WMC08: Long Days Journey into Disco Nights
Something I typed up on the Crackberry, waiting for the plane to take off from Miami to NYC:
When I think of Miami, I think of Brian de Palma’s 80’s gangster flick Scarface – of Tony Montana and his “liddle fren”. Because I’m a House music head, I also think of his other friend, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Elvira, in her plantinum bob and razor sharp bangs, in her slinky, silky dresses, all coked up in the nightclub, dancing to Debbie Harry’s (Moroder-produced) “Rush, Rush”.
And from the moment you land in Miami, rush, rush is all you do, for Miami is not only home to one of the most chaotic airports in the country, it is also home to the Winter Music Conference. And every year, like migrating birds, media and party people from all corners of our increasingly warmer planet alight on the silicone and steroid-powered strip of sand known as South Beach to schmooze and celebrate this thing we call DJ Culture.
From the moment you step out of the terminal and the warm air hits your face, to the moment you jump in a cab and race down the causeways as palm trees zip by while Latin Jazz plays on the radio, to the moment you berate your concierge for botching your overpriced reservations and hustle the publicists and door whores who wield clipboards like Saint Peter – Miami is all about the rush, rush. How you manage to survive the week is likely best kept “off the record”.
The final Earplug piece is here.
The Resident Advisor group feature is here; there’s a sample below.
Ultra Day 1 at Bicentennial Park
Roots and youth collided full force at the 10th Ultra Music Festival at WMC 2008. On day one, the audience at The Crystal Method’s afternoon set on the Rabbit Hole stage looked like a casting call for the latest Larry Clark flick. A plethora of ravers roamed the grounds decked out in neon fishnets, flashing rainbow pacifiers, sparkly butterfly wings, and fuzzy Pocahontas boots. It was like the Summer of Love had never ended. I am seriously considering moving my stocks from eco-energy to glo-stix. Elsewhere on the grounds, every other DJ had one or two classics ready at hand. On the main stage, Eric Prydz threw the already hyped crowd into a tizzy with a reworking of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, and a mashup of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ and Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good.’ Later in the evening, Justice unleashed a brutal electro-grime set, including their own ‘We Are Your Friends’ and Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’. Justice were all fist-pumping revelry until the finale when they closed with ‘Modern Love’ by Bowie, which sent me scampering to the Amnesia Ibiza stage where Lee Burridge, and earlier James Zabiela, were both dropping chugging, Balearic sets that seemed almost designed to make me forget about the Justice finale. The place to be hands down on day one, however, was the Carl Cox and Friends tent. Carl, if you’re reading this, you owe me a new pair of pants because I crapped my old ones. From the second Cox took over from Danny Tenaglia, the tent nearly collapsed in excitement. Earlier in the day, Josh Wink had jumpstarted the rumble on Biscayne Boulevard with an acid-laced tech-house set that segued perfectly into a takeover by Ritchie Hawtin. By the time Tenaglia showed up, Hawtin was tearing through a retro conclusion, mashing up the Track’n The House mix of ‘House Nation’ by the House Master Boyz and the Rude Boy of House, ‘Reach for Me’ by the Miami-homegrown, Murk-produced Funky Green Dogs, and UK acid queens Wee Papa Girl Rappers’ ‘Heat It Up.’ Not to be outdone in the classics department, master of ceremony Cox looped Giorgio Moroder’s ‘The Chase’ through Ian Pooley’s Hyperdisco mix of Dave Angel’s ‘This is Disco’. When he got around to Inner City’s crossover hit ‘Big Fun’, Bicentennial Park was seconds from becoming Atlantis. Cox’s undulating, spine-snapping rhythms and steel-toed backbeats kicked relentlessly. Was it tribal, Italo, techno? Were we in Detroit, Berlin, Manchester? By the time I tore myself away, blissfully deaf, dumb and numb it didn’t matter. Bouncing around under glitter confetti beside an electric android on stilts and witchy-poo go-go wenches, I was so out of sorts I even drank from the communal water bottles which were coming around without even thinking about cooties. Cox and friends had ripped open a wormhole in Miami, we all gladly drank the Kool-Aid and like randy time bandits, jumped right in. For the sake of my own ears and sanity I even checked in on Tiesto and the rest of the festival – all of which seemed suddenly underwhelming. Feeling born-again, I felt like testifying “Take the needle off the record, y’alls and take some notes!” So, go ahead, call me a Cox sucker – I’m the smilingest sucker this side of the emergency room. –Jorge Hernandez
Kelley Polar Interview: Earplug 117
A classical prodigy gone disco darling, Metro Area cohort Kelley Polar lives in a Unabomber-style shack with no running water. It may not be the easiest place to dial for a telephone interview, but the lush, dense environ of his New Hampshire home offers a great place to make heavenly electronic music. A few days before the release of Polar’s second CD, I Need You to Hold On While the Sky Is Falling , Earplug’s Jorge Hernandez rang up the reclusive star-child. The last thing Polar wants to talk about is Julliard, that toy turntable, or Arthur Russell, so naturally the conversation instead turned to UFOs, Russian movies, and mad ravers in wife-beaters.
Muxtape: Sound Sounds
Muxtape is what it sounds like, a 2.0 mixtape community that keeps it simple. Clean interfaces, with a few colors and a simple idea – upload 12 tracks at a time to simulate an old school mixtape that captures your mood at the moment. It just went live, so we’ll see where it goes. For now, yours truly had some fun choosing a dozen jams that captured a rainy night, after a long day of working and writing. Enjoy.
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