1st Post! - Welcome to Deadman's blog

Music is my passion in life and this blog will reflect that.

I live in Sheffield and have been an active DJ/MC on the circuit for the last ten years. Initially this began with Junglist Alliance (playing/promoting old skool) and more recently (2005 onwards) I began playing dubstep sets and founded a dubstep record label, R8 Records with Rogue State and Hood-E.

I've also spent several years performing with a reggae band, I-Witness alongside Junglist Alliance partner, Tim Walker. Reggae is also very important to me, I think that it's often under represented in the UK underground music press, particularly the still thriving sound system culture and it's associated dub music. Occasionally I find myself selecting for reggae artists including Daddy Freddy, Bongo Chilli, YT, Dan Man and D Bo General.

In 2006 I wrote a piece about the emerging dubstep scene for ATM Worldwide Magazine. I was driven by a real desire to understand the origins of this new, captivating music and in the process I interviewed a fair number of people including Benga, Blackdown, Kode-9, Mala, Mark One (Mrk1), Mary-Ann Hobbs, Oris-J and Youngsta. After the piece was published, ATM invited me to stay with the mag and I've worked for them ever since as the news editor and online culture specialist.

I've always wanted a place to collate my written work and that is the purpose of this blog. I recently took on a job writing local urban/dance news for a new Sheffield magazine, Acoustic Shave. My work with ATM does not call for vast quantities of Sheffield based news stories but working with a local publication made me realise just how much was going on here and how little of it is reported anywhere. Hopefully I can change this.

In the next few weeks I'll upload some of my older work, filed under the date it was originally published and plenty of new stories. Last Saturday (Feb 13th 2010) was the 4th birthday of my dubstep event, Dark Crystal and was headlined by Si Kryptic Minds. I was lucky enough to grab an interview with him which, once edited, will be the first feature created exclusively for Deadman's Blog.

Alex Deadman