This is a place for everything related to Electronic Dance Music! Tracks, DJs, light shows, festivals, news, entertainment, reviews, interviews...this is about Electronic Dance Music Culture and Community.
A big part of the rave community that always strikes me as unique and extremely interesting is the artistic side of everything. Between the dancing, gloving, face painting, mask making, painting, decoration design, hitting the decks...there's a lot going on with the art. Why? I think the answer is quite simple, there are a lot of artistically talented people that are in the scene.
Want to get your artsy side on? I got great news for you! There is a monthly event, a gallery event, held at Hi-5. For the first Friday of every month, there is a newly themed art gallery! So far I've personally only been to the photography event and the comic/cartoon event. They also had a UV reactive art, and an art-punk show! It's definitely a different event, but with all the right vibes. A lot of good familiar faces come out to these, and there is always great music, and great drinks! With two floors to play on, and plenty to see, I suggest you check at least one of these shows!
The next one coming up is a Black and White event! It's coming up the first Friday of April, the 6th! Get all your EVENT DETAILS. This is going to be an awesome event featuring DJs like Rainey, Gabbie Giftsz, Spaceman, and Colossal Mantis! If you are an artist make 100% sure you speak with Rael about being part of the show! Thank me for going down later :)
OK,now you have the opportunity to go see art and maybe even get your art seen in a gallery setting. How about getting some art to be seen on a global setting? I'm not just talking about setting about a Deviant Art page. Right now for another couple days, you will be able to enter an awesome contest with the new and quickly budding Production/Promotion group, Blue Star Productions NYC. They are currently holding a logo design contest! Winner of the competition receives the logo on Blue Star's homepage, as well as a years worth of comps to every single one of their events for you and a friend!
Get to the drawing board!! This is the group that brought you the absolutely amazing Pokeball and Heartless Valentine, and the very soon Sith vs Jedi (a charity rave for the Susan G Komen Fund!!) So get your ass down to these events, and make sure to enter the contest to get some exposure and free raving in!!
Last weekend was a different kind of weekend, and refreshingly so. First on Friday night unexpectedly at The Festival of Color: NYC Holi and then Saturday at Raver's Fantasy. Both nights were lived up to their names and pulled through really awesome parties.
Bizarre Killing It @ Raver's Fantasy
Friday came around and I was going to decide were to head for the night, and when I got the message about Holi I got really excited. You see, in order to promote this party, there was a video used from actual the actual Indian festival. People are having an awesome time...I kinda fell in love. Check it out:
So I went in there to a new warehouse very close to The Cage and recognized only a few faces. There were so many different kinds of people. Some coming in large groups, some with parents (and grandparents), it was quite awesome to see how many different people came in. Among the few faces that I did recognize included Morgan Freeman (Bluecrash) and he was working on the visuals for the place. The faces that I didn't recognize were covered in the colored powder everyone was throwing around. It was awesome to see everyone partying together.
The music was different from the raves I've been writing about. You had a DJ playing beats from vinyl, a live trance musician known as The Cosmal Show (with a live painter), a live jam band, and a nice lineup of DJs. People were digging it for the most part, the party kept getting more and more populated as the night continued. I had to put the camera down because it was getting too rowdy, but this was a horrible environment for a camera without protective gear. The party kept raging on throughout the night and from all the smiling faces and positive feedback on the event, I'd say this was yet another very successful one for Helen Pyre and Morgan!
Saturday night was an event at one of my favorite venues, Raver's Fantasy at Amazura Lounge. This was an Audiophiles' event, and DJ Bizarre's biggest one. I got to this one bright and early to watch the venue get ready for the show. For this event, there was some pretty cool stuff involved including an amazing lineup including straight from the UK, DJ Sc@r and Pikey!
The crowd slowly came in throughout the night, and the excitement continued to build. People kept coming in filling in the Amazura's space nicely. It was so great to see everyone come out, it was also awesome seeing another gloving tourney go down. Electrik Graffiti hosts these competitions, and this time it was held in the gloving tent. Inside the tent a glover could go in to practice with a mirror, learn something new from more experienced glovers, and during the competition had the opportunity to win a brand new glove set. There were a surprising number of new glovers, some that had bought their gloves that day. In the end, Bagelz took the title for the night, with some fierce competition following in the top four.
The party went off without a hitch. Everybody was vibing well with each everybody, dancing, giving light shows, and a few cuddle puddles. The night was amazing and a great way to end my going out for the weekend. Big ups to all the promoters, producers, and the amazing people that help make everything happen in the scene.
This weekend was insane. First on Friday night was the one and only DJ KY's birthday! There was a crazy party that he threw at the Mad Catter spot. Lots of people came out to show their love for KY. Friend's of his from Connecticut, Philadelphia, and even Florida came through to party it up and celebrate this quickly rising DJ. It was great to see so many people that are active in keeping the scene going come through just to show their support and to be merry.
A similar situation went down on Saturday night, and you've seen me talk about it before, Green Hill Zone. This party was so refreshing. Among some SICK DJs (Cutman, Dirty Dan, Wink-E, Daddy Noomz, Jjernee, Lysdexic), there were other wonderful attractions, such as Morgan Freeman on the visuals, Power Trip Lighting came in with some sick lights, the bar was nicely stocked and had Maui Wowi making fresh fruit smoothies right next to it, UV face and body painting with Pixel, Kevin Carpet was all rolled up on the scene, the Jolly Green Giant was giving massages, and there was even an original Sega Genesis to play Sonic projected onto a huge screen. Helen Pyre and Morgan Freeman worked really hard on having this shindig, and with everyone's help, they turned a virgin venue into a work of art. It was so awesome to see everyone come together to help make this party a huge success, even with the tiny little bit of snow on the ground that seemed to keep so many people at home. I call bullocks!
As I just mentioned, this was a new spot, and it is biiiiiig. the floor itself is about 9,000 square feet, but it was sectioned off in different areas. So even though this particular party was only one room, there were so many different places to go to hang out or dance. There were people everywhere. I got to meet some really memorable people through gloving, taking pictures and just interacting in one way or another. What I realized, is that there are a lot of people that want to keep the scene running in a very positive direction. Where raving is about the music, the community, the love and caring for people. I want to point you in the direction of one person I met, Evol Mermae. When I met her she was just all spunky, full of energy and fun, but what I found out later in she actually just moved here from Texas and keeps an awesome vlog and blog and stuff. You should check her out!
Positive vibes, good people, great progression of music, this one was a real winner! There were also a lot of glovers that came out to throw down their lights. So many different styles it was wild! One glover I ran into was actually a guy I used to go to college with, Z! So good to see him, brought back a lot of good memories. Also, the owners of Electric Graffiti came through as well! They make custom-hand-made scoodies (spirit hoods), fluffies, furries, and other rave gear/awesome fashion. They both glove and it was an absolute please trading with them. The OWLs came out in force as well, and blew some people's minds. The expressions on people's faces is just always priceless.
They also had a Sonic themed costume contest, which had a first and second prize, and it worked out that Pixel and Deblette won! Pixel was in his Sonic gear all night, and then went super sonic! Deb was all decked out as tails, it was so awesome watching her rock out!
All in all, this event was a huge success. From all the people who put it together, the volunteers, and the extremely talented artists that came out to do their thing, it's all of you who make this community thrive!!
More events are coming up! This Friday is the highly anticipated Shut Up and Dance!! Next Month will be some Pussy Power! Come out, support the scene!!
When you look on your upcoming events and check out what parties are coming up, the number of people attending can be one good way to tell if it's going to be a hit or not. Taking the extra step and seeing what the comments are like is a good indication to tell how many of those "yes" clicks will actually be there. From my experience, it's a mix between that and venue. The scene is almost always popping with hundreds of people coming out to dance and party, and for my first M.D. Productions event, Fairytale Massacre was off the hook!
This party was at "The Cage", I was just there the week beforehand for Chaos, a Kingzly party. The scope of the night was very different from that party in terms of music played and people that came. You still had the cage which had quite a few different dancers at any given moment, two floors of pumping beats, and tons of people. The music was all EDM with some of the hottest DJ's in the mix. I personally got to sit in on everyone's set! It an important part of going into these events. You should know who is entertaining you.
The doors opened an hour late to this party, keeping party goers freezing outside and shafting Gaby Noodle from the 1's and 2's. Whatever the issues were, it sucked worst for everyone that was there before original door time to be the first ones in. However, when the crowd started getting in, you could see the looks of excitement on everyone's faces. The lights were looking awesome from Power Trip, Morgan Freeman was in the house with the digital mapping on the walls, and the music was pumping, what's not to like?!
Music was hot, I was very excited to hear some trance with Tom Rogers (featured this week for the mix!), but the whole beginning of his set got f'ed up! For the first 20 min, the input was wrong from his gear, so they had to switch him over to the CDJs, and then he got his stuff popping. Even though a lot of his set was muffled, he's put it out exclusively to the readers of this blog!! ((COMING SOON!!))
This was a theme party, with people dressed up as either fairytale creatures and characters, or zombies. One thing I couldn't stand, the fairies. I mean literally, I kept getting smacked in the face by girls running around with these huge fake wings on their backs. I almost had my freakin eye poked out!! A few people went all out with their costumes though for their was a costume contest where the winner would receive a free tattoo from Heart of Brooklyn Tattoo! The winner was none other than Jevee who came in as the Queen of Hearts!
There were so many people in the house! As I was mentioning earlier, the people here were mostly the PLUR-full party goers, with a lot of fresh faces coming straight from the club scene. This was as opposed to Chaos where it was pretty much 50/50 with a lot of "bro" and "son" going on. I don't have a problem with that because when it comes down to it, all I feel is the PLUR, regardless of how people talk, dress or act. When we are at a party, we are all having a good time together, and I have yet to experience it differently. You also had UV body painting by Pixel, and a massage table with Batman! Always love seeing these guys around, there attractions always add more color and activity to the party!
Now my favorite part, glovers!! There had to have been about 25 glovers that came down to Fairytale. Aside from the ones I already chill with, there were a bunch of new faces there as well. It's always really fresh to meet new people, but one really nice meet was with D3bst3p. If you don't know about her, well you are missing out! She keeps a site similar to this, writing about the scene, taking pictures, and not only that, but she gloves too! I spent a lot of time talking with her about the community, and then we traded shows. It's such a god feeling to share not only thoughts, but emotions, and that's what gloving comes down to, an electric display of emotion (EDE).
I actually brought my camera out to this one to continue learning more about photography, and I think I'm getting the hang of it! Out of 451 pictures, about 200 of them came out good enough to use in my official album. But I didn't want to just trash the other shots...so I created a slideshow to show them all, and walk you through the night!!
I got this idea from one of the coolest people I've met on the scene, Sam Freund. He has made videos like this before, and it inspired me to try and do one myself. His are amazing, I mean, see for yourself!
