Ok, my ear drums are throbbing, my bones are sore, my limbs weary, and it’s only Thursday morning of this week long party.  Must be Winter Music Conference.  Every year in Miami, clubhoppers, DJ’s and music executives are called to order for the annual week-long survival of the Winter Music Conference, a festival of electronic music, and one of the only of its kind in the US.

All corners of the globe are represented at this dizzying amalgamation of non-stop parties, rotating from venue to venue, scores of magnificent line-ups taking place simultaneously.  I’m just trying to keep up.  I’ve been coming here since 2000, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

The WMC started with a trip to the South Beach Plaza hotel, where WMC headquarters is set up.  After getting my press badge, I wandered out to the hotel’s massive beachside pool area, where a stage and speakers stretching into the sky sat, pulsating with welcome tunes.  The parties are relatively scant on Tuesday, so after lounging at the Miami Beach Plaza for a couple hours, I came back to the hotel to mass produce some CD’s to give out.

Wait, on the way out, I got sucked into a lobby performance by a new name from Germany, David Phillips.  (PS when I say new name it means a new name in WMC, but these DJ’s are all at the highest technical and artistic levels of their craft and are legends in their hometowns, states or countries already.  WMC is where the rest of the world gets to find out why).

After a couple hours of burning, labeling, and packaging, I began my journey.  The show that caught my eye highlighted DJ Dan, Crystal method and Hybrid.  I jammed out to downtown Miami, taking an interesting combo of bus and people mover, for a total cost of $1.50.  The party was excellent, nice venue, apparently this was the DC crowd, which I learned from one of the early DJ’s (Three Tribe).

However, when I checked the posted line-up for the rest of the night, I noticed something strange and not unalarming: the names I came to see were conspicuously absent from the line-up card.

I spoke with the party organizer, who informed me that the DJ’s in question were never scheduled to appear.  Nonplussed, I mentioned that the artists were advertised for this party in local listings.  He immediately offered my admission donation back, and asked me to stay.  I told him we would split it and stayed.

And I was glad I did.  I listened to Three Tribes, Dieselboy, and DJ Rap, watching as the party turned from an urban gothic DC underground crowd into an all out multi-colored global electronic dance party by peak hours of two or three.  But note to the wise, in a shockingly irresponsible bit of journalism, the Miami New Times Guide (the LA Weekly of Miami) misrepresented scheduled acts.  And this is not the first time.  TIP Point being, don’t believe everything you read.  Check ahead if you are looking for a certain artist, and if you can’t find out ahead of time, check at the door before you pay for your ticket.

OK, the party was incredible anyway.  Amazingly enough, I seemed to be the only one who had seen the ad for Crystal Method, DJ Dan and Hybrid, but when I opened the New Times to confirm with the party manager when I ran into him the next night, he was flabbergasted, to say the least, to see such inveterately erroneous information being printed (Also, Crystal Method is playing Friday and at Ultra).

The next day was a day of dilemmas.  In the afternoon, I couldn’t decide whether to listen to Bad Boy Bill, one of the most aggressive and edgy DJ stars in the world, or to listen to the international DJ mix-off, where amateur DJ’s from all over the world are brought in to compete against each other in beat mixing and beat matching; each DJ gets five minutes, and the winner is determined by crowd response.

From Detroit to Chicago to Atlanta to Miami locals, and worldwide from Holland to Kenya to Brazil amateur DJ’s were brought into show their skills.  And guess who won?  A DJ from LA!  Of course.  So does that mean I chose the DJ competition over Bad Boy Bill?  No, it means I went to the Wet Grooves party at the Marseilles hotel, an established and long running WMC party (where they put on my CD to warm up the speakers!), found out that Bad Boy Bill was not playing until 6 o’clock, then came back to listen to the DJ spin-off.

Which brings us to the next TIP:  DJ line-ups and times are listed at every party, so don’t stay in the dark.  If you want to see all your favorite DJ’s, get the performance times at the party.  Otherwise, you just stand there, listening to all this great music, and trying to figure out when the DJ you are looking for is going on.  And don’t think that any of the partiers can give you any info, because most people have no idea who they are listening to anyway!  And clearly, they don’t care.  Fun is still the rule around here.

Suffice to say, Wet Grooves at the Marseille was an excellent party, with the omnipresent and megabeautiful Wet Grooves dancers contorting in all directions in their scant party outfits in front of the DJ booth.  Donald Glaude spun after him, an unfamiliar to me name with some very strong beats.  But that’s music conference: see your favorite DJ’s and be exposed to great ones that you have never heard of.  Life is balance. 

Also, keep in mind gear is being thrown about here like nobody’s business.  Free shirts and CD’s are as ubiquitous in the air flying from the stage as the echo of those big thumping beats.  In effect, have a bag ready to house all the gear that is coming your way.

Alright, so then the night came.  DJ Dan, who I missed before, was captured at Dream.  Now, this venue was a little whacked.  TIP Clubgoer beware.  The area surrounding the front of the DJ booth is roped off entirely to the VIP area, which is made up of champagne bottle drinkers.  The general mission crowd has to make due with thin areas around the ample and centralized VIP area, and no direct access to the DJ!  (In other words, unless you have VIP access, you can’t stand in front of the DJ booth I’M SERIOUS!).  And the VIP area is surrounded on all sides by on-lookers, so it’s a fishbowl anyway.  Let’s just say that venue has some serious issues.  DJ Dan sounded great, but his set was similar to last year’s, which disappointed me a little.

Which brings us to the next TIP: don’t get down.  There is always another party around close by.  My second dilemma was between DJ Dan and Satoshie Tomie, who was playing back at Shine at the Sherbourne hotel where I had started hours earlier.  Shine is an official WMC venue, where the hotel ballroom turned into nightclub.  Shine also has a lobby where top DJ’s are playing the whole night as well.

WMC: party to party, DJ to DJ, leave one venue, another one waits.  So, I took a little too long to get out of Dream after DJ Dan’s set ended, but I made it back to catch the end of Satoshi Tomie, who hails from Japan and  is one of the most renowned DJ’s in the world, a sprite-like being who has been around since the beginning of electronica.

While he is a well known name in the underground dance scene, he is still a fresh new discovery to anyone out there who is tired of the regurgitated pop and repetitive hip hop proliferating the mainstream.  For anyone who likes dance music, there is a whole world of options available to delve into from WMC.  Satoshi Tomie is a good introduction to electronic music, with the urban Japanese style mixed with European exposure.  At 5:30 AM or so, the decks shut down, and I headed back for some recovery and recharge at the hotel.

And so here I find myself, mid-day Thursday.  I can’t move, but I will.  As soon as I get near some speakers, my energy will magically and mystically re-appear.  It always does.  And the weekend has yet to begin.

www.wmcon.com