About Me
The legend, the don, the rebel, the true renegade, the Kaiser, El Macho Man… To the true fan of atmospheric drum and bass these nicknames can only refer to one man, the enigmatic icon, Andy Bubbles. Bubbles is one of the earliest pioneers of the deeper side of drum and bass and he is friends with just about everyone who has a genuine claim to have been around since day dot.
"I've always been into music... soul, funk, jazz, disco... always interested in the rhythm, the groove, the samples, the production... when I was a kid I used to head down to Woolworths and listen to the vinyl and drum along. I would literally get lost in the music for hours at a time. I got really interested in djing the minute I touched a set of decks. It became an obsession really. So when I learned the ropes, when I mastered the art, I wanted to show off my skills and play to crowds as early as possible.... and it so happened that the hardcore scene was where it was at.... raves, banging tunes, a lot of drugs. I used to just rock up to raves with my records and ask to play. The type of music I was playing in them days... it was mainly tunes with a bit more going on rhythmically... the breakbeat techno sounds, ambient jungle, the stuff that drum and bass was born out of....
It just came to me naturally, to diverge from the norm.. I left the four to the floor behind as soon as I had my foot in the door, and decided to push something a bit different, a bit deeper. I only play crowds that are coming up, not coming down. I need happy faces cos my tunes are too big for anything else. I tell people - never pigeon hole me. I'm always tearing up the rule book. Every time I get in the studio something different happens... different genre of music, different styles within each genre... and a few tunes have taken a totally different vibe when I came back from making a cuppa... I like to keep myself on my toes, keep myself guessing... People are always watching me, wondering which way I'll take the scene but I don't even know yet.
There's too many kids doing it badly these days. It's disrespectful to guys like me who have been plugging away, trying to better the sounds with a bit of dignity, pushing the boundaries. And I mean in the beginning it was all done with samplers and hardware, there were no short cuts. I spent a fortnight EQing a kick drum once, that's why I find these tunes written on Reason and on software a slap in the face. It's vandalism. People who think I stopped carrying the torch when drum and bass got less popular, I just tell them when you've been pushing this scene along for years, you're entitled to have a break now and again. Your fans are still there when you're ready to come back.
You can't be dynamite all the time. Sometimes I need more studio time, more Andy time basically. But I'm back on the road now, back in the public domain, ready to show the kids how it's done, ready to show them the next level. A foreign girl came up to me at the bar in Fabric and said "are you a DJ?" and I just said "you know what.. ask Danny who I am and come and speak to me later". You know, it's simple things like that really. I've spent a lot of time pushing this scene and the young guys out there have come along and disrespected me, slapped me in the face. I remember one young buck says "I used to love your bits back in the day" and then I see people saying in the magazines that my music belongs in the bargain bins. Simple things really, you know. I only hold my hand out once".
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Playing the Game LP (Due late 2007. Tracklisting TBC, pending confirmation from EMI): Lowering the Bar/Crying Wolf/Playing the Game/Stolen Thunder/Game's a Boagy/Recipe For Disaster/Second Fiddle/Back to the Drawing Board/Borrowed Time/Scrapin the Barrel/Missed the Boat/Chasin Shadows/Last Chance Saloon/Burnt Bridges/The Bitten Bullet/Double Edged Sword/Swings and Roundabouts/One for the Team/On a Shoestring/Pigeon Hole/Scapegoat VIP
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