You rarely see a musician dabbling in sports — OK, Marvin Gaye did try out for the Detroit Lions — but it’s certainly not unusual to see an athlete turn to music. So it was with London Dubstep producer/DJ Gary McCann, more prominently known as Caspa.
As a young man, a devastating shoulder injury ended McCann’s budding basketball career, so he pursued music, his next love (his father was a passionate record collector and his brothers exposed him to Hip Hop, greatly diversifying his taste). Initially recording under the name Quiet Storm, McCann had a relative hit with “Bassbins,” which had been picked by the BBC’s DJ Da Flex.
By 2004, McCann had adopted the moniker Caspa and started the Storming Productions label, specializing in Dubstep and Grime; he later formed another imprint called Dub Police and also joined the Stingray label. In 2007, Caspa and fellow Dupstep artist Rusko were tapped to mix the latest installment of the FabricLive series, which became the first commercially available Dubstep compilation and was a catalyst for raising the genre’s public profile and sparking interest in it.
The following year, the Coda booking agency began repping Caspa, which led to invitations to prestigious festivals like Glastonbury and Global Gathering. After a series of singles (“Rubber Chicken,” “Noise Disorganizer” and “Soulful Geeza” among them), he released his debut album, Everybody’s Talking, Nobody’s Listening, in 2009. Caspa has remixed the likes of Deadmau5, Swedish House Mafia and Ludacris, as well as 30 Seconds to Mars’ “Hurricane,” featuring Kanye West.
McCann has DJed all over the world and is a Dubstep superstar as a result; turntabling ghosts don’t get much friendlier than Caspa.
CASPA plays Feb. 10 at the Madison Theater with guests KROWD CHEMISTRY, DR. GRAM and JOHNNY QUEST. Buy tickets, check out performance times and get venue details here.
