Hello folks, taking another break from being in the dark for a while to announce an LA rising star: Justin Michael. I met the guy personally and saw his set at Exchange (awesome venue) on a good ol’ fashioned Saturday night, and I must say I was blown away. Justin, besides being a great guy in person, controlled the crowd very well, and dropped a lot of euphoric house tracks that I loved dancing to. He’s very talented and plays a lot of those ethereal tracks that completely fill the room with sound. No wonder he opened for Kaskade when he played in LA at the Palladium! If you want to support a very quickly up and coming Los Angeles local, here are a couple of things to check out. The first is his mix entry for the Axwell competition to play at the Axtone party in Miami. If you like it, click the heart, and share share share! Help represent LA in Miami during Ultra week. That’ll show those east coast bastards who’s boss.
The second thing would be a preview of Justin’s new track. He just got signed to Armada, Armin van Buuren’s behemoth label. Perhaps pretty soon he will be gracing the stage at festivals like Beyond Wonderland and EDC (gotta be any DJs dream), but for now be sure to catch Justin Michael playing somewhere in LA soon via his Facebook page. This track is definitely an epic track with great vocals and a heart-warming synth. Can’t wait to hear it live. Just a heads up regarding the preview: be prepared to be teased in the worst way possible! Don’t hate me!
I remember a few years ago hearing about this dude Afrojack. I checked out his track Polkadots and thought it was a great track. Didn’t really think much more of it.
Fast forward to today and the guy is huge. Simply huge. He played both days at EDC 2010 and continues to get top billing nationwide. According to Wikipedia, he’s helped produce the records of a lot of people in the pop music scene, including Pitbull and Ne-Yo who thanked him personally when he won a VMA. Afrojack is also rumored to be dating Paris Hilton but… that’s another story.
Some might know this already while some might not, but Las Vegas is simply blowing up this year with EDM. Last year the Wynn had Afrojack for a residency and while nothing has been announced this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got something similar going since I’ve already seen 3 dates with him playing at either Surrender or XS. While I’m dying to know how much money he’s making at these gigs, one thing is a fact – he is huge.
Personally, I am not a fan of all of his music. Some of it is simply too much bleeps and bloops. As a person who lives and dies by progressive music, I’ve gotta have a melody of some sort, and a lot of his tracks are missing that. However when Afrojack does put in a melody, it delivers. Some of my favorite tracks of his are Collide with Leona Lewis (even though he blatantly jacked Avicii’s melody and got sued for it) and his remix of The Wombats. But my favorite currently is, surprisingly, his collaboration with David Guetta which is called Lunar.
Say what you will but the sound is simply massive and it’s a great party track. Definitely would love to hear this dropped at a festival… and with Beyond Wonderland and EDC around the corner, I have a good chance at my dreams coming true!
Back to the point though – Vegas is doing it big this year, which is exciting since LA is just a 4 hour drive away. XS, Marquee, Surrender, Tao, and Tryst all have top house DJs rolling through on a WEEKLY basis. That’s right, you heard me. A massive shift has taken place this year. XS, the biggest club in Vegas, has shown the new direction of partying and clubbing – they are doing house DJs on their Friday and Saturday nights. So anyone who is still resisting this movement and this music is crazy . I’m seeing Calvin Harris at XS this coming weekend and I will report back with a review and some tips to have a good time, but in the meantime I hope everyone has fun out there in Vegas. My friends saw Afrojack a few weeks back and had a blast, and of course if Don Johnson is willing to pop some bottles, you know it’s going to be a party.
Hello to anyone still checking the blog once in a while, and hello to anyone who stumbles onto this through Google. Google certainly does love this blog – our EDC and Coachella posts are ranking very high on Google even though they are super outdated. So to anyone reading this, here’s the deal. The EDM community continues to grow and there are lots of people and blogs that are talking about it all day and all night. Some ones that I particularly like are Dancing Astronaut, TranceAddict (I post once in a while but loooove to troll), and LessThan3.
Each one has its own pluses and minuses – LessThan3 has a lot of GREAT content, and the website functionality is amazing. Not sure how they are monetizing, or if they are, but I imagine it did cost money to build that site so kudos to them. Dancing Astronaut solved a problem we weren’t able to on this blog – they got comments! A lot of folks seem to read and comment on their posts, I imagine it’s because they write a lot about the big guns (Avicii, Afrojack, SHM, etc.). Kudos to them as well. And last but not least TA is for the old-schoolers who gripe about anything new and like to talk about the good ol’ days, but it is a great place to find out about local events and ticket presales.
Long story short, there are solid options out there. As for us, Rob has moved out of the country so he is not an LA Beat Connector at the moment, and I am busy with work and feel uninspired to write. One of the big reasons was because we were unable to foster a community on this blog. My thought is that it was because we wrote about a lot of niche music and events – people who go to those and listen to that music are harder to find than engage. Also we were very eclectic in the types of music we wrote about. And if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a single thing.
However, for now, I am going to write a little bit less often, but try to use the blog’s SEO love to drive some traffic to it and generate a bit of affiliate income. So to the user who feels like this is shady, cheap, or shameful in any way – I am being very straightforward in here. And perhaps in the future we’ll come back to writing about EDM and all of its glorious experiences more frequently – if you want to become a writer and get this blog back up and running, let me know!
OK now that I got out of the way, I wanted to mention a sponsor that we recently got. I know back in the day I used to play a lot of online poker. I even know a guy living in LA who makes his entire living off of playing poker online. It’s pretty crazy how you can just sit in your bedroom and rake in cash – who would have thought that that would be possible even 15 years ago? Anyway, there are tons of good sites out there, and one of the best is definitely Party Poker. So definitely check them out and support this blog. If the blog starts bringing in enough revenue I would be more than happy to hire writers and get LA’s beats connected again!!!
As if Vegas couldn’t get any crazier, they are coming out with some insane line-ups for 3 day weekends. If you’re smart and know what’s up, you might as well buy tickets to Labor Day weekend in Vegas now and save yourself the trouble. They will probably be teleporting in DJs from Electric Zoo just to play some epic sets…
In this case, we have a ridiculous line-up at Marquee. Before I get into it, let me just throw out what else is going on:
Wet Republic has Tiesto and David Guetta gracing their pool party. Palms has The Love Festival with Paul Van Dyk, Marcus Schossow, Paul Oakenfold, Chromeo, and others. Club XS is featuring Afrojack, Deadmau5, and A-Trak.
So those are all good and great, but you know me, I’m a fanboy. And ever since I went to Marquee in February, my favoritism has seen no bounds.
As you can see in the poster above, I would definitely say that from an objective standpoint, Marquee has taken the line-up prize for Memorial Day in Vegas, individually. Of course, ballers like champagne king Don Johnson can afford to create a line-up of their own by just going to whatever club they want. But for those of us with a limit to the cash in our pocket (and our credit), we have to pick a place and stay there until they tell us to leave. And even then we must demand to get passes to a future event or else sue them for the slippery floor conditions. And that should, in my opinion, be done at Marquee.
Let’s start with Friday. You just got to Vegas. Maybe you flew. Maybe you drove. But you want to unwind. Here’s a meek suggestion – Roger Sanchez and Markus Schulz back to back. The kind of party, Miami house followed by the king of insane, dark, Miami trance. Having just seen Markus at Avalon, I can testify that you are in for a treat. The man has been getting consistently better for the past few years and is definitely at his peak right now. Case in point: last year saw him at Avalon and, while it was pretty crowded, the floor was fairly scant by the time we left at 4:30 AM. This time – we left at 4:15 AM and there was still a line to get to the main floor. Simply insane how popular Markus has gotten. He’s still the man and I still support him. He works hard and puts a lot of thought into his music – I wish him the best.
After that you’ve got a nice pool set by Above and Beyond, not bad, followed by Laidback Luke (who just recently had to clarify on Twitter that his first name is, in fact, not “Laid”) and ATB. That’s a nice little party package for a Saturday, but you should probably rest up. Sunday features a pool set by some dude Fatboy Slim and then an even lesser known but up-and-comer named Armin van Buuren. Holy crap. If the Cosmopolitan doesn’t burst at the seams that day, then something isn’t right with this world. What an insane line-up. The whole weekend rounds out with Chuckie and Robbie Rivera bringing some Dutch and Ibiza house sounds to the pool, and then LMFAO at night (probably a skipper, considering what you’ve just gone through over the past few days).
Absolutely amazing. Any Euro who thinks they’ve got it better just got a smelly, used sock stuffed in their mouth. That’s right. And they’re probably on a plane to Vegas anyway, because they “might as well check it out, even though (they’re) better”. Take that Euros! (Seriously, I <3 Europe, I’m just happy that I get to gloat about the U.S. for once).
Whatever you do Memorial Day weekend, wherever you go, whatever you see, have fun out there. I’ll be turning the big two four, so please twitter us @LABeatCo and let us know how you celebrated the weekend. In the meantime, let me end with a track as I always do. A little preview of EDC and what the Swedish House Mafia will bring to the table. Come back to LA soon, Axwell.
That’s right folks – it’s time for HARD Summer Festival. This year it will be August 6 in Downtown Los Angeles… with 6 stages. Insane how quickly this festival has grown and how many acts it’s got on the lineup. DuckSauce, Boyz Noize, Skrillex, and Ratatat should attract plenty of electro hipsters (which got denied from Urban Dictionary by the way, WTF?) and then dubstep crowd will be pleased to see both Nero and Caspa on the role sheet.
The venue is the LA State Historic Park, which, based on Rob’s previous experience, seems to be a fantastic place to have a festival. It’s also outdoors in the middle of an LA summer. So I guess the real question is – what exactly are you waiting for? Grab your tickets here.
Meanwhile, here’s my favorite Nero track… I’m sure you’ve heard this one before but it’s a goodie.
Well folks, it’s that time of the year again… EDC is upon us. Sure, it’s been moved to Vegas, but I would still consider this the prime dance music festival anywhere on the west coast. The line-up is looking very Ultra-like, so I would expect greatness. I am furthermore expecting greatness due to the fact that the location and price of the tickets will hopefully weed out some of the, shall we say, shadier attendees of past events. My fingers are crossed.
For those of you looking to find out more about the lineup, keep reading.
As far as the lineup goes, not much has been released thus far. We know the following are not attending: Kaskade, David Guetta. We know the following have been confirmed via their agencies or myspace accounts (see the following link)… but that’s not much. Although enough for me – Sander van Doorn, Above and Beyond, Tiesto all on one night? Uhh okay. I guess I’ll show up… Hopefully more will be leaked as time goes on, but for now there are just little leaks here and there and unofficial announcements. That hasn’t stopped tickets from selling quickly – the first batches of Friday and Saturday tickets have already sold out for about 75 bucks apiece. Of course, if I’m going, I’m going all the way – gimme the 3 day pass! I’ll stick around for Afrojack, Ferry Corsten, Dada Life, and surely many more.
And rumored Daft Punk and/or Justice? That should get the electro-hipsters (urban dictionary definition pending) coming out the woodworks after recovering from Coachella.
As far as the location, it’s about 13 miles away from the strip. That’s, in my guess, about a 40 dollar cab ride allowing for traffic (of which there will surely be plenty). I would avoid staying on the strip, because it’s just not worth the money if you’re not going to be doing any gambling… and let’s be honest, you’re not going to have time or energy for that. Furthermore, knowing Vegas, Tiesto will be DJing using blackjack tables and there will be slot machines inside every port-a-potty. Furthermore, the event will have free parking for over 40,000 cars. So I would plan on staying at a Holiday Inn nearby, and using non-festival time to relax, not gamble your savings away at the Strip casinos. If you want a rational argument, there it is. But, of course, I don’t expect that most people are going to listen to me.
Anyway, that’s my quick update for now. More to come, surely, on this event. For now, get your tickets, and sit tight for more world-class talent to be added to the lineup. The west coast takes it over this June! See you all in the desert… oh and here’s a song to pump it up a bit.
That’s right folks, we have a pool party going down this summer. And it ain’t just your run of the mill pool party. This one is going down. And dare I say the pool parties in Vegas this summer have lineups that might, just MIGHT, be able to say something to what Ibiza has been doing for the past 10 years.
Now it’s definitely not the same. A few differences:
1. Pool parties are during the day, about 12-6 or 8, while Ibiza parties are during those hours. At night. Spain knows how to go all the way.
2. Vegas pool parties probably feature a lot less dancing. After all, there’s a damn pool in the middle of everything. And I’m betting a lot of people go there just to be seen… we are after all just 4-5 hours from Hollywood.
3. Vegas pool parties have one stage. One room. And are only one day out of the week. But still………………
Vegas parties have insane lineups this summer!!!
Let’s take a look at what we’ve got. First up – Tao Beach Sundays. It would take far too long to list all of the artists they’ve got coming through this summer (they already got started last weekend with Robbie Rivera and this weekend will feature Dada Life), but here are just some of the notables:
Dirty South, ATB, Above and Beyond, Funkagenda, Roger Sanchez, Gabriel & Dresden (YES!), Gareth Emery, Sander van Doorn, Laidback Luke, Hardwell, and many more. And that’s going down every weekend all summer, starting last weekend, ending in September. I would say there’s a bit of a head start on Ibiza here!
Next up is Wet Republic at MGM. Not much there yet in terms of line-up but I’m sure it’s not really going to matter. Why am I so confident? Because I know that David & Cathy Guetta are setting up their F@#k Me I’m Famous residency there. That is HUGE! No word on lineups yet but last year’s Ibiza lineups constantly featured Afrojack, Chukie, and Laidback Luke so I think this venue will do just fine. Just fine.
Another big venue will be the Marquee, of course. I’ve already sung its praises twice before, but now there has been another addition – pool parties at the Cosmopolitan (branded Dayclub). Again, not much word on lineups so far but I have been told that the same residents who have been making their way to the nightclub will be there at the pool. Let’s just discuss some of those shall we?
Sander van Doorn, Markus Schulz, Dirty South, Above & Beyond, Kaskade, Roger Sanchez, Gareth Emery… not too shabby. Definitely going to make my way back to Marquee sometime this summer.
Not to be outmatched, Encore is bringing back it’s pool parties. Last year they featured a residency by Kaskade, but this time it seems that Marquee has gotten the upper hand on them. No problem – they are premiering a party called Daystar Sundays. The kickoff is next weekend with Afrojack and Calvin Harris. Sounds like they’re all set for some big house/hip-hop DJs to come through this summer as well.
So that makes it 4 different hotels having 4 different pool parties (all on Sunday). Not too bad. Let’s go ahead and combine that with Tiesto’s residency, the Marquee’s insane night line-ups, Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Vegas, and of course who can forget EDC this summer and the Palm’s Memorial Day and Labor Day festivals…
Let’s just say that besides Ibiza, Vegas is definitely coming up as the place to be for dance music this summer.
So what does that mean for us/you/me? Well… let’s just say I’ll be putting it all on black more than a few times in the next few months. Cheers and let us know on Twitter or Facebook if you’ve gone to any of these parties and have a good, or bad, review!
Although he is an LA local, Amurai’s music is known all around the world. Starting as a producer many years ago and having released many trance tracks on various labels including Flashover, Black Hole, and Armada, Amurai is a growing force in the trance world. A busy man with many things to do, he took the time out to speak to LA Beat Connection for a fascinating interview about the dance music industry, his work, and his history as a producer. If you would like to hear the audio version of this, you can click here and listen to the entire interview. Warning: this was my first Skype interview and I sound fairly bored/monotonous. I would like to state that this is only because of the audio; I really enjoyed the interview and learning all of that stuff (otherwise, this blog and nothing else would exist…)!
Amurai
Thanks Manvel; best of luck to you in the years to come. We’ll be on the lookout for sure.
All right, a week late but still fresh nonetheless; here comes my review of my experience at the Marquee with Kaskade. Overall I would give it a 9/10, which is saying a lot because I have a hard time giving anything a perfect review. Damn my cynical nature.
Kaskade at Marquee
Part 1: Getting in And Setting Up
This part might be useful for those planning to go to Marquee this year. My group of 4 (2 girls 2 guys) were not on a list of any sort; we bought tickets ahead of time. I didn’t even see the main entrance line but I’m sure it wasn’t fun, especially since we got there at midnight. If you want to get on a list, get there early around 9 and then leave and come back after you get your hand stamped. Anyway, we got there at midnight and had to stand in a line of no more than 25 people for about 40 minutes. How is that possible you ask? It was made possible by the existence of just one check-in person with a paper list and a pen. This phenomenal lack of fore-planning is what took off the one point off of my review. That and one more thing…
After getting our tickets we got in immediately; no wait. I would say getting the tickets ahead of time is definitely the way to go. We walked in and were inside the club just as Kaskade was beginning his set at 1 AM. Here’s where the other part of my one point deduction came through: the crowd was absolutely PACKED to the brim at 1AM. There was definitely no getting onto the dancefloor – apparently the fire marshall had closed that off. We had to set up by the bar behind the dancefloor, on the way out to the outdoor area. The problem with dancing here was that it served as a big hallway between the outdoor area and the dancefloor/tables so lots of people were continuously bumping my girlfriend and I no matter where we stood. That got really annoying for the first 30 minutes. Of course I won’t mention the few people that were over-inebriated and had simply no concept of personal space.
Luckily people in Vegas have an extremely short attention span and the area was a lot more free by 1:30-2AM. Way less people and way more dancing room. After this, things got awesome.
The view from where we were standing at first. Not the best...
Part 2: The Club
The brand new, 2 month opened Marquee club, is simply amazing and everyone should check it out if they go there. First off, they have an insane line-up of residents including monthly visits from Kaskade and others including Markus Schulz (my man), Roger Sanchez, SVD, Dirty South, and others. Talk about a line-up. A solid mix of today’s movers in the trance and house world.
Next thing that’s great about Marquee is the vibe. Everyone is there to have fun and it’s not a local crowd by any means. The majority is LA flavored but you can tell that there are plenty of people there from around the country, and around the world. That’s what makes Vegas special and fun. It’s approaching Ibiza status especially with all the crazy pool events over the summer. Although we had some shoving issues at first, most people there were much more composed than the Avalon crowd. No washers, no people going completely bananas. Everyone seemed to be under control and just enjoying themselves, which is of course what these events should be about.
As far as visuals and lights, it is absolutely outstanding with a caveat: you gotta be on the main floor. Back from where I was standing, it didn’t really look that great. But once you get on the main floor you see it all: a full scale LED wall (at least 10 ft high), a catwalk for the crazy dancers, a caged disco ball as well as lasers and lights that can move up and down at will. The LED wall displayed visuals at times, other times the logo of the DJ. It was really cool but didn’t have any of the corny Discovery Channel-like videos that sometimes seem to play even at big events. The dancers were good – sometimes they were just regular go-go dancers but other times it approached Ibiza status – the dancers would don weird costumes and props (including a stick horse and a rabbit mask, at one point) and just do cool stuff. On top of that, they were acrobats who would do trapeze and rope tricks throughout the night. Sometimes they would leave for a while, and then come back and do something even more epic. It added to the vibe of the club and it showed Marquee’s willingness to put extra flavor into the production to raise the value of the club. Oh and did I mention that they would send out bottle girls with bright white lights to make it look like the king had arrived? That was cool.
I was worried about the sound being too loud, after having my ears ringing for a whole day after a night at Avalon. However the sound was very good. Even in the back and outside it sounded really good. On the dance floor it might get too loud if you stand right under the speakers, but just move out of the way and you should be good. Otherwise, bring some ear plugs – you will thank yourself later.
On top of that, the club had plenty of bars and tables to serve the crowd. The lines at the bars were seldom long (especially later in the night). Prices were exuberant, but that was to be expected. 7$ for a redbull, 10$ for a beer, 12-14$ for a liquor drink. One good thing though: free water! Free cups of ice water for thirsty people were an excellent plus. Be sure to tip the bartender a buck or two and they will keep it coming.
The bathrooms were solid – short lines and nice and clean with your expected crew of friendly towel dudes. If you need a break, you can hang out outside on the patio which has amazing views of the Cosmopolitan as well as the City Center hotels. Given that it’s February, it was pretty cold out there by the end of the night, but luckily there were heat lamps out to keep everyone warm.
So as far as the club goes, definitely #1 that I’ve seen on the West Coast, and one of the top in the world I’m sure. Worth a visit.
Marquee Dancers - Ibiza Anyone?
Part 3: The Music
What can I say about the music? We listened to Kaskade’s set from EDC on the drive over and pretty much every song had a female vocal over it. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. Kaskade introduced himself by saying “Happy Valentine’s Day. Sorry if I play a lot of love songs…” and I was thinking ‘ohh boy’. But I was pleasantly surprised.
Let me preface the following by saying: I like Kaskade’s music. I enjoy the majority of it and loved hearing it at the club. It has a nice uplifting housey vibe that always seems to cheer me up. That being said, I don’t want to hear that stuff all night. Luckily, Kaskade seemed to do 30 minute blocks – 30 minutes of uplifting, epic stuff, and then 30 minutes of grimy hard stuff. Just the way I like it. He put us on a rollercoaster all night – just when you thought it was getting too intense, he would play a sing-along favorite like Teenage Crime or Angel on My Shoulder. Just when you thought it was getting too corny, he would drop Pong or something else. I didn’t know a lot of the tracks but I definitely had a lot of fun and never felt bored.
Highlights included everyone singing along to Move For Me, hearing 4AM at 4AM, and of course everyone went Euro-crazy for The Island (Angello, AN21, Max Vangelli Remix). Good times.
Kaskade’s set went from 1AM to 5AM, a solid time, but I heard on new year’s he played for over 6 hours so I’m sure on the big holiday nights you can expect to hear more.
Conclusion
I would definitely see Kaskade again and hear all those songs again. But more importantly: I can’t wait to come back to Marquee. It’s like Avalon, except better. The bar stays open all night, the crowd vibe is more enjoyable and chill, and the dancers and visuals are top notch. Hopefully I can come back soon and enjoy this beautiful addition to the west coast.
Malia from LMD Events (who are awesome because they are singlehandedly spreading beautiful trance music to all of Los Angeles) has just informed me that they are having a contest in which you can win free tickets to see Blank and Jones at Circus Disco in Hollywood on Saturday.
It’s a pretty sweet deal considering all you have to do is become a fan of the USA trance movement on Facebook and then post a Blank & Jones Youtube video on there that everyone likes. Oh and also you get 2 free drink tickets if you win. Sit on your ass, click a mouse 5 times, and get 2 free tickets and 2 free drinks at a Hollywood nightclub to see some legendary trance performers? Not a bad deal if you ask me.
You might be asking: Hey Misha, if you think this is so tight, why haven’t you entered the contest, you dirt burgling bastard? Well unfortunately I have already committed to see Sebastian Ingrosso at Avalon that same night. I’ve always wanted to see an SHM member at Avalon and I’ve heard the crowds get crazy so I had no choice but to go. However I wouldn’t be posting this if I didn’t think that it was absolutely worth it to enter the contest. I don’t see any entries yet, although this group is getting spammed like a mofo, so get on there and post!
LMD is clearly hitting the ground running this year as well – head over to their Facebook page and check out what acts they’ve got coming up. Marcel Woods? Kyau and Albert? Can anybody say trance legends? As the great former Governator Schwarzenegger said in Predator: “Do it now! Come on! What are you waiting for?!?!”
Oh and as far as the contest, if you’re looking for a great Blank and Jones track… don’t thank me now but I’m about to win you the contest. It’s extremely fitting, especially considering the fact that we’re in California and all. Go post this on the page and winnnnn!
. I’m seeing Calvin Harris at XS this coming weekend and I will report back with a review and some tips to have a good time, but in the meantime I hope everyone has fun out there in Vegas. My friends saw Afrojack a few weeks back and had a blast, and of course if Don Johnson is willing to 
