March 25 - Slow down, babe
After hitting (too) many parties the day before - gotta say that this added to the weather conditions’d been for much with the probs I’ve encountered with the battery of my camera - I decided it was time to step down a bit and go to a fewer places. The chosen ones were King Street that turned out to be a great event with lots of producers, DJ’s and artists around - this was another great networking event at the nice outdoor Opium Garden. Lots of great music made it to my bag, so be on the watchout for the "Mami Conference Mixes" coming in the first week of April !!!
For the night, May the music be with you in... Seventh Heaven presented by ASHE NYC was THE pick as I wanted to see fresh faces spinning: Sammy Rock (Cyberjamz), Franke Estevez (Fuzion Records) and Louie 'Lou' Gorbea, with a special appearance by Jellybean Benitez. This was a musical bliss, and it is simply great to see that yound and talented producers and artists are around as addiction to the established ones. A highlight of the night were the live performances by Arnold Jarvis and Keith Thompson who performed their current singles as well as the classics "Inspiration" and "Break For love". There would have been many other interesting parties around, but honestly who needs to see the same people spinning every night? As DJ’s tend to play shorter sets and play out every night, there are far too many parties... Let’s hope one day this will change back to the better as it was in the early days of the WMC.
March 26 - the day I needed some rest
After the previous days have been pretty hectic with meeting lots of people and checking out various parties, I decided to take a rest and relax on Sunday. This was definitely necessary as my body was hardly paying the price for lots of walking, sun and drinks - but there was not enough sleep to compensate all of that anyway !.
The first thing I checked out was the Sunday Soulful Soiree where I knocked my knee on a table as it was almost dark in the club. Later on, I went to the Deep Gets Salted party which took place at the outdoor "Opium Garden". As it was a sunny day, it was a real delight hanging out there and enjoy the music. Later in the evening, that party got packed and people got excited about the music.
The night started with a visit at The 3 Chairs party starring Theo Parrish & Moodymann where deep Detroit sounds were naturally displayed, this being a welcome difference as compared to the sounds I checked out in the days and nights before. The Ain't Nothin' But A House Party closed down the night with two rooms that saw people dancing to the grooves of the DJs.
This Monday will kick off slowly but hit hard in the evening and night with many parties taking place... with my body still suffering from the previous days. It firmly looks like Tuesday will be another day to just hang around and enjoy Miami (remember there is something going on called "Spring Break"...).
March 27 - the drama came to Miami
Before we talk about Monday night, we gotta take a look at some actions that occured at The 3 Chairs party the night before. I had left the place before Hanna Haïs’s live performance. Various sources reported that after her PA, a well known DJ from Chicago took the microphone and made some comments stating that this wasn’t Black music, and that this kills Black music, which brought a bad mood to the party. Gladly, the situation could be de-escalated and the good mood came back. However this left some bad feelings among many as these statements were taken by some as racism.
Back to Monday night, the City Deep party could not start on time as there was a tree falling down that could have caused a risk to the public and needed to be removed first. As this took some time, I decided to go and take a look at the Shelter party which was taking place in two rooms at Shine (part of the "Shelbourne Ressort" hotel). While the small room was opened early, people were waiting for the opening of the big room where Timmy Regisford would play. A lot of others were also waiting outside the hotel for the party to start. That day also had the Jamie Lewis presents Miami All Stars party taking place in the evening at the Delano Hotel, but I did leave early as the temperature went down fast and I started to freeze. After getting something to eat, I went to the Cha Cha Project party and later to the Phuture Sole & Slaag party which both suffered from the fact that there were too many events going on at the same time, including three big ones: Shelter, OM Records and Cielo.This led to a situation that these two smaller parties had not much attendance although people definitely missed the fantastic one hour long live performances by Remedy, John Pierce, Diamond Temple and Dawn Tallmann at the Phuture Sole & Slaag party which can ony be described as being off the hook and will remain among my favorite moments of this year’s Miami conference.
Back at the Miami gathering on its whole (although there are still some parties on tonight and tomorrow), the whole situation as far as all these events are concerned needs definitely a change. I mean, many DJ’s played almost every day, and their sets were mostly only one or two hours long, so what the interest??? But also I wonder about the need of regular parties being taken down to Miami such as Roots, Cielo and Shelter out of NYC. This no doubt added to the fact that there were far too many parties, meanwhile the big ones kept people from checking out things held by smaller labels and DJs and, as a result, this led to a situation where we haven’t had a single event where everybody would come as one. Let’s hope once again that next year will bring a change for the better
March 28 - the day after
I guess that like many of those who’ve attended the Miami festivities, I’m glad in a sense the whole thing’s over. More and more stuff goin’ havin’ us goin’ from one place to another in Miami Beach had to come to an end with the absolute necessity to get some recovery which hopefully I did with my first 9 hours sleep in 10 days! This explaining why I'm sendin' you this ultimate daily mail so lately!!!
As I said, there was so much (too much) going on the past few days to keep track of everything. Musicwise, this seems to be a good year for Miami asthere are many hot tunes around, some of them you only will be getting as bootlegs. For instance, take "Mary Don't You Weep" by Craig Loftis that samples the same titled Aretha Franklin classic and for legal reasons cannot get a proper release , although some labels were interested in licensing it. As for the legal releases concern, there is a phat new Pirahnahead which I think you've already got infos about recently on InDaMix Worldwide. King Street have some hot tunes on their Miami samplers, Tony Humphries has finally kicked off his Tony Records imprint, Bobby & Steve have a great soulful tune, Defected are ready to drop some bombs as well, so to be prepared for a bunch of great releases over the coming weeks and months.
Partywise, one could feel the slowdown as many peeps had already left Miami, with much fewer parties taking place and the ones I checked out not being that crowded. During daytime, I had lunch with some close friends of mine, after that I enjoyed the nice weather and had some drinks. The night started with the One Love (The Music) LA/Detroit/Chicago meet in Miami party that features an awesome live performance by Malik Alston. The next stop was the Symple Sounds meets Soul Simple party, but unfortunately there were some problems, so it never got underway as planned. Therefore, I decided to leave and went over to the United Dance Society party which featured live performances by Temple Dynasty who presented his upcoming release "Loose control" (to be released on Fuzion Records) as well as KT Brooks, also presenting his ucpoming release. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the song for the moment, but you should know what I'm talkin' about while havin' a look at Franke Estevez and George Mena's interview on InDaMix Worldwide. So what to expect then? As I'm gonna be in Toronto next weekend, you gotta wait a few more days for my "Miami 2006 Mixshows" which will feature lots of fresh music, including some exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.