SMOG
Interview by JSuave
So one year comes and goes, things start to coalesce, where did you go from there? What was the next step?
2008 proved to be a major year. Our first event was a label launch party in February. We struck a deal with Load Media distribution and set out to found our label. With the profits we made on the launch show, 12th Planet and I flew out to London for the DMZ third year anniversary and to try and generate some buzz about our label. Being into dubstep and going to London for DMZ is kinda like a Muslim going to Mecca. There’s so much energy thriving in that city revolving around dubstep, its really amazing! We did radio promo on Plastician’s Rinse FM show and Boomnoise and Poke’s Sub FM show. We met our distrubutors, went to Transition to get some dubplates cut, checked out FWD and DMZ – and just met so many people along the way. It surprised us to see how many people had already known about SMOG. When we got back from London, we went full speed ahead with SMOG events. We did about five major shows in four months – all of them went off without a hinge. Over the summer we had Chef, Dub War NYC, Hatcha, OSC (Antiserum & Roommate), DJG, Youngsta, Seven.
You just relocated SMOG from The Echo to a new venue. Word on the street is the last show was off the chains! Talk about that a little bit.
We had a massive 7000 sq ft warehouse. We pulled all the permits to secure a legal and legit venue, with catered bar and everything. A total of 700 people were able to get in, and I’m guessing about another 100 couldnt get in. We had CASPA headline the event, with Nick Argon and a few of the SMOG guys as well. Massive turbosound rig by Mobius, giant screen, stage, lights, the works! We had an upstairs mezzanine with a photobooth for party goers to get their pictures taken. There were tons of giant black light neon street art paintings by Spectr, and the guys at YO! Peace came down to do live screen printing of SMOG and Spectr apparel. It was by far the biggest event I’ve ever done.
