It’s that time of year again. And no, we’re not exactly talking about Ultra Music Festival, Winter Music Conference, and Miami Music Week. We here at Crossfade are actually referring to the receipt of Louis Puig’s incredibly detailed semi-annual “tell-it-like-it-is letter regarding EDM.” His latest screed touches upon many subjects,…
“A little sun can bring out your dark side.” And that’s nothing we don’t know. But it’s also the tag line of Harmony Korine’s upcoming teen-flick-gone-mad Spring Breakers. You know, the one starring a gangster James Franco and a barely dressed Selena Gomez, hitting theaters Friday, March 22. Korine, who…
Every March, Miami is seized by total EDM insanity, reverberating with bass, techno, house, trance, and everything electronic. With Ultra Music Festival (this year expanding to two weekends), Winter Music Conference, and Miami Music Week all falling within the same ten-day span, the uhntz-uhntz will be (almost) inexhaustible. See also:…
From jamming with funk forefathers to helping break New Jack Swing and cofounding legendary ’90s R&B label LaFace Records with partner Antonio “L.A.” Reid, the man known as Babyface has spent three decades creating and shaping pop music. Now 53, Kenneth Edmonds is working on a new album by Aretha…
Winter Music Conference used to be a whole week of industry insiders schmoozing it up and trading records, but now it’s all about the pool parties. And does that really bother anyone? If so, you’ve probably never actually oiled up for one of these sexy things. So stop being a…
Maceo Plex is pretty much the biggest thing in underground dance music right now. He’s definitely one of the most highly anticipated acts playing next week for Winter Music Conference and Miami Music Week 2013. You’ll get to catch him at several parties, not the least of which are his…
If, like Crossfade, you’ve ever tried to tweetcast a trip to the Port-a-Potty while waiting all weekend in line to take a pee at Ultra Music Festival … Or attempted YouTube-ing a video of some guy making out with a pile of trash behind the dubstep tent … Or even…
Nightclubs? Boring. Music festivals? Too landlocked. Yacht parties? Now you’re talking! Every year during the month of March, South Florida’s private yacht rental business booms as electronic dance music fanatics flock to the region for Winter Music Conference and Miami Music Week’s EDM cruises. Check out New Times’ full Winter…
Calle Ocho is America’s largest Latin block party, where people from all over the world gather along 27 blocks to celebrate Hispanic heritage with music, food, and entertainment. Although Willy Chirino, DJ Laz, and Elvis Crespo were the ones putting on a show, the main source of entertainment was the…
Seizure music, death electro, and derpstep. Those are the extreme EDM genres Knife Party’s Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen use to describe their music, which reveals a couple of things about these Australian dudes: (1) they don’t take themselves too seriously and (2) they dig dangerous fun. After bumrushing the…
We’d brushed it off as witty banter when Tenacious D’s Jack Black (JB) yelled at band mate Kyle Gass (Kage) for “heavy breathing into the phone” during our interview last week. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware that I was,” Gass admitted, sounding rather embarrassed and deflated before Black could answer a…
Miami is filled with interesting characters, to say the least. There’s that guy who rides around on a motorized bicycle, that man riding the Metrorail jammin’ on his violin, that dude who walks around Hialeah carrying a banjo and wearing a Stetson hat — the list goes on. As always,…
Like some kind of rabid half-human, half-beaver freakshow cooked up in the laboratory of Dr. Moreau, Of Montreal is plowing through the second decade of the new millennium with a psychedelic skill set that employs the best of seemingly disparate gene pools. Of course, the crux of the band’s genetic…
Who will survive Ultra Music Festival, Winter Music Conference, and Miami Music Week 2013? With UMF becoming a two-weekend behemoth and WMC/MMW turning into a ten-day smackdown, the month of March in the MIA has officially become an insane EDM endurance test. And here is the most important rule: Do…
Ultra is more than an annual music festival. It’s an EDM institution. Just like British house legend Carl Cox. Every year at UMF, the Carl Cox and Friends arena (which has been with the fest for its entire 15-year history) gets bigger, better, and brighter. But it doesn’t only exist…
Do you find yourself falling within that treacherous zone of a Venn diagram that connects “Working for the Weekend” with “The Great Recession”? One surefire way to know: Do you work all the fucking time, yet your wallet functions primarily as a seedy motel for moths? Maybe you need to…
Red Bull gives you wings. But the Austrian energy-beverage giant also gives you a reason stay up all night. And no, we’re not talking about the 27 grams of sugar in an 8.3-ounce can. We’re talking about the company’s forthcoming 3:30 a.m. sunrise breakfast parties on South Beach during Winter…
It all begins with the contagious rhythm of the bongos. Bam! The music hits you like a grenade exploding in the middle of La Saguesera. Then the piano joins in. And at this point, you start involuntarily shaking your shoulders. You try to stop, but then the band surges and…
U.K. production duo Disclosure is a definite contender for biggest EDM success story of the new decade. There’s the matter of the pair’s precociousness: Wunderkind brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence started releasing music when they were only 15 and 18 years old. And what music! Their chops in the studio…
It’s easy for EDM snobs to hate on Tiësto. The Dutch DJ/producer’s house and trance records are nuggets of music easily consumed by the masses. They aren’t always risky or forward-thinking, but they seem to get the job done and, more important, make a lot of people happy. Sure, Tiësto…
We hereby nominate Tommie Sunshine for PLUR president. He seems to be the most positive, well-intentioned person on the planet. But for all his posi vibes, he’s not afraid to stand up and fight. When Ultra Music Festival’s two-weekend 2013 party plan came under fire from the City of Miami…
Do Denmark’s very hyped, babyfaced postpunks Iceage represent The Shape of Punk to Come? That slogan was coined by Refused — another set of Scandinavian agitators, this time from hardcore-obsessed Sweden — as the title for a 1998 opus-collage of the various rock music microhistories. Of course, Iceage sounds nothing…
