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Dual citizenship
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by JACK OATMON Location, experience, impeccable taste and timing, rare dubplate hook-ups and a disarmingly friendly demeanour make Baltimore’s Joe Nice just the sort of guy you want behind the decks at your party. He’s been at the epicentre to witness both the Baltimore club scene explosion and the evolution of a North American dubstep contingent. “With me and dubstep it’s… I don’t wanna say a strange marriage, but it’s something I never really expected to do,” says Nice. “I got into it by finding out about U.K. garage and my love of it grew from there. A lot of people now are coming into the dubstep via the drum & bass realm. When I was younger, I didn’t listen to drum & bass at all. I was a Baltimore club guy.” Perhaps an echo of his birth and first two years in England, Nice’s interest in U.K. club styles has earmarked him in the dubstep scene while his city’s own musical legacy continues to evolve and proliferate. Given his intimate take on two club styles that are heavily cited and influential right now, one can’t help but wonder if he sees a connection between the two. “A lot of Baltimore club evolved out of the b-sides of old Chicago house records, Cajmere and Derrick Carter. Dubstep, the earliest roots of it were b-sides of early garage tunes. Then you had the evolution of a lot of Steve Girly stuff and the whole Ghost period, which blurred the lines between U.K. garage and what early dubstep was. Then Horsepower came in and that was the definitive line that said, here’s what dubstep really is. I guess that’s the big correlation, to say that both sounds had a beginning in b-sides. The seed was planted from genres outside their own realm.” When asked for an essential example of a classic Baltimore club banger, Nice offers the following. “The ultimate Baltimore club tune is by a Frank Skis group called Two Hyped Brothers and a Dog. It was him, a guy named Miss Tony and, literally, a dog. The tune is called ‘Doo Doo Brown.’ I probably have three copies of that record in my collection.” WITH KOMODO, MICHAEL RED, DJ |
