Pete Tong’s first Tongfactor EP lands

Austin, Wednesday, 18th March 2009

I flew to Dallas last night and missed my connection (long story) but now I’ve finally touched down in Austin and looking forward to kicking off my North America tour tonight at Zona Rosa for South By Southwest (SXSW), a legendary independent music festival that showcases more than 1800 acts.

I’m hosting another ‘Insiders’ event with an amazing line-up: Deadmau5, Booka Shade, Late Of The Pier, Rye Rye, Kissy Sell Out, Damian Lazarus and Michael Smith.

Following that, I’m doing a further 10 gigs in nine days ending up at the Winter Music Conference in Miami, Florida. Highlights there include Pete’s pool party at the Surfcomber on Friday 27th followed by my night at MYNT with Christian Audigier, Mark Knight and Julian Ingrosso. On Saturday I’ll be at Ultra in Carl Cox’s tent and on the main stage then on Sunday morning returning to the legendary Space terrace for sunrise.

Last time I toured North America in October 08, we ran the Tongfactor talent search in conjunction with Beatport. The idea was to encourage up and coming DJs and producers to come to the gigs and give me their demos, with a view to releasing some of the best ones. To coincide with the start of this diary, two of those tracks (one by Redroche and one by Ned Shepard) are out today on ‘Tongfactor EP1’!

Redroche’s track ‘Clear Blue Life’ is a main room builder reminiscent of Glenn Morrison or Deadmau5’s more gentle moments, and Ned Shepard’s ‘Twenty Below’ is an infectious skippy tech house workout with a monster breakdown.

So, I am back in North America again and pleased to launch Tongfactor 2. If you’re coming down to any of my gigs over the next 10 days, be sure to bring your demos and give them to me on the night.

I’ll be posting a regular diary from the road here on Beatportal, so be sure to check back to find out what’s been going on.

Here we go!

Pete Tong