Dear Dirty Dubstep

An Investigative Report for Up-Yours Magazine

"Madam, will you join me on the verandah? I understand they serve an outstanding lemon squash."

-Phileas Fogg

As a critic and investigator of popular culture who was awarded the Priss Magazine 1928 Glowering Gable Prize Ribbon for the Hushing of Youngsters, I can say this and this alone: keeping up with trends in popular music is like trying to ride a greased warthog - both are very hard to stay on-top of. It was only last Tuesday that I had been listening to a cutting little number from Maurice Chevalier on my old Ginger-Vox, "Ça sent si bon la France". Humming along and browsing the Internet, as is my wont, I suddenly noticed that my Facebook newsfeed was littered with a strange, glowing neologism: Dubstep. Dubstep. Dubstep! The very word flipped out of the mouth like an ill-fastened tongue stud. The audacious contraction! That lack of a hyphen! This was just the sort of thing young ne'er-do-wells would get up to behind my back.

Realizing that, if I let slip this latest development in popular culture, I might miss the most important leap forward since that young lad from Yorkshire -- yes, George Formby -- swept us all off our food, I struck out at once for Wikipedia. I shouldn't have struck out, as that disturbs the monitor. The correct action would have been to point and click, and I made a note to do so hereafter. "Keep your temper, man!" I said to myself. After three hours perusal, I managed to tease out a few so-called "facts":

Fact: Dubstep is from England.

Fact: Dubstep has many sub-genres including Greez, Whimble, Patchouli, and Neo-Substep.

Fact: Dubstep is NOT - a martial art, fishing tactic, organic produce, breed of turtle, or marble-based action figure play-set.

I kneed I nuded more information. I had to make for the heart of Dubstep, in the heart of Merry Old England, right in the heart of Old London Town's throbbing heart. Consulting my Grey's Anatomy, I found my way to a semi-collapsed aorta in Croydon, where I had tea with one of the original founders of Dubstep: DJ Whackamole. Sipping my cup o' rosy, I took note of his (or her) wide-brimmed baseball cap, plenilune piercings, and hollow cave-dweller eye-sockets. He offered to "break it down" for me, and after I slapped him, allowed him to regale me with the legend of Dubstep.

"Yo, Dub stawted wiv some remixes from de 90's, loik majah fimbaulin' you know? Dere wuz tracks, some beats, you know. Well groime gets goin' around '02 and FWD is kickin' off when MegaStylez drops 'is first wizzle. I'm talkin' aces. Well, dat changes everyfin'. We're talkin' dissonance, wobble-tone, 'eavy fump, and lots ov samplin'. Super-syncopation. So you've got dis beat and dese tracks you know. And den it all starts comin' out. Mysticratz, Shanghai Jo, Speaches'n'Skream. It's big. Bee-Bee-Cee big. Next fing American pop-stars are bitin'. Brittney Spriggles, Hushler, all of 'em. Americans h'ain't got no idea. You know? Dey steal and Dey bite but dey don't know, you know?"

I nodded sagely. That is, Doctor Q. Hieronymous Sagely, travelling companion, personal physician, and friend. He did not appreciate my nodding him but, trusting in my impeccable way with the plebs, allowed me to pursue the dubious course I had taken. I shook him a little for politesse and continued with the conversation.

I became more aware at every moment that if I was to truly understand what he or she was talking about, I would have to attend a Dubstep show for myself. This became particularly apparent when Whackamole invited me to attend a Dubstep show for myself. I myself had put-off concerts as insignificant parerga to the popular music scene - my personal conviction was that there had not been a concert worth attending since Mickey Mouse played his era-changing cavalcade of Zampa in 1932. Still, I girded my loins, put on my blue Studentkorps cap, secured Sagely to my fanny-pack, and took off for the unknown.

Darkest night. We approach what seems to be a large abandoned warehouse. We are led in through secret tunnels to the crowded interior. Reader! How can I describe the simultaneous synaesthetic symphony that I stumbled onto! There were lights, red, green, blue, flashing and swirling in a thousand variations per second. Hundreds of wild, multi-limbed, youthful bodies were wobbling and sweating in a mystic trance, giving way to their natural abandon and kicking Old Queen Vic' in the knickers.

And the sound! The sound! Piercing through marrow and cucumber alike. A slight tinkling -- the hum of a speaker -- suddenly I hear a sample of Winston Churchill; "We shall fight them..." echoes throughout the chamber. And then, like the slow plodding march of fate, a heavy multi-level beat -- thump -- beat -- thump -- beat! I felt my heart and hands follow the militaristic rhythm. I was getting giddy. I sweated and bumped and after about 7.824 minutes passed out in a fit of aesthetic wonder.

When I awoke, I found myself in the office of foreman Joseph Billbottom. Where was the dance? Where was the thrill? Where was the Dubstep? It turns out I had taken a wrong left turn at Marmalade Avenue, and what I took to be throbbing beats of a Dubstep show was actually the ambience of a night-shift at the biggest Tooth-bristle and Kipper factory south of Manchester.

Suddenly it dawned upon me. I laughed and laughed until I cried. "I've got it! I've got it! I cackled insanely. Sagely and Billbottom looked at one another in doubt. "Got what, old boy?" my travelling companion cautiously asked, putting a cold-compress on my brow. "Dubstep! I know what it stands for!" They looked askance. "Dubstep - it's all a practical joke! Don't you see? Dub -- Step? I had taken a wrong turn. A Dubious step! Ahahaha!"

After a fortnight in the Tower, I was right and hale as Kidney Pie. Valium and Kidney Pie.