Hello folks, taking another break from being in the dark for a while to announce an LA rising star: Justin Michael. I met the guy personally and saw his set at Exchange (awesome venue) on a good ol’ fashioned Saturday night, and I must say I was blown away. Justin, besides being a great guy in person, controlled the crowd very well, and dropped a lot of euphoric house tracks that I loved dancing to. He’s very talented and plays a lot of those ethereal tracks that completely fill the room with sound. No wonder he opened for Kaskade when he played in LA at the Palladium! If you want to support a very quickly up and coming Los Angeles local, here are a couple of things to check out. The first is his mix entry for the Axwell competition to play at the Axtone party in Miami. If you like it, click the heart, and share share share! Help represent LA in Miami during Ultra week. That’ll show those east coast bastards who’s boss.

The second thing would be a preview of Justin’s new track. He just got signed to Armada, Armin van Buuren’s behemoth label. Perhaps pretty soon he will be gracing the stage at festivals like Beyond Wonderland and EDC (gotta be any DJs dream), but for now be sure to catch Justin Michael playing somewhere in LA soon via his Facebook page. This track is definitely an epic track with great vocals and a heart-warming synth. Can’t wait to hear it live. Just a heads up regarding the preview: be prepared to be teased in the worst way possible! Don’t hate me!

© 2012, M Silin. All rights reserved.

I remember a few years ago hearing about this dude Afrojack. I checked out his track Polkadots and thought it was a great track. Didn’t really think much more of it.

Fast forward to today and the guy is huge. Simply huge. He played both days at EDC 2010 and continues to get top billing nationwide. According to Wikipedia, he’s helped produce the records of a lot of people in the pop music scene, including Pitbull and Ne-Yo who thanked him personally when he won a VMA. Afrojack is also rumored to be dating Paris Hilton but… that’s another story.

Some might know this already while some might not, but Las Vegas is simply blowing up this year with EDM. Last year the Wynn had Afrojack for a residency and while nothing has been announced this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got something similar going since I’ve already seen 3 dates with him playing at either Surrender or XS. While I’m dying to know how much money he’s making at these gigs, one thing is a fact – he is huge.

Personally, I am not a fan of all of his music. Some of it is simply too much bleeps and bloops. As a person who lives and dies by progressive music, I’ve gotta have a melody of some sort, and a lot of his tracks are missing that. However when Afrojack does put in a melody, it delivers. Some of my favorite tracks of his are Collide with Leona Lewis (even though he blatantly jacked Avicii’s melody and got sued for it) and his remix of The Wombats. But my favorite currently is, surprisingly, his collaboration with David Guetta which is called Lunar.

Say what you will but the sound is simply massive and it’s a great party track. Definitely would love to hear this dropped at a festival… and with Beyond Wonderland and EDC around the corner, I have a good chance at my dreams coming true!

Back to the point though – Vegas is doing it big this year, which is exciting since LA is just a 4 hour drive away. XS, Marquee, Surrender, Tao, and Tryst all have top house DJs rolling through on a WEEKLY basis. That’s right, you heard me. A massive shift has taken place this year. XS, the biggest club in Vegas, has shown the new direction of partying and clubbing – they are doing house DJs on their Friday and Saturday nights. So anyone who is still resisting this movement and this music is crazy . I’m seeing Calvin Harris at XS this coming weekend and I will report back with a review and some tips to have a good time, but in the meantime I hope everyone has fun out there in Vegas. My friends saw Afrojack a few weeks back and had a blast, and of course if Don Johnson is willing to pop some bottles, you know it’s going to be a party.

© 2012, M Silin. All rights reserved.

Each one has its own pluses and minuses – LessThan3 has a lot of GREAT content, and the website functionality is amazing. Not sure how they are monetizing, or if they are, but I imagine it did cost money to build that site so kudos to them. Dancing Astronaut solved a problem we weren’t able to on this blog – they got comments! A lot of folks seem to read and comment on their posts, I imagine it’s because they write a lot about the big guns (Avicii, Afrojack, SHM, etc.). Kudos to them as well. And last but not least TA is for the old-schoolers who gripe about anything new and like to talk about the good ol’ days, but it is a great place to find out about local events and ticket presales.

Long story short, there are solid options out there. As for us, Rob has moved out of the country so he is not an LA Beat Connector at the moment, and I am busy with work and feel uninspired to write. One of the big reasons was because we were unable to foster a community on this blog. My thought is that it was because we wrote about a lot of niche music and events – people who go to those and listen to that music are harder to find than engage. Also we were very eclectic in the types of music we wrote about. And if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a single thing.

However, for now, I am going to write a little bit less often, but try to use the blog’s SEO love to drive some traffic to it and generate a bit of affiliate income. So to the user who feels like this is shady, cheap, or shameful in any way – I am being very straightforward in here. And perhaps in the future we’ll come back to writing about EDM and all of its glorious experiences more frequently – if you want to become a writer and get this blog back up and running, let me know!

OK now that I got out of the way, I wanted to mention a sponsor that we recently got. I know back in the day I used to play a lot of online poker. I even know a guy living in LA who makes his entire living off of playing poker online. It’s pretty crazy how you can just sit in your bedroom and rake in cash – who would have thought that that would be possible even 15 years ago? Anyway, there are tons of good sites out there, and one of the best is definitely Party Poker. So definitely check them out and support this blog. If the blog starts bringing in enough revenue I would be more than happy to hire writers and get LA’s beats connected again!!!

© 2012, M Silin. All rights reserved.

It’s true. Even EDM neophytes are aware of Tiesto. He’s essentially a deity in the electronic community, his presence is so much greater than himself as an individual.

I’ve been lucky enough to see Tiesto three times in the past year (the only year I’ve been exposed to any type of EDM music. Also known as the best year ever) but saying I’m excited about his College Invasion show at the Home Depot Center tomorrow is an understatement. First of all the lineup is crazy, if Tiesto wasn’t enough Dada Life and Diplo have been thrown into the mix, and he’s planning to set a record for the largest single DJ event in US history.

I hate to say it so obviously. But shit’s about to get maximal crazy.

© 2011, mbata. All rights reserved.

I was pumped to find out Calvin Harris was coming to NYC. His set at Masquerade Motel literally blew my mind and when he tweeted he was coming to New York I was sold. No questions asked.

When I found out he was coming to Pacha I changed my mind—-but then he decided to come to Lavo, aka Narnia on earth, and I was back on board.

So. Let’s talk about his set. First Calvies gets major points for actually hanging out in the crowd while Treasure Fingers was opening up. I didn’t even realize I was dance battleing him for a bit and then I put two and two together and figured the extremely tall British man was actually the DJ in question. If only he was sporting fly eyes.

His set was your standard Calvin Harris set. All bangers all the time. He mixed in some of his classics like “I’m Not Alone,” “You Used to Hold Me” and “Ready For The Weekend.” I literally got tingles when he started playing “Awooga” (awooga will always have a special place in my heart though) and he got the crowd bouncing with “Bounce.” In typical Calvin Harris fashion he mixed in some crowd favorites like “Dirty Talk” and “Barbara Streisand.” All in all a great house set.

Maybe it was because I wasn’t dancing in the sand, maybe it’s because it wasn’t Miami or maybe it’s because it was Cinco De Mayo and I was sincerely hoping he’d be wearing a bedazzled sombrero but his set was kind of a let down. There wasn’t as much energy, people didn’t seem as into it and I’m not sure if anyone could actually recognize the music but I’m starting to expect that with the NYC house crowd.

© 2011, mbata. All rights reserved.

Axwell is by far my favorite thing from Sweden.

I said it. I like him better than ikea, socialism and definitely more than Swedish fish. Those are waxy and synthetic. Axwell is anything but.

There’s a reason why my best friend has Swedish House Mafia listed as her religion on facebook. Axwell’s show at the Roseland was as close to a spiritual experience as I’ll probably ever get. But before I can even get into the show I have to talk about the venue.

Because it’s gross.

I get that the Roseland Ballroom in NYC is probably one of the best places for DJs to do shows in NYC. It’s not as cheesy as Pacha, not as exclusive as Lavo and the open space gives you the feel of a massive without actually being outdoors for 7 hours straight. Deadmau5, Steve Angello and and Armin Van Buren all choose the Roseland when they want to put on major shows in the city and since they can get away with intense pyrotechnics and crazy light shows I don’t blame them…I just wish it didn’t feel like a seedy broadway theater and have awful rose carpeting. The place was packed with under and over grown ravers too…if I didn’t have stage access I would have been in the worst mood ever when he was spinning.

Anyway. Axwell blew my mind. He introduced his set with a teaser of “Miami to Ibiza” and then remixed Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep”—just like SHM did in Miami. You could hear the crowd give a collective “oooooh” when he started to drop “Awooga” (since anyone who wasn’t in Miami or at Coachella had probably never heard it live before) and then he started experimenting with his set. For a solid 30 minutes Axwell—aka the king of instruments—was playing straight electro and killing it.

About halfway through his 4 hour set he got super Swedish on the mic and started saying “MY NAME IS AXWELL. I AM FROM THE SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA” and then led into SHM classics. “One”, “Nothing But Love”, “Teenage Crime” and “In the Air”. He even dropped some of my favorite pop mixes like “Otherside” and “Clocks” but my favorite parts of the set were definitely when he played the SHM remix of “The Island” and “Save The World”.

Saying Axwell put on an amazing show was an understatement. Then again I’m convinced the man can do no wrong.

All hail Axwell House Mafia.

© 2011, mbata. All rights reserved.

Marquee Las Vegas

As if Vegas couldn’t get any crazier, they are coming out with some insane line-ups for 3 day weekends. If you’re smart and know what’s up, you might as well buy tickets to Labor Day weekend in Vegas now and save yourself the trouble. They will probably be teleporting in DJs from Electric Zoo just to play some epic sets…

In this case, we have a ridiculous line-up at Marquee. Before I get into it, let me just throw out what else is going on:

Wet Republic has Tiesto and David Guetta gracing their pool party.
Palms has The Love Festival with Paul Van Dyk, Marcus Schossow, Paul Oakenfold, Chromeo, and others.
Club XS is featuring Afrojack, Deadmau5, and A-Trak.

So those are all good and great, but you know me, I’m a fanboy. And ever since I went to Marquee in February, my favoritism has seen no bounds.

As you can see in the poster above, I would definitely say that from an objective standpoint, Marquee has taken the line-up prize for Memorial Day in Vegas, individually. Of course, ballers like champagne king Don Johnson can afford to create a line-up of their own by just going to whatever club they want. But for those of us with a limit to the cash in our pocket (and our credit), we have to pick a place and stay there until they tell us to leave. And even then we must demand to get passes to a future event or else sue them for the slippery floor conditions. And that should, in my opinion, be done at Marquee.

Let’s start with Friday. You just got to Vegas. Maybe you flew. Maybe you drove. But you want to unwind. Here’s a meek suggestion – Roger Sanchez and Markus Schulz back to back. The kind of party, Miami house followed by the king of insane, dark, Miami trance. Having just seen Markus at Avalon, I can testify that you are in for a treat. The man has been getting consistently better for the past few years and is definitely at his peak right now. Case in point: last year saw him at Avalon and, while it was pretty crowded, the floor was fairly scant by the time we left at 4:30 AM. This time – we left at 4:15 AM and there was still a line to get to the main floor. Simply insane how popular Markus has gotten. He’s still the man and I still support him. He works hard and puts a lot of thought into his music – I wish him the best.

After that you’ve got a nice pool set by Above and Beyond, not bad, followed by Laidback Luke (who just recently had to clarify on Twitter that his first name is, in fact, not “Laid”) and ATB. That’s a nice little party package for a Saturday, but you should probably rest up. Sunday features a pool set by some dude Fatboy Slim and then an even lesser known but up-and-comer named Armin van Buuren. Holy crap. If the Cosmopolitan doesn’t burst at the seams that day, then something isn’t right with this world. What an insane line-up. The whole weekend rounds out with Chuckie and Robbie Rivera bringing some Dutch and Ibiza house sounds to the pool, and then LMFAO at night (probably a skipper, considering what you’ve just gone through over the past few days).

Absolutely amazing. Any Euro who thinks they’ve got it better just got a smelly, used sock stuffed in their mouth. That’s right. And they’re probably on a plane to Vegas anyway, because they “might as well check it out, even though (they’re) better”. Take that Euros! (Seriously, I <3 Europe, I’m just happy that I get to gloat about the U.S. for once).

Whatever you do Memorial Day weekend, wherever you go, whatever you see, have fun out there. I’ll be turning the big two four, so please twitter us @LABeatCo and let us know how you celebrated the weekend. In the meantime, let me end with a track as I always do. A little preview of EDC and what the Swedish House Mafia will bring to the table. Come back to LA soon, Axwell.

© 2011, M Silin. All rights reserved.

Good. Me too. So when I heard about One Step Beyond, the American Museum of Natural History’s monthly concert series, I was too hype for my own good. Dinosaurs and lasers! Blue lights and blue whales! The nerdy combinations could go on for years (I’ll spare you) and once I found out Dave 1 from Chromeo was the main act for the April show I was sold.

Sadly the show was in the Rose Center for Earth & Space, not the main entrance with the giant dinosaur, which still made for a completely unique setting—even though the sound wasn’t as great as it could have been. There were max 400 people there so the show was really intimate and fun plus Dave 1 was doing a great job at working and interacting with the crowd. Must run in the family.

In any case, Dave delivered a solid set of straight disco and dance…exactly what you expect from the hotter half of Chromeo. The funny thing is my favorite parts of the show were when he wasn’t even playing his own music. He dropped ‘Big Bad Wolf’ and ‘Heads Will Roll’ (brotherly love!) and Robyn’s ‘Indestructible’ and towered the end of the show we were all itching for ‘Barbara Streisand’ so when he played it the entire crowd went nuts. He gave the show the perfect ending with classic Chromeo, ‘Fancy Footwork’.

Dave even stuck around post show to hang with groupies and fans alike (you can decide which one I am)—and i even snagged a picture and an after party invite. At least this time I knew which Macklovitch brother i was talking to.

© 2011, mbata. All rights reserved.

TICKET LINK

That’s right folks – it’s time for HARD Summer Festival. This year it will be August 6 in Downtown Los Angeles… with 6 stages. Insane how quickly this festival has grown and how many acts it’s got on the lineup. DuckSauce, Boyz Noize, Skrillex, and Ratatat should attract plenty of electro hipsters (which got denied from Urban Dictionary by the way, WTF?) and then dubstep crowd will be pleased to see both Nero and Caspa on the role sheet.

The venue is the LA State Historic Park, which, based on Rob’s previous experience, seems to be a fantastic place to have a festival. It’s also outdoors in the middle of an LA summer. So I guess the real question is – what exactly are you waiting for? Grab your tickets here.

Meanwhile, here’s my favorite Nero track… I’m sure you’ve heard this one before but it’s a goodie.

© 2011, M Silin. All rights reserved.