The life of the promoter is a stressful one. Organising artists, liaising with venues and advertising your event, is an all-consuming job. A job that is difficult enough when your city has a thriving music scene; harder still if you’re trying to bring underground producers to the ,usually forgotten, City of York.
Therefore it is testament to the strength of Breakz, the most prominent promoter of Drum and Bass, Dubstep and Grime in York, that they celebrated their tenth birthday last Monday night. Ten years of existence in a notoriously fickle scene is impressive, creating the York scene yourself is even more so. From hip-hop to grime, from garage to dubstep; Breakz have been highly alert to new sounds and talented producers. Over the decade of their existence they have seen a plethora of world-reknown talent headline their events. Yet Breakz have stayed relatively low-key for a society that offers a night impossible to find elsewhere within this walled city.
Therefore for any underground music fan, Breakz nights are the place to go. Their previous headliners read as a musical Hall of Fame: Benga, Skream, Friction, Fresh, Grooverider, Redlight(formerly Clipz), Hazard, Chase and Status plus various others. This a formidable backgroudn, yet Breakz rose to the challenge and created their most varied, and arguably strongest, line up to date.
Taking over Club Tokyo, Breakz filled the main room with four huge names. Icicle, a relative newcomer to drum and bass and recently signed to Shogun, was the first producer to play. Not afraid to stray from the beaten track he showed a vast array of his influences with a varied set. Sigma then took over and showed why they so coveted, with a high tempo set that wowed the audience and shook Tokyo. The true beauty of Breakz though, is the family feel. As Sigma’s set finished and the main name, Hazard, began his set of jump-up drum and bass; Sigma sat on the side genuinely in awe at the skills of man he just handed the decks to. Finally, Stenchman took over to finish the night and bring in the dawn, with a set of old school garage and dubstep curveballs.
What I cannot press enough is how accommodating and passionate Breakz are. Passionate in the sense that Breakz are more than just promoters wanting to make money off the ‘dubstep bandwagon’, these are guys who are happy for as many people to come down, for cheap, to listen to good music. Accommodating as they arranged artist interviews, photographers and are happy to chat about the future possibilities of the scene in York. Infact, for the group labelled as ‘those dubstep guys’ in freshers, they were around long before dubstep was and i’m sure, for long after.