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Ketamine, Wonky, and Dubstep
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Popel Vooje
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Edited Mar 07, 2009, 15:05
Re: Ketamine, Wonky, and Dubstep
Mar 07, 2009, 15:00
Hunter T Wolfe wrote:
Popel Vooje wrote:
Hunter T Wolfe wrote:



It does seem to be all the rage with the kids, though- certainly in Brighton it's been the drug of choice among 18-20 year olds for the past few years, wonky or otherwise.

BTW, wonky as a dubstep subgenre does predate Simon Reynold's article- I've seen a few references to it in print in the last couple of months and even the music makers themselves placing their work in that category- though I'm far from knowing what I'm talking about in this area. In fact, it could all be a scam to get sad old gits like me asking their friends' kids if they know where they can get any 'wonky donkey' -cue scornful laughter, a barrage of agist abuse and any blunt objects to hand...




You're right - I looked up Wonky on Wikipedia, and according to them the term has existed for a year or so now (along with Crunk, Hyphy, and Chiptune, allegedly - "do you have any Cake?" indeed). I'm a little pre-conditioned towards skepticism about any new genre Simon reynolds wqrites about ever since I read an article he wrote in the Mixmag about grindie (supposedly a mixture of grime-oriented beats and streetwise lyrics with searing, trippy indie guitars). I thought it sounded right up my street so I went into IMO Records in Wimbledon - and they're REALLY hardcore rave trainspotters in there - and asked if they had any grindie, and the manager behind the counter just looked at me uncomprehendingly and said "any what?!"

I have actually been to a few dupstep nights, as there are some good (and relatively cheap) ones in Brixton clubs like the Mass - and the atmosphere there is generally much more peacable than any of the more comercial raves I've attended lately. Which brings me to...

You may well be right about Ketamine being the drug of choice for 18-20 year olds in Brighton, but the substance that seems to have made the biggest (and most unwelcome, IMO) comeback in London clubs over the last ten years or so has been coke. I don't go to clubs like Turnmills or Pascha anymore because since the late 90s their clientele has changed from loved-up pillheads to paranoid, coked-up a-holes with really bad, aggressive attitudes. If that's the alternative, then ketamine is fine by me!


Agreed. Though do you find that the cokeheads are that little bit older, like in their mid-twenties? If only for financial reasons, I'd imagine- K heads seem to be virtually schoolkids, or those who've just left. So both drug scenes co-exist.




Well I don't know - I've heard that the price of street cocaine has really plummeted this millenium, to the point where even schoolkids and the unemployed can afford it. After an illegal party in Hyde Park last year myself and a couple of friends just managed to talk our way out of a nasty altercation with some coked-up chavs who didn't look any older than 18 or 19 at most (I quietly insisted on leaving after one of them called my mate Stephen - who's 27 - a paedophile, accusing him of leching after their gilrfriends, whilst inside I was thinking "fer fuck's sake, don't tell them how old I am!").

This was only a week or so after that spate of London stabbings too, so we were pretty mindful of not wanting to become the next statistic. Admittedly, though, none of this cancels out the likelihood of ketamine being popular. In fact I can imagine cokeheads using it as an antidote to help them come down off charlie.

You're right about grindie, mind - I was excited about it as a concept until I actually heard that "Grindie Volume 1" disc compiled by Statik (who invented the term as a joke, according to an interview he did in the Guardian) only to discover that most of it just sounded like dodgy nu-metal. I just bought the debut album by Malakai, though (have you heard of them? They're a Bristol duo who are signed to Geoff Barrow's Invada label), and they sound to me like everything grindie was cracked up to be but wasn't.

And yeah, I don't go in IMO anymore - the staff always were too elitist and up their own arses for my liking. Good dubstep vinyl section though.
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Re: Ketamine, Wonky, and Dubstep (Hunter T Wolfe)
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