SDDubstep.com gets shut down

SDDubstep.com, a popular website for local dubstep events, is no more. The url now redirects to ElkBeats.com, a new site started by SDDubstep.com founder Donnie Valdez, aka EshOne, and his friend Aaron Zimmermann, who performs as Misk.

Valdez told CityBeat that he took the site down because he’s become disenchanted with the local dubstep scene. During the past year, many producers and DJs have championed a harder, dancier style of the bass-heavy genre that purists dismiss as “brostep.” The final straw for Valdez came last month when a group of guys started heckling him during his set at the anniversary party of El Dorado’s Dub Dorado night; they later went to Dub Dorado’s Facebook page to talk more smack.

“They usually go to these parties in East County where they play all that tear-out, chainsaw bass shit, and I wasn’t playing that,” Valdez says of the hecklers. “I can’t be promoting every dubstep night when it’s introducing people to that as dubstep. … These guys probably found out about dubstep through my website, you know what I mean? And then [they] go see me, and they’re like, ‘This guy sucks.’ It just seemed like I’m putting my energy in the wrong place.”

Valdez and Zimmermann started ElkBeats.com to release their music—they hope to eventually turn it into a full-blown record label—promote local electronic music shows and sell elk-related stuff. “We’re going to do shit like going to thrift shops and find a wooden elk and make something out of it and sell it on our website,” Valdez says. “Weird shit.”

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The Lafayette Hotel will host a weekly concert series in July. Held in the hotel’s Mississippi Ballroom, Rock the Boulevard will feature two bands and artists every Friday; the lineup includes indie-rockers Tropical Popsicle, jazz singer Miss Erika Davies and Stephen Rey & The Slicks, a new band fronted by the bassist for Lady Dottie and the Diamonds. The series kicks off with Geezer and Rio Peligroso on Friday, July 1.

The series is part of an effort to promote business along El Cajon Boulevard, says Beryl Forman of the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association, who put the series together. The Lafayette (lafayettehotelsd.com) will also host summer pool parties with DJs.