Rane and Serato revolutionized the DJ game — and lowered chiropractor bills — with the introduction of their Scratch Live software. The new club standard, it allows DJs to play a hard drive full of MP3s in real time on a pair of turntables through a piece of hardware and…
All the WMC activity can be incredibly fun. But there can be an incessant air about it too: There are countless singles, albums, DVDs, and DJs to promote, and often it’s crap that might not even be available to the public for quite some time. For those who are just…
Every Friday night, Baltimore’s Club 1722 sizzles with Sugar, an after-hours party that’s been pumping the finest in old and new house music for nearly five years. And at the helm is the Sugar Girl Squad, consisting of DJs Lisa Moody and Ultra Naté. “There’s still those few people out…
Describing Hank Shocklee will run you into trouble. Only grandiose analogies such as mystical musical prophet and electro-galactic freedom fighter do him justice. A founding member of legendary hip-hop group Public Enemy, he — along with his brother Keith — created the Bomb Squad, a production team that’s greatly influenced…
A heavy sound system; progressive, up-tempo black music; vibe-building MCs; and an atmosphere akin to a Friday-night house party — these are a few of the ingredients you can expect at a Co-Op jam. Based in West London, England, the party has been going strong for close to a decade…
The cyberlife of Dutchman Armin van Buuren, one of the biggest DJs in the world, began in the early Eighties with a Grundy NewBrain computer his mom won in a contest. “I loved it. You could program your own games in BASIC,” he says wistfully. “I made a bowling game…
On a recent afternoon, DJ Aero is sitting at home in L.A. cheerfully describing the set of 14 propulsive, four-to-the-floor tracks he recently helped create. Then his partner chimes in about one that’s still in the works. “We were in Costa Rica, and we recorded these girls chanting this thing…
Anja Schneider took, it seems, a sort of reverse route to worldwide techno stardom. Rather than starting out in the clubs and working her way onto free-thinking European radio, she pluckily landed on the airwaves first and worried about figuring out how to mix records later. Schneider, who grew up…
Craze has never been one to overstay his musical welcome in any one genre. The Nicaragua-born, Miami-raised DJ boasts six DMC championship titles gained largely on hip-hop-heavy routines. Then, in the late Nineties, he won over hordes of ravers with his ingenious drum ‘n’ bass deck gymnastics. But these days,…
Roxy Summers prefers to be called Roxy Cottontail, a name she says perfectly encapsulates her love of drugs and booty. Two years ago, the New York-based DJ, party promoter, and branding genius began making her own tunes. The pursuit has both widened her profile in the dance world, attracting well-known…
Of all the shiny things to come about from the stellar success of the film Juno — Diablo Cody’s career; Ellen Page — none was perhaps more brightly satisfying than the soundtrack. Among the standouts therein were Sonic Youth’s cover of the Carpenters’ classic “Superstar” and Cat Power’s rendition of…
Starting out in New York as an intern for Wyclef, DJ Ryan Morales was originally known as Shockwave thanks to his All-State New Jersey reputation as a crushing linebacker. With almost 20 years of spinning under his belt, and now referring to himself as the new and improved RM2, he’s…
James Zabiela’s story is as close to a fairy tale as it gets for a DJ. The Southampton, England native won a bedroom DJ competition from a now-defunct British dance music magazine eight years ago. Since then, he’s enjoyed a career with most of the UK superstar DJ highlights, from…
After more than two decades of one of the most celebrated careers in dance music, Little Louie Vega is still teaching the new jacks — and making bodies jack. But in recent years, Vega, ever the boundary-pusher, has expanded his conception of the groove beyond plonk-plonk-plonk. As Eddie Amador once…
He’s remixed Elvis, Madonna, and Britney into credible techno formation — and, in the King’s case, number one status all over again — as well as collaborated with Robert Smith, Gary Numan, and Dave Gahan on original ideas. But Amsterdam’s Junkie XL (born Tom Holkenborg) is audibly excited about working…
There’s something rumbling on dance floors across the United States. You might have seen it coming from France in Daft Punk’s swelling popularity or the hype surrounding the Ed Banger phenomenon. Perhaps you caught wind of it through listening to Canadian acts such as MSTRKRFT, Chromeo, and DJ A-Trak. Clubs…
Check out this clip from a 2006 PBS documentary about the band, in which they perform their song “Hey Eugene.” Pink Martini’s music is the kind of music that makes you want to fall in love. Each album contains all the perfect elements of a relationship — drama, seduction, sadness,…
Between Flo Rida’s ubiquitous “Low” and this, Miami is blowing up the Billboard charts. The boss, Rick Ross, officially released his second album, TRILLA, yesterday, at number one on the Billboard 200, with 198,000 physical copies sold… And, haters, it’s also #1 for legal digital downloads too, as well as…
Well, now that Flo Rida’s album is officially out, it’ll be interesting to see how the album sells. His hit song, “Low” has been the number one song in the country for a long time, and despite the fact that we’re paying attention to him because he’s local, the entire…
Day 3, Friday, March 14 I’ll admit, by Friday, day 3 of SXSW, I was already starting to feel the exhaustion a bit, and I was starting to need some motivational cheerleading. Luckily, I got to start the day off easy with the daytime party thrown by the Miami and…
So I’ve finally gotten a decent night’s sleep after getting back on Sunday from SXSW. And, while here in Miami, we have to start down the countdown to WMC (next Tuesday! Get excited)! I still wanted to wrap-up a summary of the live music I saw out in Texas. The…
Everybody and their grandmother, by now, knows at least the chorus and hooks to local guy Flo Rida’s inescapable track, “Low,” featuring T-Pain, that’s spent a bazillion weeks as the number-one pop song in the country. His anticipated full-length, Mail on Sunday, drops tomorrow on Poe Boy/Atlantic. (Wonder what the…
