This year, Miami’s Ultra Music Festival turns 18-years-old. Which means, under Ultra’s new age restrictions, it can finally attend itself (while smoking a cigarette). And the festival’s maturity is starting to show. Day one of Ultra was largely a smooth success. Even Mother Nature cooperated (which didn’t happen during last…
With the success of their recent record, Another Eternity, Canadian masters of “future pop,” Purity Ring, find themselves the masters of their own destiny. With their first record, Shrines, everything, from production to recording, was handled by the duo of Megan James (vocals) and Corin Roddick (instrumentals), mostly via the…
With Ultra Miami exactly one week away, now is a good time to start planning your festival schedule. Check out the full UMF 2016 lineup and set times below. Friday, March 18 Main Stage 11:00 p.m. MArtin GArrix 9:55 p.m. DJ Snake 8:50 p.m. Armin van Buuren 7:45 p.m. Kaskade…
So you didn’t get a ticket to Ultra Miami this year? We’re sorry to hear that. But you’ll still be able to experience UMF 2016 from afar. This year, like last year and the year before that, Ultra will be live streaming the action across the interwebs. Live from from an…
In a few short years, EDM vocalist Vassy has found unexpected international acclaim in unlikely places. She’s had songs appear on shows like Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy. The song she did with David Guetta and Showtek, “Bad,” reached number one on charts from Finland to South Korea and back…
Any Miamian who has so much as thought about being in a band probably knows the name Oski Gonzalez. The Miami local has been putting on shows since he was 15. He booked bands for Tobacco Road since 2006 and is single-handedly responsible for some of the best local shows…
Many like to segment dance music and compartmentalize artists, but often times that’s the difference between producers and fans. “I don’t know what the fuck deep house is,” Danish artist Kölsch told us from his home in Copenhagen. “I guess I know what the definitions of the of the different…
Every year in March, over 70,000 fans, musical acts, 50-plus food vendors and dozens of merchandise exhibitors converge on Sun Life Stadium in the City of Miami Gardens for Jazz in the Gardens. This year marks the eleventh edition of the show, and boasts a lineup including Usher, Charlie Wilson,…
Four years ago, Patrick Topping was just another dude from England wandering the South Beach strip, hopping from party to party, getting his mind totally blown by Miami Music Week, Winter Music Conference, and the hundreds of satellite parties around the city. This year, he’s back to play Ultra Music…
Laidback Luke is wearing a black flat-top Nike hat. His bedroom, or at least the part of it visible on Skype, is decorated in all black and white. It makes sense this guy likes South Beach. He basically sleeps in a room that looks like the Cadillac Hotel. He’s with…
For the last month of 2013, Pete Tong kept a secret that might’ve made his mother cry. In November, he’d answered a call from his manager regarding what Tong calls a “bizarre” proposal. After nearly 40 years in the music industry, the legendary British DJ and radio host was invited…
Matriphagy; noun: A condition in which the young cannibalize their creator to survive. It’s a practice common among crab spiders, whose mothers sacrifice themselves to trigger the predatory instinct. The younger generation doesn’t kill in bad blood. Overwhelming, the parent is necessary for growth, the only way to fulfill the…
If you ask most people to list three things the world needs less of, they’ll likely say war, disease, and spiders. In fact, arachnophobia is one of the most common fears in America. It’s practically stamped into our psyche. At some point in mankind’s evolutionary past, getting caught in an…
At the age of 15, Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman listened to garage music on pirate radio and got around London with the help of a couple fake IDs. They went to a lot of raves — the old school, hardcore kinds — and listened to early Orbital and Prodigy…
If all you do during Miami Music Week is chase marquee names from party to party, you’re doing it wrong. At its core, this week has always been about discovering new acts and sounds. The days of Daft Punk spinning at local clubs and poolside are certainly over (yes, that…
So you’re going to Ultra this year. Maybe you’re a first-timer, or perhaps you’re a veteran. Maybe you’re going for the music, or maybe you’re going for the atmosphere. The point is, you’re going. And so are somewhere north of 50,000 other people. When you get that many bodies together…
Paul van Dyk’s annual visit to Miami will not happen this year. The German trance legend fell 20-feet off the main stage during his February 27 set at A State of Trance 750 in Utrecht, Holland. He was airlifted to an Amsterdam hospital where he was treated for a concussion…
Each year, for six-straight days in March, our city gets a little louder. Its known as Miami Music Week, and it has become one of the world’s greatest migrations of dance music lovers. Like thirsty buffalo in search of water, both tourists and locals alike will brave the dangers of…
For live artists, praising the city they have found themselves playing in is an all but essential practice. Whether it be New York City or some Podunk town in nowhere, U.S.A., the codification of concert etiquette has all but strong-armed artists into proclaiming “I love/thank you/ ‘insert municipality of choice…
There are six days in March where the 305 is inundated with every DJ and dance music-lover this side of the equator. They call it Miami Music Week, but for the music lovers who don’t know EDM from WTF, you don’t have to spend the entire week with your head…
Last year was my first time at Ultra, and when I close my eyes and think about it, one image in particular keeps popping up. It was the final night and Eric Prydz was playing at the Carl Cox & Friends Arena. The arena was an open-air semicircular enclosure and…
Back in the mid-2000s, Studio A was known as Miami’s quintessential underground party spot, a place where the Magic City’s misfits would go to see everyone from M.I.A. to Moby put on raw, uncensored performances. It was a mid-sized venue that hosted some of the 305’s most infamous weekly parties,…
