It’s the sounds we still hear when we sleep. The hum of an air conditioner, the honk of a horn, the sizzle of power lines or the hiss of a spray can.
We tend to take these everyday sonances for granted, barely noticing its permeance on our souls. But it’s these auditory stimulations that rave disc jockey Joel Bevacqua, better known as “Deadly Buda,” draws on to complete his power-punched shows. And a style that he hopes will change the stereotypes behind the controversial rave scenes.
Have no doubt, as the name implies, Deadly Buda is not about lilting violins or purring percussions. His is a world sparked by our technology-driven environment. One that society is surely embracing as we wake up to the world of dot.coms.
“Music is by definition organized sound said Buda from his sound studio on Hollywood Boulevard. “What I try to do with my music is organize the sounds from our everyday environment. When you listen to music, you create a fantasy in your head that will hopefully illicit a physical response. I want people to be in this alternate realm, where they can call attention to the reality of their surroundings.
“The scene I’m into doesn’t concentrate on drugs. It’s more creative and artistic. You miss that if you’re on drugs. “
Long considered a scene for fledgling teens looking to purge their angst by way of druginduced trances, a now grown-up rave has taken on new meaning to the spinning ghosts working inside the machine. In the early ‘90s, a scratching and biting industrial noise, called house, had its roots in the ghettos of Detroit, New York and Chicago, breaking the underground scene. But the underground raves of the new millennium are coming to the surface with a sophisticated electronic background that is free game for the disc jockeys.
“There’s a lot of fertile ground to break, said Alfred Weisberg-Roberts, a.k.a. “DJ Daedelus,” who runs a weekly Internet radio show called Entropy Sessions on www. dublab.com.
“We’re starting to see the style that started 10 years ago mature into all aspects of technology. It’s gone beyond the fad. Now we need to figure out a way to describe it. “
To Deadly Buda, who likes to incorporate every facet of techno, including house, trance and jungle beats onto his record label Deadly Systems, he describes his music as simply “wild style.” A sound that looks like the graffiti he once scrawled on the walls and bridges of his native Pittsburgh, Pa. Daedelus, on the other hand, refers to the music as “hard sound.”
“I like wild style because there are no rules,” explained Buda who was touted by Urb magazine this month as one of the top 10 hard-core rave deejays in the country. “The only rule is that you have to sound good. I want to stay away from the definitions of hard or dark because of the connotations these words have. Dark is something you can’t see. Hard is hard to understand. I prefer wild style because it’s wild, unpredictable and unusual, like our day to day lives. “
Whatever name these electronic pioneers decide on, one thing is necessary, said Daedelus: “We have rock ‘n’ roll and jazz that work, but they don’t encapsulate the whole sound. That’s the difficulty in defining this electronic music. But I think if we come up with a term, then it will be easier for people to accept it. “
Acceptance, however, was a little hard to come by this week at an experimental jungle sound event in Beverly Hills. Prepared to break down the walls at the Wilshire Boulevard-based Naked Lunch, Deadly Buda and Daedelus; were instead greeted by angry UCLA sorority and fraternity members hoping to dance to some hip-hop and pop classics.
“It’s funny because hiphop is electronic music, “ said Daedelus. “Whether it’s jungle or hip-hop, you feel the beat in the same place. “
But Steven Lu, a deejay who regularly spins for the Bruins Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, said the roots of hiphop lie in five music, that’s why these college students can relate better to it.
Deadly Buda, who has a strong following in Europe, Asia and Australia, thinks the nonacceptance from some American suburban kids comes from another place.
“In Buddhism, the root of all suffering is change, “ he said. “When you change, there will be some apprehension. I went to high school with kids like that and if you would have played hip-hop for them back then, they wouldn’t have liked it. But because you can buy it at the mall, its OK now. I’m not some jukebox hero. A real deejay tries to introduce you to stuff you haven’t heard
before. Stuff that sounds different must be encouraged. If we’re spoon-fed, that’s bad for the Populist mind scape - “
As the clock spins out of control into the 21st Century, there definitely is no stopping the age of electronic music from whatever angle you take it from. Old sounds will meld with the new and sound barriers will be broken.
“There’s no stopping it now,” said Daedelus. “At some point, we have to stop thinking about it and just dance. That’s what this type of music has always been about. “
