wordplay: orangepeelmoses.com
images: Ash, Cherry D & Friends in Stereo

Winter Music Conference is the single largest electronic dance music industry event on the entire planet.  These days, everybody and their MILF is a DJ, and every March, Miami’s population influx is the smoking gun to prove it.  Gobs of knob twiddlers, songbirds, promoters, label owners, booty shakers, gear makers, schwag monkeys, flyer whores, door b!+ches, shutter bugs and word players migrate to South Beach for five jam-packed days of workshops, tradeshows, panel discussions, club nights, pool parties, beach parties, non-stop schmoozing and the ginormous conference bookend Ultra Fest.  Between airfare, hotel rooms, cab fares, obnoxious cover charges and arm and a leg bar tabs, your plastic loan shark can get quite a workout, even temporarily displacing your French kissing pit bull in the man’s best friend department.  Lucky for one of my Friends in Stereo partners-in-crime Colin Chapman (DJ Satori-C), Westword footed a significant portion of the bill, a prize he earned by winning their Martini Ranch-hosted Ultra Fest DJ Battle at the tail end of February.  Reggie (our third partner in FiS) and I booked plane tickets for stilt walker Ashley, a dancer named Camala and our selves the following day so we could ride Colin’s coat tails to the Ultra Fest gig. 

I made my maiden voyage to Miami last year, representing both Image Magazine CO and our dance music act Friends in Stereo (FiS).  I’d been aware of the conference for many years, but had never quite had the “dead Presidents” (the only good kind) to attend before.  Anyone who’s been understands the sheer magnitude of the event, but anyone who hasn’t can log on to WinterMusicConference.com and click “The List” for an inkling of an idea.  The scroll wheel on your mouse will probably wear out before you reach the bottom.  Besides the ginormous conference bookend Ultra Fest and hometown heroes’ Beatport pool party, I hadn’t the foggiest where to begin.  I was utterly overwhelmed.  This year, though, I had done my homework.  Tedious hours were spent in front of my laptop scouring “The List” for target parties, parties most relevant to the business mission at hand—advancing the national and international notoriety of FiS.  Beatport and Ultra ended up figuring significantly in that equation again, but so did potential remixers BSOD and Trent Cantrelle.  Cantrelle, who works with Sander Kleinenberg and Sandra Collins among others, has already remixed one FiS track, “Caribbean Voodoo” and has expressed interest in remixing another, “Nocturnal Creatures.”  Steve Duda, one half of recent Beatport chart toppers BSOD, just happens to be a longtime friend of Reggie’s buddy Rowe.             

Winter Music Conference is kind of a misnomer, considering its host city never really experiences winter as we Coloradoans know it.  The name certainly isn’t discouraging attendance any, but Saturday’s torrential downpour definitely put a damper on day two of Ultra Fest.  Witnessing superstar DJ John Digweed mix under the cover of several large black garbage bags was a sight to behold “faux show.”  Wednesday’s drizzle was apparently a teaser of sorts, a sneak preview of Mother Nature’s behavior to come.  Strolling back from Lot 49 at Laundry Bar (where we’d bumped into fellow mile high club staples MLE and Ishe) with BSOD and “Afterhours” vocalist Mellee Fresh, we stopped to grub Pizza Rustica and were forced to huddle under patio umbrellas in order to stay dry.  Mynt became our next destination, only because a DJ on their bill was in debt to Deadmau5 for some dead Presidents (the only good kind).  The cover charge turned out to be a little steep for our previously stated mission, though, so we popped into the Rokbar next door for the first evening’s final cocktail.       

Under the impression it was complimentary, we indulged in the Dorchester’s continental breakfast buffet Thursday morning.  Filling our pockets with tropical fruit became a priority when we realized the contrary was the case.  News flash: flying with wooden stilts is risky.  Ash learned the hard way when a tiny fissure in one of her pegs both lengthened and widened in transit.  Fortunately, men like to play with power tools and a neighborhood hardware store carried the necessary materials.  As Reggie and Colin attempted to stabilize the damage, I cut and pasted additional foam into my “Mac Daddy,” a performance helmet made from a gutted Mac monitor.  Afterwards, Camala and I sauntered down to the Om Records Listening Party at the Beach Plaza Hotel to pick up tickets for the Om party later that night at Y Ultra Lounge.  Bassnectar, my favorite DJ/producer in the universe (not to mention a serious soul brother), was slated to throw down at one a.m. in a courtyard outside the Y.  Next up, our hometown heroes’ hoedown: Beatport’s pool party at the National.  Pride does not begin to describe the feeling I experience when I witness the spectacular fruits of my fellow Coloradoans’ labor.  Get this, quite possibly their savviest marketing tactic yet involved advertising “10 exclusive downloads” on area hotel keys.  Then again, BSOD’s “Meatport.com” parody shirts were pretty memorable too.  Beatport’s pool party, in collaboration with Remix Hotel, is honestly already one of the hottest tickets in all of South Beach.  Kaskade, Scumfrog and FiS friend Misstress Barbara were probably their biggest headliners that day, but MLE and Kasia Star represented Denver proper at smaller poolside stages, one of which was sponsored by Stanton Magnetics (who, not so coincidentally, sponsors MLE). Just to see what all the fuss was about, Reg, Ash and I cruised down to the legendary Nikki Beach Club for a party called Juicy Beach.  Nikki lived up to its reputation as one of the most popular and populated destination venues in South Beach, but we really only stayed long enough for a Chicago chick to chronicle her horrific recent encounter with a toe-sucking stalker.  Meanwhile, Beatport logo-emblazoned beach balls floated in the pool. 

Rarely able to separate business from pleasure for any duration, I hopped on-line to edit a last minute magazine submission and ftp Trent Cantrelle’s finished FiS remix to DJ Gift for his quickly approaching Vinyl gig.  I should’ve been catching some serious shut eye, or at least a disco nap before the impending Om party, but our graphic designer Steve was anxiously awaiting the final content and I had promised Gift the remix weeks prior.  Can you say workaholic?  I think I even skipped dinner, probably subsisting on wasabi peas and fig Newtons.  When my trip mates had finally finished stuffing their faces, Ash and I caught a cab across the bay to the Om Party.  We eventually located the unlisted venue after accidentally stumbling into Night Tennis next door.  Although our tickets were comps, cab fare back and forth across the bay exceeded more than forty bucks total.  Even the second half of Bassnectar’s set, however, was well worth every penny.  His set closing re-rub of Robbie Williams’ “Bongo Bong” is always a hands down feel good crowd pleaser.  The venue and the vibe were both just as valuable.  If we weren’t booked to stilt walk all day at Ultra the following day, we might’ve hung around ‘til sunrise.  On the other side of the bay, both BSOD (who’d just played Space earlier that night) and our trip mates were riding a turntable-outfitted party bus nicknamed the Santa Maria up and down Collins Avenue.  Poor Camala was in her pajamas.  

No one can argue that prolonged sleep deprivation isn’t a mind-altering state.  Checking out of the Dorchester, checking into the Westword-financed Days Inn and cabbing across the bay--in traffic--to Bicentennial Park (Ultra’s venue) by three was a minor feat.  Outside the credentials tent, we met our Ultra boss Andy, a stilt walker from Ibiza (Disneyland for dance music fans), and his buddy Ed, a rigger who’d both designed and built most of the stages, on a golf cart which promptly whisked away our costume cases and army duffles to an RV parked backstage.  The RV would serve as a dressing room for both stilt walkers and dancers alike for the next two days.  Upon first entering the RV, I immediately recognized Jodie, another Ibiza-based stilt walker who I’d met the previous year at the airport.  Completely and utterly exhausted, she had passed out waiting to board the plane but I’d roused her from slumber in the nick of time.  Apparently, she would’ve missed a lunar eclipse if it weren’t for my semi-anonymous Good Samaritan deed.  Talk about fate.  Synchronicity at its finest.  As some of the first performers to arrive, we got a jump start on hair and makeup in the calm before the approaching go-go dancer storm.  Given my obvious shortage in the follicle department, I carved an orange peel sculpture for Jennifer, the head dancer, to bide my time ‘til Ash and Cam applied my war paint.  “Orange Slice” is what Jennifer liked to call me.  Several hours later, the three of us took a debut stroll around the festival grounds in full costume.  The photo requests never let up from that point on.  Now I know what it’s like to be a rock star perpetually stalked by paparazzi.  It seemed for a spell we were more popular than that first afternoon’s main stage acts, Shiny Toy Guns and The Brazilian Girls. 

Within no time, Reg and Colin showed up with our new FiS intern Cherry D in tow.  Talk about a wing and a prayer.  Cherry lucked out on a free stand-by flight through a friend’s airline employee parent, then scored a photo pass at the credentials tent.  Minus cab fare, it hadn’t cost her a dime to be backstage at Ultra in Miami.  We should’ve all taken turns pinching her (never any harm in double checking your work, right?).  Although The Cure’s Robert Smith is notoriously introverted and shy, we had the distinct pleasure of waving hello to him and his band mates as they sped by on their golf cart.  Did I neglect to mention The Cure was headlining Friday night?  My apologies, it must’ve slipped my mind, amidst the Miami madness.  Speaking of golf carts, it was around this time that I began to wonder where the rigger Ed had disappeared to.  He had been waiting on the dancers hand and foot all day but was all of a sudden nowhere to be seen.  Later, I learned that he’d splashed mud on a couple of cops with his golf cart.  Because he hadn’t stopped to apologize, they’d kicked him out of the event for the day.  Imagine having built multiple stages for a “ridonkulous” festival and then being ejected for splashing someone with dirty water.  Apparently, pigs don’t dig playing in the mud so much.

After being somewhat under utilized all day, due to a phenomenon known as “DJ Ego” (many DJs won’t allow dancers on stage during their sets, as it takes the focus away from their ever-so-captivating knob-twiddling and Jesus posing), we were all finally prepping for our glorious main stage debut with Fedde Le Grand from Detroit.  Everyone was still running behind schedule because of an earlier rain shower, though, so we ended up being on call side stage for quite awhile.  As the minutes ticked away, I got more and more nervous that I would have to choose between stilt walking in front of the main stage and singing with Friends in Stereo all the way across the festival grounds at the Westword-affiliated New Times stage.  Overly ambitious as usual, I was bound and determined to accomplish both.  Finally, our sanctioned window of opportunity presented itself.  Twenty dancers and three stilt walkers flooded both the main stage and proximate barricaded pit with stockpiled energy and motion.  Unfortunately, I had neglected to charge my dad’s video camera battery.  Fortunately, a feature film-caliber camera mounted on a crane recorded the entire spectacle for Ultra’s proposed future global broadcast.  When my partners departed for the New Times stage, though, I started to panic a tad.  Twenty to thirty minutes later, Fedde’s set change set came to a close as DJ Ego himself, Tiesto, was waiting in the wings.  I quickly snagged my wireless mic from the RV and began ambling across the festival grounds, still on stilts, towards the New Times tent.  Upon arrival, I removed the stilts and attempted to catch my breath.  I was pleasantly surprised to find Boris, a video mixing friend from The People’s Republic of Boulder, teaching Cherry D. how to operate his camera.  Small world.  Would our luck ever cease?  Apparently not.  Mile high club shutterbug Michael Albert was on hand to shoot stills as well.  The planet got even smaller mere minutes later when, immediately following my introduction and pep talk, an audience member claimed to be an acquaintance of my first love from Houston, Alyssa Webb.  By that point, the synchronicities had ceased to surprise me any longer.  All I could do was continually chuckle at their increasing frequency. 

The moment of truth was upon us.  Colin and Reg fired up the laptop, donned their Mac Daddies (the previously mentioned Mac monitor helmets) and cued up “Mini Skirts.”  I removed the already sound checked mic from its holster and explained to the crowd that we had something a little different in store.  Still in my stilt pants, I started six-stepping like a man possessed.  Fresh from the main stage across the park, Ashley and Camala materialized to join me.  Those in attendance were practically speechless.  Tiny tributaries of makeup and perspiration stung my eyes.  Thankfully, I didn’t really need to see to sing.  As the beat for “Nocturnal Creatures” crept into the mix, I gripped the mic and listened attentively for my cue.  And then it came: “We are nocturnal creatures, we come out at night.  It doesn’t make us bad people, we’re just allergic to the light.”  Three times for the chorus.  Then the peak.  “When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, we nocturnal creatures rise from our slumber.  When the sun goes down…”  Next thing we knew, our time was up.  After passing out some myspace cards and collecting our things, we caught a ride back to our hotel on the Santa Maria.  Later, while inflating our air mattress in the hallway, a very cute neighbor wondered aloud whether nitrous was involved.  The girl in question practically fell over backwards when Reg suddenly bolted towards her in his underwear. 

Saturday morning, we got up and did it all again.  Well, not all of it, exactly.  We didn’t perform music again that night, but we did stilt walk and dance most of the afternoon, until the previously mentioned torrential downpour put a damper on our outdoor activities.  Prior to that, though, I met up with jet setting dancer/Vinyl employee Ms Easy at the breaks stage for a slew of photo opps and a bit of conversation.  En route back to the RV, a suspension spring in one of my stilts came loose from a slot that formerly held it securely in place.  I did the smart thing and downsized for the return trip.  Better safe than sorry.  Nearly back to the back stage entrance, I got a text message from Denver’s DJ Cinful, who, it turns out, was hanging out on the main stage in an adorable angel costume carefully positioning herself in the vicinity of headlining DJs for photo opps of her own.  Even under the cover of the above-mentioned garbage bags, Digweed’s mixer had to be replaced mid-set when it shorted out due to encroaching rainwater.  I kicked it with Cinful for a bit, eventually finding shelter from the rain in the RV, where she got off shooting close-ups of half naked dancers’ asses.  I’m not ashamed to admit I was thoroughly entertained as well.  Meanwhile, under full cover of the house tent halfway across the park, Ashley and Camala worked it center stage for nearly an hour and a half to the tune of Fatboy Slim’s supposedly killer set.  News flash: a full hour and a half of aerobic exercise is a pretty intense experience for any body, no matter what their particular fitness level.  Rabbit in the Moon was easily the most widely anticipated main stage act of the day, though I, for one, wasn’t sure if all of his planned performance art was all-weather.  Still utterly exhausted from our breakneck schedule, I missed many of Bunny’s stunts for the irresistible comfort of the RV’s couch.  Colin claims Bunny sang a cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” but I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t merely a remix of the original being spun by Monk, Rabbit in the Moon’s resident DJ.  Apparently, one of the most memorable segments involved a group of men decked out like DEA agents or a swat team.  All I could think about was sleep at that point, though. 

Although we’d been in South Beach for days now, I hadn’t even set foot on the actual beach until Sunday morning.  Beached jellyfish looked like black lighted packing bubbles.  Since Ishe was holed up in our same hotel, he joined us in the sand and then later tagged along to the authentic New York-style deli we descended on for lunch.  When the subject of stage names came up, I made him an orange peel sculpture to demonstrate my own handle’s origin.  Afterwards, Ash and I ordered rice pudding to go.  My friend Cameron was driving a rental Mitsubishi convertible up from her parents’ place near Key West as we took care of the damage.  If synchronicity was still on our side, she would arrive just in time to taxi our @$$es down to the National for the final day of Beatport pool debauchery.  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, really.  Five of us piled into seats with little to no leg room, with Cherry D laid out across the laps of all three backseat passengers.  When we strolled up to the National, after parking the car, there was a one-in-one-out line all the way down the semi-circle driveway and out onto the sidewalk.  We debated hitting up another party called Break Fest, but weren’t sure of the exact location.  Someone in line tried to Google it on his Blackberry but came up empty-handed.  Tommy Sunshine, a NY DJ I’d hoped to catch, was probably on as we spoke.  Though we’d already spotted Beatport buddy Matt Carmichael outside, his authority didn’t exactly trump that of the hotel staff.  Luckily, we caught Mellee Fresh coming back to her room and she was able to pull a couple of us inside with her.  Once inside, Reg tracked down Beatport’s Scott Paradis, a DJ I’d recently penned a killer story about (and namedropped in a Rocky Mountain News write-up), who did a heroic deed and let the rest of us in the back gate just in time to catch one of the planet’s most talented DJs, James Zabiela. 

A semi-distorted, glitchy remix of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” filtered out of the speakers as we found our way towards the front of the near capacity crowd.  We quickly found a place to stash our stuff behind a lawn chair and staked out some dance floor real estate near the side of the stage.  A married woman proceeded to flirt with me for nearly twenty minutes, even mock fellating the “anatomically correct” orange peel sculpture dangling from my Beatport laminate, before finally revealing the ring on her finger.  After revealing the “superhero logo” tattooed on my chest, her friend suggested I go the extra mile and have my balls tattooed orange (even volunteering to personally finance the operation if her initials were included).  Eventually, we hopped in the pool directly behind the stage, dancing and floating and splashing each other.  As epic as the party was, Shawn Sabo (AKA DJ Sabotage) later gave us a quick tour of the Beatport rumor mill.  Word is superstar Sasha is interested in playing next year.  And that’s only the beginning.  Sabo also recognized our own recent accomplishments, calling us “hustlers.”  Buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

As our final business meeting with Trent Cantrelle was quickly approaching, Reg and I raced Cameron’s convertible back to our hotel to shower and change.  Afterwards, we cruised back to the National to hand over the keys and stroll down to the Shelborne, where Cantrelle was booked to open for Sander Kleinenberg at a Little Mountain Records event.  Inside Shine, a club within the Shelbourne, we bumped into Amy, a Denver bartender who’d flown down to Florida to work for the week.  I eventually spotted Cantrelle in the lobby and introduced myself.  I’d tried to track him down last year, but we’d sadly missed each other.  It turned out his timeslot was several hours later than we’d expected, so we cruised back to our hotel again to motivate the girls.  Flawless Entertainment, the promoter for a Pawn Shop party called Electro Sex that night, had guest listed our entire crew, provided we rolled with at least two go-go dancers.  Ash and Camala were the original candidates, but Cherry was subbing for Camala, who was ready to crash for the eve.  We’d already learned the hard way that their primping process could drag on for hours on end, so Cameron and I decided to squeeze in disco naps while the girls dolled up. 

Just after midnight, Cameron chauffered us across the bay to the Pawn Shop.  The hydraulic top stayed closed this time, though, so the wind didn’t undo the girls’ multi-colored dos.  Even with a map, it took us a little time to find the club.  Pictures of its interior I’d seen on-line factored significantly in the decision to finish out our itinerary there.  Also, Donald Glaude was headlining, and he is easily one of the most entertaining and energetic DJs on Earth.  In a nightlife-inundated city like Miami, where the competition is obviously stiff, clubs have got to set themselves apart from the pack.  The Pawn Shop certainly accomplishes that.  True to its name, the inside is decorated with junk of all shapes and sizes.  An entire yellow school bus is parked on one side of the dance floor.  Next to it is an original Ms. Pacman arcade game.  The DJ booth is constructed from an old semi.  A lawn mower, a high school football field scoreboard and random retro and antique toys adorn the walls.  The club didn’t have the staff to drag go-go platforms out of storage, but the girls had little problem staking out elevated real estate on opposite sides of the main floor.  Glaude wasn’t scheduled to come on ‘til four a.m., but we caught sets from both Miss Lisa and Josh tha Funky 1, among others.  We couldn’t resist texting BSOD when Lisa dropped one of their tracks.  Cameron swore she was a dead ringer for her first lesbian crush.  Later, we learned from an acquaintance of Lisa’s that that was pretty improbable.  It was still fun to imagine Cameron kissing another girl for a minute. 

Eventually, Colin and Reg returned from their meeting with Trent.  We danced for awhile, although the music wasn’t quite as “electro” as the name made it sound.  Still, the eye candy was thoroughly entertaining.  Working and clubbing for five days straight was beginning to noticeably take its toll.  Ear fatigue is an understatement.  Even though Glaude would’ve probably played the best set of the night, we could no longer hang.  Completely and utterly exhausted, we cruised back across the bay.  Unwilling to let the good times come to an end, we ordered a pizza and snuck over to a neighboring hotel’s Jacuzzi for a dip.  I nodded off several times I was so tired.  The sunrise was just over the horizon.  Though the Sandman was intent on dragging me off to Dreamtown with him, I propped my eyelids open for a little bit longer to bask in its multi-colored glory.  Cameron did cartwheels all over the beach she was so excited.  Monday morning, we packed our bags and checked out of the hotel, ear plugs and bobby pins in our wake.  It had been an emotional roller coaster ride of epic proportions, but, sooner or later, every ride has to come to end…until next time.                                                                                                                     

 WinterMusicConference.com