Clownstepping, across the universe...

I saw this post from the amazing Jim Bergerac, one of my favourite drum & bass satarists (are there more than one?), and I simply had to repost it on here.

Out of touch rock critics have no idea of what clownstep is

I was brought up by hippies, and one of the habits I have picked up from my ageing parents is an enjoyment of the type of meat-and-potatoes rock magazine that has dead people on the cover every other month. There is nothing better than reading a retrospective article on Jim Morrirson's passion for anal sex when you are sat on the toilet after a lentil curry, and a 9am rundown of the greatest prog rock symphonic concept albums is generally more interesting than the reading alternative at my mum's house - a rumpled copy of Surfer Magazine and some chakra-location manuals for aged white yoga enthusiasts.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that all of DOA's hard work over the years has paid off, and that the mainstream media is finally taking its first tentative steps back towards those halcyon days of the mid 90s, when you couldn't open The Face magazine without seeing yet another double-page spread of Goldie, Bukem and MC Bassman shooting grouse with Guy Ritchie, or turn on a BBC 2 youth drama without a teenage stabbing set to the sounds of Wax Doctor, Alex Reece or something on Joker Records that sounded like a broken fairground ride. Oh, how far we have slipped since that golden time. It's a travesty that Remarc's 96 version of the Blue Peter theme tune got canned because of the gunshot noises, and that the GLR back catalogue is only kept afloat by the soundtrack needs of the daytime home decorating slot on Channel 5. Somebody toss Limewax a bone and get him the gig doing the new music for Tweenies. I'm predicting big things.

Anyway.

This month's Word Magazine has a feature where different rock critics are quizzed on a variety of obscure musical topics (for points!), one of which is the eternal quandary "What the hell is clownstep?". As nobody got to phone a friend, and Phil Jupitus was not reading the answers from an autocue, not a single one of them could get it right.

The article is online, although the online one doesn't seem to have reproduced the answers. I have nothing better to do today.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/conte...boffin-face-off

What the hell is clownstep?

James Delingpole (Daily Telegraph): "Is it something to do with Gnarls Barkley?"
Peter Paphides (The Times): "I don't know. I'm not sure I want to actually."
Gavin Martin (Daily Mirror): "It's a musical genre. More than that I don't know."
Robert Sandall (The Sunday Times): "Blimey! Is it a sub-genre of the popular South London dubstep scene?"

Adrian Thrills (Daily Mail): "I really have no idea."

Robert Spellman (Daily Express): "It's a sort of hip hop dance where people dress up as clowns. Fictionalised violence. French guy made a documentary about it."
Andy Gill (Independent): "I suppose if I mention dubstep the ground will swallow me up. Is it a subset of dubstep?"
Alexis Petridis (The Guardian): "It's a sort of hip hop dance like the Aunt Jackie. Hang on, it's a microscopic variant on dubstep and grime, isn't it?"

Conclusions:

*The man from The Times, whilst not entirely well informed, possesses the same kind of unformed psychic ability that makes dogs howl when Shabba D comes near
* Dubstep should rebrand itself as 'Aunt Jackie' for a level of media exposure that exceeds its current reach, which is obviously limited to Vice Magazine, an inch square box in the Guardian guide and the seat next to Mary Anne Hobbes on the tube
* Clipz and Hazard need to fix up their mailing lists
* It's probably Pendulum's fault somehow