Wonder why half-naked people in neon tights are wandering the streets of downtown Miami? Welcome! You are obviously new here. Every March, Ultra Music Festival and its satellite events, both official and unofficial — the whole mess is dubbed Miami Music Week — take over Miami and, to some extent, Miami Beach.
There’s a very simple reason that Miami Music Week is world-renowned: The quality and quantity of parties dotting the city’s landscape are unparalleled. We’re only a day away from the 2017 edition of Ultra Music Festival, but the road to Bayfront Park is littered with side streets leading to sick parties.
Michael Brun was a student at Indiana’s Culver Military Academy in 2010 when Hell-on-Earth struck his native Haiti. The massive earthquake killed more than 220,000, injured more than 300,000 others, and left more than a million people homeless. The island was in shambles; there was no communication in or out…
Ellen Allien talks border walls, women in electronic music, and Miami Music Week.
London-born Jesse Rose, one of the most quietly celebrated house DJs in the world, has never played Ultra. And thanks to his impending retirement, he never will. “There used to be a thing where if you played Ultra, you couldn’t play any other parties,” he recalls. “And for me, you…
Damian Lazarus throws the best parties. That isn’t an exaggeration. And as evidenced by his staying power, it’s hardly even an opinion. Now in its 12th year, Get Lost is a 24-hour techno party and the longest-running underground event during Miami Music Week. It will begin at 5 a.m. Saturday, March 25, and wrap up at 5 a.m. the next day.
Shit just got real, people. Your options for ditching work and partying all day have tripled in the span of 24 hours, and New Times is here to help sort it out. Offering everything from big names at giant clubs to up-and-comers at smaller gigs, Miami Music Week is in full swing today.
David Sinopoli is an exciting character. As musical director of the famed bar Bardot, cofounder of the III Points music fest, and one-third of the triad now trying to right the foundering ship Club Space, he knows a thing or two about Miami music. The shows Sinopoli and crew have assembled for Miami Music Week – both at Bardot and Space – prove as much.
Playing Miami in the springtime is nothing new for DJ Laidback Luke. “I’ve been to Winter Music Conference every year since 2001,” he tells New Times. “It helped me as an up-and-comer handing out demos and mixtapes. I remember in 2005, I played a hotel lobby, and only three people…
The best things to do Tuesday during Miami Music Week.
There’s a 2007 episode of the BBC Two program The Culture Show that closes with Underworld performing its seminal 1996 hit, “Born Slippy .NUXX” in an anonymous English field. While his longtime creative partner Rick Smith and Underworld touring member Darren Price fiddle away at the monolithic mixing board in…
Sometimes when the future calls, it tells you to drop out of school. That’s precisely what Lodewijk Fluttert did before embarking on his career as Bakermat. Not a terrible decision considering the former Utrecht University psychology student is a rising star on the international dance scene.
Geronimo doesn’t agree that dance music — EDM, in particular — is dying. “I think the genre has never been healthier,” he says. “I think we are pulling from places we’ve never pulled before as far as new artists. Young and emerging producers from every corner of the globe are…
He may be a jet-setting DJ and head of the label Knee Deep in Sound, but recently, Hot Since 82, AKA Daley Padley, was knee-deep in something else: mosquito bites. “I’ve got over 40 bites all down my leg,” he says. “I’ve not been bit a lot before this.” Mosquitoes…
Downtown Miami’s streets are a stop-and-go roller coaster designed by a renegade gang of evil Disney Imagineers. If you time it wrong — say you arrive right at the end of a Heat game or concert at Bayfront Park (or both, which is a particularly apocalyptic traffic scenario that happens…
Disappointed you weren’t able to snag a ticket to Ultra Music Festival this weekend? Or is the astronomical expense to spend the first days of spring in Miami just out of reach? Ultra Music Festival doesn’t plan to leave you out in the cold. The festival announced plans to stream 26…
There are ventriloquists in Las Vegas, sunrise sets in Ibiza, field raves in England, and pool parties in Miami; we all have our strengths. Take notes, Sin City, because the Magic City was doing this before you even knew dance music existed. Important: Floaties at pool parties aren’t funny, so please be respectful. The cocktails with the overturned Coronas, however, are great. Also, ladies, be cognizant of your coverups; one woman at the Delano last year had a fishnet-ass-cheeks sunburn.
Hynde is happy to have a headlining date at the Fillmore while on a break from a tour opening for Stevie Nicks. “We get to play a lot of the new songs.” Those new songs are from the Pretenders’ tenth album, Alone, which was released last year. Produced and including guitars by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, it features the punk-rock attitude Hynde has displayed throughout her career.
A rundown of the best afterhours sets and parties at Miami Music Week.
The city is filled with techno music during Miami Music Week. A diet of just one of the 80-plus venues would satisfy even the most discerning techno palate. If the options become overwhelming, write the names of the parties on small pieces of paper, crumple them up, put them in a fedora, and draw randomly.
It’s nearly Miami Music Week 2017, and the cash cow of EDM has supposedly been slaughtered. The Miami Herald has said it. So has Pitchfork. Even New Times is demanding a sea change in the dance music industry that will save us from the monotony of stale DJs and distasteful acts like the Chainsmokers.
Moon Boots is set to play at Bardot on Tuesday, March 21 and the Anjunadeep party on Saturday, March 25 at Gramps Bar. United by Anjuna, “beats” and “deep” are the two labels owned and operated by Above & Beyond. In short, Anjunabeats for trance and Anjunadeep for house.
