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)"

words by Showtrotta, live photos by Gabi Porter, portraits by Leia Jospe

Late of the Pier (by Leia Jospe)

Soulwax (by Gabi Porter)

Aside from catching a lot of great new acts during this year's CMJ, the highlight for me had to be Insiders at the Fillmore last Friday (10/24).

Insiders was a "micro-festival" put together by Pete Tong and Live Nation whose goal was:

...to highlight and celebrate a cross pollination of genres, all somewhat considered left-of-center but each possessing the potential to gain mass appeal in the mainstream arena - Insiders is destined to provide a jam packed, quality festivalé of fun and music, redefining the future of electronic music

While I'm not sure if attaching a $55 price tag (though I felt it was easily worth that) to an eight act, one evening, bill was the ideal way of gaining "mass appeal in the mainstream arena", Insiders did provide a lot of fun for everyone present that evening, laying the ground work, and highlighting the future of electronic music. In a time when deejay sets are frequently delivered from behind laptops (which can still be art depending on who's doing it), Insiders brought many electro acts who do more than that to the forefront. Yes, the evening did have its share of deejays. Rob Da Bank, Luciano, James Lavalle, and Pete Tong all managed to get the crowd adequately moving during the time allotted, but anyone there will tell you the true excitement and electricity of the evening came when the live bands joined with electronics during the Whip, Late of the Pier, and Soulwax's performances.

continued below...

Continue reading "Soulwax, Late of the Pier, The Whip & others @ Irving Plaza (CMJ), NYC - pics "