Good lord, I got home Sunday night and I’m still going through business cards, emails and tracks people sent over to me. I have a few pics from WMC and am still waiting for the pics from EveryoneIsFamous.com to go up - there should be one of me molesting Ocelot in there.
In any case, there were some definite high points to WMC this year and some low points. Musically I was surprised, the few people that actually impressed me were, for the most part, deep house DJs. Brian Tappert, founder of Traxsource.com absolutely killed it at the garden party at the Beach Plaza Hotel, and as I mentioned in a previous post, Andre Harris provided a perfect opening set at the Large label party. Sinden was solid, though not mind-blowing, and Boys Noize were also good, but not stellar at the Scion party. Tittsworth and Dave Nada KILLED it though at the two events I caught them at. Those guys have more fun on the decks than most clubgoers do on a good night. I wish more artists wore their heart on their sleeve like that during sets.
More than anything, I had fun chatting in person with those I have only talked to online and meeting new people. Franki Chan, DJ Dan, Donald Glaude, Antoine Clamaran, Le Castlevania, Junkie XL, Reid Speed, Kill The Noise, John B, Jokers Of The Scene, CRYSTAL FUCKING WATERS (see picture below), Klever, Dave Nada, Tittsworth, Doc Martin, Ocelot, Fred Everything, Ken of East Coast Boogiemen, Johnny Love, Hatiras, MC Flipside, Jon Pegnato, Jeffrey and Richie of Blow Up DJz, Tommie Sunshine, DJ DB, Treasure Fingers, and anyone else I met but your name escapes me at the moment, thanks for extending a hello, a card, or a conversation.
As for photos, just a couple so as not to bore you (will post the Ocelot one later when it pops up online):
At the Large Party with Andre Harris’ girlfriend and friend
Tittsworth and I with Crystal Waters - undoubtedly our highlight of the week
And of course, now on to the music. There was one DJ I met who was one of the nicest, friendliest guys in Miami that week named DJ Kue. In California, but originally from Texas, Kue has been producing electro house like crazy as of late. The tunes are solidly produced and others are taking notice. He has been working on tracks with the likes of DJ Dan and Donald Glaude, and has an amazing list of tunes available on Beatport.com. We did a hard drive swap and he gave me a few bootlegs that are at once hilarious, and done so well that I couldn’t pass them up. Take a listen, and visit Kue’s myspace to give him a shout.
DJ Kue: Riding Low
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Foo Fighters: The Pretenders (DJ Kue’s 2008 WMC Boot)
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DJ Kue: The Pack
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Sinden: Red Hot Booty (Kue, Dan & Glaude Mashup)
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OMG, thanks to Kissatlanta.com for posting this hilarious clip from Funnyordie.com
Finally here in Miami and yesterday seemed a bit quiet for everyone. Although Tuesday is the official kick off day for WMC, people are still trickling in and saving themselves for other events happening later in the week. That was fine with me. I was exhausted, considering I had been up since 4:30 in the morning, and felt like I wanted to ease into the week as well.
After some sightings while walking around in the evening and having dinner (John B and his ferocious hair spotted at Ocean and 13th), we headed over to the Large label party at Sobe Live to absorb some deep house before heading on to harder things. We managed to catch Andre Harris‘ set and he wowed all of us, putting together a flawless, vocal driven set that had the early-night crowd on the dancefloor. If any of you ever visit Chicago, I HIGHLY recommend you visit his Saturday night residency at La Pomme Rouge.
After Andre, we booked it over to the URB party at Vagabond and spotted Treasure Fingers and Kill The Noise. Chatted with them for a minute, got Vimby.com to interview them for their website (the video should be up soon), and then headed inside to chat with Jeffrey and Richie of Blow Up DJz and watch Tommie Sunshine and Jesse Rose bang out their sets. The only disappointing thing about the night was not seeing more drunken escapades, although we did see a group dragging an 8 foot palm leaf behind them on Collins avenue at 3 in the morning.
Over the course of the week I’ll have a bunch of photos and tunes to put up, but for the moment, here is one WMC promo from DJ/producer Tom Sawyer (with a classic vocal sample) that’s a bit more of a big room sound but with some catchy synthwork, and on a completely unrelated note (but still in the spirit of bringing new music to everyone during WMC), a couple of new Lismore remixes for your enjoyment. They should whet your appetite for some of the other promos to come here in the next few days.
Tom Sawyer and Ricky Stone Feat. Roland Clarke: Tropical Storm
Artist agreed to original posting without consulting management.
Dragonette: Jesus Doesn’t Love Me (Lismore Remix)
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Heartsrevolution: CYOA (Lismore Remix)
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Yes yes, I know you all are probably SXSW fans over WMC, but WMC is still my domain and I will be there all freaking six days, from Tuesday to Sunday…good lord. One nice thing about going and working for several publications though is that you get an automatic in to most events. URB this year will be using Twitter to update the URB.com blog live throughout the entire week, so I will direct you guys there as my reviews start to go up.
On another *gulp* note…I have to interview Tommy Lee while I’m down in Miami. For those of you who don’t know, he has started a new group with DJ Aero and Deadmau5 called WTF which will officially debut at WMC. I want to hate it, really, but the tracks are great. However, I’m assuming those of you in the industry will want to read something with Tommy addressing his place within electronic music rather than just speaking on how great it is he’s doing something different. If you have any questions you’d like for me to ask Tommy Lee, leave them in the comments below. In the meantime, here are three debut tracks from WTF:
Also, following up from the other night at the JUSTICE AFTERPARTY….oh my…what an event. It was slammed at Debonair Social Club and myself and Joe Vortech got to play to a packed dancefloor that was already primed from witnessing the beast that is Justice. Here were some of the highlight tunes that got everyone in a tizzy:
Luke & Angello: Be (Toru S. 2008 Rebootleg)
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Kid Cudi: Day N Nite (Crookers Remix)
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Ghostface Killah: Charlie Brown (Yuksek Remix)
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The Kills: Cheap And Cheerful (Nite Cells Bored Robot Remix)
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After we closed the place down I headed over to Smartbar to see the Bloody Beetroots and The Glamour. Caught the tail end of the BB’s set and then went backstage with them and James Amato (music director of Smartbar and head of Potty Mouth Records) to hang and ask them a few questions. Unfortunately, the plans were thwarted, due to two groupies who were drunkenly hanging over their every word. This was the highlight of the evening:
Bobby (from BB - said in amazing thick Italian accent): Ok, now you girls have to teach us English.
Drunken girl (said while leaning over and trying to look seductive): In America, the only word you need to know…is sex.
Really? You said that? If any of you live in Chicago, that gem will be in the “Heard On The Street” section of this coming week’s TimeOut. Also, there is word that they will be coming back to Chicago again (to Smartbar) in the near future, so if you missed them this time around, have no fear.
Bloody Beetroots: Public Enemy Remix
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Goose: Everybody (Bloody Beetroots Remix)
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Lately I’ve been chatting with one of my editors at URB about house vs. hip hop. I will say right now I’m not a fan of hip hop, never have been, probably never will. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate all hip hop, but the few items I dig are few and far between. On the flipside, my editor feels the same way about house, saying that to him, it all sounds the same. After a pause on my part, he came back with, “Oh, did I offend you, yeah?” Touche. So I bet him that I could compile a list of ten house tunes that would make him change his mind and he bet me he could create a similar list for hip hop to give to me. I’m curious to hear what tunes you all think should be on the list. I would be ashamed to give him a list compiled only of classics, although a few probably have to be included.
Leave all nominations in the comments with an explanation of why they need to be on there 
Preston over at KISSATLanta.com and I are friends, but like most friends, don’t completely see eye to eye on everything. He recently quoted a post by hipsterrunoff.blogspot.com, which officially makes this a blog quoting a blog quoting a blog. God I’m such a dork. In any case, here is the quote:
“I guess the problem with Pitchfork as it relates to 80% of Generation Y is that it is trying to preserve integrity and quality in both music and journalism. However, good journalism and good music aren’t terribly important to a significant sect of young internet users these days. Music should be fresh and free. Online content is usually just a picture, and an easy-to-consume blurb.
Maybe the entire problem with Pitchfork is that they mismanaged their perception. I remember I found out about Pitchfork because it was ‘a place that wrote really pretentious reviews.’ Maybe that worked in the days when it was cool to network with indie record labels by becoming Programming Director at your college radio station, but I’m not so sure about today’s zany landscape. It’s also interesting to think that Pitchfork was probably one of the first places to be universally known as ‘having an American Apparel ad.’ How seriously did you ever take Pitchfork, and when did you give up the desire to have an ultimate authority on ‘music worth listening to’?
Preston’s take on this was, well, he completely agreed with it. Me, not so much. I am in the strange position of being a blogger as well as a journalist for print publications so I have a bit of a different take. Firstly, I have an issue with the last sentence of that quote. We never gave up on the desire to have an ultimate authority on music worth listening to, that focused simply shifted. Pitchfork may not be the end all be all now, it’s the kid with screen name justiceroxmysox that somehow got a bootleg mp3 before you ever heard about it. The idea of exclusivity seems to dictate what is worth listening to instead of purely appreciating good music for what it is. In my interview with Tittsworth we discussed this issue and he had the same viewpoint - although blogs and DJs may not know/admit it, for the most part they’re more concerned about volume of content and availability (or lack thereof) over quality.
On to the subject of Pitchfork itself, if I lump Pitchfork into a larger media genre of music publications like BPM, URB, XLR8R, DJ Mag, etc., they still serve a purpose as much as some of us would like to think they’re becoming irrelevant. Here’s the thing, there is a difference between a review and a critique. A review relies heavily on personal impression, experience with the music and reactions. In other words, it’s subjective. A critique is a more technical approach that incorporates critical analysis based upon, for example, artists in the same genre or similar songs. It’s objective. These magazines have always represented a knowledgeable base of exploration and criticism that can’t generally be found in our sound-byte blog posts. Besides, I still think that tactile is valued over what we can just read on screen. When a publication has a finite number of pages to print and they decide your band is important enough to put on the cover, that carries an incredible amount of weight.
Granted, our generation might have shorter attention spans, but how much of a shame is it to dismiss the music publication and throw our hands up and say, “well, it doesn’t seem that important, we’re only interested in pictures and links.” Are we that dumbed down? Besides, lots of publications have taken the steps to integrating several types of media as well as many of the ideas mentioned in the above quote. URB.com boasts a blog where writers are free to be somewhat reactionary and RCRD LBL combines the Pitchfork news mentality with free downloads. Give us a little more credit - we’re still more than point and click. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I still want to read some of them.
Rihanna did a duet with the Klaxons for the BRIT awards yesterday, performing “Umbrella” in a way that actually made me like the song I’ve heard a million times.
Rihanna - Umbrella (Diplo Remix)
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Rihanna - Umbrella (Vandalism Remix)
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Rihanna - Umbrella (Kawata Remix)
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Rihanna - Umbrella (Videoband Remix)
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Sorry for the random difficulties over the past couple of days. Firefox was acting buggy, due to some faulty coding courtesy of third party publishing program Ecto…grrr. Everything is fixed now (minus some minor formatting) so dsquared should be up on Hypem.com within a couple days!!
Speaking of frustrations though, there have been some odd happenings at gigs over the past couple of days, including:
-Random guy being escorted out of club and then pulling the fire alarm because he was upset over being kicked out.
-Guy being kicked out and crashing through club’s front door (made of glass). The glass shattered everywhere…the guy got pulled back into the club via a back entrance by three security guards. Uh oh.
-Someone accusing me of being discriminatory because I wouldn’t play hip hop.
I’m curious to hear some of your tall club tales if you have any…leave in the comments below!
Considering Kanye worked with Daft Punk for “Stronger” to boost his image, then worked with So-Me of Ed Banger records on his “Good Life” video…it wouldn’t surprise me if Kanye bit yet again with his “Flashing Lights” video. The first thing I thought when I saw it was…oh yeah, Daft Punk’s “Electroma.” Could be a coincidence, but it’s a damn close one. Love how the ending of Kanye’s video, font and all, looks very similar to the beginning of “Electroma” (seen in the beginning of the PART ONE clip below). Draw your own conclusions.
PART 1 OF ELECTROMA: CAR SCENE
PART 5 OF ELECTROMA: WALKING DESERT SCENE
KANYE WEST: FLASHING LIGHTS
