What was the best party you played or attended?

What were your top records of WMC?

Did you discover any new records or artists?

Best and worst Miami fashion?

Craziest moment you saw or experienced?

The most you paid for a single drink?

Nu rave, filter punk, scuzz disco etc: here to stay?]]> http://flavorpill.net/wmc/2007/04/wmc_final_recap_the_vip_questi.html http://flavorpill.net/wmc/2007/04/wmc_final_recap_the_vip_questi.html Out & About Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:06:22 -0500

Kicking off the festivities on Wednesday night, we headed over to SoBe Live for the first installment of our Flavorpill WMC Audio series.

The SunTzu Sound guys laid down a nice mix of broken bits and classic funk, the perfect music to start off the night. Markus Enochson took over the decks for a short set of exclusives from his recent Sonar Kollektiv release, Night Games, but things really got hot when Bugz in the Attic jumped in with a set bursting with bangers from last summer and soon-to-be classics — with mandatory rewind! A live set from Clara Hill pumped up the soul, followed by closing ceremonies from those Black Forest funksters in Jazzanova.

Special thanks to: Tomas and Joe at Aquabooty, Daniel Best at Sonar Kollektiv, Orin, Daz, IG, J-Justice, Atlee, Clara Hill, and Juergen.

For more live sets recorded during WMC, check the Flavorpill streams page.

In one of our absolute highlights of WMC, Stones Throw Records got hella ambitious with its Hella International throwdown, a full day of funk, classic hip-hop, and soul. Live performances from Stacy Epps, Aloe Blacc, and Wildchild had the crowd hanging on every lyric as the performers passed the mic and intertwined vocals over lickety-split mixing from DJs A-Trak, J-Rocc, Peanut Butter Wolf, and James Pants.

Though it drizzled a bit in the early afternoon, the sun shone through while Benji B mashed exclusives in a live Deviation-style set. He was followed by the maestros, Karriem Riggins and Madlib, who took brief but memorable turns at the decks. Presented in two parts, the Hella International sessions are a glorious mish-mash of party jams, left-field freakouts, and stone-cold classics. Close your eyes, crack a cold one, and live the madness all over again.

Special thanks to: Nate, Jamie, Egon, Madlib, Busy P, DJ Mehdi, Stacy Epps, J-Rocc, Peanut Butter Wolf, Karriem Riggins, Wildchild, Aloe Blacc, Benji B, and A-Trak.

For more live sets recorded during WMC, check the Flavorpill streams page.

There's nothing like an intimate, friends 'n families gathering to recharge the batteries, and that's just what Ann Arbor's Spectral Sound provided at their Spectral Social, a mellow gathering held in the soothing confines of the Clinton Hotel courtyard. Thanks to banging releases from the likes of Audion and James Cotton, Spectral boasts a rep for tough techno. But this three-part recording of the evening proves that the Spectral soldiers can smooth it out and house it up on demand.

Part one features Detroit's Seth Troxler on the decks and the first snatches of Pär Grindvik's grooving live set. Part two finishes up with Troxler and Grindvik, before Spectral's longtime go-to DJ Ryan Elliott takes over the turntables. In part three, Elliott, Audion (aka Matthew Dear), and Troxler whip up a dizzy game of tag-team. Listen carefully for multiple plays of Audion's remix of Black Strobe's "I'm a Man," sure to be one of the hits of the summer.

Special thanks to: Sam Valenti IV, Missy Livingston, Jeff Owens, Matthew Dear, Ryan Elliott, Seth Troxler, Pär Grindvik, and the rest of the Ghostly/Spectral crew.

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.

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. ]]> http://flavorpill.net/wmc/2007/03/wmc_day_5_looking_backwards.html http://flavorpill.net/wmc/2007/03/wmc_day_5_looking_backwards.html Out & About Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:49:01 -0500

People love to say that electronic music represents a new evolutionary phase, but our Miami experience often seemed to be all about devolution: wet-nap baths, filthy clothing, pilfering wi-fi, lost and found laptops… The list of indignities could go on. We found the soundtrack to such a primal state at Made Event's Sunday School for Degenerates party, a 14-hour marathon of regressive house music.

By the time we wandered outside in search of fresh air — no day party belongs inside — Jesse Rose was rocking the patio, tossing off bright melodic phrases and deep, UK-style sub-bass. His "You're All Over My Head," with its stuttering breakdown, was the highlight of his set: its chorus, a glorious psychedelic rock sample skipping like a broken record, had every pair of hands in the place held aloft.

After Rose, it's hard to say who exactly was playing, but it hardly mattered: the music was top-notch, and the vibe jubilant. There were no ins or outs at the party, so clubbers had come prepared with packed lunches and Vitamin Water; with the wind whipping around the palms in the courtyard, it felt as much like a school picnic as a party. We hung on long enough to catch Mobilee's Anja Schneider and suffer a wee patch of sunburn. Somewhere around noon, though, we realized that our chariot had turned into a pumpkin (and our brain to pumpkin soup). A few hasty farewells to new friends and trusted accomplices, and we were out the door, diploma for degenerates in hand. ]]> http://flavorpill.net/wmc/2007/03/wmc_day_4_the_last_gasp.html http://flavorpill.net/wmc/2007/03/wmc_day_4_the_last_gasp.html Out & About Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:12:48 -0500
5. The woman wearing the white lace (read: completely see-through) pants and thong at the Scion yacht party. Honorable mention for the girl who was stone-cold passed out in the hallway below deck.

4. The hot-dog cart guy in front of Pawn Shop, and his crazy secret weapon: French-fried shoe-string potato crisps, all mucked up with ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise, slapped on top of the bun and frank. Sweet sodium bomb, pass the grape soda!

3. The anarchy that ensued when the police shut down Claude VonStroke in the middle of his set at the Apple in-store showcase. With the officers standing sour-pussed in front of the decks, Mr. VonStroke slammed the volume up to MAXIMUM, ripped his headphones out of the jack, and stalked off to the roar of the cheering crowd. You'll never take us alive, coppers!

2. Flavorpill Team Leader, Phil Sherburne, and his amazing collection of sparkly, fringed man-scarves.

1. The hefty stash of condoms we found hidden in the wall outside our condo. Because sometimes when you're on the move, you don't have time to stop at the store; you just gotta pull a condom out of the cracks like, whu-bam! Extra points, too, for showing us a really good place to hide our keys.

No, it's my second, actually. And I really like it. You know, my grandparents have a place here, up in Hallandale.

So what's your impression of the city so far?

Miami is for old Jewish people and that's what I like about it. When I think of Miami, I think of Rick Ross, Fat Joe, and old Jews, and what can better than Miami rappers and old Jews living together in harmony?

Miami has a rep for being mainly about big clubs, big tits, and big beaches. And of course that's partly true, but there is a lot more going on culturally.

It definitely seems like everyone is moving here. De La Soul, N.O.R.E., they all live here now. And all the studios are here — the city's gangsta.

Chromeo just finished playing two sets tonight at Circa28, a new venue in Wynwood, which I think has a lot of potential because it isn't like anything else in town.

This is the only spot in Miami where I haven't seen vertical-striped shirts. I really like this place.

Who's your favorite rapper?

Lil' Wayne.

Favorite DJ?

Do you know my brother, A-Trak? I think he's one of the greatest DJs alive.

Any last thoughts?

Again, when rappers realized that old Jews were wearing Coogi sweaters, they did the same thing. Now that rappers caught on that old Jews are living in Miami, they're all moving here, as well.

A surreal party deserves an equally absurd entrance, so it's only fitting that we found ourselves rolling up to Saturday night's FIXED party — a nu-rave, filter-punk maelstrom featuring over-the-top headliners Digitalism and Justice — sprawled in the back of a stretch limo. A white stretch limo, at that. We're still not exactly sure how we managed to hitch that ride — friends dragged us out of the Spectral party, and there it was: gleaming, stretchy, and ours to be had all the way downtown for only $60, about the same our party of a dozen strong would have spent on cab fare.

If this new breed of distortion-heavy dance music had any doubters amidst the Flavorpill ranks, we found ourselves unanimous in our enthusiasm by the time Digitalism took the stage. Part of Paris' Kitsuné label, Digitalism are known for gritty hooks and a punky electro spirit, but their live set was something else entirely: a long, side-winding spiral of naturally unfurling beats and grinding sequences. The pop aspects of their approach fell away as they twisted up the music's constituent parts — intros, outros, verses, choruses, bridges, breakdowns, reprises, and codas, oh my — into a single entity, coiled and thrumming with static. The music was full of tricks, but there was no joking around, no irony: the urgency of their welling wall of sound felt more indebted to Pan Sonic than Kitsuné labelmates like Simian Mobile Disco.

As for Justice, we can only say that they meted it out with severity. The crowd thronging the DJ booth made it impossible to tell exactly what the Ed Banger marquis-toppers were doing, but their set was a mixture of Justice tracks and, towards the end, what sounded like custom edits of rock, pop, and hip-hop hits. We're not sure we've ever seen a crowd so willingly swept up into the palm of an artist's hand. Even more than Digitalism, Justice know how to manipulate a crowd, teasing us with hooks from their big tracks, leading us down a rabbit-hole detour of blocky beats, feints, and breakdowns, and then bringing back the main theme with all the subtlety of a buzz bomb. To chart the arc of the crowd's enthusiasm, you'd have to start plotting points at "mental," ratchet it up to "ape shit," and then invent your own adrenalinized superlatives lying far north of where the graph paper ends. Fists were pumping, throats were screaming themselves raw, people were fainting. (Really: a girl went down, grinning, right next to us.) By the time Justice snuck in Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name," we bid goodbye to everything we thought we knew about genre, aesthetics, and the limits of taste.

(One complaint: Justice, do you have to play so freaking loud? Your high end sheared off about 15% of our hearing, and we'd like it back.)

On their albums, the Barcelona-based Pinker Tones deliver robust helpings of world-influenced electronica, puckishly mashing dance anthems with bossa nova, breakbeats, indie pop, '60s European film soundtracks, and anything else they can squeeze in. The live show takes it up a notch by adding DJ Niño and offering a performance worthy of an '80s glam band. Following their intimate, but spirited set at PS14, we sat down for a quickie with the two main Tones, Mr Furia and Professor Manso.

Is this your first time in Miami?

Mr Furia: Yes and it's our first time at WMC, as well.

Tell us a little bit about the DJ and music scene in Barcelona. What you are you into these days?

Mr Furia: Well, there's this thing called Latintronica, which became popular after the release of Electronic Latin Freaks on Nacional Records. It was all unknown groups who were reworking the classical Latin genres. It's a very emerging scene and I also see it in places like California, you know, given the border with Mexico — bands like Kinky and Nortec Collective. This is a scene with no prejudice, and it's very refreshing. People are just doing what they like, experimenting a lot, and mixing it all up.

In New York, there's currently a great show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art surveying the history of art in Barcelona following up to Franco's takeover and paying homage to the Catalan spirit. How do you see the city now?

Mr Furia: I really see that spirit waking up again, and well, it's been 30 years now that Franco is dead.

Professor Manso: I also think the scene is very influenced by immigration, especially from Latin America — Argentina, Colombia… And Barcelona has always been an open city.

What do you try to accomplish onstage as compared to when creating an album?

Mr Furia: The live show really is a remix of the albums, which are more analog. And we mash it up with remixes that were done for us.

Professor Manso: Yes, it's a reinterpretation of the album.

Where does the name Pinker Tones come from?

Professor Manso: Well, there's definitely the influence from Mancini and Blake Edwards' Pink Panther. And there's also the Pinkerton Detective Agency — you know, the one that was hired to track down Jesse James and uncovered an assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln. We're very fond of both those aspects of culture and history.

On your albums, there are tracks in several languages. Could you tell us about that approach?

Mr Furia: Every language is a way of understanding the world, so the more languages you use, the more tools you have for understanding your neighbor, instead of fighting him. We like it that way.

Remember that old Siouxsie & the Banshees song, "92 Degrees"? It posits that "more murders are committed at 92 degrees than any other temperature. At lower temperatures people are easygoing; over 92 it's too hot to move. Just 92 — people get irritable!" Fortunately it hasn't been anywhere near that hot down here this year, but even so, the endless lines, drunken spring breakers stumbling along Collins, tire-squealing sports-car drivers, and exorbitant drink prices (isn't charging $8 for a bottle of water in violation of the Geneva Conventions?) are enough to make the most seasoned festival-goer a little cranky. What was rumored by passersby on Collins Ave to be the aftermath of a shooting yesterday — police cordoning off the street and laying down yellow numbered placards, presumably where the shell casings fell — only underscored that beneath Miami's cool blue facade, tensions often glow red. Sometimes, you just need to get away from the madding crowd. Ann Arbor's Spectral Sound label — the techno imprint of Ghostly International — provided the perfect escape…

The Spectral Social, a private party held in the courtyard of the Clinton Hotel, was exactly what Friday evening called for: a cool refuge dotted with plants and soaking pools, cheap (and stiff!) drinks, and high-definition minimal house and techno with just enough oomph to recharge your batteries. Sweden's Pär Grindvik was playing when we arrived; apparently he's a protégé of Adam Beyer, though you wouldn't necessarily have known it from the suppleness and electric warmth infusing his tracks. Audion, aka Matthew Dear, played a more restrained set than at his Immigrant Party appearance, before ceding the headphones to Spectral's secret weapon, Ryan Elliott. The only place Dear didn't show restraint was with his new remix for Black Strobe. He not only led off his set with the tune — a crazy upward spiral of rosy synths and rock 'n roll moaning — but he also jumped into the middle of Elliott's set to play it a second time. No one was complaining; we hadn't gotten enough of it when Richie Hawtin had dropped it prominently at the Beatport Poolside Sessions hours before. Third time was a charm, convincing us that this Carl Craig-inspired slow burner is bound to be one of the summer's biggest cuts. Batteries recharged, it was off to join in the mayhem at the FIXED party — but that'll have to wait for another installment.

Oh, and an addendum to our previous post: we found yet a third way of keeping clean during WMC, beyond wet naps and spa treatments: those torrential spring showers! Bring a travel-sized bottle of shampoo in your day bag, and you'll never even need to go home to wash up.

Like Grandma always told us, sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find those diamonds. Of course, Grams was talking about marriage and discount pudding mix, but the same holds true for WMC. The biggest party to go down last night, Get Physical's showcase at Studio A, seemed like a no-brainer with its incredible lineup — we showed up to catch tight, bass-crazy sets from Heidi, Claude VonStroke, Dixon, Jesse Rose, Booka Shade, and M.A.N.D.Y., and came away satisfied that that is how proper house music should sound. But while Booka Shade's set was undeniably banging, we couldn't help but notice that the bulk of the tracks were from their Movements LP, which knocked WMC on its ass… last year.

As it turned out, the most newfangled thing we saw last night came when we slipped off to a small, semi-ignored party happening around the corner. At the Thunder Finger Records launch event at PS14, a freak five-minute downpour caused a mad scramble from the patio outside. With the DJ equipment under tarps and the patio rave effectively shut down, a modest crowd straggled inside, just in time to witness the extraordinary phenomenon that is Steed Lord. Sure, the band worked a gimmick like a cheekful of Big League Chew: the day-glo threads, the intentionally crappy keyboards, the synchronized dance routines… you get the drift. But damn, that little, platinum-blonde, Icelandic frontwoman was belting those tunes like a Chicago disco diva from a bygone era. For the 50 people there to watch, it was like they started playing funky house at a Vanilla Ice karaoke contest — and, on a night when the tunes had been nothing if not dependable, it was strangely satisfying to watch their high-spirited meltdown.

We don't know if it's tinnitus, some fault of our central nervous system, or a combination of the two, but we've got this ringing in our ears that sounds exactly like a cell phone. (Maybe it's just because our phones haven't stopped ringing?) In any case, the low brrrt-brrrt is on us like a plague of digital locusts. "Is that the phone?" Then it rings. Ah yes, that's the phone.

We finally looked up from our laptops — working, a cardinal sin at WMC — and realized it was way past time to go out. A 20 minute walk later, wending our way through a sea of unbuttoned shirts, ball caps, catcalls, and the hankie-sized dresses that inspired them, we made it to our first party of the night, Turntable Lab's throwdown at Shore. It felt very New York, appropriately enough: patterned hoodies, covetable kicks, big ol' facial hair, and that whole mix of preppy/hip-hop/rocker/candy-raver excess that characterizes downtown style these days. Roxy Cottontail teetered on the steps of the DJ platform, offering a running commentary so abstract and random it might have been made of haiku fragments. Old-school electro, freestyle, and B'more sounds dominated the set, with nods to classic house, including Josh Wink's "Don't Laugh," that absolute banger made of nothing more than 909s, an acid bass line, and a loop of deranged laughter.

As for the music, it wasn't anything you haven't heard before. It was Richie, playing deep and relatively (for him, anyway) housey, and with his eye on the long view, peaks and valleys rolling in a long, upward arc. Which, at six in the morning, after a long night of mishaps and near-misses, was all you really needed.

Math and Winter Music Conference don't really go well together, but I believe it's my ninth in a row. Which is not very old school, given that this is the 22nd year.

What are you most excited about seeing this year?

It's really hard to say because I just kind of go with the flow. I plan really heavily, I make a printout of all the parties I want to go to and all the DJs I want to see, and once you get down here, you have a couple cocktails, you walk out of your hotel and see some friends, and then you just go in a different direction. Having said that, the Sunday School for Degenerates party is always good — probably the M_NUS party, the vibe is always good there. If I had my list with me I could tell you, but that's what happens. There's probably, literally, about 20 or 30 things each day I would like to go to if I could.

If you had unlimited cab fare and a jetpack…

…and could make time stand still!

It's early in the week, but where do you think WMC is going?

I think when M3 started, that almost gave it a little more meaning… You know, 99% of the people here aren't here for the conference, per se. It's more like a festival like Sónar or the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, and in that respect I think in the last couple of years it's actually gotten better, because they have been getting a lot more interesting DJs, not just sort of the hack commercial guys, but more forward-thinking DJs. The last few years I've had a lot of fun. Probably about four or five years I was saying, what's the point of it, but — well, truthfully, I probably say that every year.

I say that about every festival I go to!

Well, I say that about everything I do… [Laughs] But in reality, the lineup has really gotten more interesting in the last couple of years.

Last question: best and worst fashion trends seen this year in Miami?

Well, I've only been here for a day, but the best is getting out of New York, where we had a late winter storm, to see people wearing not too many clothes. Whatever they're wearing, as long as it's not very much, that's a good thing. And the worst, I could say this always anywhere, any year, is guys with backwards baseball caps. Just stop doing that, guys. Don't do it!