HOLY SHIP!!!

I wanted to also show a cruise line that EDM has taken over that is crazy. This is a cruise that you can go on that is a 24 hour EDM party that sails to a private island where there is another big party and then sails back. The whole time there is constant parties going on on the ship. The name of this crazy cruise is HOLY SHIP. I plan on going on this next year and cant wait.

EDM music Festivals

This week I want to talk about EDM music festivals. There is a huge rise in the number of music festivals going on across the world in general, but EDM fests are particularly getting popular and are multiplying. Of coarse some of the biggest ones here in the United Stated include Ultra Music Fest and Electronic Daisy Carnival (EDC). Both of these along with Tomorrow World fest are the biggest here in the US. I have personally gone to Ultra Music Fest and loved the experience. These fests exhibit the best EDM DJ’s and acts from across the world. Every year they change their lineup’s and keep new as well as known talent playing and pushing for a better show from year to year. Ultra is going on for the 2015 year next weekend in Miami Florida. EDC is in October in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tomorrow World goes on in August in Atlanta Georgia. All of which have multiple stages and take place over an entire weekend. Another large fest that goes on is Burning Man. This is a fest that goes on in the desert outside of Las Vegas where party-goers build an entire village for a week in the middle of the desert and at the end, BURN IT DOWN. Crazy right?  Also here in Chicago every year there is Spring Awakening, which is another EDM fest that takes place over a weekend and is held in Soldiers Field. North Coast Music Festival is another fest here locally in Chicago that is fun. All said and done everyone should go to an EDM fest at least once in their life to experience the environment.

I wanted to share a few video's of trap and trance music for you guys to see and hear the differences.
The first video is a great example of trap and turns out to be a very popular track by DJ Snake and Lil Jon.

A great ex ample of trance is Armin Von Buuren. Here is one of his Trance tracks that is about typical of trance music.

Of corse let me know what you guys think.

Trap and Trance

The topic that I have chosen to do this week is the different types of EDM. I want to start with Trap and Juke first since last week I left you all off with a track by Diplo. Trap and juke are familiar in the ways that they use a deep bass synthesized usually with 32^nd high hat notes. These are often combined with rap lyrics and are either half time around 80 bpm or slower than most dance music. A lot of popular EDM songs are remixed in a trap form. A good example of this is Tyga’s Molly (trap Remix).  Trap has become more popular here in the US due to the crossover of rap and EDM. There is also a big following in Jamaica and the UK as well Diplo is the leading producer/ Artist of  trap in Jamaica.

 

Another type of EDM which is on the other side of the spectrum is Trance. A producer/ DJ by the name of Armand Von Buuren is the leading producer of trance. He started a radio station In Europe in the late 1990’s names A State of Trance or A.S.O.T. for short.  Now ASOT has its own satellite station as well as its own stage at Ultra Music Festival as well as many other music fests in the world. Trance is Dance music with deep synths and slow build ups and descends. There is a deepness with the beat and bass left in the background instead of it being forward in the mix. Trance is a style that is becoming more popular worldwide. You guys should check out both of these types of EDM.

My EDM minimix

Since i have been talking about EDM i decided to include a mini mix that i have done myself. Most EDM producers and DJ's start out and continue remixing and doing modified mixes of other tracks. This is just one that I have done for a contest a couple years ago. Hope you like it.


https://soundcloud.com/jon-meyers/samf-minimixsuave-mp3

SHM at Ultra Music Fest 2013

Given that I talked about Swedish House Mafia last week, I thought that I would add a video of Ultra Music Festival 2013 and try to show how big of a deal it was for SHM to close the show with their final performance. This is a 17 min video but it is worth watching. Right around 13 min there is clips of SHM last performance and at 15:50 it shows how big and crazy it really got. Hope you all like it.

Swedish House Mafia

This week I want to talk about some of my influences in EDM. I want to start with a group that in my opinion made themselves go from an underground DJ/ Producer group from Sweden, to becoming a worldwide sensation and having a number one selling worldwide single. Swedish House Mafia is the group that made a brilliant strategy of announcing that they were splitting up and going on one last worldwide tour after releasing their single Greyhound that was sponsored by Absolute Vodka. Shortly after announcing the tour, they released their last single that was produced together as a group Don’t You Worry Child. This single made it to number 6 in the us billboard chart and peaked at number 1 worldwide. The reason that this group inspired me was not only for their great music, but the genius that it took to go from being big in Europe to making a worldwide showing. I was at their sold out Chicago concert as well as the sold out Ultra Music Festival 2013 where they closed out the festival with their final performance as a group. This had to have been one of the best performances that I have ever seen. The track that brought the group to my attention in 2010 was the song One. There was a remix that featured Pherrell Williams that blew me away. I used to mix this in every club that I mixed in that year. This continues to be one of the most influential groups that brought me closer into the EDM scene.

EDM videos

This is a video from one of my favorite groups Bingo Players. This is a remix featuring Far East Movement. Some of the music videos for EDM are some of the best and funniest yet wierdest videos that I have ever seen. This is just one example of that.

Another track that I love is from Diplo. This track is Express Yourself featuring Nicky Da B. This is a trap style of EDM that most people have never heard of. This is one of the harder styles that i like especial;ly coming from Diplo.
Let me know what you guys think.

EDM in the Grammys

Hey everyone, in honor of the Grammys last weekend I thought that I would make this weeks post about EDM in the Grammys. At the Grammys, there are really only three categories that involve EDM. They are the remix, non-classical, dance electronica, non-classical, and best dance album. This is kind of awkward to me since there is so much of a culture worldwide for dance music. Tiesto won his first Grammy for best remix recording of John Legends all of me. I was actually sitting right behind Tiesto when he won the Grammy at the premiere show last weekend and was glad that the award went to an EDM artist and DJ. The problem that I have is that there just are not enough credible EDM artists making any other categories such as pop recordings. Last year Zedd won best dance recording but wasn’t even nominated for his work with Arianna Grande or even mentioned with how his work with her boosted her career. Another disappointment that I had was last year not seeing Swedish House Mafia even get nominated for best dance record given that their single Don’t You Worry Child made billboards top 10 in the US and made #1 song worldwide for over 3 months in 2013. These are credible artists and producers that make a worldwide influence of an underground style of music, yet they cant even get a nomination in the Grammy’s. I know it seems like a rant considering that I am a fan of SHM, but in all I would like to see more categories for dance/EDM as well as see more EDM artists nominated for Grammys.

Grammy Afterparty!!!

For those who may not know, i attended the Grammy's last weekend in Los Angeles. I had a blast and made some great connections. This was my second year going to the Grammy's and it has been the best experiences of my life. I recommend that everyone gets involved in Grammy Pro and signs up for The Recording Academy. These are 2 videos that I took at the afterparty. In the second video there is an EDM version of Kid Cudy's Day and Night by David Guetta. I thought that this was a good example of both how DJ's are getting music spread to people and also how EDM is making its way into mainstream venues.

LA drinking

https://soundcloud.com/jon-meyers/la-drinkin
Here is my audio log from LA talking with friends about music here in LA and the music scene compared to some of the other scenes in the US. We were drinking a little so it is a little interesting.

L.A. Music scene

So for this weeks blog I am in Los Angeles, California getting ready for the Grammys on Sunday. While here in L.A., I find myself wondering what the music vibe is here. So far it seems to be a very commercial pop music scene. After going to a few bars, I don't hear any type of EDM or house music. The bars are mostly rock, alternative style music and the clubs are top 40 radio pop music mash ups and mixs. Of corse I am bias to the music that I want to hear at a club but it makes me wonder if EDM is still underground music. Considering even at the Grammys there are only 3 categories that include electronic dance music I am curious if EDM is made to be underground. Even further than that, is America just not the right culture to sustain EDM as a mainstream style like Europe has made EDM. Even further than that, America tends to stick to trends more than welcome new genres and styles of music. Are we as a music culture commercial and coorperately influenced. I think in a lot of ways we are. Even those of us who listen to non commercial underground music seem to be influenced one way or another in our music choices. I'm curious what you guys think. Please let me know.

Here is my first Vlog talking about the house music from my previous posts giving you four examples of house music from the 90's that I particularly like. This video also briefly shows my DJ setup that I have at my house and my temporary mix studio.
some of my links are

You Tube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCv0Cjc99-_TQ9TKikTHD3cg
Soundcloud:  soundcloud.com/jon-meyers
Facebook: www.facebook/jon.meyers.77
Klout: klout.com/#/~4222129634909221

House music expanded!

I remember when House music started to branch off and go in different directions in the early 90’s. After the rise of Heartthrob, there was a subgenre called Latin house. This was one of my favorite styles of house music. This was a Latin influenced style that had a house beat, (around 124 BPM) mixed with samples of Latin songs. One of my favorites was called Big Time, (Carlito’s Dream), by That Kid Chris. A decent YouTube link is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gk6hcR9Eh0. This song was a sample from Santana’s “Oye Como Va”, and was mixed into a house beat. This along with other songs like I want to know, (Quiero Saber), by Latin Kings, www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Zu8J8oUWU, were very popular in Latin communities mostly in larger cities like Chicago, New York and Miami. These were widely spread into Europe along with most other house music. As house music was expanding in the USA, It was starting to explode in Europe, especially in places like Ibiza, Spain, and The Netherlands. This was simply the start of a global expansion, which created the Rave generation. With a widespread dance genre that had so many styles that were being created, parties worldwide were getting larger and larger creating the need for more and more DJ’s and house producers. This in my belief created the celebrity status of the house DJ. For the first time there were DJ’s that were traveling not only from club to club, but also from city to city and country to country to perform at clubs making these DJ’s celebrities of the underground dance revolution. DJ’s like Frankie Knuckles and Paul Oakenfold were worldwide travelers that headlined in clubs and raves across the globe spreading the newest styles and subgenres of dance music. A great book to read about all of this is, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, The History Of A Disc Jockey by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton. All this being Said, House music was expanding.

Dance music EVOLVES

My last post ended with the beginning of the use of Electronic instruments in dance music. I was just a kid when I realized that there were other cities that liked house music other than Chicago. I was about 8 years old and was well addicted to house music due to having an older sister and older cousins who introduced me to house music. I used to save my money to buy the newest Bad Boy Bill Hottmix cassette at the record shops. The same time during the 80’s there was a big underground following of a style of house music called “Heartthrob” or “Freestyle”. This was a 120 to 126 BPM four on the floor beat that used electronic instruments that featured love songs that vocalists recorded. Some of the most famous of the time were George LaMond, Stevie B, Cynthia, and the Cover Girls. I think that it is funny due to how artists today like Pitbull and JLO are using and recreating the old heartthrob songs and people think that they are new. But, in reality that is all of the record industry. I happen to be in Florida on vacation with my family in the late 80’s when I was listening to the local radio stations and heard both house music and heartthrob and was amazed that there were other places outside of Chicago that was into these types of dance music. That was the same year that I purchased my first vinyl record by Kraftwork entitled Numbers. This was a single that was stolen from me years later that I understand is really rare today. This was also the time in my life when I realized that I wanted to be a DJ. Once again I was in the middle of the growing Dance music culture that eventually becomes EDM.

Where EDM came from

Hello everyone, this is the first blog that I have ever written so I will try my best to keep everything going as entertaining as possible. I have been involved in the club-dance scene now for around 15 years and have seen the dance scene turn from house parties, to club nights, to raves, to music festivals. I have seen the coming up of EDM music from its start to where it is today. The biggest question is where did EDM really come from? Many people believe that it came from house music, which is believed to originate in Chicago. I would like to believe this, but I believe that EDM as well as all dance music derived from the evolution of all music from all cultures. Disco started a craze that went international in the early 1970’s. I believe this was the seed that started to grow dance music culture across the globe. Since the US had the culture already established, we were able to evolve as a music culture faster. With the death of disco in 1979, dance music was forced to go underground and evolve. This is where house music got its start. It was named house music due to the music being played at house parties.  For the first time dance music was using electronic instruments that were just starting to enter the music scene in disco as primary and only instruments in the whole songs. This was the birth of EDM even though we didn’t really know it. I’m curious what everyone thinks of my perspective on this, please let me know what you think.