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So I'm not sure how this blog came to fruition, but it did, and I can honestly tell you that I never expected to be writing about dubstep. I don't mind the whole electronic-music craze, but you would be hard-pressed to find me making the trek to Ultra Fest or something. (Not to mention I had to Google what the hell Molly was. Yeah, I'm that uncool.)

I also didn't think it was possible to take an artist like Neil Young, throw in some loud-ass beats while chopping it all to hell, and still somehow wind up with a product that isn't utter shite. But as I sit here willingly listening to a remix of Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," waiting for the fuckin' bass to drop, I can tell you, I might be a changed woman. Either that or I've finally lost my shit.

Below are five of the most random -- yet totally decent -- remixes I've found while sifting through the endless mountains of dubstep on YouTube. I've enjoyed this little journey, but I'll never again be able to listen to Marvin Gaye's albums without waiting for the bottom to drop out. So thanks, dubs. Thanks.

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Photos by Julian Bajsel

One More Time: A Tribute to Daft Punk
Stereo Live
May 11, 2013

It's safe to say that Daft Punk fever is at an all time high. Fifteen-second clips of new music were enough to nearly break the internet and no major gathering of musicians can happen without rumors of a Daft Punk appearance spreading.

Enter One More Time to try and help the masses with their Daft Punk mania. The more cynical among you may see it as an opportunistic money-grab, but this isn't the case at all. They've been doing the Daft Punk tribute thing for years, even winning the award for "Best Electronica Tribute Act" (under their old name Daft Punk'd) from our friends at the Phoenix New Times back in 2011.

That said, like many of you, we here at Rocks Off had questions about whether or not an electronica tribute act could work. What, we wondered, would the show be like?

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Photos by Julian Bajsel

W&W
Stereo Live
May 3rd, 2013

It's a good time to be Ward van der Harst and Willem van Hanegem, the duo collectively known as W&W. On the festival scene, they've played Ultra in Miami and will be headed to EDC Las Vegas in a few weeks. Their friendship with Armin Van Buuren (who will be in town on the 23rd) resulted in the popular "D# Fat" and lead to them playing in Madison Square Garden as part of A State Of Trance 600. Things for the duo are very good.

Maybe that's why Friday night at Stereo Live felt a little different. Twenty minutes before they hit the stage the dance floor was packed and electric, people already grooving and chanting. The opening DJ does not always get that kind of crowd.

At that point it probably didn't matter what W&W decided to start things off with, but when they hit the stage and dropped "Lift Off" it felt like, if only for a moment, Stereo Live just might fly into space.

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Photos by Julian Bajsel

Paul van Dyk
Arena Theatre
May 1, 2013

In 1994, Paul van Dyk released a song entitled "For An Angel." Over time it would become a trance anthem, one of the most popular and influential songs to ever come out of the genre.

Flash-forward to 2013. This weekend, thousands of teens and young adults will pack clubs across the world to dance the night away to DJs who weren't even alive when "For An Angel" was released. As for PVD, he's still touring the world bringing his trance epics to a dedicated fans, including a stop Wednesday night at the Arena Theatre.

It was not your typical "EDM" show, but then again a show on a Wednesday night at a venue not known for hosting DJs was never going to be typical. But more than 20 years in the game PVD can afford to do things a little bit differently; the youths may have their whole lives ahead of them, but they don't have the years of collected dance-floor wisdom that PVD has.

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Photos by Jullian Bajsel

John Digweed
Stereo Live
April 12, 2013

Last Friday night, I left an EDM show feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and simply happy. This was because I had been brought back to a musical place I hadn't been in years, a place where I was discovering something I loved for the first time.

Seeing John Digweed was like teleporting back to 1996, a time where my friends and I would hop the city bus and ride on down to First Avenue for the Minneapolis club's Sunday Night Dance Party (Houstonians might remember it from Purple Rain... I come from the land where you purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka).

We would don our JNCO jeans, Adidas Shelltoes, and baby tees to go dance. For hours, without gimmicks, bullshit, and pretense... we just danced. Hearing Digweed's seamless set sent me back to a time that me, my friends, and techno were all coming of age.

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Photo by Son Lam.

Skrillex, when dubstep was cool, circa 2011.

Mainstream music has a history of taking musical genres, smoothing out the rough edges and turning them into something easily digestible to the masses. Punk rock went from being the music of rebellion to the music of crying about failed relationships, and rappers went from rapping about what was happening in the streets to rapping make-believe stories of violence and drug running.

For the last two years, much has been written about the rise of EDM, and dubstep in particular. While dubstep was never threatening or edgy in the way that punk and hip-hop were, there was a certain hardcore bent to it that was exciting. It was aggressively modern, the perfect music for our ADHD culture.

I'm speaking about it in past tense because we have to face the fact that mainstream music has had its way with dubstep, and the results aren't pretty.

Dubstep isn't dead, it's just completely toothless.

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The official announcement of the existence of EDC Texas.

The largest music festival in the United States in terms of attendance is not Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, or Austin City Limits. While each sees thousands of music fans pass through the gates every year, the real attendance champ is Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas. The 2012 version of the event hosted 320,000 electronic dance music fans from around the world.

While Las Vegas is the crown jewel, it's only part of the greater EDC whole. EDC promoter Insomniac Events has spent the last few years expanding the brand across the country and this week they announced the six locations that will hold annual versions of the fest: Las Vegas, New York, Chicago, Orlando, Puerto Rico and Texas.

Deciding where in our great state to hold EDC Texas seems like a difficult decision, but the choice is clear. Realistically, only so many locations can host a major festival on the scale of what we assume Insomniac wants EDC Texas to be, and a quick bit of compare/contrast shows that Houston is really the only place to host it.

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Photo by Abrahan Garza

Whether you're a casual fan looking for a night of spectacle or one of the above little monsters who camped out to be first to get inside, we all know that the main attraction of tonight's show at the Toyota Center is Lady Gaga. That said, there's no reason you shouldn't pay attention to the show's opening acts.

Put your phones away and pay attention to someone who isn't Gaga? It sounds crazy I know, but take a chance and listen: you'll thank me later.

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Photos by Amanda J. Cain

Porter Robinson
Stereo Live
January 25, 2K13

If you asked the average artist how they'd feel about playing three shows in the same city within seven months of each other, they'd probably tell you, "That's madness." The belief is that you don't want to burn out your fans with repeated visits; you should always leave them wanting more.

SLIDESHOW:

Porter Robinson and his many fans at a very sold-out Stereo Live

Porter Robinson fans care not for that theory, and proved it by showing up en masse to catch him Friday night.

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Photo by Julian Bajsel

Porter Robinson goes full Jesus pose.

The thing I hate about karaoke, aside from drunk bachelorette parties and my own crippling fear of singing in front of people, is the music, these bad knockoffs pretending to be the songs we love. I know spending all day making pretend versions of songs isn't the most glamorous job in the world, but would it kill these people to take pride in their work?

In addition to karaoke mills, there's a whole industry out there dedicated to pumping out crappy knockoffs of good music. Thanks to the various streaming music services, the awful versions of the songs you know, be they karaoke or "tribute" versions, are just a mouse click away.

How awful are we talking? That's what I wanted to find out.

Porter Robinson performs in Houston tonight for the third time in the past 12 months. Since his track "Language" was one of the best singles to come out last year, I decided to make it our test subject.

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