According to FACT’s calculations, the average large-scale weekend festival will cost any given attendee £420 (about $640 USD). Are those fees pricing out the younger folks that are most likely to show up to such an event? Read on to see how FACT breaks it down.
A few years back, director Stephen Alex Vasquez decided to take a look at the coming revolution in electronic music in the US, via acts like Steve Aoki, Diplo, Switch, Lil Jon, Pitbull, A-Trak, Dave-1, DJ Premier, Moby, LMFAO, and more. As Justice and David Guetta were making waves in the US, and artists like Kanye West were teaming up with the likes of Daft Punk, it only made sense to start documenting the sea change. What Vasquez didn’t have in terms of filmmaking resources, the upstart interviewer, videographer, and producer more than made up for in sheer tenacity, landing spots with many of the aforementioned artists in their career prime.
Maybe it’s not the first thing you’d expect for a video whose track yanks liberally from Alice DeeJay’s “Better Off Alone,” but David Guetta’s new clip for his collab with Akon and Ne-Yo, “Play Hard,” is a pretty stunning conflagration of high-art references. Director Andreas Nilsson plays with a number of different Mexican cultural references, but there may be a few other filmic touchstones at work here as well.
Pacha has long been an anchor club on the Ibiza nightlife scene, having laid down its roots in the ’70s and established itself as an anti-Franco retreat for bohemians and artists. Of course, over the decades, it’s grown into a multi-million-dollar-a-year business and has hosted some of the biggest names in dance music ever—Tiesto, David Guetta, and Erick Morillo being just a few of them. Now, however, the club’s owners are striking back at the astronomical fees being demanded by top-tier DJs, and as such, have fired their music director, Danny Whittle, and have not renewed booking engagements for Luciano, Morillo, or the Defected In the House event.
From fake podcasts to fake acquisitions to fake VSTs and production gear, we love us some April Fool’s Day jokes—and the internet was full of ‘em today. Check out some of our favorites from all the news that’s normally fit to print.
Miami’s musical festivities may be long over now, but the flood of media from the events there isn’t letting up—and sure, we take full credit for some of that. While Lauren Salm stalked out club nights and days for us in the written form, photographer Jennifer Catherine was busy snapping away at all hours. Here are 10 of her most epic shots from the week.
Italian dream team Daddy’s Groove may not reign from a sovereign state in electronic music, but their sound would have the world think otherwise. Having worked under such monikers as Spit and Black Raw for Size Records and holding remix duties for the likes of Whitney Houston to Louie Vega, the Naples-based trio—lesser known as Gianni Romano, Carlo Grieco, and Peppe Folliero—found themselves within earshot of French icon David Guetta, who has ceaselessly matched their studio aptitude with his own guidance and collaborative efforts.
In the same vein as their heavyweight mentor, pop music and modern club fuel have both been fair game in terms of Daddy’s Groove’s output. With contrasting crowd-pleasers “Stellar” and “Vertigo” now out, Beatport News checked in with Grieco to scope Daddy’s Groove uncharted reign over the middle grounds of modern dance music.
Swedish electro-house duo Taped Rai recently made a splash with their debut single “Just One Last Time,” featuring the one and only David Guetta. Members Tom Liljegren and Alexander Ryberg sent an idea for the song to Guetta, and he liked it so much he flew them immediately to Ibiza to finish the track together, which went on to receive a huge amount of support and top the Beatport charts. Naturally, they’re ready to capitalize on the momentum in 2013, so we took a moment to hear about some of the tracks they’ve been playing in their sets.
You may recall that last summer we tracked the ongoing trials and tribulations of 11 up-and-coming DJs from around Europe as they vied for three coveted spots in burn studios’ residency competition in Ibiza. Now the contest has returned for another big season, and the submission window is open for DJs just like you to be mentored by Steve Lawler, Solomun, Maceo Plex, and plenty more music-industry giants—and of course, to find yourself in one of burn’s much-ballyhooed club residencies.
Beatport staffer and photographer Jordan Loyd hits a fair number of gigs each year, in between his day-to-day office duties, attending college, and shooting for the likes of NBC, The Dew Tour, and plenty of other big outfits. So naturally, since he’s already our go-to guy for shooting our favorite artists (which you’ll often see on our Facebook page), we tapped him for his 10 favorite shots of 2012.
