This is going to be a long one. I’m sure that it’s not surprising to most of you who’ve stood by me over these many years, but nonetheless I have much to say. And when people like you mean so much to me, I feel there are never enough words to convey the gratitude and love you deserve from me. I’m going to try my best. It will indeed by a long post, it will offend a few, who I think deserve to be called out, and because I believe you all deserve to know the truth. In all honesty, I’m not saying goodbye, but I am saying hello, perhaps for the most honest first time.
So where have I been? Well I’ve been in school working hard on my studies. I’ve also been working hard performing live music as a lead guitarist in a Pop/R&B band called PromiseTheTruth playing all original tunes with the best group of musicians I’ve ever had the honor of performing with. It’s been one hell of a ride that just keeps getting better.
Most importantly though, I have been in a serious loving relationship with the most important person in my life. She deserves all my time. Much more than I can offer here on The Global Bass Experience.
There are other reasons for my absence too. I’ve lost interest in the music global bass has to offer, for the most part. Every once in a while something great comes through, but I’ve just been experiencing the same crap over and over and it has made me sick and tired. I’m not a puppet willing to promote anything that is released with hopes of being something special in the global bass music market. I’m a lot better than that.
I have also moved on with my own personal musical tastes. I hope that you as artists and lovers of art, understand the importance of freedom. I desire freedom from doing something I no longer care about, doing something that doesn’t mean much to me. I’m not knocking the music within the global bass scenes, I’m just saying it’s not where I am anymore. I’m also not sorry for this.
Life changes, it’s always in motion, and I not only love where I am now, but I really love where I am going. I plan on taking all of you who appreciate and love me, with me along my life’s journeys. There may not be a global bass blog, but there will be something. I love communicating to all of you too much to ever stop. Many of you mean a lot to me. You’ve been there for me in my bad times and were there celebrating with me during my good times.
This is not goodbye in general but it is a goodbye to The Global Bass Experience. More so… It is a goodbye to El Güero Único. I don’t need that moniker anymore. It meant a lot to me. The only white guy, the unique white guy, the ‘blond’ guy (though I was only truly blonde until I was about four years old). The reasons for leaving this El Güero Único moniker behind actually are many. I knew a few years ago that I was growing tired and finding it difficult to keep delivering the amount of reviews and cumbia music roundups as I did in the past. I also found it difficult keeping up with the underground EDM scene; EDM, which is an abbreviation I still don’t feel comfortable with using to describe new dance music from around the world that is primarily produced using DAW software. The reality is though, I’m not all that into what is considered EDM anyway. I’m just not the right person to fairly pass judgement on these types of music releases and I don’t have the desire to promote them anyway. If these reasons aren’t fair enough for anyone to understand and agree with my departure, then I’m simply unable to reach these people anyway.
I’m now going to discuss my personal history with global bass and blogging. I love to write. I love music. But I wasn’t ever truly cut out to write about global bass. I cherish live instrumentation, musicianship, bonding with other bandmates to bring musical creations to life, and then sharing the music with a live audience or by having them imagining us performing as they listen at home on their stereos. That’s my approach in a nutshell. However, I do love exploring different styles of music from around the world and incorporating them into my own work. After all is said and done though, I’m not a global bass enthusiast and have no business writing here.
I always played in live bands, I studied jazz but found myself playing in funk and rock bands from an early age. For the longest time my idea of a DJ was just simply someone who plays music at parties and clubs so people can dance or have a sonically surrounded atmosphere. I still feel this way. But after years of working alongside some excellent DJs (fortunately before the DAW software and digitally controllers became a thing), I admired their skill of knowing how to manipulate the crowd and deliver the right feelings at the right moments. I also learned of their skills at beat matching, song selection, transitions between songs, and turntable skills as valid art forms. It still wasn’t anything I wanted to do, and still isn’t. But it’s an art form nonetheless. I also see sculpting and painting as art forms, but art forms I have no desire partaking in myself. So I didn’t do this to be a DJ. I was asked to DJ, I did it, I liked it a little bit, but mostly I didn’t. I never felt right. It never felt the same way as holding a guitar in my hand and creating music with it after many years of practicing the instrument and understanding the history of what I was doing. Nothing beats playing a guitar in a band to me, especially when we’re playing original music. I find it is by far the best possible way for my own self expression.
I actually got into all this because of Nu Cumbia. I heard some weird stuff from Mexico and was interested. I also loved what I was feeling when local DJs I worked with as a club lighting designer were playing. Cumbia was chill and I was interested. I started a Facebook group in the early FB days called Nu Cumbia Experience as a means to have people share their productions so I could get more into it. After a while, I started messing around with it and created my own tunes. There was another cumbia fan page on FB at the time called The New Cumbia Makers, it was created by this dude named El Gayo Negro. After I started my group, I messaged him to tell him my sincere reasons and didn’t want him to think I was stepping on his toes. Well he didn’t agree with what I was doing. He called me bad names, insulted me, and has ever since been a massive dick head. That’s a syndrome the prideful seem to espouse when they’re unhappy with their own lives. I ignored him and continued developing the most positive Nu Cumbia group on Facebook, where I met a lot of great people and learned a lot too.
The Facebook group grew in popularity very quickly and a few of my own productions were selected by Generation Bass in their Sexxy Saturday Cumbia roundup. I was honored and excited. I was even more excited when Deejay Umb asked me to take over Sexxy Saturday Cumbia. I saw it as a great chance to meet many new people, learn more about cumbia, and introduce the world to many unknown artists. I was running that weekly blog post for a good long time. It was for about two and half years actually. Then I received a hateful message from a guy in Buenos Aires called DJ Negro Dub. He was pissed off at me for exposing cumbia artist who he felt didn’t deserve the attention, and he felt I didn’t deserve the right to do so. I looked into his claims and tried to make peace. I learned that he HATED the local Buenos Aires label ZZK Records and the white owner Grant Dull. He claimed that Grant and ZZK stole his music movement and created their own artists and left him in the dust. I remember his deep hatred for Grant and for me very clearly. I looked into the history of ZZK and found that they were just doing good business. They were taking local popular music and exposing it to a larger audience. And I was doing the same by reporting about it. I didn’t hate Grant Dull, I totally understood and continue to understand him.
So after I left Generation Bass to focus more on South American global bass music as well as local South Western U.S.A. music happenings, I created The Global Bass Experience. I also created it to separate myself from Deejay Umb’s consistent bad mouthing and attacks with Generation Bass readers. Personally I’ve always loved and appreciated Deejay Umb. He definitely hates me, and made it very known. But there’s nothing I can do about that. He can hate and I can love. That’s fine with me.
With my new blog I made connections with a local U.S. record label called Boom One Records. I wanted to send them some artists that I found to be talented and deserving of exposure. I also saw it as an opportunity to release special compilations from The Global Bass Experience. One artist I reached out to what actually DJ Negro Dub to give him more exposure in the States. He sent me some great music and we put it into an album and released it through Boom One Records. A couple of years later I began moving away from The Global Bass Experience and stopped running things. So all albums that were released, were with Boom One Records and not me. The most I could do was contact people for other people, then go on my marry school studying, live band playing way. Well DJ Negro Dub had one of his songs that was on the album released through Boom One Records was sent to another label in South America. The owner of Boom One Records contacted me about it and I sent the information to DJ Negro Dub. DJ Negro Dub apparently wanted more money and fame and wasn’t getting all that he felt the world owed him or whatever, so he called me names again even though I had nothing to do with anything. Eventually it was all squared away with Boom One Records, which was in my opinion best for me because I didn’t have to deal with asshole divas like DJ Negro Dub anymore. Then what happened next shouldn’t’ have astonished me, but it did, I found out that DJ Negro Dub was FINALLY signed by ZZK Records and proudly announced it to the world. The same label, run by the same man, Grant Dull, that DJ Negro Dub hated and talked the maddest shit about was now producing him and DJ Negro Dub couldn’t be more excited to get on his knees and kiss Grant’s ass. Hey I’m all for Grant, all respect to him. The weak often show their weakness when they meet those who are strong, strong like Grant.
I love what Grand Dull has done for global bass, especially nu/digital cumbia. He found a style of music he really dug and decided to help bring the artists attention to the world, while at the same time helping them have a future as a recording artist. As far as I see it, Grant Dull did and still does the right thing and he does it well, which is why ZZK Records is doing so well still.
There are others too outside of this digital cumbia thing. Global bass in general. Man can anyone ever be as self righteous as Dub Gabriel? Yep, his name is Filistine! Damn it doesn’t get worse than this self righteous capitalist pig of an asshole! Let me tell you why. I had close connections to this monster back in the day. He made and still makes his money from owning a taxi cab company in Seattle, and uses the blood and sweat of his underpaid drivers of his pyramid scheme to fund his adventures in Europe and around the world. He acts like he is anti-capitalist but no one in history except perhaps Donald Trump, is more capitalist. This asshole was on a tour down south and was passing Arizona. My very good friend of mine who truly cares about the well-being of others, especially the disenfranchised, asked Filisitine if he’d be so kind to swing by an play a small set at his free gig in downtown Phoenix that promotes the artwork of immigrants, and Filistine wouldn’t budge for anything less than $1000.00 as payment! My friend and I looked at each other and said “for someone who claims capitalism is evil, he sure loves it!” So we said fuck it to Filisitine, and not because we hated his hypocrisy, but because we couldn’t afford his love for the disenfranchised, even though he probably just received a deposit from a few of his taxi drivers who were driving on Christmas Eve to make money for their families who never got to see them. Fuck Filistine. I’ll say it again. The man is a fraud. And it makes me sick watching these press releases showing dancers from around the world who are struggling in actual 3rd world nations. This self proclaimed white messiah reaps the benefits of love deserved by true activists that actually get things done and don’t feel the need to announce their deeds to the world.
I’m not done with Filistine, he’s more of a tyrant than you might now think. Who believes that the deeds done by someone are good deeds, but their home life and the way they treat others in horrible ways justifies their deeds? Do you still love Bill Cosby? The reason many didn’t speak out about Bill Cosby was because of what he meant to the African-American progressive movement. What good did that do? He drugged and raped women. Do you still think he’s a good man because he donated money to black universities? If you do think Bill Cosby is a good man, then you are an awful person in my book. So if you believe Bill Cosby is a wonderful human being, I have one thing to say to you; FUCK YOU ASSHOLE LOVER OF RAPISTS!
The same goes for Filistine. Now I don’t know what he has done to women but I do know from many trustworthy sources that he on many many many occasions used the money he demanded to be paid to “perform” with his shopping carts, bull horns and midi controllers to book many rooms to fuck his fans in while his girlfriend was unaware. How do I know this? I know this because I was told by someone who represented him that they had to keep all knowledge of his fucking around from reaching Nova Ruth, his beloved.
Charlatans playing shitty music and standing proudly while capitalizing on the backs of the poor. That is Filistine. Cool videos though. Good thing he knows not to let the camera men show his fucked up teeth. He should have used that money he took from his cabbies to get those fixed instead of fucking groupies.
In the end, there are a lot of great people in the global bass scene with pure hearts and honest desires to play music that connects them with others by way of important socio-policital messages, messages of love, of the science fiction, for the desire to just get people to dance alone and together for the love of dancing and music. But with every art form, especially any that has been hijacked by businesses, there are plenty of fucking assholes who only think of themselves. They have egos so big, sometimes it’s hard to see their face when they talk to you. I can list these assholes right now. Hell I will. Why the hell not?
Global Bass Assholes:
DJ Negro Dub (The worst kind)
El Gayo Negro
Filistine
Now now now, I know this has really gone to an ugly place. I’ve been meaning to speak up for a long time. There are so many great people out there who look up to these artists and who are producing genuine art themselves, and they deserve better. I hope for the best for those who truly believe in the power of music and self expression through performing and creating art.
As for me, El Gëuro Único is over. My name is John Newell. I’ve always been honest to you and have always loved you. I’m going to release one last album I have yet to release under the El Güero Único moniker before he disappears. I’m not sure if he’ll disappear forever. I’m debating handing over the title to someone new. I’d love that. If you want to be El Gúero Único and take on all the years of internet presence that comes with it, please hit me up and let me know. Tell me here: John Newell.
Before I share my final album. I’d like thank as many of you as I can remember who have been there for me since the beginning. You all believed in me and supported me. I’m not leaving per se. I shall stick around but in another more honest incarnation. But for now, see you soon:
Nafy Llanas
Paola Torres
Huascar Garcia
Matthew Mansfield
Justin Butler
Caballo
Alex Ovando
Mathew Gabriel Gonzales
Jaime Melendez Media
J, Music Nice
Pedrolito Radioglobal
Captain Cumbia
Matthew Shell
Lisa LapKat
And if I’ve forgotten anyone, please, please, please accept my sincerest apology. There were just so many great people.