"Electric Zoo", the NYC electronic music festival whose multi-stage lineups of DJs & producers range from 'Jersey Shore' to hipster disco, returns to Randall's Island September 4-5, 2010. Presale tickets are already on sale.

by Showtrotta

Electric Zoo (more by Zach Dilgard)

While from the outside, Electric Zoo (Sept 5-6, 2009) might seem like a 2-day hell, overrun by fake-tanned, heavily hair-gelled masses and their female counterparts, the actual experience (at least for me) was far from it. While my jaw dropped in horror as many of the element described above boarded the ferry to Randall's Island at the 35th Street pier, and I was only further freaked out when the entire boat broke out in a sing-along to "Now That the Love Is Gone" by David Guetta (one of many deejays playing the festival), once I arrived the dread of dealing that all day, subsided.

For starters, the festival grounds were very accommodating size-wise for the number in attendance. When I first arrived around 12:30 on Saturday, there was ample room and even as the day wore on and the grounds filled up, I never felt that I was trudging through a crowd to get where I wanted to go. Along with the size of the venue, the diverse spread of deejays (who were grouped at four different tents/stages vaguely according to similar genre/sound), kept my interaction with club-goers whom I would rarely run into under normal circumstances, to a minimum. In the instances where I was confronted with people straight out of My New Haircut (NSFW!) I couldn't say a bad thing about them. Everyone at the festival seemed to be too happy to be there, and dancing their asses off, to care what was going on around them, or to do anything too outwardly annoying to ruin anyone's time.

continued below...

Continue reading "the 2009 Electric Zoo Festival in review"

photos by Zach Dilgard

Frankie Knuckles / actual members of the crowd

"This past labor day weekend in NYC, thousands of dance and electronica music fans gathered together for the first, and hopefully annual Electric Zoo Festival on Randall's Island to celebrate Electronic Music. The festival lineup featured over 50 acts which included Steve Aoki, Busy P, Danny Tenaglia, Benny Benassi, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Markus Schulz, Tom Middleton, Kaskade, and Armin Van Burren over the course of two days....

...On the second day of the festival, house music icon DJ Frankie Knuckles alongside Andy Butler (Hercules & Love Affair) blessed the turntables with a raw and authentic classic house music set that made you feel nothing short of spiritual...

..."Music belongs to everybody," Frankie says after stepping off stage from his Electric Zoo DJ set. "Believe me, If I had the ability I would really just make it possible so that any and everybody could just show up (on the dancefloor)...a lot of times that's all you got to hold onto." To that end, it seems rather fitting that his biggest commercial hit was the ethereal and optimistic Whistle Song, which just might make him the pied piper of dance music who tries to leads the masses to a state of bliss.

Dropping next month is Frankie's Motivation Too album, which is his first compilation in six years. When asked about his own personal tactics for motivation, Frankie notes: "I normally get up early in the morning, like seven or eight o'clock. Musically I'm listening to things that are very spiritual and classical while I'm moving through the morning and getting myself together. I pretty much block out a lot of things that could possibly feed me any kind of negative energy, because my day has to be right...I figure why not get up on the right side of the bed and focus and maybe I'll get through the day and it will be alright."" [MC2D Magazine]

You saw Ryan's pictures from Sunday. More of Zach's pictures from both days of the fest (where he unfortunately missed Lindstrom, James Murphy, Al Doyle, Pat Mahoney, Busy P, DJ Medhi, Junior Boys, Holy Ghost, JDH, Dave P, Andy Butler, and others) (but did capture lots of scariness), below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo Festival 2009 @ Randalls Island, NYC (more pics)"

photos by Ryan Muir

"Gigantic electronic music festivals have always been more the province of the International EDM scene. However, with electronic music experiencing a renaissance level resurgence in the United States, the time was right for a US foray into a celebration of the vibe, culture and sonically astounding experience of dance music. The inaugural Electric Zoo Festival, held over this past Labor Day weekend in New York was a party that succeeded in capturing the essence of the intense passion people have for music, by presenting it in it's best light, outdoors, at Randall's Island Park, in such a manner where old school house head met up with hipster, candy ravers next to jacked up Staten Island and Jersey gym freaks and their orange tanned girlfriends. Everybody was represented, everyone was respected, and certainly a precedent was set for the justification of making this a regular addition to the national EDM calendar." [True Genius Requires Insanity]

Showtrotta and three separate BV photographers ventured out to Randall's Island over the weekend. Ryan was there on Sunday. Here are his pictures...

Continue reading "pictures from the Electric Zoo Festival in NYC (day 2) "

It's a big weekend for electronic music in NYC this weekend, maninly because of the Electric Zoo Festival which is happening at Randall's Island on Saturday and Sunday (as you can see above). Today (Saturday) is also the final PS1 Warm Up of the year.

DOWNLOAD: Justin Miller DFA Mix for Viva Radio (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Schmami - Eurolax mix (MP3)

Drop the Lime & live band @ Summerstage - Aug 8, 2009 (more by Sara Skolnick)

Last week in dance was great, more specifically Saturday. Unfortunately I missed Canyons at Dark Disco in the Park, but arrived just in time for Drop the Lime's live set, which was amazing. As much as I first loved the heavy bass champion's sound when I first started seeing him deejay back in '07, lately his (and the other Trouble & Bass deejays') sets have been a little too bass-heavy for me (I think I'm getting old!). However, the live set on Saturday was the perfect balance of heavy bass, awesome live drums, and great vocals. There is something about adding live elements to dance music that just can't be touched, and Drop the Lime's live act is no exception.

Boys Noize @ Summerstage - Aug 8, 2009 (more by Sara Skolnick)

I was in an excellent mood after Drop the Lime's set and it only got better as Boys Noize took the stage. From the get-go it was clear that it was going to be a great set. It included loads of new tracks and any predictability I had witnessed in some of his prior sets was gone. Check out some video of Boys Noize dropping one of his & Erol Alkan's new tracks "Waves" below:

While there aren't any discos in the park this week, there is still plenty going on dance-wise, starting with Thursday (8/13):

Continue reading "the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (part 1)"

Justice is DJing at Webster Hall on Thursday, October 29th. Tickets go on sale Friday, July 31st at noon. The NYC gig is one day before the French duo DJ the Voodoo Experience Music Festival in New Orleans.

Justice is on Ed Banger Records, which is headed by Busy P (Pedro Winter). Busy P will be in NYC with DJ Mehdi (also on the label) for Electric Zoo Fest, which is taking place September 5th and 6th on Randall's Island. Other artists playing Electric Zoo include Frankie Knuckles, Lindstrom, and Special Disco Version. That event is also one of Andy Butler's DJing appearances -- he also has scheduled a pair of Hercules & Love Affair shows in NYC on August 14th and 15th.

Busy P will also be at HARD Fest's L.A. party on August 8th with Sebastian (another Ed Banger act) and A-Trak. Note: HARD Fest NYC comes to Terminal 5 on October 10th (but with a different lineup).

While A-Trak isn't on a the Ed Banger label or playing HARD in NYC, he IS spinning with Theophilus London and Treasure Fingers this Friday (June 31st) at Webster Hall. Tickets are still on sale.

Busy P is also used to be the manager of Daft Punk, who, as you may have heard, are scoring the new film Tron Legacy. The trailer for that movie is now online. Check it out below, along with the flyer for the A-Track show this Friday and all tour dates...

Continue reading "Justice DJing Webster Hall where A-Trak plays Friday + other Ed Banger tour dates +++ the Tron Legacy trailer"

Andy Butler of Hercules & Love Affair made a DJ appearance at the July 3rd Firecracker party at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Resident Advisor didn't mention Butler's set, but doesn't seem to have enjoyed the vibe of the night...

At 7:00 AM, July 4th, young party people ambled out of Manhattan Center into pale light already wearing sunglasses. But it wasn't freedom that was ringing in their ears after a long night out. For ten hours, inside the 20,000 square foot ballroom, miscalibrated bass punched their cochleas. Billed as the event to "pop off" before fireworks over the Hudson, over a thousand had waited patiently for someone to light the fuse.

Despite sound and stage, it was up to the DJs to forget business and elevate the room. Unfortunately, they failed to truly engage the receptive audience or even distinguish themselves from one another. It was a visual spectacle, but ultimately a misdirected marathon with a corporate aftertaste, that never allowed Firecracker to go off.

Butler will be DJing again in NYC at the Electric Zoo Electronic Music Festival, taking place September 6th and 7th on Randall's Island.

Butler will also be in NYC (where he lives) for a weekend of Hercules & Love Affair shows on August 14th and 15th. They'll play the Gramercy Theatre on Friday, August 14th. Tickets go on sale July 17th at noon. Then, they're be coming to Brooklyn for an August 15th show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Tickets for that go on AmEx presale today (July 15th) at noon; general sale starts Friday at noon.

As a Hercules & Love Affair gig, it's not exactly clear who'll be on hand for the performance...

Village Voice: You know I have to ask about the state of Hercules and Love Affair. You guys cancelled your Coachella appearance, and everybody is slowly starting to form their own little subgroups (Jessica 6/Deep Red, Midnight Magic). What's going on?

Butler: [laughs] The situation is, for the next record, I'm involving a whole handful of new artists, and that's how it was going to be, always. There are a lot of artists I want to work with. Kim-Ann [Foxman], [vocalist] Nomi [Ruiz], all the kids that were working with me on the first record and the tours, they've started doing their own stuff. Nomi has her band, [bassist] Andrew [Raposo] and [keyboardist] Morgan [Wiley] have their own band...

VV: So it was more of a press misconception? Like, this solo project that happened to have a live touring band got cast more as a band when it wasn't?

Butler: Yeah. I mean, these are guest artists. Like, someone like Kim-Ann [Foxman] is potentially ever-present; she and I have a long friendship and a long-standing creative collaboration. The other artists like Antony and Nomi both have solo careers, and when they went into it, they knew they had solo careers and that they would be doing their own thing. So basically, the vocalists are Kim-Ann and a whole new batch of people that I've worked with at various points...I'm co-producing with a new producer. The whole scenery has changed.

Butler's DJ mix for the Sidetracked series is coming out July 21st on Renaissance Recordings. That record includes an exclusive new Hercules track. Butler's take on the track's new "angry" direction, with all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Hercules & Love Affair (Andy Butler+Kim-Ann+?) - 2 NYC shows (tix), Lollapalooza, Electric Zoo (and Firecracker)"

DOWNLOAD: Lindstrøm - The Long Way Home (Prins Thomas edit) (MP3)

Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair @ Studio B (more by Ryan Muir)

Hercules and Love Affair (aka Andy Butler) is releasing a new DJ mix called Sidetracked... July 21st on Renaissance Recordings. Butler will be making DJ appearances throughout the summer, mainly in Europe. One U.S. gig will be at the July 3rd Firecracker party at the Hammerstein Ballroom (tonight). Also at the event, as mentioned by Showtrotta, will be Steve Lawler, Tiefschwarz, Victor Calderone, Damian Lazarus (live) and Audiofly. Tickets are still on sale.

Butler will be at Lollapalooza on August 8th, and he'll be making an appearance at NY's Electric Zoo Electronic Music Festival, taking place September 5th and 6th on Randall's Island. Other acts at the fest include Special Disco Version (featuring LCD Soundsystem/DFA's James Murphy & Pat Mahoney), Felix Martin & Al Doyle (of Hot Chip), Lindstrom, Frankie Knuckles, Prins Thomas, and many, many more. Above you can check out the Prins remix of Linstrom's "The Long Way Home" off the latter's Where You Go I Go Too. Tickets to the fest, including 2-day passes, are on sale now. Electric Zoo's current lineup is posted below.

Another electronic music suaree, the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival, is on the way as well, happening August 8th at the Old American Can Factory. The fest's headliners will be Juan MacLean (live) and RJD2; full lineup is still on the way. Tickets are currently on sale.

Electric Zoo lineup with Hercules and Love Affair comp info and tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo on Randall's Island, BK Electronic Music Fest, Hercules and Love Affair DJ sets & CD & more..."