LD to tour Australia

You're about to land in Australia, where you'll be playing a string of club shows. What have you heard about Australian dubstep? Certain members of Dub Police are no strangers—have they given you any reports of their experiences over here? I have heard good reports from my dubstep peers, and have been told that there is a big electronic scene out there. Caspa is always saying how good it is in Australia. Benga and Skream played in Australia over the New Year, and said that they had a ball. Distance and Joe Nice have also recently played there and said the same thing, so I am expecting to have a good time. You've been involved in the business side of dubstep since 2003, initially cutting dubs for an array of high-profile DJs. In your opinion, how does 2009 compare to those days? Obviously, the ever-increasing popularity of the genre, awareness of the genre, etc. has had some effect, especially in terms of the amount of money floating around. The thing with the scene now is that there are a lot of people making dubstep—this is good and bad. My main problem with the scene is that there is not that many new producers that are original, and are lots of people trying to Emulate Skream, Caspa, Mala, etc.. In 2003 there was no formula to producing dubstep, so most of the productions were groundbreaking and fresh. On the other hand, there are a lot of good tracks out there from unknown producers (you just have to search for them). Dubstep is now approaching the mainstream. It has raised awareness and demand which, in turn, has raised finances. This is always good for a scene, as more and more producers/DJs can afford to concentrate on music full-time, resulting in more and more good music. I'm sure you're well and truly tired of speaking on the topic, but take us back to 2007 and your set at DMZ with DJ Chef. For those who don’t know the whole story, drop some knowledge on what went down. Where I work (Transition) Mala, Coki and Loefah (the three members of DMZ) come and cut their dubplates. I had cut for them for a while, and had given some of my tracks to Mala. He liked them and played them out a few times. Out of the blue I got the legendary call to play at the 2nd birthday bash. A few weeks before the gig I was looking at the line-up, and it suddenly hit me—there were some of the best dubstep producers and DJs all in one place, and I was part of it. For some reason, I had mixed feelings. I was happy for such an opportunity, but this was my first dubstep gig and I felt I needed to make an impact. There were also a lot of nervous emotions running around me, but I knew that I just had to pull myself together and do this ting. I was back-to-back with Chef, so we did a few radio shows on Rinse before the party. From doing the radio show we developed an understanding of each other. The night came, and we played one of the best sets of our lives. It was the best outcome I could have ever asked for. Could we please grab a current top five from you? In no particular order... Mala -Eyes Joker - Tron Kode 9 Vs L.D - Bad Silkie - Filth (REMIX) Benga - Buzzin