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March 29, 2007

WMC Miami Wrap up

Ok, so I just spent my vacation and a ridiculous amount of cash on adventures and misadventures at WMC in Miami. It's kind of funny: since I read about WMC in 2003, I've fantasized about attending, hobnobbing and performing at the conference, but in the end, the conference itself barely resembled what I imagined. The official music as far as I could tell was limited to house, trance, etc., basically all the thump, thump, thump, four-on-the-floor beats that bore the crap out of me, no matter what is happening in between.

But as an artist who exalts all things 'tronic, I made the best of it. Which meant more than just lots of living the life at/in the pool, the "seabreeze" bar, and on the beach, swimming and enjoying the absurdly Maxfield Parrish-esque sunsets. I gladhanded a ton of DJs who might alltold listen to three minutes of my CD and otherwise tried to get my message out there. One of the highpoints was getting up in front of a panel that included Tom Silverman the founder of Tommy Boy records (ironically had I known who he was I might not have found the nerve) and busting my speil. I have to say I was pretty taken aback by the insightfulness and sincerity of his response. People might say it's obvious to suggest what he did: that I should take my one-man hip-hop electro extravaganza on the road grassroots style, but having someone with the kind of success this dude has behind him gives it a weight.

My other small victory was a positive response from both the panel and the attendees at Friday's Demo Listening Workshop. I got props for my nasty bassline on 5 by 5 and even a positive comparison to A Tribe Called Quest, one of my favoritest hip-hop acts of all times. But again, with the overwhelming aesthetic tending toward clubby DJ music, the exaltron vehicle was not getting the traction it should have. Thursday night I was lucky enough to hook up with Julie from the Warper fam (aka DJ Shakey), who showed me the well-connected side of the citywide festivities, including one of the uber-hyped downtown clubs whose soundsystem threatened to obviate the need for monitors at my gig the following day.

Saturday's showcase performance in the hotel lobby was similarly plagued by anti-musician discrimilation. Ok, half the issues had to do with my own "preconfigured" setup, a box packed with effects, interfaces and way too many cords to effectively troubleshoot when something comes loose on the UPS truck. But I was also plagued by the alien (at least to me) DJ mixer that was provided. Ultimately with no support whatsoever and 30 minutes into my one-hour time slot, I was literally having to talk myself out of a breakdown and convince myself that the exaltronic show must go on. But the mostly-internal drama was perhaps a bit overprescribed, as I ended up laying down some serious trumpet, a smidgen of vocals and lots of wholesome live remixing, sacrificing guitar entirely for the good of the master-outs. And yet I still got treated like DJ Dangerfield with people walking up to me in the throes of a self-indulgent trumpet solo to get my info. Seriously though, I was amped by the limited reaction I got and the two people who waited until the end to talk at me seemed infinitely more professional. Oh, also got a fifteen minute video of it, most of which will probably consist of me trying to find my mic cord among the mess of wires in my "lunchbox".

Spent the last two days in sunny and overwhelmingly retired Naples, Florida with my homegirl Ashlei getting burnt to a crisp on the beach. And this little piggy said ow, ow, ow, all the way back to Newark.

Posted by exaltron at March 29, 2007 02:41 AM

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