DANCEBLOGGA: dance music news

'club music is the new hip-hop'

2009-07-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Baltimore City Paper looks at the continued resurgence of Baltimore club music and the rise of rival genres, including Brick City club music in Newark, New Jersey, just outside New York, and party music in Philadelphia:

Some differences between Baltimore club, party music, and Brick City club are clear, though. Party music is faster and even more ADD; Brick City is more melodic and leans toward cunning mash-ups. Both lack the classic Baltimore build-ups. At the same time, all three sounds casually bounce and rub up against one another in club mixes all the time without the dance floor clearing, which speaks volumes for their shared sound.

[Above: Philadelphia's DJ Sega by Josh Sisk for City Paper].

chromeo kicks it

2009-07-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Hip-hop/nu electro nerds Chromeo have compiled and mixed the next DJ-Kicks CD, the first in the series in almost two years. To celebrate the duo is giving away it's cover of the Eagles' "I Can't Tell You Why" via this site. I'm working on getting the comp's exact release date.

The collection features "sounds you'd be hard-pressed to hear almost anywhere else: early '80s disco and R&B that sound little like the Italo and space disco currently enjoying a rise in hipster cred," according to a statement.

Personally, I can't stand these poseurs. But I'll keep my ears and mind open.

kid sister's debut to hit

2009-07-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hipster artist Kid Sister's long-awaited debut is finally ready to drop. Ultraviolet is due Oct. 6 via downtown records, and it features contributions from Swedish house mafiosos Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso as well as A-Trak, Spank Rock's XXXChange and more. Apparently it was due last Sept. under the title Dream Date but Ms. Sister didn't think it was ready yet. The track list:

1. Right Hand Hi
2. Life On TV
3. Daydreaming
4. Let Me Bang 2009
5. Big n Bad
6. Pro Nails (feat. Kanye West)
7. Step (feat. Estelle)
8. Switch Board (feat. DJ Gant-Man)
9. Get Fresh
10. 53421
11. You Ain't Really Down
12. Control

d. ramirez hits l.a., tours

2009-07-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

Electro house king D. Ramirez (above, left, with Mark Knight) has settled in Los Angeles temporarily to work on new studio material as he prepares to tour North America next month. Here's a free MP3 of his July mix; here's an MP3 of his track "Satur8 (Teasing Edit)."

The dates:

August 6 – Minneapolis - Karma
August 7 – New York City – Pachita
August 8 – Denver - Vinyl
August 14 – Houston - Richs
August 15 - Los Angeles – Giant at Vanguard
August 27 – Montreal – Club Parking
August 28 – Toronto – This Is London
August 29 – Chicago - Crobar

My feature on Mr. Ramirez in OC Weekly earlier this year.

underworld meets the iphone

2009-07-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

Underworld is unleashing its entire back catalog via iTunes and to celebrate it has partnered with developer iZotope to unveil its iDrum iPhone app, which allows users to remix 12 of the duo's tracks, including "Born Slippy," "Cowgirl" and "Two Months Off." Here's a dl of "Born Slippy" performed live at Brixton Academy in the U.K.

The pair is planning to perform the world's first audio-visual broadcast for the iPhone on Aug. 7. Info here. It has also rolled out additonal North American dates for next month:

08/06 - The Joint - Las Vegas, NV
08/07 - Fox Oakland Theater - Oakland, CA
08/08 - Hardfest - Los Angeles, CA
08/11 - Kool Haus - Toronto, Canada
08/12 - Metropolis - Montreal, Canada
08/14 - Muelle Panamericano - San Juan, Puerto Rico

tcm scores

2009-07-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

Hot off it's spring album Divided By Night The Crystal Method announced this week that it has provided the score for the upcoming action sports documentary X Games 3D: The Movie, which hits theaters Aug. 21

To celebrate, the duo is offering a chance for its fans to "Win A Trip To The X Games," a sweepstakes open to anyone 21 and older who is also a legal resident of the United States. Enter at the TCM site. The winner will be chosen July 24 and will receive tix and transport for the July 30 and 31 dates of the 15th X Games, which take place in Los Angeles.

club mogul gets l.a. city appointment

2009-07-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hollywood club mogul (Foxtail, Hyde, Area) and restaurateur (Katsuya, XIV) Sam Nazarian was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the city's Board of Airport Commissioners, which oversees LAX's parent body Los Angeles World Airports.

"Sam's record of entrepreneurship and management is exactly what LAWA needs to take Los Angeles air travel into the 21st century," Villaraigosa states. "His experience will add great value to our team at the airport as we continue to implement the LAX Master Plan, improving safety and convenience."

His story, if I remember it correctly, is one of being an Iranian-American telecommunications mogul who started his own club empire because he was tired of seeing himself, friends and fellow Persians turned away from Hollywood hotspots during the Night at the Roxbury era. His own venues, however, are notoriously picky and haven't really been a force for change in L.A. nightlife when it comes to increasing diversity, decreasing cheese or injecting quality music into celeb-land.

moby to play on the road

2009-07-14T10:32:00.001-07:00

Not too long after trumpeting his return to the DJ booth, Moby is back to his band set-up for a summer and fall tour in support of his latest long-player, Wait for Me. The bald one states on his site that he'll be joined on-stage by Kelli Scarr, an "additional drummer," and a bassist and violinist. The North American dates:

09-17 Baltimore, MD - Ram's Head Live
09-18 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
09-20 Philadelphia, PA - TLA
09-21 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
09-24 Boston, MA - House of Blues
09-29 Detroit, MI - St. Andrew's Hall
09-30 Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre
10-01 St. Paul, MN - Myth
10-03 Houston, TX - Warehouse
10-04 Dallas, TX - Palladium
10-12 San Diego, CA - House Of Blues
10-14 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
10-15 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre
10-18 Seattle, WA - The Showbox
10-19 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom

Tix.

trance jam band reviewed

2009-07-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

New York Times pop critic Jon Pareles reviews a live show by British trance jam band Younger Brother, noting on Sunday that "jam bands and the trance-music branch of electronica share a fondness for open-ended marathon dancing, fluorescent colors and neo-hippie fashion."

Indeed, I think I've made a similar point: The Burning Man crowd and the psychedelic trance acts that feed it (STS9, Infected Mushroom, et. al.) seem to have replaced the Grateful Dead circuit, at least out west.

Pareles writes that "replacing machines with human muscle has hurled Younger Brother backward along rock’s timeline, toward the post-psychedelic early 1970s ... But the music has also grown more human, approachable, dynamic ..."

(Eh, sorry Pareles -- I admire your work -- but this is a typical rock critic's reaction to electronic dance music: The more band-like it gets, the better it is. In other words, the more it conforms to a 1960s aesthetic -- white guys with guitars -- the more it is "real" and authentic. I'll continue to argue that the further we get from the Elvis stance, the more music will evolve).

new l.a. club debuts

2009-07-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Times today takes a look at the latest Hollywood Boulevard sensation, Playhouse, noting that a pre-opening drew so many people that police had to clear the street. The story contains a lot of hyperbolous quotes, almost all from people who have something to gain from the endeavor, which occupies a former theater called the Fox.

I'm not too hopeful about this place in terms of dance music (although it is promoting a "Dirty Sexy House" night -- how original! -- Fridays). Though it's stated that it cost $6 million to open, there's nary a mention of what kind of sound system it has or whether quality DJs will be involved on a regular basis. Rather, the buzz seems to be about how its bartenders dance (Coyote Ugly style?) and how it's going to bring a Vegas vibe to the scene (great). It looks somewhat like a Disneyland-ish theme club through this kind of prism (and boy, the boulevard could use more cheese), but I guess I'll have to see for myself some time.

The piece also notes that one of Playhouse's parnters is turning Nacional and adjacent Holly's into a club called 77 with the disco-ish theme of 1977. No word on whether the core DJ night at Nacional, Monday Social, will stick around to see that.
[Los Angeles Times photo by Jay L. Clendenin].

l.a. gets convention-al

2009-07-10T10:45:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles techno promoter Robtronik, a.k.a. Robert Pointer, plans to capitalize on the booming buzz for the genre in the city by organizing a festival he's calling Convention. It's set to happen Sept. 18-20 at locales throughout L.A. Juan Atkins, Paco Osuna, Misstress Barbara, Joel Mull, Stacey Pullen and others have signed up as talkent. The event will take cues from Sonar, Movement and Mutek, according to a statement.

freeland speaks on b.e.p., new album

2009-07-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

In today's LA Weekly online I catch up with Adam Freeland, whose Freeland band just released the album Cope. He speaks about the Black Eyed Peas' apparent use of the album cut "Mancry" on its "Party All The Time," saying, "Just listen to our track 'Mancry' and listen to their 'Party All The Time' and draw you own conclusion.

More from the Q&A.

deadmau5 releasing new album

2009-07-09T11:43:00.001-07:00

Dance music sensation Deadmau5 has a new album, For Lack Of A Better Name, hitting retailers Sept. 22 via Ultra Records. The long-player will feature the track "Ghosts 'N' Stuff," featuring Pendulum’s Rob Swire, as well as the title track. More song info will be released at a later time.

Mr. Mau5, already a touring force, will launch a tour to support the album in fall. His rest-of-'09 DJ schedule follows:

Sun 8/2 Wasaga Beach, ON The Dome
Wed 8/5 Niagara Falls, ON Dragonfly
Fri 8/7 Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live
Sat 8/8 Miami Beach, FL Mansion Night Club
Sun 8/9 Chicago, IL Grant Park - Lollapalooza
Wed 9/2 Aspen, CO Belly Up Aspen
Thu 9/3 Charlotte, NC The Forum
Fri 9/4 San Juan, PR The Arena at Pier 10
Sat 9/5 New York, NY Randalls Island – Electric Zoo
Sun 9/6 El Paso, TX Club 101
Mon 9/7 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Hotel & Casino

The ‘For Lack Of A Better Name’ world tour dates in North America are:

Wed 9/23 Ottawa, ON Ritual
Thu 9/24 Quebec City Dagobert Night Club
Fri 9/25 Montreal, QC Metropolis
Sat 9/26 Toronto, ON The Guvernment
Tue 9/29 Winnipeg, MB Republic Nightclub
Wed 9/30 Calgary, AB Flames Central
Thu 10/1 Edmonton, AB Edmonton Edmonton Events Centre
Sat 10/3 Seattle, WA Showbox at the SODO
Wed 10/28 Portland, OR Roseland Theater
Thu 10/29 San Francisco, CA Grand Ballroom
Sat 10/31 Los Angeles, CA HARD @ The Forum
Sun 11/1 San Diego, CA House of Blues
Mon 11/2 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre
Wed 11/4 Denver, CO The Ogden
Fri 11/6 Dallas, TX House of Blues
Sat 11/7 Austin, TX Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheatre
Sun 11/8 Houston, TX House of Blues
Tue 11/10 Little Rock, AR The Village
Wed 11/11 New Orleans, LA House of Blues
Thu 11/12 Orlando, FL House of Blues
Fri 11/13 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Revolution
Sun 11/15 Tampa, FL The Ritz
Tue 11/17 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
Wed 11/18 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
Thu 11/19 Nashville, TN Limelight
Sat 11/21 Detroit, MI The Fillmore
Sun 11/22 Philadelphia, PA TLA
Mon 11/23 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
Tue 11/24 Boston, MA Roxy Boston

autotune in the spotlight

2009-07-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

PBS show Nova takes a look at the science behind autotune music, and notes that the technology -- widely used in-studio and even live -- had its coming out with Cher's trancey, 1998 hit "Believe."

It appears to me that Daft Punk was using similar technology on tracks like "Around the World" in the mid-1990s, the Prodigy was laying it down in the early '90s with songs such as "Out of Space" -- although they didn't seem to have pitch correction back then -- and even such talk box taples as Zapp's "More Bounce to the Ounce" (1980) and Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" (1973) were tweaking vocals in a similar manner before the computer-recording era. Feel free to add your own recollections of vocal tweakery in the comments.

[Spotted at Entertainment Weekly].

did b.e.p. rip off freeland?

2009-07-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

URB magazine and music industry veteran Todd Roberts asks aloud if the Black Eyed Peas sampled (without clearance) Freeland's "Mancry," off his latest, Cope, for its "Party All The Time," off their chart topping dance album, The E.N.D.

barcelona takes on miami

2009-07-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Barcelona Summer Week is being marketed as an alternative to the Winter Music Conference this year. The festivities Aug. 3-9 include scheduled performances by Tiësto, David Guetta, Layo & Bushwacka!, Erick Morillo, Armin Van Buuren, Sander Kleinenberg and Fedde Le Grand. They're expecting 50,000 people. Info.

remembering jackson's 'soul makossa' moment

2009-07-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

New Yorker magazine staff writer (and former New York Times pop critic) Kelefa Sanneh makes a keen connection between Michael Jackson and core, 1970s dance music, noting the king of pop's liberal use of Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa" on his "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" especially heard in the chant, "Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa." In fact, Dibango, who was not origially credited on the Jackson track, ended up getting some compensation.

Released in 1972 as a b-side, "Soul Makossa" was perhaps the most-influential proto-disco track of the early '70s -- a staple at such pre-house happenings as David Mancuso's Loft parties. It's great to see Sanneh making the connection between the cradle of modern club culture and the world's best-selling studio album (Thriller).

gus gus goes kompakt

2009-07-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

GusGus's sixth album, titled 24/7, goes to Berlin's zeitgeist-surfing Kompakt label for a Sept. 15 (stateside; Sept. 14 rest-of-world) release, a publicist for the band announced. The fresh long-player will hail the act's "new experience in sound and vision brought forth by Daníel Ágúst, President Bongo and Veiran." The brief track list:

1. Thin Ice
2. Hateful
3. On The Job
4. Take Me Baby – Feat. Jimi Tenor
5. Bremen Cowboy
6. Add This Song

[Above: Cover art for 24/7].

report: jackson was working on a dance album

2009-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am told the British newspaper the Mirror backstage at Glastonbury over the weekend that he had been working with Michael Jackson on a new dance music album. He said the two holed up in a studio in Ireland for the good part of a year and that Mr. i.am held down production duties. He calls it, dubiously, "something Michael has never done before -- a dance music album." Come again? Off The Wall? Thriller? Maybe he was referring to a contemporary, electronic dance music album.

"It was going to be out of this world," the Pea says. "I was very proud of it. But he was very protective and kept it under lock and key. After we made it I had to hand back every demo."

Will it see the light of day? Probably. I would think that whoever ends up controlling Jackson's estate would want to erase its debt and start getting in the black for his three children. I would think that unleashing what would appear to be his next intended album, produced by a hit-maker like will.i.am, would be a priority. It's not something I would want to keep on ice.

more edc madness

2009-06-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Times jumps on the EDC-as-a-record-breaking-party story, citing the promoter's numbers of 135,000 people over two days at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum this weekend. Writer Ramie Becker states that about 200 people crashed one gate and got through, and that police stopped the music for 45 minutes on Saturday to divert and reorganize crowds in an effort to control overcrowding.

Still, you have to fault the paper for going with the promoter's numbers. I have nothing against the promoter, and I'd be the first one to trumpet such a triumph for Los Angeles, but until I see independent verification, this so-called record will have an asterisk. I want it to be real. It needs an amen from someone other than the guy making money and fame and his reputation off the party. It's akin to a Hollywood Studio getting to claim its own weekend box office or a prize fighter getting to judge his own fight. It doesn't work that way. Since the cops were there working crowd control, I'd like to hear what they say about the numbers.

edc claims 135,000 over two days

2009-06-29T14:14:00.000-07:00

Organizers of the weekend's two-day Electric Daisy Carnival electronic music festival in Los Angeles say 135,000 people came through the turnstiles to see the likes of Thievery Corporation, Groove Armada, The Crystal Method, STS9, Shiny Toy Guns, Paul Oakenfold and more. The 13th edition of the party represented its first expansion to two days. The numbers claimed: 45,000 on Friday and 90,000 on Saturday. (Here's my interview with promoter Pasquale Rotella, which ran in LA Weekly online Thursday).

I'm normally (and justifiably) skeptical about promoters' numbers, as inflating them has no downside but lot's of upside. However, looking at Drew Ressler's photos, I'm impressed. The capacity of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, is 93,607, excluding the field, I presume. Most of the EDC crowd seemed to have been on the field, with much of the stands filled, so I would guess that EDC pulled a lot of people any way you slice it.

[Photo, above, shows the Coliseum's Olympic Caudron, a.k.a. torch, lit. It was used during the Olympics of 1932 and 1984, and has been lit for other special ocassions including Ronald Reagan's death and the Los Angeles Dodgers' 50th anniversary game in spring].

on mj

2009-06-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

I mean, what does it say about dance music that the biggest-selling studio album of all time (Thriller) was a dance music record? (I was more of an Off The Wall guy myself, but still). Was MJ influential on our scene? Sure. I seem to recall DJ Spinna once playing all MJ and Prince set that was kind of jaw dropping for its pre-mash-up time. It would be hard to imagine the loopy, disco-cut-ups of house music in the 1990s, tracks that made way for mash-ups and Daft Punk, with out MJ's first two albums. And it says volumes that the king of pop was planning his comeback in the dance music capital of London, where his 50-concert series at 02 Arena, set to begin July 7, sold out.

Robert Hilburn, the Los Angeles Times pop music critic from 1970 to 2005 (and my sometime pop writing mentor during my tenure there in the 1990s), has a moving piece about the Michael Jackson he know from several meetings and one harrowing phone call.

Current Times critic Ann Powers weighs in too, noting that Jackson hailed a post-rock era for popular music: In the wake of the unkempt "real life" stars of classic rock, Jackson and his partner in glamour, Madonna, brought back the razzle-dazzle of show biz. (Both artists borrowed from disco, which never gave up on glitz.) Using the new form of music videos to plunder images from throughout the history of entertainment -- from minstrelsy to space operas -- Jackson created an archive of our pop subconscious.

On the Times' music blog August Brown looks at Jacksons' "dance-centric legacy," citing YouTube video of artists through the years who have soaked up Jackson's style.

What took me so long? I was on assignment as things were breaking.

andy hughes of the orb passes

2009-06-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Andy Hughes, member of ambient-dance act The Orb, passed away Friday at the age of 44, the band announced via its MySpace page. It wasn't clear what exactly ailed Hughes (a statement called it a "short illness") but mourners who want to contribute money in his memory are encouraged to donate to the Liver Intensive Therapy Unit at Kings College Hospital, with a special URL of justgiving.com/andyphughes.

At the beginning of the month the band announced via MySpace that it was canceling a scheduled tour: "Due to personal reasons, the upcoming tour for The Orb will be postponed. All within the camp are looking forward to making their long anticipated return to the US and plan to deliver nothing less than an experience their fans deserve. With a new album on the horizon, The Orb hope to provide newly rescheduled dates as soon as possible and are excited about what is to come." It's not clear if the cancellation is related to Hughes' health or if Hughes was even scheduled to be on the road with the act (he broke off in 2000 but seems to have maintained on-again-off-again status with The Orb).

Wiki's got a proper history of the band, which started in the late 1980s and scored a rave-era hit with "Little Fluffy Clouds" in 1990.

Scheduled for 11:45 a.m., public services will be held Monday at London's West Norwood Crematorium, Norwood Road SE 27. Floral arrangements and other dedications can be sent care of Hughes to: Funeral Directors W. Uden & Sons, 265 Southampton Way, Camberwell, London SE9 7EN.

[Photo spotted at Discogs].

tenaglia's avalon set reviewed

2009-06-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Here.

oakenfold to produce for madonna

2009-06-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Paul Oakenfold has been tapped by Madonna to work on new material that will be included in a greatest hits package due in September. Oakenfold states that his contributions will include "cutting-edge sounds combined with classic Madonna."

Oakey will also open for the Material Girl in the U.K. and Europe this summer.

In the meantime, the DJ is gearing up for July 14 release of Perfecto Vegas, a mix-CD that celebrates his residency at the Palms Hotel & Casino. And he'll be at the Electric Daisy Carnival this weekend in Los Angeles.