Weekly shows update

A couple things popped up over the weekend that I didn't list last week:

- DJ Eco is going to Toronto on the 20th and Edmonton on the 27th.

- Love is presenting their annual Classics Night this Saturday put on by Massive Event, where the theme of the show is old-school tunes. Zack Roth, Tom Colontonio, DJ Eco, and Frank Chiarello will be playing that night.

- Sleepy & Boo will be at Cielo this Friday, with free admission on the guestlist before midnight

- deadmau5 is playing a trio of shows at the end of October at the Roseland Ballroom.

Check the sidebar to the right for more info/tickets.

Oh yea...that events listing thing

Over the last two weeks I've slacked a bit on updating local shows, mainly because news was slow last week and I've been quite busy this week.

So in order to catch up, here's the rundown on everything I missed...

At Pacha: Boris on June 12, Oscar G on June 18, and Jonathan Peters on June 26. Paul Oakenfold on July 2, Laidback Luke on July 3, and Erick Morillo on July 4.

At Governor's Island: Benny Benassi on July 5.

At Love: Tritional on July 17.

All ticket info and links will be to the right.

Weekly shows update

Once again not much to announce unless your a member of Blk|Market, which has recently listed a couple new events.

Something noteworthy though is the upcoming Unite Music Festival in Buffalo on May 28-31, featuring four days of events with performers Gareth Emery, Eddie Halliwell, Menno De Jong, Christopher Lawrence, Serge Devant, and others.

This weekend:

Friday: Love is hosting another dubstep event put on by Headhunter, Sepalcure, and Spatial. Agoria will bring Balance 016 to 50 Bowery, and Benny Benassi and Steve Aoki will play Pacha on the same night.

Weekly shows update

EnigmaT over at TranceAddict does a great job of compiling show dates each week, and after looking at his latest list, there's a few I forgot to include on this site.

For this entry, I'm also changing the format around a little bit to make it easier to find shows at a particular venue. So instead of randomly listing bookings, I'll compile them by club/venue.

Upcoming:

At Pacha: Mark Knight on June 5.

At Cielo: Dave Dresden on June 25.

At Love: Joris Voorn on June 11.

At Santos Party House: Afrojack on June 12.

This week:

Thursday: Alex Pierce at Cielo. 

Friday: Andy Moor, Mike Saint-Jules, Ali Mahmud, and Frank Chiarello at Pacha, David Squillace at Love, Moby at Webster Hall. 

Saturday: Sean Tyas and Simon Patterson at Webster Hall, Roger Sanchez at Santos Party House.

Weekly shows update

Upcoming:

- Pacha has announced two notable upcoming dates: Eddie Halliwell on May 28 and Hernan Cattaneo on June 11. 

- Agoria, whose Balance 016 Mix I reviewed a month ago, will bring the album's release tour to 50 Bowery on May 21.

- Seth Troxler, Lauren Lane, and Crazy Larry will hold a show at Cielo on May 27. On July 8, James Holden will perform there. 

This week:

Thursday: Roni Size, Hellfire Machina, Code of Arms, Odi, and Morphous @ Love

Friday: Three and Pete Bones @ Love

Saturday: Kaskade will be performing at the Roseland Ballroom with Infected Mushroom

[Flyer credit: Love, Info credit: TranceAddict]

Weekly shows update

Upcoming:

- On April 17, Brad Miller will be playing alongside Gui Boratto at Love.

- The Swedish House Mafia came to M2 last month, but now the individual members are hitting up various clubs in the city. Steve Angello will be at M2 on April 23.

- Calvin Harris will play a set at the Santos Party House on April 1.

- Chus & Ceballos will celebrate the release of their new album at Pacha on April 3.

This weekend:

In what's going to be the biggest weekend of the year so far for dance music in NYC, an incredible variety of acts are going to be playing shows across Manhattan. 

- Club Love will be hosting a dubstep show on Friday night- Dub War, which will be headlined by Shortstuff and XI. For more info, click here.

- More on Friday: Above & Beyond @ Pure in Buffalo, ATB & Zack Roth at Nokia Theatre, and Benny Benassi at Pacha.

- Saturday: Cosmic Gate, Richard Durand, and Brad Miller @ Webster Hall, Eric Prydz (Cirez D) & Sebastian Leger @ Nokia Theatre, the Desolat Bus Tour @ Pacha, and DJ Hell @ Cielo.

For ticket information to any of these shows, click the sidebar to the right.

Weekly shows update

Upcoming:

- Brad Miller will be playing with Wobble at Cielo on Thursday, March 25.

- Love resident DJ's Rich Medina and Akalepse are starting up a new party series for every Wednesday evening- "Props", with the first show being held tonight. For more info on weekly guests at these events, you can check out their official web site.

- Axwell of the Swedish House Mafia will be playing Pacha on April 2 with Erick Morillo. 

This weekend:

- Friday: A trio of shows in the local area: DJ Eco & various other locals will be playing at Love, Bobina will make his debut at Pacha, and Dubfire will play Glo on Long Island.

- Saturday: Victor Calderone at M2.

[Image credit: Cieloclub.com]

DJNY #2: DJ Eco

An architect by day, a college student by night, and a DJ by even later night; it's never a dull moment for Marcello Pacheco (aka DJ Eco), a New Jersey native and one of electronic dance music's brightest up-and-coming producers.

His career has been rising to new levels in 2010 with his recent hits "And We Flew Away" and "Staring At The Sea" getting countless plays from some of the top DJ's around the globe.

On April 2 at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC, Eco will play alongside such trance legends as Armin Van Buuren and Rank 1 at his biggest show yet- A State Of Trance 450.

But what's the story behind all of his great tunes and club performances? Here's what he had to say...

In The Studio…

Binarysound: When did you get into the production game and what programs were you using when you first started out? 

DJ Eco: I started when I was about 14 using Fruity Loops and I was doing really, really basic stuff. The influences I had at the time were the local Webster Hall trance CD and some of the rave guys like DJ Micro and DJ Mind-X. I actually would make a good 20 or 25 tracks and put them on a CD and sell them for $5 to kids at my high school. I sold about 20-30 CD's that way.  

BSound: What did those tracks on those CD's sound like compared to your recent work? 

Eco: I was finding my way with different sounds on Fruity Loops and I was trying to emulate as much as possible the kind of early Tiesto stuff I was listening to. It was definitely ten steps down from what I'm capable of now, but I can see some resemblance. I was very interested in putting these intricate melodies together and that was the start and aim of my music.

I also was definitely interested in harder trance and hardstyle. A lot of my earlier productions were really intense- like 145bpm, which was similar to guys like Cosmic Gate, DJ Isaac, etc., early on. So my first stepping stones were with that. 

Bsound: With your current productions, how do you sit down and think 'this is the melody I'm going to write for this song'? 

Eco: I'm actually a lot different than most producers because I'm very busy- I have a job and I also go to school, so I have really little time. A lot of my writing is done on my laptop in a bus or subway going somewhere, so the basic barebones melody writing is done in those places.

So whatever happens or influences me at those moments I put it down to sound then I go back home and refine that later in the studio and put it all together in terms of making a coherent song. It's a little bit of everyday inspiration, and kind of cliché, but I write it them in weird places.  

Bsound: So New York City is an inspiration in your songwriting? 

Eco: Yea. You can hear that some songs are sadder and others are really happy depending on something I see that day, some place I'm at, or something I've overheard in a park. The different places where I put it together influence what comes out as far as putting the melodies on the computer. 

Bsound: Your released your latest production- "Staring At The Sea", under a 'Pacheco' moniker. What's the deal with this new name? 

Eco: It's another name I'm currently developing with Flashover Recordings. It's for releasing material on other labels for legal reasons but I'm also trying to do something different and push the boundaries a little bit more compared to some of my other work. 

You can notice, especially in "Staring At The Sea", that it's really weird, or at least that's some of the feedback I get from people who have heard it. Like people's first reactions to hearing it were "oh what are all these little sounds? I can't keep track of what's going on". I'm really trying with that song and another song called "Dancing Under Streetlights" that's coming out under that moniker to do something different, even though that's my general approach to songwriting. But I'm kind of pushing it further with Flashover since they're a label that, in my opinion, encourages that. 

BSound: I saw that you were producing a remix of "The Saltwater Room" by Owl City. It struck me as kind of odd for someone like you to remix this song. What kind of treatment are you giving this track and how did you get the idea to remix it? 

Eco: Before the success of Owl City's Fireflies album, Universal wasn't really expecting that to be so popular so they said they wanted to do a second wave of promotion with a remix album. I was one of the artists that were asked to be involved with the project, but the album is actually on hold. 

I finished the remix and they liked it a lot but as far as releasing it it's on hold until further notice. As for the style of the song, it's an ambient/chillout track that oddly enough sounds similar to the style of Kaleidoscope by Tiesto. It has really big pads, a lot of chord progression and treatment on the vocals, but overall it's slower than my usual stuff and more loungy.  

Bsound: Any chance that we'll ever see this track or if the album will come out? 

Eco: The album's not really going anywhere- but I might just release it for free, which is something I like to do every once in a while. 

Bsound: On your MySpace there's a banner ad for a mix album by you called "The Sound Of (You)th". Is that something coming out soon? 

Eco: It's something I put up there but I haven't finished yet. I'm always putting out promotional mixes and mix CD's that usually have some theme to them. So "The Sound Of (You)th" is one that I want to do as three or four part CD mix with the theme of it being the sound of my everyday life. For example, one CD would be a lot of the chillout and lounge stuff I listen to, and another would be heavy headliner trance. I want to make the mix transition like that but I haven't been able to finish it all of it yet. It's nothing official- I wouldn't be selling it, but it would be a free download to let people get an idea of what I'm listening to when I'm not producing or DJing- something a bit different from the norm. 

Bsound: What kind of feeling do you get when you hear someone else playing one of your tracks on a radio show or during a live set?

Eco: It's pretty incredible. I've gotten more and more used to it- at first I would go crazy and dance and my friends would go out of control. But now I kind of just stand there and see the audience's reactions and take in the details of people singing along or whistling to the melodies- whatever happens to be going on at that particular moment whether it's a live broadcast or performance.

Bsound: Out of all the songs you've made, which ones are your favorites? 

Eco: "Tonight Is Forever" and "Staring At The Sea". The melody from "Tonight Is Forever" seems to still surprise me even though I've heard it a few hundred times. For "Staring At The Sea", I put a lot of time and effort into the subtleties and the small sounds, and I'm very happy with how they all come together to make a song.

A State Of Trance 450… 

Bsound: What was your reaction when you first heard that you were going to play on April 2? Was this booking something you were expecting or did it just come out of the blue? 

Eco: I found out about it the day before the lineup was announced. The original email I was supposed to get was lost in the spam folder of my inbox so I never read it. Then Armin's manager contacted me and asked me if I could confirm if I was playing, and I said "of course I can confirm". After that I gave all my closest friends a call to tell them the news, as they have been waiting for that opportunity for a while, even longer than I have [laughs]. 

Bsound: What do you plan to do with the one hour timeslot you have at that show? 

Eco: Here in New York I've been doing a lot of opening sets for other guys and it's been an amazing opportunity where I try to explore different sounds. Opening for Marco V recently is one example and opening for Cosmic Gate is another. 

But as I'm on early that night I don't want people to assume that I'm going to play that way. I'm really going to go all out as far as introducing some new songs and picking out my favorite tracks from my favorite producers. I want to create an overall headliner feel for my set rather than the usual thing that the New York crowd is used to- which is me opening up for other guys. I'm trying to come out of my shell and hopefully give people something to talk about.

---------

Those who want to watch DJ Eco spin, but can't wait for A State Of Trance 450 in April, can catch him at Love on March 12, sponsored by Massive Event. Eco will be joined by locals Harji & Watson, Wayde Rafnel, MadRiverRai, Jay Kinard, Rob Stevens, and Brendan Bartels. 

[Image credit: Tianbek.net and Nightreveler.com]

DJNY #1: Brad Miller

This is the opening installment in a series of interviews and profiles of New York-based DJ's. My first guest is Brad Miller.
 

You may know Brad if you've been out and about in the Big Apple at least once over the past couple years, as he has played many of the top clubs in the city , including Pacha, Love, and Sullivan Room. His podcast, Push The Night, is among the top 25 most popular music shows on iTunes, with his latest episode showcasing his picks for the top 20 tracks of 2009.

Earlier this week I had a chance to talk to Brad about his beginnings as a DJ, his experiences playing in New York, and his thoughts on the industry...

Where it all began… 

Binarysound: Where did you develop an interest in music as a child?

Brad Miller: I was in high school when I really started to get into music. I went to a lot of rock concerts back then- probably almost every weekend, to a place called the Roseland in Portland, Oregon, where I grew up. I just saw a ton of bands there including New Found Glory, Coldplay, and others.

But when I was out there, one weekend there weren't any good bands in town and I remember my buddy telling me "there's this guy BT in town", and I said "who's that?" So we went and saw BT live, and that was pretty much it…

Bsound: So that concert was where you got exposed to electronic dance music?

BM: Yea, definitely. That show was followed up by all the big guys at the time - Crystal Method, Moby, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, etc.

Bsound: Getting the equipment to become a DJ isn't cheap. What were you doing six years ago when you picked up your first set of turntables and how did you get them?

BM: I actually got my first turntables for Christmas, so I have to thank my parents for starting that off and giving me some faith [laughs]. I got two Newmark turntables and a Newmark mixer and then went out and bought my first vinyls at Platinum Records in Portland. I picked up Underworld's Cowgirl/Rez EP and Sasha's Xpander.
 

It's funny because back then [vinyls] were the more expensive part. These days everybody's saying "the equipment is so expensive", but back then, vinyls cost $10-15. You'd spend $100 or something dollars on ten tracks, and that's where the money problem really was. Getting started these days isn't really as hard because you can do a lot of stuff digitally. You only need about three hundred bucks for equipment and you're in business.

But at that time, I worked every stereotypical job- I've been a pizza delivery boy, a Christmas-tree salesman, a lifeguard, a clerk at a record store...

Bsound: How long did you practice in the bedroom before you played your first show?

BM: I spent probably six months in the bedroom trying to learn how to do it. DJing is something you never really ever master- you only get better at it. There's never a certain point where you say "ok I'm done practicing and I'm ready for everything".

I think with any gig no matter whether you're starting out with ten people or a club with a hundred, you still have to step up your game. You've got practice as much along the lines as you do when you're trying to get your first gig.

Bsound: Where did you play your first show and how nervous were you?

BM: I'm always nervous. I'm nervous before I get to the club, when I'm driving to the gig or in the cab, and then minutes before I go on I'm a complete wreck. But when I get actually behind the decks I forget about all that. I don't know how that works exactly, but at some point you have to embrace it and realize that being nervous is a good thing because it means you're stepping up to a new level. Anytime you play a gig out of your comfort zone it means you're moving forward. 

My first gig I played was this college party in somebody's dorm room for about 20 people. It's tough when you play your first gig because you're playing for maybe 10 or 20 people and it's hard to get a room of that size to rock. The people in attendance might be there to dance or just to relax, but unless you play hip-hop or something that everybody is going to love, it's scary to come into a house party and drop underground tech-house [laughs].
 

For that reason I think it can be better to play more commercial stuff at first to get people into it. It's invaluable to play those small rooms to learn how to react to the crowd, because by the time you get to a bigger room, you'll know how to rock it.

Bsound: Can you talk about your experience playing some of the bigger clubs in the Northwest as your career progressed?

BM: I love the scene in Seattle and I really got into it in college. At the time they had a really strong progressive scene, but now it's turned into a more trancier crowd. It's got a real community feel to it- you see a lot of the same people, everybody knows each other, and everyone is pretty friendly over there. A lot of the club owners will go to the afterhours spots and have drinks together.

When I play there, it's always a little bit more of a party as opposed to anywhere else- people  just want to have a great time and listen to stuff they can rock to. And there's some great clubs out there- Last Supper Club usually brings in a lot more of the underground stuff, and Trinity is one of the bigger clubs in the city, but they do electronic stuff as well. They were key to helping me get started- I worked there first as one of the lighting guys then started playing there on the weekends which was a lot of fun.

Coming to New York…

Bsound: So how did you end up in New York City from the Northwest?

BM: If you want to be in the music industry, you pretty much have to move to Los Angeles, London, or New York. When I was graduated college, I wanted to break into it somehow, so I sent out no less than 100 resumes to every nightclub or record label in the world that I could get an address for. The only one I heard back from was Crobar in New York, who offered me an unpaid internship.

So I packed up my bags, threw them in the car, and drove off the next week and came into the city knowing absolutely nobody. I slept on the floor of my friends', roommates', uncles', cousins', brother or something like that [laughs]. I basically watched my bank account get to zero over the next six months, but in life, you've got to make those decisions. You can either play it safe and stay at home or chase after your dreams. It's cliché I know, but why not?

Bsound: How did you get your name out here locally when you first got arrived?

BM: It was a little bit of luck, a little bit knowing the right people, and a lot of hard work. At the time I was working with Crobar and I did get some good slots there from DJ's arriving late to shows and whatnot (so always keep your CD's with you at a nightclub [laughs]). But what really helped kick things off was the help I got from both flawless and Massive Event.  All of us had worked pretty close together at Crobar over the years, and towards the end as they started to branch out they helped get me my first gigs in the city. At the time the gigs were still on more of a here-and-these basis though, and I knew if I wanted to make an impact I would have to work hard to build my own fanbase outside of the club, which is when I started my podcast and email list.

You also have to have a crowd before you can play to get a crowd. It's always this chicken and egg problem. After those first few gigs I was really focusing on trying to build my network so I could come to them again and say "hey look I can bring you a lot of people that really like my sound, give me a shot in the main room". After I convinced them I was ready, flawless gave me an opening slot for BT and Massive gave me an opening spot for Randy Boyer and Breakfast which really set things in motion.

Bsound: Can you talk about some of the upcoming shows you have here?

BM: Right now I've got two shows coming up- one on February 19 with Sultan and Ned Shepard at Quo and one with Cosmic Gate and Richard Durand at Webster Hall on March 20. I'm also working to kick off the Push The Night parties this year as well, so definitely keep an eye out for them.

Bsound: Over the past year, local electronic dance music shows have been popping up at new venues such as the Nokia Theatre and Electric Zoo Festival on Randall's Island. How do you feel about the recent growth of the scene here?

BM: I think it's really exciting - I think we're finally starting to see dance music become much more accepted here in America as it has been in Europe. While I know there are some that are afraid of dance music becoming too big and losing it's underground roots - in the end I think it really benefits all of us. Now more than ever I've seen a lot more of the smaller underground DJs getting the chance to come play in America - some of which I never thought I'd see over here.

Any weekend out here in New York City you can go see a top-level DJ or an underground, left-field sound. You can pretty much can hear anything you want and I think a lot of times people forget that. You just don't get that in a lot of other cities.

Bsound: It seems like there are a million DJ's out there making free mix podcasts each week for listeners to download. What would you say is unique about your podcast, Push The Night, that makes it stand out from countless others?

BM: There are several key differences. One is that I don't crank out mixes every week on purpose. Push The Night is not about the last 10 tracks that came out this week. They come out when they're ready and are meant to be experienced more than once.

Each episode is also something I put a lot of time into personally, because almost every single track on them is a re-edit or has been changed in some way. I change the keys in a lot of the songs, I mash them up, I restructure them- every mix is really a collection of my favorite tracks put in the best possible order I can make. The episodes are meant to be more about the mix as a whole rather than just the songs by themselves. I mix different styles not as a gimmick, but because I like to explore other genres of electronic music. I think Push The Night is one of the very few podcasts you can listen to that explores new and familiar territories in different ways.

It comes down to music in the end, and every day I spend a lot of time looking for new songs. If I make one trance set a year there are probably thousands of trance tracks I listened to just to find 20 of them that I think are worthy. To me, less is more, and I think that's important because people have so many podcasts to pick from. You have A State of Trance each week, Trance Around the World, Dance Department, the Essential Mix- people have way too much to listen to. If you want to stand out these days it needs to come from the quality. 

[Image credit: Brad Miller]