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A cold front and existential crisis didn't stop the ''WM3'' party
from: miamiherald.com
by Evelyn McDonnell
''Where's everyone's clothes?'' said a puzzled 3-year-old Blake Ellis as he toddled through South Beach last weekend, fresh off the plane from wintry New York City.
Well might he wonder: The plunge in temperatures every night of one of the year's busiest weekends didn't keep throngs of spring blingers, fashionistas,and record-biz playas from baring vast quantities of flesh as they shivered and hurried between hotel lounges and nightclubs.
March 22 to 28, tens of thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of visitors from around the world converged on Miami for the joint bacchanal of spring break and Winter Music Conference. Many of them didn't let a little cold front stop them from breaking out that $200 micro-mini designer dress.
'We rockin' stilettos,'' as crunk group Crime Mob rapped in a track played by Peaches early Saturday morning at the Revolver party at Pawn Shop Lounge. The queen of ironic raunch brilliantly mixed booty, vintage electro and indie grrrl rock in her guest DJ set. She also unveiled a couple of new tracks of her own, including one featuring JOAN JETT.
It was a highlight of a week packed with about 300 parties that ranged from massive to minuscule.
In its eighth year, the Ultra Music Festival has become South Florida's biggest single music event, drawing over 50,000 ravers to Bicentennial Park. Meanwhile, spaces like the penthouse of the Sagamore had exclusive guest lists for the créme de la créme of the dance-music industry.
Many events were smaller than they should have been. A few hundred people had the thrill of watching Nigerian star Femi Kuti and his big band throw down on the sands at the Scion party Friday. But for a global artist of that caliber, the Raleigh Hotel should have been packed.
While attendance at WMC and the M3: Miami Music & Multimedia Summit seemed decent, the crowds were often spread thin. There were not enough people for so many parties spread out over so many days. (This year, instead of running simultaneously, WMC and M3 overlapped for just two days.)
Otherwise, both of the official industry gatherings seem to have found their speed.
WMC offered four days of panels and parties that addressed the basics of the dance-music industry. The conference's well-run 21st International Dance Music Awards drew at least 1,000 goose-pimpled celebrants to the chilly poolside at the Wyndham Resort, including top DJs like Paul Van Dyk and such celebrity presenters as Kelly Rowland.
M3, a more rough-and-tumble newcomer, offered four days of cutting-edge concerts on the beach at the Doubletree Surfcomber Hotel. It presented fewer panels, but they tended to offer a higher level of discussion of philosophical and practical industry issues for insiders.
Globalism was an important theme of this year's conference. Unlike South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, which focuses on American and English bands and attendees, WM3 draws music makers and lovers from around the world. Nortec Collective mixed norteño and techno at a Mexicool party at the National Hotel. Kuti played Afro-pop. There was a whole night devoted to German DJs.
With so many events, no two ''WM3'' experiences could be the same.
This reporter's started March 22 at Madiba, a South African restaurant and club on Bay Road in South Beach. In a week dominated by electronic sounds, Forró in the Dark showed how dance music can be made with just acoustic instruments: drums, horns, voices. The New York-based band was playing Brazil's traditional party music.
After Forr, former Miami DJ Ursula 1000 hit the turntable with a delirious remake of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love. And the dancing began.
From there it was a swirl of beats and beach.
M3 was the best place to catch live acts: Kudu -- like Forró and Brazilian Girls, a product of ultra-cool East Village club Nublu - played seductive funk with a Siouxsie edge (and reportedly almost broke up in the blue room). Jamie Lidell's playful, soulful set was sweet and too short. Tiny, white English rapper Lady Sovereign flexed ample attitude. Coldcut got silly and polemic, throwing sound-and-video clips of The Jungle Book and Margaret Thatcher into their impressive audiovisual performance.
And then it ended where it began: at Madiba -- Miami's coolest new space -- where, improvising like a gospel artist feeling the spirit, legendary dance diva Barbara Tucker again showed you don't need gadgets when you have great pipes.
''Like house, still going strong,'' the Tucker T-shirts for sale said.
Dance music may be suffering a little existential crisis, but as the name of the opening act of the IDMA put it, DJs Are Alive. Since WMC started more than two decades ago, dance has strayed far from its house roots, hit the big time, then fallen a little from grace.
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