ELECTRIC ZOO TIX GO ON SALE TODAY!!!

LINK TO MADE EVENTS WEBSITE

For the first time, the two-year-old electronic music festival native to NYC will be three days, over Labor Day Weekend. I would advise getting a 3day pass, because single day passes are usually considerably more expensive proportionally (the price per 1day X's 3 + fees is usually a lot higher than a 3day pass). Plus when you think about it, if you pay almost $70 to see Tiesto or AvB or Guetta alone, it's really not a bad deal!

I believe they will be available online at 4pm!

April Showers Bring May..SHOWS?! NYC Hotspots unveil awesome line-ups...JUST ADDED - SANDER VAN DOORN!

It's really funny because literally a week ago I was conversing with a friend of mine and she was saying how there hasn't been any good shows in NYC in some weeks, and how none of the big name venue's really had much worth while scheduled...literally in just a few days evertyhing turned around and we have a very action packed Spring - below are the events I think are worht mentioning:

4/7:

AFROJACK with Dreak Martinez @ LAVO

AN21 @ Provoacatuer

Chris Vargas - Cielo

4/8 :

Jack Beats @ Webster Hall

Sleepy and Boo @ Cielo

Drek Martinez @ Lavo

4/9:

Kaskade @ Pacha

Marcus Schossow @ Webster Hall

4/14:

Hex Hector, Hector Romero, Mind Control @ Cielo

4/15:

Roger Sanchez @ Pacha

Savoy @ Webster Hall

4/16

Boris @ Pacha

Victor Calderone @ District 36

4/17

Honey Dijon @ Cielo

4/21:

Mogwai @ Webster Hall

Sander Kleinenberg @ Cielo
Roger Sanchez @ Provocatuer

4/22:

Mogwai and Boys Noize @ Webster Hall

Danny Tenaglia @ Pacha

4/23:

Avicii @ Pacha

Boys Noize @ Webster Hall

Above and Beyond @ Bestbuy Theatre

Axwell @ Roseland

Behrouz @ District 36
Yves Larock @ Provocatuer

4/30:

Chus and Ceballos @ Pacha

Jonathan Peters @ Disctrict 36

5/5:

Calvin Harris @ Lavo

5/6:

Calvin Harris @ Pacha

Jon Digweed @ District 36

5/7:

Steve Lawler @ District 36

Rest of May:

Gareth Emery - Pacha - 5/13

Dirty South - Pacha - 5/14

Nic Fanciulli - D36 - 5/14

Armin van Buuren  - Roseland - 5/20

Dubfire - D36 - 5/21

AFROJACK! - Pacha - 5/26

SANDER VAN DOORN - PACHA 6/3!!!!

STILL NO WORD ON SANKEYS NY!

I will be going to Kaskade this weekend at Pacha, let me know if you're going and I'll try to get a review up next week!

My Miami Music Week: DAY 5 (3/27) - UMF Day 3

We headed to Bicentennial Park in the late afternoon for the third and final day of Ultra Music Festival 13. This day, the amazing Carl Cox Arena transformed into the A State of Trance Arena which played host to (in order of performance) Marcus Schossow, Alex MORPH, Cosmic Gate, Gareth Emery, Ferry Corsten, Armin van Buuren, ATB, and Sander van Doorn. A powerful, true-to-trance line-up with an amazing venue for the experience.

We caught the end of Ferry, all of Armin, and the beginning of ATB. My main goal honestly was to see Armin and he did not disappoint - he just seemed so within his element, it was sick to watch. He did not drop many of his classics, primarily I believe because he dropped a lot of his forefront stuff on the mainstage on UMF Day 2 and was really going to dig into his knowledge of trance for ASOT #500. I'm glad he did. While I was unfamiliar with many of the tracks, his set literally put me in a trance for his two hour set. It was everything Tiesto's set lacked, AVB stayed true to his genre, and did what he knows, and man did he rock it.

Anyone who has been reading my blog knows what a big David Guetta fan I am. While the past two consecutive times I saw Guetta I had a blast (Pacha 12/6 and last years UMF), the Pacha show had an awkward un-Guettalike vibe and his Ultra performance last year was sickening - I felt like I was watching a slow car accident. SO- after swearing I'd go to FMIF earlier in the year, I swallowed my pride and did NOT buy FMIF tickets for the Saturday night I was in Miami. At this point, however, my subconscious was beginning to take over....how could I go an entire Miami Music Week and not see my favorite DJ in the world? No matter how badly he did the last time or two? And thus, we exited ASOT, headed toward the mainstage, and took a seat and waited for Erick Morillo (who was really friggin good! Perhaps we don't give him enough credit as New Yorkers since he is resident [and part-owner] at Pacha NYC, and we see his name so much?) to finish his set. We parked ourselves on the lawn near a landmark to meet up with our other friends, in the meantime P. Diddy was on the stage doing a small solo set (really weird, but kinda cool I guess) while the stage-hands set up the stage for the Frenchman.

So me and my friend (she had only seen Guetta once before, during his Electic Zoo set in 2009 where he closed the festival and split our minds open mixing the likes of his own classics, introducing us to DirtyDutch, debuting all of One Love, mixing I Need a Miracle vs On-Off, and playing Bonkers and Television Rules the Nation back to back. Seriously one of the best sets I have on my iPod to this day - download it if you don't have it! Case in point, her expectations were high) were chatting about how good that e-zoo set was, how bad his umf set was last year, and I was preaching about various "guettas" in between...and I say to her that if he opens with Gettin Over I'm leaving....sure enough the Frenchie gets up there, starts yapping about peace, love, unity, house, miami, ultra, blah blah blah - i hate it but i love it - and after he stops talking the opening chords to Gettin Over play and my friend and I look at eachother and sigh....before completely abandoning the situation, we said we'd give him one more track before venturing back over to ASOT.

OH MY GOD am I happy we stayed. We started the set sitting on the hill in the back and probably within 25 minutes we were about 35 people back from the stage, a little to the right, dead sober. My baby renewed all my faith and dropped the best Guetta set I've heard him drop since his set at Pacha on that weird Wednesday night at the end of February 2010 (come on househeads, I know you remember what I'm talking about). He delivered ten-fold playing a wide span of tracks from whats popular so some dirty-dutchier beats, to some straight up amazing house tracks that I have never heard of. He sprinkled some of his own classics throughout the set but each of them with a new, UMF-customized flare, and brought Afrojack up for a 10-minute amazing mashup of When Love Takes Over and Moombah. If this set goes up, rip it the second you see it. Just as I was starting to think there are others more talented in the industry, and Guetta's been spreading himself too thin between promoting the industry and all of his production work, he must have taken a week off somewhere to rebuild himself - because everything about this set emulated why David Guetta is the #1 house DJ in the world, why he is the #2 DJ in the world overall, and why there are 7 of the top 20 DJ's in the world are house DJs - all of which - except for that moron - he has helped and promoted. Before anyone heard of Laidback Luke, Afrojack, Chuckie, and Sidney Samson - Luke was on "Delirious", Guetta turned "let the bass kick" into "I'm David Guetta Bitch", he played "pon di floor/how i like it" [alas promoting afrojack] when I saw him for my first time (4/4/2009), he loves riverside. In terms of SHM, he made the introduction between Luke and SHM - the product of which was "Leave the World Behind" and produced "How Soon is Now" with Dirty South and Ingrosso. NOT TO MENTION every one of the aforementioned artists had tracks on David Guetta's FMIF 2009.

Sidney Samson played a short set between Guetta and Chemical Brothers on the mainstage, where he featured his remix of Rihanna's S&M . To be honest, I left before Chemical Brothers because I was petrified of the cab situation and wanted to go see Avicii at Mansion. I ran back to the hotel and changed and got to the club. I spent about 45 minutes exploring Mansion - AWESOME venue. Our clubs have a lot to learn from the clubs down there. Mansion is enormous, tons of balconies, great lighting structure and big LED boards on either side. Unfortunately, it was about 1am when many various things within my body and soul were telling me that my Miami Music Week would be coming to an end very abruptly and probably dangerously if I did not head to my hotel and call it a night. At this point I had slept a few crappy hours in 5 days, spent a ton of time in the sun, danced for probably 100+ hours, and lived on a diet consisting of vodka, gum, and cigarettes. So sorry to disappoint, but I flagged myself for safety reasons before Avicii came on. I was just exhausted and overwhelmed and seeing as how it was after 1 and he hadn't come on, I just didn't have it in me to wait around any longer.

Next Post - How a seemingly boring April/May for NYC turned into what could be the best graduation gift ever for the tri-state - we got a lot coming up!

My Miami Music Week: DAY 4 (3/26) - Masq Motel

So after the oddity that was No Sugar Added at Nikki Beach, we decided to really sleep in the next day since we didn't get to bed until late. The Gods blessed us with another cloudless day, and after our brunch with 2X1 (4X4) drinks, we bought some four lokos, plugged an iPod full of Sensation White sets into the hotel's sound system, and soaked up the sun on the roof until it was time to cross the street and head to Swedish House Mafia's "Masquerade Motel". We could see the event from our rooftop and since we all had the "before 5pm" tickets we headed over around 4:30.

This was not NEARLY enough time. I guess everyone attending got the damn before 5pm tickets because by the time we got there, picked up our tix at willcall and got back online and thru the gate it was nearly 530 - on top of that, we had to pay the penalty fee (the difference in price) which was $50. Honestly, I cannot complain because I got my MM tix in the first batch and only paid $45, so for $95 I got to see the show, and honestly, I know people who paid well into $200+ so que sera sera, right? Additionally, I know of people who had perfectly valid tickets and could not get into the arena - in fact, wanttickets sent out an apology email today for those who didn't get in offering refunds for the show (nice work, but just figure this garbage out beforehand and this wouldn't be necessary).

Anyway, once the gate fiasco was over with, the rest of the day was a pleasure. Of the entire gated area, half was under the tent (with the main dancefloor, bordered with elevated VIP areas - one of which was reserved by Provocateur NY's own VIP guests [interesting]). The set up was ideal, the music could be heard everywhere, and obviously was significantly louder under the tent. Swimming in and out of the crowd was a breeze, getting drinks wasn't any worse than it could have been at any half-packed club, and there were a million port-a-potties. The sand within the gated area seemed to be packed down before we arrived, which was cool because it probably sliced my chances of spraining an ankle in half at the very least. Once inside the covered area, the main dance area was wider than it was deep. The LED boards behind the stage came to a peak, almost like a triangular prism to right behind the DJ booth, and the stage mimicked this style as well. The arena was also equipped with smoke screen and a superior laser show. The top of the tent was high enough that it wasn't overly hot and allowed for a nice breeze. Honestly, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this event in terms of set up, management, and equipment except for the initial entrance.

On to the show. I'm pretty sure I walked into the end of Armand van Helden's set because I do have a vague memory among the confusion of entering, using the bathroom, finding my friends, and getting a drink [standard protocol for us all upon entrance, right? lol. only thing missing was the coat check!] because I remember hearing Barbara Streisand and given he is 1/2 of Duck Sauce, and that's pretty much their staple song right now, I think it'd be weird for anyone else to play it. If this was the case, I guess I missed Max Vangeli and AN21, they must have gone on before him. DirtySouth's set left a lot to be desired (I was left, how should I say, unPhazed? yikes...) - being he was playing an SHM event and thus could not include really any SHM tracks within his set (which he often does, they're his bread-and-butter) he was pretty limited, and in my opinion, came up short. It is difficult to say anything bad about Calvin's set, but it was indeed very similar to the set we saw two nights earlier at Louis. However I can count on one hand the times in my life that were more fun than holding two Red Bull Vodkas and raging to Awooga LIVE in broad daylight on the beach - so thank you very much Mr. Harris.

On to the Swedish House Mafia- their set was interesting, and I appreciate them spicing things up a bit. Obviously when you see each of them individually there's certain things you can predict: Axwell will always play more Axwell: in the air, open your strobe, close with LTWB and tell me why, Steve Angello will always play more Steve Angello - he loves Knaas and Volodja so much so that he often plays them twice, Ingrosso naturally has less of his own tracks (but loves to lace How Soon is Now over anything) so he's usually the shocker, and they will all play One, Miami2Ibiza, Bromance, and The Island.

This show, while predictable, was still rather different. I say predictable because the flavor of house which they seem to favor (outside of their own productions) - I would try and describe it as the kind of bold in bass, yet lighter and sort tropical in melody type of house. Anywho, I may be mistaken but I don't think they actually dropped Miami2Ibiza at all? Perhaps this is them trying to be unpredictable....or perhaps too many RedBull Vodkas for Richie during Calvin Harris. What I can tell you is this - when they got on the music got louder and the entire light show kicked in as opposed to the more basic one used for its openers. The vibe under the tent was nothing but fun and positive, being it was a 21+ event everyone was pretty cool - they rocked a pretty decent set (idk, perhaps I've just seen them too many times) but I wasn't left floored - still had an absolute ball though. They ended with One and mixed it into "I want to Know Your Name" where Pharrell surprised the crowd to sing those oh so difficult lyrics live for the crowd (just a little sarcasm - but it was pretty cool to see!), and then ended with a kind of weird version of Leave the World Behind.

All-in-All - absolutely amazing time - do not regret missing UMF day 2 at all - aside from getting in, the day was stress free, filled with good music, good friends, and a ton of fun. For the 100$ price of admission, I'd do it again in a second.

The show ended around 1130 - exiting the facility was really easy, we crossed the street to our hotel and tried to bring our remaining vodka to the rooftop pool for a night cap, but it was locked - probably better for all parties involved - so we hit up the diner, and then hit the sack.

My Miami Music Week: DAY 3 (3/25) / UMF Day 1

Ok so today we were all pretty beat up from the insanity from the earlier two days so we didn't get to ultra fest until later in the day. Given our somewhat exhausted demeanor, we chose to just hang by the mainstage and see Duran Duran (surprisingly entertaining) Pendulum (very good but set was too long) a small set by Tinnie Tempah (literally saw him less than 24 hours before so no surprises) and TIESTO! (will comment more in a bit).

Thoughts on the festival set up as compared to last year: Pros/Cons

Cons:

- The park in which the festival was held was partially under construction, meaning even more people in even less space.

- The parts of the park that were not closed off were still pretty beat up , very rocky and dusty

- bathroom situation day 1 was horrendous, but they definitely shuffled things around for the rest of the festival

- the festival itself had unfortunately gotten very commercial. While the music and talent clearly had not, the crowd seemed really "commercial"....meaning essentially that it seemed like many of the "kids" there this year in their full neon gear, pacifiers, and LED gloves seemed as though they were probably still listening to hip-hop a year and had accidentally stumbled across an e-pill over the last year and now they're "hooked" and they "get it" and they "hear the beats even when the music stops" and "see the colors when the close their eyes" and they judge you for drinking a beer. I mean, to argue what came first the drugs or the music could turn into a 30 page dissertation, so that is not my point. Additionally, I love that electronic music is in the mainstream, because I think everyone should be exposed to it, so that is not my point either. My point is simply that motives behind going to events like these have unfortunately become somewhat skewed...these kids don't "get" the music - hell, they've only been listening to it for six months and now all of the sudden they've had spiritual awakenings and it's all they think and talk about...right - they care about the music so much they need to all pass out on top of eachother and rub eachother during some of the best DJ's in the world....right, of course, you guys get it.

Listen, I'm not saying I'm any kind of almighty power in the world of house music, and I'm not saying those kids aren't free to do whatever they want, and I'm not saying every show I go to, may friends and I are 100% sober (we're defintely not hehe)- all I'm saying is that I've been into the music way even before I ever had a drink. It's just a little disheartening to see SUCH an increase from last year to this year in that population of people which I just described...listen: do whatever you want to do to have fun, just do it maturely and don't act like it's your first time, everytime - dance, jump, smile, rage - don't sit, sweat, lay and rub - it's not a good look.

The Pros:

- water and beverage lines actually moved quite quickly

- every stage was absolutely insane

- the carl cox/ a state of trance arena was one of the COOLEST structures i have ever seen (a two story tent structure)

ANYWHO sorry about that little rant. TIESTO- he was....well....typical Tiesto....not playing a bad set by any means at all, but torturing his long-time fans by not playing any classics...surrounded by cameras, a very ego-filled Tiesto would not get off the microphone this year. I don't know if he's been hitting the Rosetta Stone because his English was, well, better - or at least he seemed to think so. All that aside, his set was still very, very good. Dropped all his bombs from Kaleidoscope, along with 076, C'mon, DirtySouth's "I'm coming home" (which was another ultra anthem), Awooga. I am very intrigued and excited for him to officially release what he referred to as his "experimental track" - the quality is terrible, but here it is. Additionally, it was really cool how he looped the "Tiesto's Club Life" watermark throughout his set, and his closing with the extended version of "Feel it in My Bones", themed green lightshow and music video complete with synched up FIREWORK display was probably the most emotional point of his set, and the reason why as much as I hate him, I love him. View that video here (around 2:45) No matter how much you frustrate me Tiesto, you can still give me goosebumps.

After a horrendously long time, we finally got a cab back to South Beach - we hit up the No Sugar Added party at Nikki Beach around 2am and it was pretty beat so we decided to just call it a night.

My Miami Music Week: DAY 2 (3/24 - MixMash Pool Party, and Calvin at Louis!)

So while we had a late night at SY&M, we forced ourselves downstairs for breakfast at Cafe Medi which charges you $9 for brunch, and then an additional $35 for TWO of the biggest (so essentially 4) drinks you've ever seen , and one you can get to-go. So naturally this became our habit every morning, as we nursed our alienism with eggs, one enormous delicious lighter drink so get rid of the hangover and once again predispose our insides to alcohol for the day, and a second much stronger to-go drink to bring back to the room and prepare for the rest of the day.

Anywho, we eventually slug down our to-go drinks, and met up with our friends from another hotel (they were staying closer to Ultra Fest which is on the Bay, we were in South Beach), and we all headed to the MixMash Pool Party which was held at the National Hotel.

The party was hosted by Pacha and Dance.Here.Now. and the weather and set up were optimal. The hotel boasted a long narrow pool with plenty of chairs and cabanas down either side eventually leading to a small stage which housed the DJ Booth and a decent sized dancefloor. The entire place was gated in by probably 12ft high gates, so it actually felt very private, however once you had a wristband you were free to come and go to the beach which was really cool.

To be very honest we were a very large group, a lot of us hadn't seen each other in a while and we spent the majority of the day drinking, dancing, and swimming. A big deal was never made about who was own, it was a pretty controlled environment - I guess because it was in the open and the crowd was small during the day - but it made all of the sets enjoyable. It wasn't until Luke got on the tables along side surprise guest AFROJACK when the place really began to blow up. They actually played along side each other for a pretty long time, which was awesome cause we didn't see the exact set from Luke as we saw the night before. Here's them doing AJ's Be On Acid.

Later that night was Calvin Harris at Louis which is the club in the basement of the Gansevoort. The club itself almost reminded me of a larger version of the basement in Greenhouse or SL, because it had low ceilings and a more of a lounge feel, but the place was really cool. This was my first time seeing Calvin since he came to Lavo last November, and he played a really good set. Tinnie Tempah warmed up the crowd, concluding with Miami2Ibiza and introducing Mr. Harris who opened with I'm Not Alone. Harris built up his set around his new gem and another one of Ultra's anthem's Awooga. Awooga is a really interesting track for Calvin, it definitely shows his dirtier side, however when the beautifully haunting melody (which, had I not known the song was by Calvin, may have easily have mistaken as something created by the post-Kaleidoscope Tiesto) takes over after the bass-kicking laser drum synth ceases to drone, it displays what talent he actually has by being able to take two such specific sounds from opposite ends of the house music spectrum and juxtapose them perfectly, creating 7 minutes which will forever and most vividly bring me back to Miami Music Week 2011. And so, in case you've been living under a rock for the past month, here is AWOOGA - it's dirty, pretty, difficult to mix into and out of, and will be a tough one to remix too - way to go Calvin, you are much, much more than the mellow British house DJ with a nice voice which I once placed you as - it will be very exciting to see what comes next from you.

My Miami Music Week: DAY 1 (3/23 - Super You and Me!)

As much as I love my blog, I was far too consumed with the insanity that is Miami Music Week to keep you guys updated live - so from whatever memory I have left I'll report of my journeys.

4:30am - Wait for cab to leave apartment in Bronx for LGA. Check bags, board plane, arrive in MIA around 10am.

1130am - arrive at hotel (Congress South Beach - Ocean between 10 and 11 - highly recommended for those of you trying to do this next year - check-in, shop for some essentials, make drinks, head to beach.

2pm - commence drinking and head to rooftop pool to drink until it's time to get ready for our first event - Super You and Me with Laidback Luke and friends.

Somewhere around 10pm - head to The Fontainebleau Hotel in full super hero gear, as the show was at the club Liv which is actually in the hotel.

Picture this, a friend and I a little more intoxicated than we should have been, in the lobby of the prestigious fontainebleau, in full super-hero garb, an hour early, during the hotel's FORMAL COCKTAIL HOUR.....everyone else was in evening gowns and suits....

Aside from all of the obstacles...we successfully make it into LIV for Super You and Me



First, my thoughts on LIV - absolutely AWESOME - one of my personal top 5 nightclubs in the WORLD...multiple levels of mezzanines surround a large dance floor with wide staircases, tons of bathrooms, and plenty of random out coves with bench seating to get out of the crowd if it gets too much. Just a few VIP tables down on the dance floor, which leads up the club to a large DJ booth, lined on either side with Cinderella-style staircases to the highest balcony area above and behind the DJ booth.

The sound system was very good, booming on the dance floor but toned down around the bar, but the unique part about this nightclub structurally was the ceiling - the dome-eqsue ceiling is regularly studded entirely with LED lighting which are synced to the music, giving helicopter and raining effects during build-ups and climaxing of the music.

View a short video demo of the ceiling here. Nothing I've seen comes close to this in NYC except the wall effects in Cielo.

So as you can see in the flyer for this party, the lineup was diverse and AWESOME. Sandro Silva played first and killed it staying true to his style and reaching far back in his repertoire to pull out HIS remix one of my old time favorites "Resurrection" Congorock slaughtered it playing an awesome array of tracks, but flaring them up with their identifiable "new school electro benassi" sound. Sidney Samson kept it pretty clean in comparison to how dirty his set was last WMC at Cameo, but I believe this is because he had numerous sets still left in him for the week and didn't want to get too insane - he did manage to drop the Riverside TC Remix, which is enough to split your skull if you haven't heard it, along with his own remix of Ferry Corsten's Punk (which I may add was easily one of the anthems of Ultra). While Skrillex is not exactly an act I would ever chose to go see if he were playing solo, he played a really fun set - throwing in metallic and hip hop beats - my only real complaint was that he played for almost two hours and we were anxious to see the headliner. Finally, a little after 3am Lil Jon jumped on the turntables, threw hundreds of large foam hands in the shape of the letter "L" into the crowd, and introduced and MCeed for Luke. To my knowledge, Wynter Gordon did NOT show up, as while I did not stay for all of Luke's set, I was there for dirtytalk. Luke was absolutely flying thru tracks, but did it perfectly and with grace. He even dropped his bootleg of darude's classic sandstorm (bootleg sample here) which is a delightfully more aggressive version of the original which brings current house heads back to our younger years of 103.5 wKTU, and teen nights on the NJ Shore. Luke has been really favoring the Guetta's FMIF remix of Calvin's Flashback along with his own remix of Calvin's You Used To Hold Me and it works perfectly. Additionally he dropped pretty much everyone of his own tracks including smashing Blau into in My G.O.D., probably marking the point in the evening where I lost my voice.



Luke killed it, probably one of my favorite sets of the entire week (Ultra included - I'll rank them all later). Luke continues to be underrated and is EASILY one of the most talented DJs in the industry - I'd say top 3 in house DJ's for a few main reasons:
1. he plays always plays all his own hits
2. he has no beef with any other djs/groups of djs, and enough collaborations that he is free to literally play any track weather it s by a trance DJ, dubstep DJ, SHM, Mixmash, dirty dutch, afrikanism....does not matter - he has no beef and hence free game
3. he favors the classics - you have a 50/50% of hearing anything from Rhythm is a Dancer to Sandstorm when you see him
4. As predictable as he is, he is actually the most UNPREDICTABLE when compared to his competition.

Not to mention, he permeates happiness and fun with the SY&M party, has awesome remixes of already popular tracks, and as warm and easy to watch because of the way he works the crowd.

A final note on the night - I sat at a table next to Afrojack, saw Axwell who was about 20 ft away, and my friend fist-bumped Tiesto....the coolest thing about Miami Music Week is casually seeing the other big-names in the clubs. I only stayed until around 430, because at this point i was reaching the "awake for 24-hour" mark and I was only on day 1.

For more info on the SY&M Party at LIV during MMW, refer to this pretty solid article from DancingRobot here . Also you can kind of see me looking down texting in my red Flash costume in the pic with Lil Jon lol.

Review: AXWELL at GLO (sorry so late)

Hey Third Railers-

Sorry I've been really really busy and am FINALLY recovering for Ultra so I will TRY to catch everyone up on my adventures and reviews by the time i hit the hay tonight.

SO- Over the past few months the club GLO out on Long Island has been hauling some big name talent. For a club in the burbs, they've had Tiesto, Axwell, Avicii, and Laidback Luke all in just a few short months whereas prior they were unheard of. One has to wonder what changes were made in management, or if they just decided to invest more money in better acts.

The venue itself was pretty nice. It was weird to drive to a club and the venue itself being the only thing on the property...with a parking lot...and a smoking patio. Essentially the club was a large rectangle with one floor, decent sized dancefloor with VIP tables along one of the longer walls. The DJ booth itself is clearly a product of a time when the club was not hauling the talent it has recently, because while it was in the front it wasn't really the focal point of the club (not that it necessarily should be THE focal point of the room, but for the talent playing it should be MORE of a focal point than it was). The light show and sound system were clearly also a testament to the club's age and original purpose and branding. It looked however, as though they somewhat recently installed the large LED screens behind the DJ booth - these were pretty cool, but the remainder of the light show was very weak and while the sound system was loud, it was far from full or clear.

Pros to the club: its recent overhaul in talent, short waiting time on line, inexpensive tickets for big name talent ($20+small fees for Axwell!), large outdoor smoking area, cool LED boards, very sizable on the inside

Cons to the club: sound system, light show (minus LED effect), and overall crowd (very...umm....Ed Hardy and cheetah print if you catch my drift - I mean it's not like I didn't expect this, I am of course from New Jersey!).

Now on to Axwell--

Axwell was obviously awesome. There's not really much I can say which differs from my review of his show at Webster Hall back in November, because honestly it wasn't really very different. All his typical tracks, plus Flash, Babylon, Open your Strobe---typical double encore closing with Tell Me Why and Leave the World Behind.

Not that I was really expecting anything different, I mean it was pretty recent, and not that his set was bad by any means, it was awesome - it was just very similar - and hence I don't have a lot to report. That being said he is returning to NY and will be at ROSELAND at the end of April (details to come) on the same night as Aviici which, if I was not going away for Easter Weekend, think I may actually choose the Aviici show just because I still am not expecting that much of an overhaul from Axwell - even though he does have the new track "Heart is King" (listen here) and SHM as a whole has their new and STILL unreleased single Save the World Tonight - honestly I love them to death but between Axwell twice, Steve Angello on NYE, Ingrosso the night before Tiesto, and Masq Motel in Miami (all since November), I could def pass on an SHM opportunity to seek a little Bromance.

Sebastian Ingrosso and Tiesto @ Webster Hall

SO - last weekend Webster Hall hosted Joachim Garraud on Friday (which I did not attend, but heard it was awesome. One of my friends took a video of Joachim playing One on the keytar - viewable here. That's pretty awesome. Had I not had gone out Thursday and had tickets for Sebby and Tiesto, I definitely would have gone.

While he may be credited on less tracks than his than his team mates, in my opinion, Sebastian Ingrosso is the most talented to see live. Given he is a part of the Swedish House Mafia, and hence there is certainly a level of predictability that comes along with seeing any of them, Ingrosso's set seemed much more live than the other two - he seemed to be paying close attention and changing things as he went rather than have his set planned out like the other two. So again, track selection was indeed somewhat predictable, but his mixing techniques and progression seemed more customized. Straight up fun though, especially when he made everyone get down on the floor for Sweet Disposition - check it out here at around 1:10. Awesome show.

Tiesto was incredible as well. The vibe, however, was very strange. Trance shows in general certainly carry a bit of a different aura with them in comparison to house or electro shows. The crowd is always a bit calmer, more poised - I feel this is largely contributed to the crowd generally being a bit older, as the trance boom was on the low end, five years before my time. Another contributing factor to the vibe I'm sure was that it was 1) at Webster Hall (I'll elaborate more on that in a bit) and 2) it was in fact a Sunday night. He played a lot of his new stuff and a good portion of his classics. I was dissappointed I did not get to see Adagio for strings, but I undertsand he likes to keep that song somewhat novel, and since I saw him play it the last two times, I wasn't expecting to see it again. He did however play Miami2Ibiza which I was not expecting, and he dropped a pretty cool remix of the Martin Solveig and Dragonette sing "hello" which has been absolutely blowing up the industry in the past few weeks - here is a video of the remix, sorry for the low quality hopefuly a better one will soon surface. He also dropped Kaskade's Fire in Your New Shoes, which was realy refreshing to hear. Honestly I thought for Tiesto, he played a very solid array of music. While the show was certainly not as mind-blowing as his Asbury Park performance over the summer (single best show i have EVER been to), it was more of a mellow performance which was exactly what we needed to chill out from the night before and totally appropriate for a Sunday.

ALSO - a big THANK YOU to Area Events - since I got hit in the head with a bottle on NYE for Steve Angello (also an Area Event) I received me+3 comped tickets to any two Area Events of my choice! So me and three friends went to Sebastian Ingrosso and Tiesto for free this weekend! Thanks for hooking me up, awesome customer service.

District 36!?!? Viva the NYC club revival!!!

House Heads-

I guess I kind of missed the boat with this one but for house-heads in the tri-state the opening of District 36 was a really big deal. This club claims to be everything that NYC is yearning for - it's built around the sound-system and is extremely anti-VIP. I regretfully had no idea about this place until I began investigating it after hearing that Pendulum will be playing there tomorrow night. Apparently, it had a rough opening night but people seem to be liking it. The sound system - which has been getting more press than any other aspect of the club's opening - was designed by Gary Stewarts Audio (also responsible for London's Ministry of Sound and NYC's Club Love). They scooped Victor Calderone to run Evolve from there from now on which is actually pretty huge - they are even claiming him as one of their residents. Anyway, I think I am definitely going to go tommorrow night to check out both the venue and Pendulum. Between this and Sankeys it's no wonder why Pacha and WH have been stepping their games up!

Has anyone been to D36 yet? What are your thoughts? Could this be everything we've been dreaming of?

Here are some interesting articles on District 36-

Time Out NY Article

BlackBook Mag Article

District 36 Homepage

Miami Music Week Info Thus Far:

Due to the huge controversy in terms of the UMF/WMC split the week that is normally WMC (last week in March) has been renamed Miami Music Week. I have not found a centralized list anywhere yet, but this is what I have gathered from various sources.

Wed March 23
Laidback Luke Presents: Super You & Me @ Liv
-Laidback Luke, Sidney Samson, Skrillex, Sandro Silva, Congrock, Wynter Gordon

Th Mar 24
Anunjabeats @ Ice Palace
-Above and Beyond

Fr Mar 25
UMF Day 1
F*** Me I'm Famous @ Mansion
-David Guetta and friends

Sa Mar 26
UMF Day 2
Masquerade Motel @ TBA
-Swedish House Mafia, a-Trak, Armand van Helden, AN21, Calvin Harris, Dirty South, Kim Fai, Max Vangeli, and Pete Tong

Su Mar 27
UMF Day 3
Sunday School: Lost Weekend @ Ice Palace
-mar25-27 *check MadeEvents website*

UMF Phase II Line-Up Announced, TONS of Miami Music Week News

FINALLY the second of three phases of the line-up for the Ultra Music Festival 2011. See above.

More SHM, Tiesto, Max Vangeli, Joachim and much more for NYC

The shows just keep coming right up until March. Here's a list of shows I think are worth seeing to get everyone caught up.

Friday 2/4:
Junior Sanchez - Pacha
Drek Martinez - Lavo

Saturday 2/5:
Pendulum - District 36

Thursday 2/10
Roger Sanchez - Cielo
Chuckie - Lavo

Friday 2/11
Sleepy and Boo - Cielo
Joachim Garraud - Webster Hall
Alex Gaudino - Pacha
A-Trak - Lavo
Tiesto - Glo (Long Island)

Saturday 2/12
Sebastian Ingrosso - Webster Hall
Boris - Pacha

Sunday 2/13
TIESTO - Webster Hall


Friday 2/18
Martin Solveig - Lavo
Chus and Ceballos - Glo (LI)
Nero - Webster Hall

Saturday 2/19
Max Vangeli - Pacha


Friday 2/25
Axwell - Glo (LI)
Skrillez - Webster Hall
Bob Sinclar - Pacha

March:
DirtySouth - Pacha - 3/11
Laidback Luke - Glo (LI) - 3/18
BBenny Benassi - Pacha - 3/18

Wowzers.

UMF Update: HARD Miami Party! +Tiesto 076 FULL!

Hey Everyone -


Just a quick update that HARD's party has been officially announced for THURS MARCH 24th 10pm-5am at the Grand Central. This is the night BEFORE UMF begins, and tickets are just 25$ and the event is 18+. The line-up includes Tiga, Diplo, Tinnie Tempah, DJ Medhi, Busy P,Destructo and more. Sounds like a pretty sick event for just $25! Link to tickets and info here.

ALSO: For those of you who have not heard it yet, Tiesto and Hardwell's absolutely MASSIVE collaboration call "Zero 76" has finally been released or at least leaked in its entirety! The song literally transcends all electronic musical boundaries - learn it - it will be everywhere! LINK HERE!

Made Events: UMF and Miami parties + Electric Zoo News, Pacha Miami

The New York based promotion agency Made Event will be hosting two MAJOR parties down in Miami during the week of the Ultra Music Festival, NOT the Winter Music Conference. Made Event is well known for throwing parties that stay truer to deep, tribal house and a more eclectic electro crowd, rather than the mainstream.

The first of their two parties will be on March 24th is the Anjunabeats party at Ice Palace where trance legends Above and Beyond will headline - more artists are TBA. Their second party is their 36-hour famous Sunday School for Degenerates party which is ALSO at Ice Palace on the 25th-26th. Noteable DJs that will perform are Richie Hawtin, Boysnoize, Victor Calderone and Luciano. For a complete list (with more TBA), more information and further details, please view Made Event's website here.

Finally, I know it sounds hard to believe but Electric Zoo early bird tickets have already sold out! Currently, regular tickets GA tickets are not on sale yet nor have any artists been announced, so I suggest "liking" Made Event or following them on twitter for the most updated information.




Furthermore, Pacha has made it public knowledge that they will in fact be in Miami for the week of Ultra and not WMC as well. Rumors are circulating that they are also hosting the Size Matters pool party - I'm confused as to how there will even be a Size Matters party with the Masquerade Motel but I guess there are a lot more artists on Size and affiliated with Steve Angello rather than the entire SHM - in any event, nothing has been confirmed in terms of the party except for the fact that they will be there for the last week in March!

Again, in terms of UMF as a whole, they keep announcing Phase II of the line-up "is imminent", which also means ticket prices will go up!

DJ Mag Top 100 Clubs

Hey Guys-

In case you didn't know, DJ Mag, the world's leading publication in the electronic music industry runs an annual GLOBAL Top 100 Clubs competition. The final rankings, just like their top 100 DJs ranking are determined by fan voting, so get out there and vote! Link here.

David Guetta publicly shows respect for Tiesto

Hey everyone-

A pretty cool piece from MTV (told ya! they've been covering our world so much!) where David Guetta and Afrojack speak about how much they respect Tiesto as being the greatest DJ of all time, and Guetta's reasoning was particularly interesting in my opinion.

I've copied and pasted the article below, but also attached the link because you can watch the actual video on the website.

In the February issue of the U.K. dance-music magazine Mixmag, veteran producer Tiësto is named the Greatest DJ of All Time, a title bestowed upon him by fans voting in a poll that began back in September. According to Mixmag, hundreds of thousands of clubbers were asked to vote and debate 35 DJs, each one nominated by big names in dance music. Some 80,000 votes were collected, and King Tiësto emerged with the crown.

That Tiësto should be considered the Greatest DJ of All Time should come as no surprise to dance-music fans, given his relentless touring schedule. Just last year, his Kaleidoscope Tour spanned 15 months, seeing him play 175 dates across six continents and performing for more than a million people. He was nominated for two Billboard Touring Awards (alongside folks like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber) and was among Billboard's Top 25 Biggest Grossing Touring Acts of 2010. As a result, he has been a fixture on basically every DJ poll of the past decade. Since 2002, he has been in the top three of DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs poll, including three times at #1.

Coupled with his touring efforts, the onetime trance DJ has had an evolution in his sound, opening him up to a larger audience by incorporating elements of house music (some fans call his music "trouse"). His last studio disc, Kaleidoscope, featured vocals by Nelly Furtado, Tegan and Sara, Jonsi from Sigur Rós, and Yele from Block Party. His single "Feel It" with Three 6 Mafia, Sean Kingston and Flo Rida went gold. "C'Mon," his single with Major Lazer producer Diplo, was the talk of WMC last year, and Busta Rhymes would eventually lend his vocals to the song.

"He sells out stadiums but never comes across as big-headed or arrogant," EDM DJ/producer Sander Van Doorn told Mixmag. "He's very approachable, asking questions about music, giving tips and honest opinions."

"He's a new friend," house producer Afrojack told MTV News recently. "He's a nice guy. Just like David [Guetta]. They are both nice guys. Like really, really nice guys."

This week, MTV News caught up with Guetta, who revealed yet another dimension to Tiësto's greatness: While Guetta has achieved success here with the help of American radio, Tiësto has done it all on his own.

"We're actually good friends," Guetta said. "I have nothing but respect for him and friendship. When I see those shows, it's unbelievable. We kind of pull the same kind numbers, but I have massive hits on the radio, and for him to be able to do what he does, without having crossover records, it's incredible. I respect that a lot."

Tiësto will begin his residency at Las Vegas' Hard Rock Hotel & Casino later this year and will be dropping his Club Life mix album in the next few months.



Click Here For Full Article

More News: UltraFest and Ultra Records

In other news I recently applied for an internship an interviewed with Ultra Records. I'm really excited cause the interview went really well and I think it would be a great way to gain experience from the corporate aspect of things. Plus I'll probably get to hear some cool tracks before they're officially released and get some free stuff.

Additionally, the Ultra Music Festival has been tweeting and posting that Phase II of the Line-Up will be posted VERY soon. Honestly, I'm so happy with the line-up so far I really can't imagine them adding two more complete phases of DJ's, but I'm excited to see who they pick. Please note, every time they add a phase, the ticket prices DO go up, so if you haven't purchased UMF tickets yet, I would definitely consider it now.

So much to look forward to including...TIESTO!!!!

Hey Third Railers,

I haven't been up to much since Luke/Afrojack because classes have begun again, but the greater NYC area has a LOT to look forward to.

Firstly, last week Provocatuer hosted Funkagenda on Tuesday and DirtySouth with Hardwell on Thursday. They haven't posted their informational calendar with this week yet.

This weekend, Victor Calderone will play with Matar at Cielo, and Lavo will host Mixmash's Max Vangeli on Friday January 28th. Also on Froday, Pacha will be hosting a pretty cool event in which they will be having a viewing of Electro Wars. See the trailer here and the facebook invite here.

After the movie will be the Bart B More and Dada Life show, NYC's own Alex English as the closing DJ. The next night at Pacha is Wolfgang Gartner.

February 5th will be Jonathan Peters' birthday bash at Webster Hall, which is weird to me because he's an old resident of Pacha and Sound Factory.

Biggest news as of recently is the Webster Hall Trifecta coming up February 10, 11, and 12. Girls and Boys will host Joachim Garraud on Friday at Webster, so if you missed opening for Steve Angello on NYE (which many of us did) here's your chance to see him again. Additionally, Sebastian Ingrosso and *TIESTO* will be at Webster Hall on Saturday and Sunday nights respectively and both will be Area Events. I'm really excited to see Tiesto because the first time I saw him a few years ago was actually at Webster Hall, I'm just concerned because it's a relatively small venue for the most famous DJ in the world. Additionally, the last two times I saw him he was on his Kaliedescope Tour, and this time it's dubbed his "US Tour" - I'm not sure if the bill is wrong, but I can't see the show being much different since he hasn't come out with too much since then. This will actually be my 5th time overall seeing Tiesto, so expect an extensive review since I have a lot to compare it to.

Speaking of Tiesto's new material, his collaboration with Hardwell called "Zero 76" is awesome. I'm pretty sure this is their only collaboration since Hardwell remixed his "Lethal Industry 2009". As far as I know, only the teaser is availible for this massive new track which you guys could view here. I guarantee you this song will be the anthem of Ultra 2011, much like Warp was the anthem of UMF 2010 and One was the anthem of Ezoo 2010. This song is extremely versatile, and can be remixed and worked into any house, trance, or electro set. Not to mention it is being released at the perfect time as to gain enough popularity by the time of the festival.

Tickets for all 3 events are availible for purchase on the facebook page here

The following weekend Area Events will also host Paul van Dyke at Terminal 5, which is a venue I've only heard good things about, so defintely check that out if you're into trance.

IT NEVER ENDS! Sebastion Ingrosso is BACK!

Third Railers-

For those of you who missed the Swedish House Mafia's Sebastian Ingrosso at Pacha in early November, he returns to NYC on February 12th at Webster Hall! Tickets are currently only $25 before fees and the event is 19+ (ugh)!! Before I saw Take One I always figured Axwell and Steve Angello were at the forefront of SHM, but after seeing that movie in my opinion, while Ingrosso perhaps has less tracks, he is most certainly the backbone of SHM and on crazy mofo to boot. It's an Area Event, and tickets are available here.