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WMC tiny exit review

My intention this year for Winter Music Conference was to be a big, fat sponge. I wanted to watch and listen to everything in Miami until I exploded, and then hopefully some kind soul would find my scattered pieces and glue or staple them back together.

The WMC puzzle is one of excesses – how much living can you smash into a single week; how much music can your brain hold, how many people can you meet, how many places can you go? To get to that end, I didn’t eat much, didn’t drink much, didn’t sleep much, and didn’t spend more money than I had. So in the end, my musical, philosophical, and budgetary prep work for this year allowed me to have the best time at Conference that I’ve had yet.

All the shows I went to were at least pretty good, and some were excellent, but the best show by far was Sunday School for Degenerates, same as for the last two years. I think one of the reasons that SS is always such fun for me is that there is no room for casual people in the crowd. It’s a 24-hour party on the last day of WMC. You have to be dedicated, hard core, or very patient to be able to make it there at all, and to stay for any length of time, you truly have to love the music and the culture.

As far as organization went, I was absolutely amazed by Ultra this year. The sound was tighter and cleaner, the lighting systems were insane, there were several more stages than last year, and the music seemed to be better organized for public consumption, with genres and types of performances a little more balanced than in the past.

During the week, I was a little surprised at the types of music that I heard overall. There was a lot more house and techno than I remember from before, and a lot less electro-ish, minimal bleepy, or trance sounds. It felt a little as though the DJ’s and artists were getting back to basics – good, solid, well produced electronic music with punchy drums, solid basslines, and well-structured peaks and valleys. I didn’t hear a lot of epic breakdowns, screechy vocals, overdriven sawtooth synths, or dated let’s-all-sway-back-and-forth whooshy noises.

I just heard a lot of good, solid music through good solid sound systems, with good, solid intelligent lighting (except maybe for the pitch black room with a single lightbulb on).

I think the only thing I plan on doing differently next year is I’d really like to only go to one event per day, to really dig in and enjoy it, without feeling like a zombie because there’s only enough time for a two-hour disco nap between shows. I’d burned out by my third day of trying to make it to everything I’d scheduled, so I even ended up sleeping in the car for a few hours waiting to go from one place to another. There’s so much going on that it’s hard to pick what to do, but I think it would be better to choose carefully rather than being grumpy when I did get to places.

Stay tuned to this blog for more in-depth reviews of events, and I’ll be posting more videos and pics as I get them processed.

Cheers!

rx

Christian Martin – 23 hours to party

San Francisco-based house label Dirtybird Records has been putting out some of the gnarliest, funkiest, and most happily ironic beats in the US the last few years. They’ve also been touring constantly, with mind and body-bending DJ sets from artists Claude Von Stroke, Justin Martin, Christian Martin, and J.Phlip. I caught a quick interview with Christian to get his thoughts on this years Winter Music Conference experience.

You’re playing at the Blue Collar showcase this year, so, what type of music and vibe are you going to give to the WMC audience?
I’m really excited to play all the new music I’ve been working on lately – along with my EP dropping on Trapez this month, I have a remix for Claude VonStroke’s ‘Monster Island’ due out just in time for WMC. I had Miami in mind when I created the beat – it’s very influenced by old school Miami Bass tracks. The buildup is all 2010 DirtyBird though.

You’ve been to WMC before, so:

What is your primary reason for going to WMC – business, pleasure, networking, etc? Do you mix them all up?

I love Miami, I wish I could stay the whole time! This year though, I’m going to be there for just about 23 hours. I’m very focused on playing the best set that I can for my sole WMC performance. I think I’ll be doing most of my networking before the conference – making sure my favorite DJ’s and producers have all my new tracks to drop during their gigs.

What was your favorite experience playing in the past?
Last year, I was invited to play an afterhours set on a rooftop across from the beach. It turned into a five hour session. Midway through, Lisa Shaw came up to the tables, grabbed a mic and started singing over my set! It was such a cool and surreal experience. 30 seconds after I finally stopped the music, it started pouring.

What was your favorite show to see in the past, or something you would recommend to Miami party-goers this year?
Sunday school at the Pawn Shop (RIP) was the ultimate. This year the White Room has some stacked lineups – I’d recommend Annie Mac presents on Friday.

Do you have a favorite place to eat or restaurant/bar, or a suggestions for a place for people to try?
Pizza Rustica at 863 Washington! Huge bomb slices that will keep you full all day.
Late night/early morning, you gotta hit up Jerry’s Deli at 1450 Collins. It’s open 24 hours, their menu is gigantic, and everyone ends up there at some point.

Any suggestions for people new to the WMC experience?
Get a flask and buy some bottles at the closest liquor store. It will ease the pain of 9 dollar coronas and 13 dollar red bull vodkas. Also, research the venues you’re thinking of attending before the conference and make a game plan. There’s quite a few ‘parties’ that are nothing more than a monitor blaring in a hotel lobby. Use your time wisely – you can sleep on the plane home.

For those who want to network, what would you suggest they do?
If you don’t make tracks, you better make one before WMC. DJ mixes won’t do anything for you in 2010.  Bring a ton of well labeled CDs with your best original tracks and give them all out no matter what. Many years ago, I gave Ben Watt a CD with Justin’s track ‘Sad Piano’ and a couple months later he signed it to Buzzin Fly.

Is there anything you’d like to add – projects you’re working on, news about Dirtybird, insight into the production/DJ world?
Along with my new solo music that will be out by WMC, I’ve been busy with Justin, making new Martin Brothers tracks. ‘Duckface’ is on the upcoming Dirtybird 5 year comp (due in April), and our new track ‘Steal Drums’ will be out on dirtybird soon after that. We also just finished a remix for Atrak’s Fools Gold label, can’t wait to get the mastered version back from them!!
Finally, my original track ‘Polar Bear’ will be on the DirtyBird 5 year as well. More bass madness, of course!!

Don’t miss Christian’s set at the Blue Collar Showcase!

A short guide to DJ technology

Whether you’re a musician or just a music enthusiast, having a general idea of what types of technology DJ’s and performers are using during Winter Music Conference will help to round out your experience and give you some insight into where the life of your party is coming from.

Where DJ culture started – Two turntables & a mixer

Two Technics 1200’s were the standard for years, with mixer of choice.

It used to be simple. Two turntables and a mixer. A DJ would put a vinyl record on a turntable, use the volume faders and EQ on the mixer, and the sound would head on out to the speakers, where the music would rock your body and blow your mind. Between tracks, DJ’s had to duck down into their record bags, flip through sleeves until they found the right EP, and then come back up for air. The DJ’s could even hold the record up in the air, teasing you, and you could recognize the track just by its album artwork …

Then came CD turntable technology

Two CD decks and a mixer

Then CD decks came along, and everything changed. Suddenly, DJ’s didn’t have to lug around 200lbs of vinyl to play a show, so they could carry around more music. And they didn’t actually have to buy vinyl anymore, at all. They could download songs and burn them onto a CD. And the music on the CD didn’t have to be on an official release. It could be a track their friend made, or a collection of samples from a movie. And, they could use the numbers on the digital display of the CD deck to cheat (just a little bit) when they were matching beats. So the skill set for DJ’s changed. It didn’t take at least five years of practice and thousands of dollars of vinyl to be an awesome DJ; instead, it took a good ear for music and a firm knowledge of equipment, and they were good to go.

Now we add computers to the mix

The basic Serato Scratch setup

Then came Serato Scratch. Now, with a specialized software/hardware combination, DJ’s could use a laptop to store music in instead of burning CD’s. Using either vinyl or CD control discs, their entire music library was with them. Add to that, now they had a computer screen in front of them showing the basic form of the song and a real-time display of when the beats hit. Creativity in track selection was becoming more and more important.

Then comes accessible, reliable production software

Ableton Live’s session view, for live performances

And then came Ableton Live. With popular use of this computer software, this was when people who played electronic music for crowds switched from being ‘DJ’s’ to being ‘performers’. There was even some initial confusion among promoters how to say that performers were using Ableton vs. using CD’s or vinyl. That was when you started seeing the phrase “live PA” in tiny print next to the headliner’s name. That could also indicate that a performer was using actual hardware, but that distinction is a little fuzzy from the audience’s perspective.

With Ableton Live, artists could now produce their own music in pieces and play those pieces live, import tracks into their computers and pre-beatmap their songs so that it was impossible to make mistakes while they were mixing them, and do seamless live re-edits. Once again, the skill set for electronic music performers had changed. Now it was less about what they played, and more about what they could do with what they were playing.

Now we’re really getting crazy

Traktor Scratch Pro – just add a laptop and you’re ready to go

Then came Native Instruments Traktor Scratch. With Traktor, they could do everything that they could with Serato, except now they didn’t even need a mixer, because the Traktor hardware box also functions as an audio card. That means that you can hook the outputs from the box directly to your amp and speakers. Plus, with Traktor, you could now add two additional virtual turntables, allowing you to mix off of four decks simultaneously. And now, there was a virtual mixer inside the Traktor software, essentially turning your computer into the mixer. Right around this time, companies were modeling MIDI controllers to act as turntables, mixers, and effects processors. All those extra breakout cables that come with Traktor allow you make those hook ups to your other control devices. Essentially, this all means that the audio from a show could technically be entirely contained within the computer. You could perform a whole show with a keyboard and a mouse, if you wanted, or go nuts with every processor you can plug in. As far as I know, the Traktor software was also the first DJ software to offer the “sync” button, which automatically fixes the timing of your beatmatching if it wasn’t quite on. The debate about whether using that button is cheating continues to rage on.

This piece of equipment costs more than my car did

Pioneer’s new CDJ-2000

Now there are a few new types of CD turntables that accept thumb drives. So it gives the DJ the appearance of spinning CD’s, but the data itself is actually coming from hard drives (or iPods, in some cases). The new Pioneer CDJ-2000 CD decks even have a whole folder system that displays on a small screen on the player itself. I’ve heard it even makes a mean cup of coffee, and you can set it up to wake you up in the morning with a nice foot rub.

So just about everyone you see during WMC will be using some hybrid of these devices. The old-schoolers will be playing vinyl, the anti-computer DJ’s might play on CD decks, and the producers will probably be using Ableton with some combination of MIDI controllers to do live edits and effects processing. My best guess is that most of the DJ’s you see during Conference will be using Serato or Traktor Scratch with their laptops, while the live PA performers will mostly be using Ableton Live. It’s also common now for artists to work in pairs, each one controlling different parts of the performance process.

One quick early indication of what type of show artists are going to put on is whether they wear headphones during the show or not. If they do, that means they’re doing live beatmatching, or at least they are previewing what they are going to play for you next. If they don’t wear headphones, that means their beats are locked in, their material is pre-recorded, or they’re working with pre-matched material. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing, just something to be aware of.

As a member of the audience, being aware of what types of technology a DJ or performer is using can increase your appreciation of the time and type of skill sets that artists have to learn and master these days. It’s not quite so simple anymore.

Taking pictures and posing

Photos are one of your best ways of remembering your Winter Music Conference experience. Not everyone is a pro photographer, but here are a few quick guidelines for taking good pictures and some awareness notes for posing.

Taking photos:

The Rule of Thirds:

When you look through your camera, split the view-finder up into an imaginary tic-tac-toe board, and put the most interesting elements of the shot at the four places where the lines intersect. This is the single most basic rule of photography.

Tall vs. Wide Shots:

If the primary object you are taking a photo of is tall, tip the camera so you are taking a tall shot. If the primary focus is on something wide, take a wide shot. I know it sounds like common sense, but tons of people only take horizontal shots, because it’s easier to hold the camera that way. If you are taking a picture of one person or two people together, chances are your best photo will be a vertical one.

Dark vs. Light:

Most pictures from point-and-shoot cameras will look better during the daytime or under bright lights. Keep this in mind if you want a good group shot of you and your friends. Flashes and focal lengths get confused in dark places, especially in clubs with dynamic lighting. On some cameras, there is a sync or delayed flash; they can be a little finicky, but if you get the settings right, it’s usually your best option for getting a good picture of a DJ in the dark. If you take pictures with the wrong settings, especially in the dark, they end up blurred or out of focus.

Three types of photos: close-up, medium, and long-range

If you try to take some of each of these photos, you’ll have a better variation in your images of your trip. Close-up is just someone’s face, a picture of a sticker, or a picture of a needle on a record. Medium shots are pictures of a person, a small group of people, a store-front, or a DJ setup. Photos of friends dancing are hit and miss depending on when the shutter clicks, but it’s better to try and fail then to not try at all. Long-range shots are of a crowd in front of an entire stage, a city horizon, or the view from on top of a hotel. Most shots tend to be medium distance, but be sure to try to get a few close and a few far ones too.

When people ask you to take photos of them:

Get them set up, hold the camera properly (either for a wide or tall shot), put their eyeballs in the correct place for the Rule of Thirds, and then count down from three for them before you push the shutter button. The composition will be good, and they will know when to smile.

Posing

People will often fall into patterns of posing over time due to nerves or subconscious habits. Here are a few that aren’t necessarily bad or to be avoided, but certainly to be aware of.

Common posing habits:

Pointing – so many billions of pictures of people either pointing at each other, at themselves, or at the camera.

Hand gestures – peace signs, rock star signs, devil horns, bunny ears, middle fingers. Ask yourself if that’s how you want to be remembered before making hand gestures in every photo taken of you.

The surprised face – cameras aren’t really that surprising.

The duck face/lips – some people are into this (girls); some aren’t (boys).

Smiling with no teeth – often very unnatural looking. If you’re straining to keep your teeth covered, you probably look better relaxing.

Smiling for too long before the picture is taken – looks very strained and is uncomfortable to sit there with a big smile for more than 10 seconds or so.

Licking things – most often people licking other people’s faces or their ears, or pretending to lick boobs.

The ugly face – making yourself looking intentionally weird

Sticking your tongue out – either straight out or sideways

Winking, blinking, or scrunching up one side of your face – this tends to be a big nervous habit for some people, and they end up with a lot of lopsided pictures of themselves

To have the best pictures of yourself, relax, be natural, and smile. It sounds simple, but if you find that you are unintentionally doing any of the above, nix those habits before WMC hits!

Before you start to party …

To get the absolute most out of your experience, you need to be able to check in with yourself and know when to hit, when to sit, and when to quit.

When to hit. When do you hit the party, when do you hit the dance floor, and when do you take a hit? The hits are your high points of your Miami experience – your favorite DJ, your favorite event, your favorite venue, being with your favorite friends. Pick what your ultimate peak point of the week is going to be, and schedule the rest of your events around it. If you aren’t super familiar with the WMC experience, then you can just go more with the flow, but there’s nothing worse than regretting that you missed the one thing you wanted to make it to no matter what, because you were tired, grouchy, hungry, or broke.

The best experiences are shared experiences, too. If you can feed off the energy of your friends, off of the performer, or off of the crowd, do it!

Quality vs. quantity. Remember, how much fun you have does not necessarily equate with how many events you attend or how long you stay. If you’re looking for a deep, complete experience, expect to try to stay for the long haul and go through cycles of energy. If you just wanted to see what a certain venue looks like, or say that you saw a particular artist perform, act accordingly.

When to sit. Don’t force yourself to try to have fun when you aren’t feeling it. Walk away from the music for a bit, take a smoke break, find a couch, go grab a snack somewhere. Venues often serve food, ranging from high price, high-end appetizers at bars, to hot dogs and pretzels at Ultra, to random catered food at events like Sunday School for Degenerates.

When to quit. If you are negatively affecting your friends’ moods or the vibe of a show and you can’t shake it off, it’s time to leave and maybe take a nap.

Partying with intent. What do you want to remember from your Miami experience? Do you want to be able to remember where you went, who you talked to, and what you talked about? Or are you more interested in remembering flashes of light, strains of songs, what the front right speaker stack looked like, or faces floating in the crowd as they wander by you? If you find yourself losing track of what you’re doing vs. what you wanted to do, go back to the power trio and get your mind straight. Eat, drink, sleep!

You are not 17. Nutritional requirements sometimes change as you get older, and if you rally yourself against these changes rather than accepting and working with them, you may find yourself uncomfortable and unhealthy, especially in intense party mode. Often people in their mid-20’s tell the same story: suddenly they develop sensitivities to alcohol, caffeine, sugar, etc. Out of nowhere, they’re getting hangovers they’ve never had to worry about before, they can’t drink Red Bull anymore because it makes them nauseous, or coffee and candy ‘work’ different than they did before. Before you head to WMC for your week of mayhem, make sure you know what you can handle, and don’t default to what you did last year.

The sliding scale of drug use.

Spiritual – once per year

Recreational – once per month

Habitual – once per week

Regular – once per day

Continuous – whenever you can get it

Every substance that a person uses (alcohol, caffeine, medication, drugs, etc) exists somewhere on the sliding scale. Usually what it means to ‘party’ is to slide some substance or another up on the scale for a little bit. More fun, more entertainment, more drunk, more in tune, more awake, more fucked up, etc. In Miami it’s important to know where all of your substances are on your scale because you have to be careful not to tip any of them too far. During WMC, you can pretty much get whatever you want, whenever you want it. Exercise good judgment – I wouldn’t suggest going from recreational coke use to continuous, or trying to keep up with someone doing K when it’s not really your thing. Know your limits; push them but don’t break them. No need for trips to the hospital or freak-outs that you can never come back from. Also, exercise caution trying something for the first time in a place where you don’t have a quick exit (ie. a boat); being stuck in an uncomfortable environment is an easy way to destroy an otherwise good high.

Psychological refueling. There are ways to calm yourself down or geek yourself up outside of food and sleep requirements. Here are some little games, mantras, and mental tricks I’ve heard about over the years that can be useful during partying.

Microscope-telescope – At any given point during a party, imagine that you suddenly have a microscope in your hands. You can put a piece of dust from your environment on a slide and zoom all the way in to a molecular level. Then, after you visualize protons, neutrons and electronic flying about like little madmen, you put away the microscope and now have a telescope in your hands. Put the wrong end of the telescope up to your eye, and then imagine being someone in space a billion miles away, who is looking through the telescope the right way, directly into your retina. This is a just a quick way to gain perspective on the largeness or smallness of the universe in relation to whatever event you happen to be attending. Molecules? Planets? Shoot, might as well just dance.

The moon and the sun are in your heart – this one is for temperature regulation. If you’re too hot or too cold, visualize that the moon and the sun are literally contained inside your heart, and you’ll find that your internal body temperature starts to moderate.

Humans are my species – no matter how different from you or aggravating people are, bear in mind that they do belong to your species.

Brain in a vat / dream sequence – Ponder life essentially as though you were in the Matrix. Go absolutely nuts. Just don’t do anything that would land you in jail.

Fly on the wall – Make yourself an insect and visualize wherever you are from their perspective. Often you’ll get a quick surge of insight as to where you should be in the room in order to have the most fun.

Take care of yourself. If you give your body the rest and nourishment it needs, you should be able to party for the entire Winter Music Conference in high spirits. Plan your partying just a little bit, and you will be able to hit all the shows you want with enough energy to dance all night and then some.

The Genre Police: Conversations about music

The terms ‘electronic music,’ ‘techno,’ and ‘electronica’ have been somewhat interchangeable over the years, but the most sensible overall label for it seems to be EDM, or Electronic Dance Music. Even if you can’t necessarily dance to it, if it’s music made with electricity (ie, samplers, computers, synthesizers) and not strictly ‘real’ acoustic instruments (like guitars, drum sets, symphonic instruments, etc.), then it can fit inside the EDM blanket. If you came to Miami to hear the music, you are a part of the international EDM community.

Here are some definitions and loose guidelines for talking about genres of music during Winter Music Conference. Within the EDM/DJ culture, a genre of music, for the most part, comes from the balance between tempo (beats per minute or BPM), what types of sound are in the track, and how it makes you feel. Don’t worry, everybody is an expert yet will have different opinions about all of this, but these are some generally agreed upon starting points:

House – 120-138 BPM.

I don’t care how many times I’ve heard the phrase “House is a feeling. It’s a … spiritual thing” – when you get down to it, the biggest defining factor of house music is its speed and its ‘four-on-the-floor’ kick drum beat. To be a house track, it has to be between 120-138 BPM (you might have a little wiggle room on the faster end), and you must have a generally consistent 4/4 (“one oink per beat”) rhythm. This is what allows one house track to be mixed seamlessly into the next. On the slow end are deep house tracks, on the fast end are hard house tracks. This is probably the biggest genre in electronic music, with hundreds of variations determined by geography, chronology, or random description. Think Chicago House, Detroit House, Scouse House, Funky House…

Trance – 129-145 BPM

Ah, trance. It’s typically high energy, feel-good dance music, and the way many people are introduced to electronic music in general. Frequency washes, dramatic chord changes, sounds geared to poke at your emotional state and your adrenaline system. Trance is the sugar and caffeine of electronic music. Is it the most popular genre of music in the EDM community? Probably. It seems to have the most active fans – thus the constant winning of trance DJ’s among voting circles (which drives lots of people crazy, but apparently they can’t collectivize well enough to vote for their own preferences). Trance DJ’s also tend to play to the largest crowds in the biggest venues with the highest production value, at least right now.

Techno – 118-145 BPM.

Techno used to be an overarching reference to electronic music, but over time it sort of turned into a subset of itself. It can have a house or broken beat, it can be hard or soft, deep or progressive. There are fewer rules in the techno genre, and often it’s when a house track breaks from structural or tonal norms that it becomes techno (ie. when a house track gets too noisy, too arrhythmic, or just gets weird- suddenly you’ve got techno). Consider the foundation of the techno sound: its generally agreed-upon roots are in the angst filled streets of industrial Detroit, so its darker sounds can tend to nod away from the happy feelings of house or trance. It also has a reputation for being extremely repetitive. Yes, the same drum pattern can repeat for eight solid minutes. And yes, that, is techno.

Breaks – 128-139 BPM.

Breaks tracks generally have what feels more like a rock (broken) beat, but can also be anything that doesn’t have the kick drum every count in this tempo range. If, during the course of the track, the kick drum rhythm is mainly syncopated, it’s a breaks track (ie. some variation on: BOOM – chick – ba-BOOM BOOM – chick). Breaks tracks incorporate the same elements as all of the other genres, it’s strictly the rhythm that defines it as a separate genre.

Tech House – 122-135 BPM.

I’ll admit right on that this is my favorite genre. It has the basic pulse and tempo of house, but includes limitless variations of texture, structure, and format. What separates tech house from techno is mostly in its subtlety. Whereas lots of music describes as techno will jam itself down your throat, tech house tunes have the ability to be a little less abrasive and melody driven. They are house tracks that have stretched their arms out a little bit, maybe gotten a little plainer, a little more focused, and a little more rhythmically creative. In my opinion, the tech house concept allows more for the live performances that artists are using now with their Ableton setups, too.

Minimal – 120-130 BPM.

Richie Hawtin can break tempo boundaries whenever he feels like it, but minimal music and DJ sets generally sit in the 120-130 BPM range. The most defining characteristic of minimal music is, get ready for this: how minimal it is, and how much space there is within the tracks. Often stripped down to just a few elements for extended periods of time, minimal music can be awesome to dance to, vibe to, or nod your head to, and often if you’re really seriously concentrating on it, you can hear every single change that happens during a track. The biggest complaint about minimal music tends to be that, for as interesting as some of the textures and sounds can be when you hear them clearly, it can get boring reeeeeeally fast. It takes an exceptionally good DJ to play an extended minimal set.

Drum & Bass (Jungle) – 165-180 BPM.

Usually a fast broken beat, but anything goes so long as it’s in that tempo range. From its name, you might assume that the genre included only drums and basslines, but this initial definition has expanded over the years to include some really amazing melody-driven material, as well as spawning a whole lot of semi-industrial chaotic noise at super-speed. If a tracks sounds like it’s made up of pots and pans falling down a staircase, you’re probably listening to drum & bass. There are a million sub-genres of D&B, from jump-up to jazz-step, but for the most part, it’s the speed of the track that defines it as drum and bass.

Dubstep – 138-142 BPM

This is the genre with the most restrictive BPM base right now, but you certainly can’t take away from the creativity and talent that’s swarming into dubstep right now. Regularly with a half-speed stuttered beat tending to be far more rhythmically complicated than a standard breakbeat, dubstep format and structure is whatever it wants to be. It tends to be seriously bass-heavy, so to get the full experience, you almost have to hear it played through big speakers. A friend of mine says she cries for people who listen to dubstep for the first time over laptop speakers. Its roots are in reggae, speed-garage, and two-step, but lately it’s transformed itself into somewhat of a unique monster.

Hip-hop, trip-hop, glitch-hop – 65-105 BPM

Hip-hop is a slow broken beat with rap or R & B lyrics behind it. Make it a little more electronica-ish and psychedelic, and you’ve got trip-hop. Take away or chop up the vocals into Insanityville and add crazy basslines and textures, and it’s glitch-hop.

Downtempo/midtempo/chillout/ambient/beatless – Slower than 120 BPM

Millions of subgenres here, too, and next to impossible to explain other than saying they tend to feel ‘slow’ and/or ‘thoughtful’. Hip-hop, trip-hop, and glitch-hop are in this range, but they are their own beasts. Chillout, ambient, and beatless music are often defined as such because they have no kick drum at all.

Electronica – Pretty much any speed.

Electronica is kind of a catch all. If electronic music doesn’t fit anywhere else, you can call it electronica. These tracks tend to be a little quieter, because intrinsic volume isn’t as important in the mastering stage of production (because they aren’t really ‘club’ tracks). It’s pretty rare to hear something you might call Electronica get played on a main stage or at a club or dance venue. It can be weird, experimental, or obnoxious. It can change tempo, structure, or dynamics at any point. A lot of electronic music from the ‘90s was labeled electronica, maybe for lack of a better term at that point.

Progressive –

There is a school of thought that says that ‘progressive’ in itself is a genre, but I don’t buy it. There is progressive house, progressive trance, progressive breaks, etc. To me, it’s more of a descriptor. If a song is narrative, if it moves from one place to another, if it tells a story, if it builds, if it progresses (for crying out loud), then it’s progressive.

Genre Soup

You can always add descriptors to genres without any regret, so long as you mention them confidently. In my opinion, the more descriptors the better. If you hear a track, and say, ‘hey, that’s a cool funky nu-disco progressive minimal breaks tune!’, then I will get a better idea of what they music sounds like.

A few common add-on descriptors to get your imagination started:

Epic – big breakdown, big buildup

Indie – usually means there’s a guitar in it somewhere

Dark – in a minor key, intense

Funky – has a swung drum beat or a funk bassline in it

Nu – either ‘next wave of’, or ‘as opposed to old-school’

Tribal – basically means it has bongos in it. I’ll leave it at that.

Electro – I’ve heard the debate about electro rage on for so long I’m not sure what to say about it. Some people say that electro is a subgenre of house, but then old-schoolers will punch anyone who says that in the face, saying that electro is its own thing, but they’ve never really been able to describe it to me. There is what I understand to be the electro ‘sound’, which is roboty vocals and sawtooth basslines and chinka-chinka scraping hi hats, but too much of that in a row during a set makes my brain feel violated. Calm down, DJ, you’re freakin’ me out.

Hard – usually means fast, distorted, or noisy

Geographic considerations: Often there will be a geographic area associated with a genre or subgenre, i.e. UK Hard House, Detroit Techno, Chicago House, Miami Breaks, etc. The only way to really understand those references is to listen to music that is specifically labeled that and learn what those descriptors mean.

Some suggestions for talking about music:

Don’t get boxed in –

If you want to get the most out of your Miami experience, be careful defining yourself to others in terms of a certain kind of music. If you get pegged as a house-head, a trance-baby, a drum-and-bass junkie, a dubstepper, a new-schooler, an old-schooler or a techno snob; you can lose opportunities to hear and appreciate new and interesting music. Genre wars are counterproductive and unfortunately plague the US EDM community. As a whole, we should support each other instead of fighting about what we like. Keep an open mind.

If you don’t know about something, don’t say that you do –

Especially in Miami during Conference, there are industry professionals, experts, and socialites that truly do know everything about their music and their culture. It’s better to say “I’m not familiar with that artist/label/band/track/venue” than to pretend that you do and get found out later.

Don’t present your opinions as fact –

It’s good to speak confidently about music, but it’s extremely annoying when people present their opinions as fact, especially when it comes to talking about what music is better than other music, or which genres or artists and better than other genres or artists. If you catch yourself falling into this trap, rethink what you are trying to get across.

Don’t be a hater –

I can’t tell you how many people I know that say things like ‘techno is stupid’, ‘trance is for people who don’t know any better’, ‘rap isn’t music’, ‘country music is lame’, ‘classical music is boring’. Hey, you all – enough already. Seriously. You are welcome to your opinions about music and what you like and what is or isn’t good or bad, but don’t disrespect the people who spend their time and dedicate their lives to their craft. You can critique music on how it makes you feel and whether you understand it or not within the constructs of your life experience, but don’t negate the effort that people put into what they believe in. Very few things are more destructive than ignorant haters, and I am embarrassed that during some points in my life, I’ve been critical of music that I haven’t understood. If you don’t like something, then don’t like it – but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad or has no value. And believing haters is almost as bad as being one. Don’t let someone else’s opinion about music effect your ability to enjoy something new.

This year in Miami, take what you know and love and add to it. Learn and appreciate, critique and observe, party and run like maniacs through the streets.

Just watch out for the genre police.

Steve Bug: Crawling in your ears

If you haven’t seen Steve Bug perform, if you haven’t heard Collaboratory or The Lab 02, and if you’ve never run across any of the productions from his label, Poker Flat Recordings – then there is a bright path for you to follow in the near future. Find the Bug, and follow the Bug.

Steve Bug’s productions and live sets define the perfect balance of deep house, minimal, techno and bass music. You can dance, you can nod your head, you can fade away. I’ve had the opportunity to see him in Miami and in Detroit, and each time I catch him is a reminder of why I love this music so much; there are no words to describe the depth and character of sound when it hits in the right place at the right time.

Steve Bug on the main stage in Detroit for Movement ’09.

Steve Bug on Listed’s Freaky Tikki at WMC ’08.

Steve’s Bug’s podcast from Save the Cannibals:

Save the Cannibals Podcast #1 – Steve Bug

Essentials
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Name: Steve Bug (Stefan Brügesch)
Resides: Berlin(?)
Known For: Deep techno and journeys into audio chaos

2010 Confirmed WMC Parties: Sunday School for Degenerates, The Freaky Tikki
Productions released on: Poker Flat Recordings
Find Steve Here: Facebook / Twitter / MySpace / Discogs /

Justin Martin

Justin Martin

DJ/producer and founding member of the groundbreaking San Francisco-based Dirtybird record label, Justin Martin is ready to take on Winter Music Conference again this year. Known for is his peak-hour, high-energy and bass-heavy house sets that rumble through every city his tour schedule takes him to, during Miami’s WMC he can kick back even further and really dig into his audio collection.

I was lucky enough to catch his early morning set at the Dirtybird showcase during Winter Music Conference at Studio A Nightclub a few years ago, and it was the best DJ set I saw during the Conference that year. I managed to find a short Youtube clip from that show:

It was like he was trying his very best to destroy the speakers from the inside out, all while building deep house grooves that gave the crowd there a reason to dance like mad. That short video clip was probably taken at about 8:00 in the morning.

This is a link to my favorite production of Justin’s.

Essentials
——————————————————————————————-

Name: Justin Martin
Resides: San Francisco
Known For: Peak-hour, high-energy and bass-heavy house sets

2010 Confirmed WMC Parties: Blue Collar Entertainment
Productions released on: Dirtybird, Buzzin’ Fly, Anabatic Records
Find Justin Here: Dirtybird Records – Justin’s official bio /MySpace / Discogs

10 WMC survival tips

If you are attending Winter Music Conference for the first or even second time, you need to read these 10 tips to help you get the most out of Miami and survive Winter Music Conference.

1. Plan ahead, but be flexible. Nothing ever really starts on time. Events can be canceled or moved. The lineup can change. If things don’t go as planned, get over it and go on to the next thing. It’s way too easy to get caught up being grumpy or irritated – chill out and move on
2. Know your DJ’s. Look up the most recent photos of artists and performers; you never know who you’re going to see or who you might have the chance to talk to. Press kit shots and album photos can be deceptive, though, so try to find pictures or videos of performers at recent actual events.
3. Embrace the unexpected. There’s so much going on that it’s impossible to do everything, or even a portion of everything. When you find something enjoyable, whether it’s a venue, a type of music, or a chance to have lunch with an artist you run into and recognize – try to get as much out of that experience as possible. Even if you end up at a rock bar in a suburb somehow, appreciate that what you came for won’t necessarily be what you get the most out of.
4. Take up smoking. And no, I don’t mean take up smoking. I mean, buy a pack of cigarettes and have them with you when you go places. Either taking a smoke break or having smokes that people can bum off of you is the only way you get a chance to talk to people away from the music sometimes. And don’t forget a lighter.
5. Bring a camera everywhere. Invest $250 in a slim pocket camera that takes good pictures and records in HD video. And remember to actually take pictures once you get places. Try to take at least one picture of every stage, performer, and venue you go to, as well as shots of hotels, scenery, etc. They will help you remember where you went and who you saw, as over the course of the week, events will start to blur together. PS. Don’t buy your camera after you get to Miami. The salespeople at the electronics shops tend to trick you into buying things you don’t want.
6. Stick to what you love. Trust people who’ve been there before, but don’t let them sway your musical preferences. People who have been to Conference before can tell you how the week generally goes; they can tell you about traffic, cabs, hotels and bar prices. Just don’t let their actual musical taste and opinions get in the way of you seeing who you want to see. If this is your first year headed to conference, your second year will be better.
7. Know your sound. The quality of a sound system can drastically alter the vibe of an event. A full Turbosound or Funktion-One system will knock your socks off. JBL and Mackie, especially the self-powered setups, have a tendency to color and weaken music, especially when they’re at max volume. If it comes down to having a choice between shows that are otherwise of equal value, knowing what kind of sound a venue has could be a deciding factor.
8. Bring earplugs everywhere, just in case. Spend too long in front of a speaker at the beginning of Conference, and your ears could be shot for the rest of the week. And even with cheap earplugs in, you can make it up to the front of just about any stage without being worried about the pain that comes from being right in front of the speakers.
9. Don’t get wet. Carry around a few small plastic sandwich bags. Every year I’ve been to WMC, there’s been a torrential downpour somewhere when several thousand people have been outside. When the rain came, a good percentage of people went and hid and try to avoid their phones getting wet. One friend of mine braved the storm, only to pull her cell out of her pocket a half hour later, and it had already disintegrated. When the weather comes, you can put your phone and the camera you just bought in a waterproof plastic bag, put it back in your pocket, and keep dancing in the rain.
10. Watch ESPN. Learn about local professional sports teams before you go. This may sound silly, but a general awareness of factors other than music can help round out your experience. Being able to talk to hotel staff or local bouncers about the upcoming Miami Heat game gives you a chance to relate. Right now, do you know the names of the major baseball, hockey, football, and basketball teams in Florida? You’ll laugh now at that suggestion, but wait until you’re outside smoking with a rock-star DJ who happens to be an NFL fan, and you get to take that handy snapshot with your dry camera.