House Music Report: WMC 2008 Edition

House Music Report: WMC 2008 Edition

18 April, 2008 | 5.34PM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: kevinegreen

Now that the dust has settled on the 23rd year of the Winter Music Conference, it’s a perfect time to look back at some of the highlights of this once “music conference” evolved “festival”.

Founded in 1985 by Louis Possenti and Bill Kelly, WMC is now a massive gathering of an estimated 40,000 + electronic music fans, industry legends, leaders and rising talent. 

Where WMC started

Since my first Winter Music Conference in the early 1990s, the WMC has always provided a great opportunity to connect with existing friends in the business, meet new people, and promote your priority releases.

WMC has always been a promotional platform for new music and that hasn’t changed. 

The WMC has grown with the electronic dance scene and is a great benchmark to how popular our music has become across the globe — and the volume of fans it encompasses.

The days of being a small little industry convention are long over, and so are the days of dance music being overshadowed by other genres of music.

It began with just a couple small parties and panels in Ft. Lauderdale, and then moved to South Beach (a much more workable location).

In just a few venues on South Beach, all the industry heads would gather and jam out to the sounds of Danny Tenaglia at Groove Jet for the TRIBAL Party (Still have the dog tags) or Louie Vega, Kenny Dope and Todd Terry at Warsaw (now Jerry’s Deli).

The party that rings out loud for having a huge impact on breaking records back then was Magic Sessions, a truly magical night for the dance music industry featuring Tedd Patterson, Louie Vega and Tony Humphries.

Unfortunately, 2006 was the last year for this legendary WMC event produced by Leslie Doyle.

But now there are a whole new set of events that are becoming epiphanies for many fans during WMC.

Where WMC has gone

The Beatport Pool Party

It’s only proper to start off with the Miami New Times’ Best Day Parties topper for the conference: the Beatport Pool Party at the National.

With an all-star line up of talent spread over four glorious days in the South Beach sunshine, there were a few of the sets that highlighted the event.

Mark Knight’s set was a memorable balance of tech and funky house instrumentation.

His new mixes of classics rocked the party.

Daft Punk ‘Around The World’ and Laurent Garnier’s ‘Man with the Red Face’ were legendary points of the set, as everyone held their hands in the air under the clear blue sky.

Heidi, all dressed up in her lovely red flowered sun dress, kicked a wicked set of techno, house, and classics mixing between vinyl and CDs.

She peaked her set with Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’.

Dirty South kept everyone on their feet at the pool, dropping his edits of the classics like ‘Diamond Life’ feat. Julie McKnight.

Bad Boy Bill had everyone’s hands in the air when he threw down Laidback Luke’s ‘Break Down the House’, and Kaskade rocked the stage playing remixes from his arsenal of hits including the new Adam K. remix of ‘4 AM’

At the end of his set, DeadMau5 dropped a solid housey vocal he collaborated with Kaskade on called ‘I Remember’, forthcoming on Ultra Records.

It was apparent that classics never die, as every DJ who played the event had one or two weapons that were remixes of some of the biggest dance records of all time. Here are some other big tracks of WMC past.

BBC Radio 1 at the Surfcomber

— or as Pete Tong has named it, “The mother of all stag parties”.

The pool at the Surfcomber was stocked with (on- and off-) duty gogo dancers and porn stars, and models walking around in little more than dental floss draped on their lean, tanned bodies.

The vibe behind the DJ booth was amazing as everyone bounced to the beats on the massive sound system.

Eric Pydz opened up his set with ‘The Journey’ vocal hook as the low end began to pound, making any conversation difficult.

It was time to dance.

Steve Angello followed, kicking off his set with the ‘Be’ vs. Robin S. mash up.

During the Essential Mix when Sharam dropped his new ‘Get Wild’, the place went nutz as the daylight fell… the reaction on people’s faces was priceless.

There was a true revelation amongst the mixed crowd of punters and industry peeps.

Cedric Gervais wrapped up the pool party on the Essential Mix and threw down his mix of the new George Morel ‘Let’s Take Drugs’ due out on Yoshitoshi on April 15th on Beatport.

Murk Made In Miami

Continuing to build on their solo careers, Murk (Oscar G and Ralph Falcon) keep it real coming together each year for their Made In Miami party at the Cameo.

Behrouze opened up with a thick tribal set providing the launch pad for Ralph and Oscar to tear up the packed Cameo theater dancefloor.

Defected at Nikki Beach

Defected brought it back to Miami this year after a brief hiatus, this time to Nikki Beach.

The line up included Junior Jack, Kid Crème Joey Negro, DJ Spen, ATFC, DJ Gregory, Hardsoul, Mr. V, Funkerman, Copyright, DJ Yass, Simon Dunmore, Aaron Ross, Shapeshifters and Shovell on percussion. 

Copyright killed it when they dropped their hip house flava’d track with Mr. V called ‘In Da Club (Shake Sh*t Up)’ from the forthcoming Defected LP ‘Visions and Voices’. Watch the video for the cut here:

The stand out set was that of Junior Jack and Kid Crème who made the journey from France especially for this party.

Slammin’ on the percussions was Shovell tearing it up as only he knows how.

Release Yourself at Mansion with Roger Sanchez

After piling through the massive crowd outside, we were able to make a dash up to the stage where they set up the VIP area behind the DJ booth.

Roger had the crowd on their feet for the entire night.

He dropped Chris Moody’s remix/mash up of Jocelyn Brown ‘Believe’ and Corey Hart’s ‘Sunglasses at Night’, forthcoming on Subliminal Records.

The other monster track is the Laidback Luke and Tom Stephan mix of the Romanthony classic now called ‘Show’ due out on Stealth Records next month.

Tommy Boy Records at the Victor Hotel with Louie Vega, Ultra Nate, Bob Sinclar, Danny Tenaglia and performance by Ananè.

Artist turned DJ Ultra Naté wowed the crowd of mostly industry heads at this invite only event with her mix of classic and new cuts.

Louie Vega finished out the night while wife Ananè performed her new record on Tommy Boy Silver called ‘Shake It’

Check out the Ultra Naté chart

The standout WMC promo sampler

Mike Weiss dropped this Nervous Records prize winner on me while out one night.

Sirens ‘Club Lala’ (Jody Den Broeder Mix) is in the early stages of promotion.

The first track on the CD, ‘Club Lala’, was scooped up by Nervous after being the most viewed youtube video in the UK. Check out the video here:

The original track is R&B but the Jody Den Broeder Club Mix hits the mark for a stellar remix grabbing all the right vocal parts with dope four-to-the-floor production.

The track is part of one of the best samplers I received at the convention.

Also included is the Sharp & Smooth Remix of Ralph Falcon’s ‘Break You’ (released soon), Oscar G’s ‘Pimp’ from his LP ‘INNOV8’, Joi Cardwell ‘People Make the World Go Round’ (Boris Remix), Frisca and Lomboy mix of Veronica ‘The Way He Makes Me Feel’ (released soon) and Inaya Day ‘Say You Will’ (Dave Aude Remix).

So a cap on another exciting and rejuvenating year of the WMC.

This convention has only contributed to the massive success of dance and electronic music and I hope it continues to last and grow for years to come.

Log on. Get Down.

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