes on what tunes work together and what tunes don’t. There are so many different styles of Dubstep that I like that I try to represent them all at some point or another. It seems like a lot of DJs in the area are pretty specific as far as what style they play, I try to rep all the flavors. I tend to lean toward the funky stuff or the deeper side but every couple of shows I’ll take a turn to the dark side and try to play predominantly rough stuff. To keep things fresh I’ll step out of the box and do a set of mixing Hip-Hop and Dubstep, or Techno and Dubstep. Another thing I focus on is trying to play tunes with contrasting drum breaks that complement each other. Nothing bores me more than hearing the same 1⁄2 step beat tune after tune. I love mixing a 1⁄2 stepper with another tune that almost sounds like its straight Techno. Another thing I’ll try to do is find combos that allow you take a dramatic style turn in your set. This can be disastrous if you don’t do your homework, as it’s often tough to find a banger that works well out of something really deep.

I remember you mentioned in buzzlife that you got into Dubstep through Reggae. And I notice you play a lot of Hip Hop in your sets. How did this connection across musics come about? What were those tracks that made that possible?
I’ve always been a big fan of Reggae and the first couple of Dubstep tunes that really caught my ear were heavily Reggae influenced and I thought maybe I’d do more exploring. The Hip-Hop connection is kind of funny. I’ll start by saying I used to HATE the Dirty South type of Hip-Hop with a passion. But early on, I heard a couple remixes (“Throw Some D’s”-Parson “ & “Relax and Take Notes”-XI) that had Hip-Hop vocals and it dawned on me that some of the slower tempo Hip-Hop tunes could be worked in with Dubstep.

I was also really into Matty G’s stuff which was heavily influenced by Hip-Hop. I’ll run through a couple Hip-Hop tunes that I’ve featured a few times. “#1 Spot” – Ludacris, “Back Then”- Mike Jones, “Poppin My Collar” and “Stay Fly”- 36 Mafia, “Anotha Level”- 8Ball & MJG. The fact that I can mix some of the Dirty South stuff into my Dubstep sets has allowed me to tolerate & even appreciate SOME of the stuff. The same can be said for Techno. I normally would’ve gone nowhere near the stuff but the Techno influence in a lot of the Dubstep I like sparked my interest to explore and I’ve actually done a couple shows playing nothing but Minimal/Techno

One thing about Dubstep is that it changes and moves into new spaces at such a fast rate, from garage beat patterns with atmospheric samples from the Hatcha days, Half-steps from Loefah, to electro sounds and bouncy Funky beats from Untold. What are some classic aspects of Dubstep that you feel stay true? What excites/or doesn’t about where Dubstep is going now?
I don’t have enough knowledge or love for the early days of Dubstep to talk about the classic aspects to be perfectly honest. So many people get up in arms about how things are changing, and it’s not what it used to be, blah, blah, blah. That shit is so tired. The only thing I know is there is a ton of good music being produced within the genre and that music covers such a huge spectrum of sound, as long as I’ve got a wide-range of quality beats coming out I’m happy. Some have mentioned the “UK Funky” movement may lead to more people producing between 127-130 and thus lead to the downfall of Dubstep. I really don’t see that happening but hope the producers I like just dabble with the slower tempo and continue to work in the 140 range.

If you were to convince someone to get into Dubstep, what are the three tracks that you’d use to do it, and why?
Great question since I’ve made a number of mixes for friends with the sole intention of introducing them to Dubstep. The first thing I think about is trying to find tunes that draw on something that people are already familiar with. The obvious direction for me would be to steer them to something Hip-Hop or Reggae influenced. My first track would be “Dutch Flowers” by Skream. People can identify with the melody right away and many may even think they’re just listening to Reggae. On a good sound-system they’ll likely notice that the thundering bassline is a little different from Reggae but still sounds great nonetheless. The next tune would be one of Matty G’s but it would be the Caspa remixed version, “West Coast Rocks”. The beat is nice and simple, it has vocals a noob could identify with and he uses his wobble effects brilliantly putting all kinds of effects on them and essentially “dubbing” them out. There are a few producers out there who apply the principles of Dub (Reggae) in their DUBstep. What a concept! LoL. The last tune I would pick would probably be “Warface” by Jakes and the reasons would exactly the same as why I picked “West Coast Rocks”

What else do you listen to besides DJ music?
To be honest nearly 100% of the music I listen to is “DJ Music” consisting of Dubstep, DnB, Downtempo, Hip-Hop and Minimal/Techno. I have lots of love for other types of music that I like and I honestly don’t listen to music that much. I will probably spend 2-3 hours a week f’ing around working on programming and maybe listen to 1 mix a week, other than that I listen to a shit load of sports talk in the car and will occasionally play music. To answer your question though I like Go-Go, Classic Rock, Salsa, 80s, Jazz, late 80s/90s R&B, and Classic Soul.

I read through sites and boards of Dubstep blowing up in LA, Austin, and NYC… We have dedicated Dubsteppers, and talents like JoeNice and Martyn chillin on our block, but can you tell us more about the DC scene? Is there as big of an audience in DC? What are you thoughts on it? What can help it grow?
Oh man, the classic “state of the scene” question, LOL. Such a tough one and one I can’t answer. I think/hope that more exposure will allow people to realize that Dubstep has much more depth to it than they think. The whole “whale-step” thing was kind of funny but I honestly think people hear it once out somewhere, and if it’s not something they like they think that all Dubstep sounds that way. As a whole, most of the stuff people are playing in this region is pretty aggressive which I think is a huge turnoff for a lot of people and thus they never give it a second chance. For the longest time DnB was always in the side-room at parties and then all of a sudden you’d see DnB in the main-room and then all DnB parties, I think/hope if we keep pushing Dubstep can get there. I also think showcasing how versatile it is can help draw people in. Playing an all Reggae influenced set out, or playing a Hip-Hop/Dubstep set out could go a long way in gaining new enthusiasts. I think promoters can play a big part too. When booking a night I’d try and get some diversity into the lineups and not just have 3 DJs playing wobbler after wobbler. One thing I’ve told promoters in the past is that I’m very open to playing a very specific style if need be. Nobody has taken me up on that offer but it still stands. Having someone open with some real deep stuff and the next DJ playing a Reggae influenced set followed by someone playing bangers would be the ideal evening in my eyes.

I notice that a few Dubstep parties are up in Baltimore as well. Being that I’m from DC, can you tell me about Baltimore? What are the differences, if any, in the music or shows between Baltimore and DC?
Baltimore has the best venue I’ve ever been to for a Dubstep party, Bourbon Steet. D.C. doesn’t have a spot that can touch it. The MAJOR drawback is that 90% of the people at the parties are 18 and glowsticks and all kinds of glowing paraphernalia seem to be big. Steez (Baltimore’s biggest Dubstep promoter) does a great job of bringing in top notch Heavyweights on a pretty consistent basis, but they don’t have much love at all for the deep stuff, it usually stays pretty wobbly up there. 88 D.C. (D.C. biggest Dubstep promoter) does an EXCELLENT job of pushing the deep stuff and has a great venue themselves in Gallery (Silver Spring, MD) but they don’t host nearly the number of Dubstep parties that Steez does. I don’t blame them at all. When it comes to promoting, if it don’t make dollars it don’t make sense. The fact that they’ve brought Martyn, Headhunter, Ramadanman and Untold to town has been really sweet.

Tell me more about the Dubstep Legion of Doom. What were some motives of creating a collective?
When we first started there was only a really small number of people playing Dubstep so it kind of started as a joke and then blossomed. It was pretty much started so we could all just go hang out, drink a few beers and play some tunes.

What are future plans for you and DLOD?
I’d love to see us get some “takeover” gigs. As I stated before, when there are 5-6 of us sharing an hour & a half it doesn’t give you much of an opportunity to get into a zone and build. We’ve got a few guys in the crew who produce and we play a wide range of styles so having us play for 3-4 hours would be ideal. I may get back into promoting if the right situation presents itself and if that happens you can be sure DLOD will holding it down as residents.

In classic Hip Hop style, who would you give shout outs to right now?
First and foremost all the promoters who are pushing things in the region, 88 D.C. and the LODA parties, Ray Casil and the “I Love Bass” parties, Wicked Sway and the Dubline parties, Illeffect & Ransom who are going to be promoting more events in the future, Steez Promo and the Dub Nation parties in Bmore, Good Vibes who have hosted a couple shows at The Black Hole in Dundalk and lastly Ben Freeman who does his Braptizm event in Harrisburg, PA.

Ricky Ricardo gets a big shout for co-hosting and starting the Dubstep extension of Expansion Broadcast. He also played a big part in exposing me to new stuff and helped shape my style. Signal gets a big shout too as he played a big part in helping with our Shockout parties we did back in ’07 and is always cool about hooking up tunes he makes. My fellow Expansion Broadcast hosts get a shout, Deinfamous, Stepan, Ransom, Encryption, Dave J, and Illeffect, the man who started it all. I gotta shout Harry Ransom again, as well as Ill Selection and Heider for the same thing, they’ve always been real cool about sharing & hooking up new tunes they’ve worked on.

All DLOD gets a shout, Encryption, Amitai, Heider, Quannum Logic, Psykofly, Lycan and Redlab. I have to give Joe Nice a big shout too for being a big influence on what I play. He hosts 1 of the 2 best shows in the World and usually half his shows are a preview of what I’ll be buying over the next year. I have to shout the Anti-Social family as well, someone from their crew is always doing a show and the stuff they play is brilliant and usually 3⁄4 of what they play is stuff people in their crew have produced.

Most importantly I’d like to shout out all the people in the D.C./Bmore area that don’t DJ, don’t produce, don’t promote, and just purely love the music and help support what we do. That ties into my last shout out which goes to our loyal Expansion Broadcast listeners and podcast subscribers, our #s have really grown over the years which makes it all feel worthwhile.

Catch the DC massive on Expansion Broadcast each Friday.

We will have a fresh podcast episode from special guest DJ POS available first thing Monday so be on the look out for that.

Hope to see you all tonight at Loda.

Every week, Harry Ransom, the man behind DCDNB, does a segment titled “Five For Friday.” The format is simple, five questions directed towards someone involved in the drum & bass scene. This week, Harry caught up with me for a little behind the scenes on how EXBC came to be, its connection to web design, and podcasting.

We should have titled the interview “When Drum & Bass met Mega-Nerd.” Thanks again goes out to Ransom.

Thanks for your patience.

If you’re gonna be home tonight, Whighzeguy is gonna be hosting a little house partycast tonight featuing some old EXBC favorites including Matt Sound, Bassmachine, and Direct Logic. It’ll be a memorable episode that will surely go great with with ‘nog.

We’ll have some special podcast episodes to post next week including our top 5′s of 2009 from all the EXBC hosts so be on the look out for that. Alright folks, have a good one.

That’s right champs. Harry Ransom and I are making it happen on Thanksgiving-Eve (Nov. 25th, 2009). We’re doing a free drum & bass event at Jimmy Valentine’s in Washington DC.

Line Up

• Houston & Hyx

  Telemetrik, Tighten Up, Blacksun Empire

• Locks of Intellect

  Contact Records, Instinctive Grooves

• Hitoi

  Simon Brewing Co., Expansion Broadcast

• Ray Casil

  I<3 Bass, A+R

• IllEffect

  Expansion Broadcast, D-FECT

• Harry Ransom

  Expansion Broadcast, Tharsis Recordings

This is all going down Wednesday, November 25th from 9PM to 2AM. It’s 21+ but absolutely free to party. Jimmy Valentines is located at 1103 Bladensburg Rd NE Washington, DC 20002.

Can’t wait to see everyone there!

Thanks to all who participated! Hope to see you at Deeper Sound!

Today my debut release came out on beatport.com, a rowdy electro-house tune called “Flexotron”. It is backed with seven remixes. Promotion for the release includes an interview for local DC taste-maker blog ReadysetDC.com, which should go up today. Plus I did a mix of 4/4 tunes for them, which is here:

HARRY RANSOM – The ReadysetDC.com Mix [November 2009]
DOWNLOAD: www.sendspace.com/file/12r728

TRACKLISTING:
01. Kidda – “Feel Too Good (Jack Beats Remix)”
02. Sub Focus – “Could This Be Real”
03. Sidney Samson – “Riverside”
04. Scottie B – “Fightin’ (Uncle Jesse Thugstep Remix)”
05. Sub Focus & Culture Shock – “Move Higher”
06. Rico Tubbs – “Boom Riddim (Sharkslayer Remix)”
07. Bart B More vs. DJ Kool – “Make Some Noise (Nadastrom Rework)”
08. Hot City – “No More”
09. Santiago & Bushido – “Can’t Be Wrong”
10. Crookers feat. Wiley & Thomas Jules – “Business Man (Black Noise Means Business Remix)”
11. Harry Ransom – “Flexotron”
12. HighbLoo – “Ouchhh”
13. The Body Snatchers feat. Sirplus & Yolanda – “Dangerous (BassMusicBlog Club Edit)”
14. Roska – “Elevated Level”
15. DJ Zinc – “Blunt Edge”
16. DJ Ortzy & Jean Pierre – “The Night (DJ Ortzy N.Y. Remix)”
17. Conan Liquid – “One Time For Your Mind (Digital Edit)”
18. L-Vis 1990 – “United Groove”

–
On top of all that, I have picked up a couple gigs for November. First up is a drum’n'bass & dubstep set at Throwdown Thursdays in Baltimore, at the Black Hole:

I’ll be playing somewhere between 12AM and 2AM. I’m hoping Eric is off of work on Friday because he might go up with me so he can see the space before his set at Deeper Sound on November 14th.

–
Next gig is a house (and maybe some dubstep) set at a new bi-weekly even at Cafe Japone in DC — SUMO SATURDAYS!

I am playing this Saturday, November 7th alongside Tiger Fever (Dirty Dirty House) and Soohan (Soohan Beats). No cover, but 21+ to get in.

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And then there is the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Keep your night open and plan on going to Jimmy Valentine’s. We’ll post more once we have details worked out.