(skip to the red if you just want to hear about the event hehe)
I am very critical about my area when it comes to EDM, house music specifically. This is because of the 20 some years of being involved in the club scene in this area I have seen the trend come and go to varying degrees, most recently and oddly enough with the pick up of dance music on mainstream radio it seems the concept of playing NEW music that isn't on the top 40 playlist is still very foreign to this area. If it doesnt have Pitbull, Flo Rida, Usher or Britney on the track chances are, people will resist it. The few and rare songs here and there that do well outside of the mainstream generally SOUND like something mainstream or sample mainstream music. I sometimes catch a lot of shit for playing mainstream with mostly unknown dance music but hey, at the end of the day I just want people to enjoy themselves while staying true to who I am as a DJ and creator of music. I feel the best way to introduce a mainstream crowd to music they aren't familiar with is to give it to them in doses and help them digest the tracks that way, at least in this area. With that being said, I am a house music guy at heart, and it will always been what I love the most when I spin from my heart. This is exactly what I wanted to do a music show where the DJs got to set the mood without any worry of requests or pressure from the crowd, to let the DJs take everyone on a very personal journey of the music they love and want to spin.
I got the chance to talk with my friend DJ Bulldog (Ray) about my desire to do something like this. An event where we could custom create it the way we wanted and deliver it to the area to give them a chance to hear us out, a night where they could come and dance, hang out, sit and drink and just enjoy alternative music to mainstream. DJ Bulldog came up with the idea for a Tidewater Music Festival event to umbrella any parties or promotions we wanted to create. I tossed out the idea for "Fire & Ice" sort of a theme that has been used in the past and most recently by Kaskade. I felt as if the idea of mixing fire and ice, hot and cold etc sort of embodied what this first event would be, bridging the community back to the music of years ago. Bringing house music back to the area in a way that hasn't been showcased, in my opinion, properly in over a decade. Yes there are lots of great dance clubs in the area, I know I am biased but the Cactus offers one of the best spots to come dance and party on a weekend, and there isn't anything wrong with mixing mainstream music and traditional house, but the music is sort of an afterthought to the drag shows and I feel like that has become a crutch and sort of a thing that this area has been trained into believing. If there isn't a drag show somewhere then there is nothing going on, with that being said when ISN'T there a drag show somewhere now? No shade but its hard to find. So I wanted to take a bit of the power back for the dance music enthusiasts in this area, those that don't "get it" say to me "Are DJ's really entertainment?" My response to that is, Ultra Music Festival in Miami this past weekend offered a lineup of 20 DJs and had over 200,000 in attendance, so my answer would be YES. That doesn't even cover the clubs, afterparties and off site events that happened. Bottom line, we are entertainers, we don't just push buttons and play music from an iPod. There is a skill to not only moving the crowd and controlling the atmosphere but being able to predict if a song will work or not and having the ability to keep the energy at the right level throughout a night.
I take what I do seriously because I have a lot of passion for music and DJing. I think the DJs, however they mix, for a living, a hobby, in their bedroom, on the internet, the same thing remains we LOVE the music. So next time you are out at a club and you may not enjoy every song you hear remember the DJ selected that song for you to listen to because they felt it had something to say. We aren't just a jukebox, some of us are selected because of our talent and skill. I know some DJs don't take requests and others love requests but at the end of the day we all love playing for the people.
This is the most important part of my diatribe LOL! I want to thank everyone that came out to support this event. I saw a lot of my good friends in the house as well as faces I hadn't seen before. It was good to know that on a Monday in Va Beach, Va we could pull off an EDM event and get over 150 people to come through the doors and have a good time. I want to personally thank Alan, Krisha, Kathy and Garrett at my residency The Rainbow Cactus for working hard and allowing us to present this event. I want to thank the staff from the Cactus who came out to party with us on their night off, it meant a lot. I want to thank Nozz & Jimmy for the great posters and artwork that was done for the event & Art for running around and helping me get them posted up! I have to give a huge shout out to my partner in crime and the mastermind DJ Bulldog for being so supportive of this idea and putting so much work into making it happen, I could list all he did but it would require an entire blog dedicated to him!!! All the DJs who dedicated time to this event DJ Silver, DJ Nozz & DJ Nathan Patrick, they all had some very diverse music to bring and offered a wide variety!
So here is to a successful event, victory for all passionate about EDM. Thanks to the support of everyone we are going to start planning the second party hosted by TMF and the lineup for that event! Expect to hear more of this in the future! Below I have included the entire 6 hour set from the event so if you want to stream or download it feel free! I will list my start and stop times above the podcast. The lineup was done in blocks and a rotation of 2, DJ Nathan Patrick, DJ Airrick, DJ Nozz, DJ Bulldog & DJ Silver. Enjoy the podcast and hope to see you at the next Tidewater Music Fest event!
My portion of the set starts at (55mins) & ends at (1:32mins)
My second set starts at (4:07mins) & ends at (4:35mins)
No comments:
Post a Comment