Long before South Beach became a hotbed of mediocrity, there lurked a contingent of sound and vision aficionados known as the Deep House Movement. DHM's core consisted of Omar Suardy, from New York, Stephen Flynn, from Ireland, and Edwin Adams, a Florida boy who had little in common with those in his Orlando hometown and was making a good go of things in the Magic City. The trio's goal was to create some of the most memorable evenings of music ever mustered, and it very often provided the time of your life.
After DHM had some stints up and down the strip, Tomas Ceddia of Aquabooty tapped the three to be resident DJs at his events. Ceddia and his business partner Joe Budious also had big ideas about how to make right the night. For the next decade, their teaming with DHM at venues ranging from the Marlin to Pawn Shop provided our town with the kind of fast action people still talk about.
Ceddia is now co-owner of Electric Pickle, and Aquabooty has gone occasional. So too have the DHM cats, who continue onward but only when the special occasion calls for them to break out their originators' cool. Of the DHM three, though, Edwin Adams is still in the thick of the nightlife, at the News Café, the Pickle, and most prominently, Bardot, the joint that seems to have kept midtown from eating itself.
Indeed, as everyone who's been to Bardot can tell you — and from the looks of things, that means everyone who's anyone — Miami's latest It club has helped to make the mainland the kind of place you never need to leave if you're looking to live it up in style. With an elegant, speakeasy-style vibe and a roster of backroom operatives that would make any bankroller green with envy, Bardot is as fetchingly come-hither as the dame from whom the club cribs its name. The spot also happens to swing in a way South Beach did in its heyday.
Giving Bardot its beat many of the seven nights the doors are open is Edwin Adams, who in fact just might slip Herman's Hermits into his sets. Yes, you read correctly, Adams has now added a soft-rock element to his groove-friendly repertoire. And while the man doesn't mention the mop-topped British pop group by name, he does say he now occasionally plays tunes by America, a band even more sedately tuneful.
Adams also notes he's big on Gil Scott-Heron, Led Zeppelin, Richie Havens, and Fleetwood Mac, as well as deep and rare disco tunes, classic rhythm and soul, minimal tech-house, and international sounds that thump from Afrobeat to Brazilian psychedelia. All of which makes for the kind of hodgepodge hip that any open-minded nightcrawler can dig, and dig deeply.
Because if there's one thing those who go by moonlight know, it's that our stars wax and wane in many different shades. And if a deep-house master can muster the spin of emotions comprised by the globe's best music, surely we can muster the courage to tune in and get with the dizzy.
Edwin Adams's current top five:
1. "Gone," Bautista
2. "Brown Eyes (Maulongated Version)," Fleetwood Mac
3. "Bones (Thomas' Way of the Ancients Remix)," A Mountain of One
4. "Rushing to Paradise (DJ Harvey Remix)," House of House
5. "Flame," Metro
