It came out of Chicago and it was 4 to the floor, just good fuckin dance music.Īhhh, that’s more club music but it’s house to a certain extent. By the time 1980 hit, House was the shit. House? I mean, fuck… House is disco, it came out of disco. And Fatboy Slim is like a perfect example. So probably around ’97 or ’98 It was just kind of a thing that came out of a combination of breakbeat and drum and bass, but more mid-tempo and a little more with like a house kind of vibe to it. Greenleaf: Electronica is just kind of a generic, broad term that someone in the late ‘90s dreamed up to kind of umbrella all the different styles of electronic music, as far as whether it was house or techno or drum and bass or breakbeat hardcore, whatever. Help me break it down: what is the difference between drum and bass, jungle, electronic, electronica, techno…? But it was still a trippy experience, like being in a spaceship’s rumpus room, heading fast into the deep unknown.Īfterwards, over a few beers, a few smokes and some classical music washing away the mania of the earlier radio show, I sat down with Greenleaf on the patio, talked some EM 101 and just generally shot the shit. So what a better way to dive in than hang out with Greenleaf for a few hours as he worked through track after track which, coming through the room’s more-than-adequate PA and subwoofer, made me fear that I was going to be struck by the infamous ‘brown note.’ Luckily for me and the couch I had sunk into, it didn’t quite get there. How are y’all both doing tonight?” It’s the internet at its best, creating a radio show that is more interactive than the old days, where a well-timed phone call was the only way to reach the DJ.
Throughout the show, Greenleaf makes it a point to give shout-outs to the most engaged of the audience, at one point saying “Hello ladies. On this particular Summer night, Greenleaf has about 118 active listeners throughout the world, many of them riffing with each other back and forth on an IRC network.
You won’t find a Mac in this garage instead it’s all custom-built PCs tricked out with blue LEDs. And because it’s music mid-wifed by circuit boards, the EM culture has taken especially well to the internet. And though it might be an intimate crowd of people who love this music, especially in New Orleans, they make up for it with their passion and devotion. But as it goes for other sub-genres, such as surf, Norwegian black metal or even punk and hardcore, electronic music-and Greenleaf’s particular penchant for drum and bass-has a history that’s very real and still evolving. It’s not a surprising fate, considering electronic music is disco’s child, cursed to suffer the same fate as its parent: denigrated and dismissed as a drug-fueled fad with awful fashion and a permanent time-stamp on the sound. It’s easy for anyone with an untrained ear to lump it all together as rave music with the flashiest, most-hyped aspects of the genre drowning out all the nuance. Me, I grew up in the flannel-worship side of the ‘90s, so while I’m fond of my Trainspotting soundtrack and DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, I can pretty much say that my knowledge of electronic music is, well, lacking. As a longtime resident of the DJ scene (and ANTIGRAVITY’s monthly columnist specializing on the 1’s and 2’s), Greenleaf has been subject to a lot of thump over the years. Helming the controls is Graham Greenleaf (or simply Greenleaf once he’s on), one member of the small but dedicated crew of drum and bass enthusiasts in New Orleans who operate the radio show (and numerous live events) under the BelowCLevel banner. Deep in Marrero, miles away even from the Expressway, inside an otherwise fully domesticated house, through its kitchen, past the laundry room and finally into the walled-in garage, a red “on air” light glows from one of two flat screen monitors, letting the world know that BelowCLevel is broadcasting to the world.