photos by WEIRD MAGIC

Gang Gang Dance and many others performed live at the free Mad Decent Block Party at the South Street Seaport on Saturday. Here are some pictures (from the second half of the day). They continue below...

Continue reading "pics from the NYC Mad Decent Block Party @ South Street Seaport (Gang Gang Dance & much more) "

"Wake n baked up, on route to NYC for the weekend." - Lunice

You may know Lunice from the remix he did with Diplo for Deerhunter's "Helicopter", his insane dance moves, or from his instructional cooking videos (watch/listen to all of it below). We just posted a track he did with ST 2 Lettaz of G-Side (you can also listen to it below). Over a year ago Dazed Digital wrote:

Lunice Fermin Pierre II is many things. The prolific Canadian young gun first found net celebrity with his cult YouTube dance videos, his intergalactic B-Boy stance scored by the beat pack - the discordant wave of club banging hip hop producers that include San Francisco's Lazer Sword, LuckyMe's Mike Slott and LA's Nosaj Thing. Lunice's own 80's inspired, glitchy soul thizzes across official remixes for Big Dada whilst the blog platinum bootlegs of MOP, Lil Mama and Aaliyah keep his ManyBrain.blogspot.com family in check.

He's got some upcoming dates including two this weekend in NYC: July 22 at Bowery Hotel with Pictureplane (DJ), Teengirl Fantasy (DJ), and Cool Places Soundsystem (in case you were wondering where that TBD NYC show on July 22 was going to be). Check out the flyer below, and note that RSVP may be required for the free party. Pictureplane & Teengirl Fantasy play live on July 23 at 285 Kent.

Lunice also plays Warm Up on Saturday, July 23 at PS1 with Gang Gang Dance (DJ), Syd tha Kyd, Miracles Club, and Laurel Halo.

He's also on the bill of Mad Decent Block Parties in Chicago and LA. He's not on the NYC party at South Street Seaport but Gang Gang Dance, who he shares a bill with at PS1 are. More Lunice dates below.

Speaking of Mad Decent Block Parties, Claude VonStroke was added to the NYC show and as hinted at, Curren$y was added to the Chicago date (now that he's done playing Pitchfork). Updated lineups and dates below.

All Lunice dates, videos, stream & updated Mad Decent lineups below...

Continue reading "Lunice is coming (2 NYC dates, 1 w/ Pictureplane), Mad Decent Block Parties update linueps (Lunice included)"

As promised, Mad Decent are presenting free, all ages Block Parties in NYC, Philly, Chicago, and LA this summer. Each party's lineup is different and will have surprise guest appearances, along with food and carnival games. The first party is in NYC on July 30 at South Street Seaport with Gang Gang Dance, Zeds Dead, Claude VonStroke, BAIO (Vampire Weekend DJ set), The Hood Internet, Bosco Delrey, and PO PO. Artists playing other cities include Diplo, Das Racist, Curren$y, Reptar, Major Lazer, Death Grips and more.

The NYC block party is 9 days after Gang Gang Dance conclude their tour with Nguzunguzu and Total Freedom by headlining Rocks Off Concert Cruise on July 21 (no opener), and a week after they DJ at Warm Up (7/23).

Full Block Party lineups and dates below...

Continue reading "Mad Decent Block Party lineups announced (Gang Gang Dance & many more playing South Street Seaport in NYC)"

words by Kon Glikos, photos by Zach Dilgard

Flying Lotus / ravers

As we were saying, This past Labor Day weekend saw the second installment of the Electric Zoo festival, taking place on Randall's Island. The two-day festival boasted a line up of over 70 artists on 4 stages, catering to most genres of electronic music. The line up ran the gamut. Commercial dance DJ's/acts such as: The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Armin Van Buuren, and house and techno staples the likes of: Richie Hawtin, Claude Von Stroke, and Steve Bug found themselves along side each other on the bill. In addition, artists such as Martyn, Erol Alkan, and Aeroplane represented genres like dubstep, electro, and nu-disco.

Highlights on Saturday included a blistering live techno set from Reboot, taking place in the Sunday School tent. In the evening, Major Lazer brought the crowd into a frenzy with their all-encompassing musical mash-ups. Over on the Red Bull Academy stage, Flying Lotus's much anticipated set had its moments of brilliance, namely a re-edit of Radiohead's Idioteque towards the end of his set. The Chemical Brothers closed out the night on the main stage, starting off with a string of new songs, signifying a musical directional change, giving way to older crowd favorites. Additionally, the visual production paired with their music, made their performance memorable for the thousands that listened in.

Day 2 started off on a high note, with Jon Hopkins's thoroughly original take of a live electronic set, which seemed largely improvisational. The next time slot called for witnessing a meeting of the techno minds back at the Sunday School tent. Techno heavy weights: Martin Buttrich, Mattias Tanzmann and Davide Squillace performed a track for track DJ set that was mainly composed of their favorite techno classics. It quickly became one of the highlights of the weekend. On the main stage, Moby played his DJ set to a sea of people in full on festival mode. His set was a retrospective, made up of tracks from dance eras gone by. What he played was a nice contrast to the seemingly endless stream of commercial trance and progressive house sounds coming from the main stage all day long. He was one of the top main stage performances all weekend.

While the aforementioned performances made up what I thought to be some of the most significant of the weekend, there was no shortage of cringe-worthy music being performed. For example, the countless musical crimes being committed in the Hilltop Arena tent (aptly re-named the Jersey Shore tent by many), aided in shedding some of the festival's musical credibility. Still, the premise of this festival seems to be that there is something for everyone because "you get what you pay for". Only time will tell if this is the electronic music festival that New York City deserves.

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As promised, here are more pictures from last weekend's event. Part 1 is HERE. Part 2 is HERE. Part 3 continues below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo in pics - part 3 (Flying Lotus, Moby, Reboot, more) "