Last DJ Standing

Guten Tag,

Lemme fill you in on the madness that was the Last DJ Standing battle held at Canopy Club this past Wednesday. The Rave To The Grave, including DJs Lucknow and CZO faced off against the 217 Mafia, including DJs Belly and Substr8. Like every great story, that night’s was a story of two great rivals - mash-up-house and dubstep. Now, it’s not like electronic music fans get into fights over which sub-genre is the best one, but some people prefer untz-untz and some people prefer womp-womp. This was apparent at the end of the night when the emcee was trying to judge a cheering contest to decide the winning troupe, but more on that later. On to Round 1!

I arrived after Round 1 started, so I missed the 217 Mafia’s DJ Breezy. Rave to the Grave’s DJ Lucknow mashed some tracks up to start of Round 1, from the left side of the dance floor. As you can see from the video below, the main stage served as a neutral area for the emcee, while the left and right sectors of the concert hall were reserved for each DJ group to do their thing. Lucknow’s set featured an almost tribal drum track, which really got the dance floor moving early on. Then a long horn section break threw the crowd a changeup, while the DJ queued up a thumping four-to-the-floor. Check it out:

As DJ Lucknow’s time in Round 1 wound down, the house grooves faded out, and the audience gave the emcee an consensus on how much fun they were having, and which group they preferred in Round 1. DJ Belly pumped up the dubstep crowd, with some down-tempo scratching with a hard snare on three. A couple of female voice samples arose in the mix, followed by an ominous womping bass track. The sample “Welcome to the Madhouse” kind of fit the theme of Belly’s set. It exuded an underground vibe with images of some sort of dungeon rave floating in my mind as I recall it.

Rave To The Grave answered with some more beats of their own, often mashing up popular songs, like “Don’t Stop Believing” with “Teenage Wasteland,” care of DJ CZO. It was an interesting musical play on the ears of the audience, and even encouraged one guy to start a windmilling air guitar a la Pete Townsend.

Round 3 had DJ White Rabbit for the 217 Mafia pick up the tempo, which seemed to be his own unique dubstep style. Check it out:

That’s all the video I took, but I will fill you in on who the audience decided was the winner. After a very close call, the emcee gave the contest to the 217 Mafia. They were rewarded with some cash and the closing set, which they pushed way past 2 am. I think that they stopped serving drinks around 2:15. It was quite a night. I know most in attendance enjoyed it!