WMC Day 5: Looking backwards

Although the WMC frenzy had dwindled considerably by Sunday evening, the swaggering paraders and hapless vagrants on Lincoln Road were still wandering around in hordes — and such will always be the quotidian scene on the strip. But by now, our over-stimulated brains had surrendered to a depleted state of withdrawal. We're not sure what it was, but hallucinations had become customary. So we had to blink twice when an old, emaciated bum with a Santa Claus beard suddenly appeared, clasping a branch from the plant near our table at Rosinella before crashing to the ground before us in a drunken stupor. That, we figured, was our cue to scoop up the last bits of risotto and head over to Purdy Lounge for one last gasp.

Luckily, the back-to-mine vibe over there was exactly what we needed — dim lights and rows of multihued lava lamps included. Following a demo at MIA Skate Park earlier in the day, the Zoo York crew was hosting an afterparty at Chocolate Sundays. The Bangers (who spin the Motherfucker parties in New York) hit the decks in the beginning of the night, but it wasn't until Egg Foo Young of Secret Frequency Crew started dropping some tuff-tuff broken-beat tracks that the crowd began to swell near the DJ booth and rally up some energy. It was an apt opener for headliner A-Trak, who vigorously jumped into his set, prompting the remaining WMC denizens to get hyped one last time.

In Purdy's smaller lounge room — adorned with Persian rugs and a suitable wall painting of palm-tree silhouettes and a crimson sunset — bleary-eyed people were loafing on sofas and digging the old-school hip-hop (if Salt-N-Pepa's "Shoop" could be considered old-school). Strangely enough, luminescent napkins were strewn all over the floor and some chick covered in face paint was even raving with neon glow sticks. Could she still be tweaking from Ultra, we wondered?

Meanwhile, we were able to catch up with some familiar faces we hadn't seen since WMC started, knocking back a few beers and exchanging highlights from the week: Meatheads in white capris doing pushups from their terraces as Boris dropped deep house by the Shelbourne pool; Madlib spinning bugged-out Quasimoto hits to a blissfully stoned crowd at the Raleigh; lesbians in heat humping each other ravenously at the Datarock show at Circa28; the surreal extravagance of the Friday-night bash at Hotel Setai (which included a massive brontosaurus float and a naked Amanda Lepore rubbing herself in an open-air bathtub); and Stockholm's Freddie Cruger (aka Red Astaire) lamenting how many rappers aren't "teaching anything" anymore before taking the stage at Raw Fusion. WMC can definitely be a hectic week, but looking back, we're always glad we did it, despite the gnawing head sores that inevitably ensue.

March 27, 2007, 06:49 PM

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