Archives for posts with tag: Porter Robinson

‘Worlds’ Tour Interview w/ Ghostdad: VJ for Porter Robinson

2014/10/27 //
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To start off, I’ll say that Porter Robinson’s ‘Worlds’ show was one of the best I’ve ever seen! It was in the same room and on the same stage that I saw Daft Punk in 2007, when my interest in electronic music first started. Being there got me on a path to be an artist myself, start this site and eventually do this interview present day. I saw and felt some similar things, both shows representing originality, top-notch stage/light productions, emotional depth, perfect cohesion and the ability to create different versions/edits of their songs, new and old. 

So rare that I can speak with someone whose had a hand in bringing such a memorable show to life.  They just recently wrapped up a massive U.S. tour, and are now preparing for the final shows in South Lake Tahoe (California), London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Luxembourg and Australia. Cheers to every person involved in this tour, both mentioned and not. And of course, thanks to Porter Robinson for crafting this beautiful album. Now, onto my conversation with ‘Worlds’ VJ and show collaborator, Ghostdad..

 

DD Hey man! So kool to have you on Disco Droppings a second time. Onto even more massive things!

GD Thanks man glad to be back!

DD In the first part of the ‘Worlds’ live tour documentary, Porter mentioned the two of you spending four straight days in one place, figuring out how to execute this live visual show. Did your own experiences and inspirations come through in this collaboration? You worked alongside each other in 2012 as well, and I’m curious about your fingerprint on this next level..

GD Those four straight days were spent editing the show. The content itself was developed over a much longer process and involved many artists. All the illustrated animation you see in the show was directed by Invisible Light Network who are also in NY. There was recently a great write up about their process in Animation World Network. I met up with Elliot at ILN a few times while his team was at work, and also made a batch of visuals for the show. I had been playing around with 3D stuff using Blender and Photoshop, and Porter was really feeling the low poly vintage 3D vibe, so a lot of what I made was in that zone and added a nice contrast to the 2D animation. Porter was back and forth with all of us through that process before I collected all the footage and brought it down to North Carolina for the fabled four day editing session.

So my role kind of shifted from creating content to edit mode. We ended up making some new things too that week from existing material or as transition pieces. Our goal of cutting all the visuals to music ahead of time, was to do something that was super tight and related directly to the beat or sometimes individual instruments in the live mix. We wanted to emphasize things with tighter cuts to the beat rather than fades or transitions. Luckily this goes in line with how I like to perform visuals. I think Porter and I share the goal of wanting to catch the viewers attention unapologetically. There’s something inherently dazzling about video that lines up with a song, but we both like it when it really hits you in the face and doesn’t leave your senses to interpret the timing or the mood. That way you can just chill out and feel it completely.

 

DD What is the feeling like this time around? Compared to the “Language Tour”?

GD We’re very proud of this show. Ben Coker also had a tremendous role in preproduction. He designed everything you see on stage including the clear table Porter performs on. His sleepless nights came in Vancouver when we put the rig together for the first time and he really got into the nitty gritty of programming the lights.

We were proud of the Language tour as well, and that gave us a chance to try different things. On that tour Porter could change up his DJ set, and we could try different things with the visuals and lighting and see how our styles all fit together. But for the Worlds tour Porter had a very solid vision of what he wanted his music to LOOK like, and that gave us a chance to think about how we could best present that vision live ahead of time.

So we’re intensely proud of Worlds as a touring production and very thankful for everyone who helped put it together. We worked with a bigger crew on this one and it wouldn’t have been as consistent a presentation of an amazing show without a solid team to see it through.

DD As I’ve taken in everything surrounding ‘Worlds’, it’s given me new insight into the reality I find myself in and am creating. These fictional universes have given me fresh eyes to see what’s out there. How has all this translated for you?

GD Sometimes I think about all the places we’ve been these past few years and how those can inspire fictional landscapes. Like the coastline in Australia or the highway that takes you into Hong Kong. We’ve seen some really beautiful places in both a natural and urban setting. Tokyo of course another amazing place just to be immersed in even for a day. Some of the stuff I make is collage based and uses photos so I like to think about how I can relate fictional landscapes to places I’ve been. It’s a nice way to remember.

DD For days and days after the Seattle show, I had lyrics and melodies swirling around in my head. You spend more time with this imagery and music than most, do you find your mind superimposing these environments into your day to day travels? Having your vision glitch out in a way?

GD By the end of this tour I knew every frame of the show. I could probably hear a song from the album now and see what’s on the screens in my head at that exact moment. I’m also way too used to being in dark theaters all day. Staring at the screens every night definitely leaves some of the images burned into my eyes. I’ll have to spend some time in the daylight and see if anything does glitch out in my vision. Could be interesting!

DD Any especially special moments on tour so far?

GD San Francisco was a really big show. 7000 people showed up and were all totally feeling it top to bottom. That was a definite morale boost early on in the tour. The Aragon in Chicago also stands out as a really cool show just because of the history in that theater. Old theaters always have sort of a spooky magical feel and in that one we took a tour of the catwalks above the ceiling and got to check out the old pipe organ that still plays from the balcony. And finally the 9:30 club in DC was an incredible show. DC is an awesome town for live music, in part because the 9:30 Club has always placed emphasis on keeping their venue all ages and making it really comfortable for concertgoers. That kind of puts the focus on the show a little more I think. The crowd there was singing every song.

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*Concept pictures credit to ILN on Tumblr

*Transparent gifs provided by Ghostdad on Tumblr

DD I watched this behind the scenes documentary about Blade Runner. Ridley Scott would play the soundtrack to the cast and crew during filming to help immerse everyone further. Is there anything similar to that for the crew/yourself as you travel all over?

GD Soundcheck before the doors opened was a good daily ritual on this tour. It was Ben and I’s chance to make sure the show was working and in synch and also make any changes we wanted for that day. Porter would also come out and watch the show, or sometimes just chill on stage and work out some new synth parts. It was a good chance to make sure everyone was on the same page before showtime.

DD And how was that opening DJ set you did for one of the shows?

GD Oh yah that DJ set was fun!  I didn’t really plan it out so I was sort of playing random jams. People seemed to dig it though so maybe I should do some more! I used to DJ a lot but have been more into production and the visual thing the last couple of years.

DD Any last words? Seriously wish you all the best with the remainder of the tour and beyond. You’re doing reallllly superb things Ryan.

GD We’re looking forward to some good shows in Europe and Australia! I’ve also got some other projects I’m working on for the new year including music from my band WIN WIN and a new website that will showcase the visual work I’ve done with several artists these past few years. So stay tuned for that!

Ghostdad – Twitter

djghostdad.com

porterrobinson.com

– Jimi Jaxon

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Jimi Jaxon’s 10 Favorite Interviews of 2012 for Disco Droppings

2012/12/31 //
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There’s been a lot of activity on this blog in 2012. Not having a search bar on here, I feel that some interviews have been overlooked. I want to highlight 10 conversations I’ve had in 2012 that left a lasting impact. I also want to say how much I appreciate all of you that read and support Disco Droppings. WordPress sent me my annual statistics report for this blog, and in 2012, people from 135 countries came through; America being number one, followed by the UK and Canada. I haven’t traveled outside of America, besides Canada and Mexico. It’s inspiring and humbling that my features have reached people as far away as Mongolia, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Onward and upward..

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10. Distal (Atlanta, Georgia) –  We talked about his acceptance into RBMA 2013, his fantastic Boiler Room set, his label Embassy Recordings, along with books and films he’s been into recently.

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9. Bosstone (Melbourne, Australia) – Started off this post with his epic tune “Lean”, off his Gun Club EP via Paradisiaca Recordings. Also profiled his remixes of Pryda’s “Miami To Atlanta” and Amerie’s “1 Thing”.

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8. Alex Bau (Germany) – I was super hyped to talk with Alex, as he’s my favorite techno producer. We discuss his huge output of releases in 2012, where to go out in Germany, why he calls his remixes “Repaints” and what “The Holy Bassdrum” means to him.

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7. Jonny Dub / Hoya:Hoya (Manchester, UK) – Jonny is a resident DJ and co-founder of Hoya:Hoya, one of the top club nights in the world, which has hosted Kode9, Actress and Hudson Mohawke to name a few. I loved his “Hoya:Hoya Podcast Mix #2”, and chat with him about the club night, who he’s inspired by and the dynamics between Illum Sphere (co-founder of Hoya) and himself.

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6. Mosca (London, UK) – It was quite a challenge, coming up with questions for such a razor-sharp producer like Mosca. He gives advice to young producers like myself, and talks about his Eva Mendes EP for Hypercolour.

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5. Slick Shoota (Oslo, Norway) – I had such a good time talking with Slick back in May. For the rest of the year I’ve watched his tunes be exposed to more and more people, through his touring schedule and support from high-profile artists. His tracks were featured on “Diplo and Friends” for BBC Radio 1 and Machinedrum has been regularly playing his remix of Bambounou’s “Alpha”. We talk about his “Percussion Skank” EP, his favorite juke phrases and his “Windbreaker” collaboration with Cedaa.

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4. Ghostdad (Brooklyn, New York) – This dude put together some of the coolest visuals I’ve ever seen for Porter Robinson. When I traveled to Las Vegas back in June for EDC, my favorite set hands down came from Porter. At 19 years old, he played the main stage (which was the biggest stage in North America to date) on the third day. Ghostdad’s visuals for the show combined anime, video games, nature, space and mayan/egyptian imagery. He also accompanied Porter Robinson as a VJ on his Language Tour.

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3. Lucid (Melbourne, Australia) – By far the most in-depth interview I’ve done so far. I got to know Lucid for weeks through AIM leading up to the interview. This is pretty close to his life story, documented on Disco Droppings. Everything from Tupac to N64 to his “cry/lovemaking” dream set is included here.

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2. XI (Berlin, Germany) – This conversation flowed so easily. Christian is a very special man; he talks passionately about Actress, videogame soundtracks and what a game soundtracked by XI would look like.

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1. Alana Watson of Nero (London, UK) – The beautiful and lovely Alana. I got her perspective as the vocalist for Nero. She talked with me about her headlining show in Seattle for Resolution 2012, Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 show and her favorite Nero track.

– Jimi Jaxon

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EDM In My Eyes

2012/12/26 //
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A recent Mixmag interview with Machinedrum has prompted my assessment of EDM. I was impressed with Machinedrum, aka Travis Stewart’s balanced observations of underground dance music and EDM. Being such a driving force in the underground, it is refreshing to see someone like Machinedrum speak on Mixmag, without even a hint of attitude or territorial ego. You don’t hear an us vs. them argument, which I think is vital for the healthy development of electronic music as a whole.

This attitude especially connects with me, because my journey with electronic music has gone through many stages. With close to zero knowledge of electronic music up until the age of 18, I saw Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 show in Seattle. From there I saved up for DJ equipment, and by February 2008 I was practicing in my dorm room, without any sort of a community of like minded people. Soon after I was invited to my first rave, with the funny name “Hakuna Matata” (it was year 4 or 5 of their series, I can’t remember which). This began my entrance into the rave scene. Having grown up never attending house parties as a kid, and also having been completely sober up until that rave, it was a big moment for me. I was hearing electro house, breakbeat, drum & bass, happy hardcore, psy-trance, and eventually dubstep which started to slowly find it’s way into the parties. Rave culture was very influential to me, for the freedom it gave, the ability to soak in the dynamics between the DJ and the audience and the overall loving and accepting attitude that I got from people at those parties.

Eventually, that particular area of partying faded for me, but my devotion to DJ’ing continued on. Eventually I was putting on shows with my friends and exposing myself to styles not presented at the raves. Later, I found myself working for USC events; A Seattle-based, EDM focused group putting on large-scale electronic events hosting artists like Nero, Calvin Harris, Porter Robinson, Afrojack, Sub Focus and Tiesto. At the same time I also started and continue to work for Decibel Festival; an international electronic festival working more in the underground area, bringing artists such as Amon Tobin, Flying Lotus, Addison Groove, Autechre, Trentemoeller, Four Tet and James Blake. I find myself straddling EDM and the underground and have come to understand that’s perfectly fine. I don’t take the stance of, “Oh I’m over here doing this underground stuff I’m done with EDM”, or “It’s all about EDM”, I have taken influence from all of it, and certain styles and communities made sense to me at different times.

I speak about this, because it’s important for me to always understand where I came from. I came through the EDM/rave scene, but that was one piece of the puzzle, one element in my overall development as an artist. Everyone comes into electronic music at their own level, it is important to respect that, and at the same time analyze what you’re seeing. In my case now, I push forward so that the music and the community around me remains strong and interesting.

That being said, EDM seems to be having some sort of identity crisis. A lot of the artists I adored during my rave days have in my opinion, stalled creatively. I see a lack of progression now, a lack of a narrative, and too much a focus on partying. In the long run, this combination of factors, if they remain the same will burn out the audience and the artists. As I said in my review of EDC 2012 in Las Vegas, only a small handful of artists seemed to be bringing that fresh, distinct feel to their performances (Afrojack, Feed Me, Porter Robinson). A shining example of an artist bringing a strong narrative and music that works at the party and home is Nero’s debut album, Welcome Reality, a concept album which debuted at #1 in the UK charts. I have yet to hear another recent album within this EDM category with such style diversity, emotional range and distinct atmosphere. Nero is especially close to my heart for several reasons; their Essential Mix is arguably one of the best ever produced for BBC Radio 1, I had the honor of working for them when they headlined USC’s Resolution 2012 (New Years Eve) and I interviewed their vocalist, Alana Watson for Disco Droppings at the beginning of this year. That interview, week after week, month after month all the way through to today, has pulled more views than any other post I have ever written for this blog. I have the utmost respect for Nero, and at the same time, I see the difficulties they now face. They may have produced one of the most solid albums in the EDM community ever, but that community seems to be falling out from under them. There just don’t seem to be enough like-minded artists pushing things forward. I’m very interested to see what a sophomore Nero album will sound like, being as smart as they are, I hope they are foreseeing these issues with EDM, and planning to once again change up their game.

 

You may be unaware, but there is a battle for control over EDM on the business side. I picked up the September issue of Billboard Magazine with the title “Inside The EDM Arms Race; Robert F.X. Sillerman Has A $1 Billion Plan To Conquer The World Of Dance Music“. Before he set his sights on EDM, Mr. Sillerman took a network of individual concert businesses and combined them into one single massive empire, SFX Entertainment. That company was sold to Clear Channel for $4.4 billion in 2000, which eventually became Live Nation. Now, this approach of buying up smaller companies and merging them into one focuses on the electronic dance music in America, which has grown into a gigantic money maker. Sillerman’s SFX Entertainment has begun buying up different companies within the EDM community, from Disco Donnie Presents (promotion company for Middle America events) to Live In Color (Florida based promoter for co-ed paintball parties, formerly known as Dayglow Productions). If all goes according to his plan, 18 other EDM entities, from promoters to ticketing groups to venues will all be under Sillerman’s ownership. By the end of this experiment , over $1 billion dollars will be spent to acquire over 50 companies, marking the largest EDM conglomerate ever. It’s quite sad that someone doing all this has no actual passion towards the music. In Sillerman’s words, “I know nothing about EDM..But I sit in the meetings, to the extent that they are (meetings). I meet the people whose places we’re buying. And I haven’t a fucking clue what they do or what they’re talking about. Not a clue. And I love it. I just love it.” That right there, is fucked up. He will eventually flood America with big-scale event after big-scale event, and given that EDM is already looking unsure of itself music-wise, I predict this huge boost in shows will burn out the audience, due to exhaustion, overstimulation and lack of money. The party will be over. So I call on those in the EDM community to move towards something that transcends the party. I also call on the underground community to drop the territorial attitudes, and realize that so many more people are now open to electronic sounds, and eventually many of those people will come searching for you. 

I’ll end this post with some of my personal favorites in EDM. At its most positive, I feel it has opened up a very big sonic quality, and several artists have produced some savage tracks that I have held onto. Please excuse any youtube artwork that’s cliche; one of the most annoying aspects of EDM online are pictures of chicks in their underwear, tits being covered by headphones..let’s please move on from that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Jimi Jaxon 

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Ghostdad Interview – VJ for Porter Robinson’s Language Tour

2012/07/19 //
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Time to give a VJ major props. Ghostdad ran all over with Porter Robinson for his 30-date Language Tour, showcasing some of the most badass visuals I’ve seen in a while.

DD Hi Ghostdad. Porter Robinson sent me your way via Twitter. How are you doing, and where are you at right now?

GD I’m good! I’m in Brooklyn New York. Just got back from the Language Tour and crashed out for a few days but I’m slowly returning to real life.

DD Was this the first tour you’ve been a part of?

GD This is the first Porter Robinson tour I’ve been a part of. Before that, I was on tour playing music and visuals with my band WIN WIN, and with Spank Rock as one of his backing DJ’s also doing visuals for his show. I’ve toured in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.

DD Rad. How did you did you hook up with the Language Tour, and what made it unique?

GD Porter and his management saw some of the WIN WIN visuals and commissioned me to make content for his show. They mentioned they were also looking for someone to VJ on his tour and the rest worked out from there. This is the first time I’ve focused just on visuals without performing or DJ’ing on stage at the same time, so I could really fine tune it. The scale of the venues and production were also bigger then the past things I’ve done, which made it a great opportunity to put stuff on a big screen and make it look really good.

DD Talking about big venues and screens is a perfect introduction to EDC Las Vegas 2012. I went with a few buddies and felt that 3 artists brought their best; Afrojack, Feed Me and Porter Robinson. For Porter’s set on Day 3, my friends and I were dumbfounded by the combination of his set and your visuals. One friend was dancing like mad and stopped dead, staring at parts of the show. VJ’s have such an integral role in live environments, especially with electronic music. They are usually in the background, not getting a lot of recognition so I wanna stop and say, rad fucking job!

GD Awww shucks man thanks. Porter definitely brought it musically, I remember him killing it. Festivals can be tough. For the DJ and the VJ I guess in this case. You’re often thrown in with 10 minutes or so to make sure everything is plugged in and works and then someone is like “GO!” and you go. EDC was a surreal experience mostly because of it’s size. It’s probably not as nerve racking as being on stage but looking at the crowd from front of house you could see the tens of thousands of people that were there. Those were some amazing screens and the production designers deserve props on making it look amazing to start with. Also thanks to the guys at @vsquaredlabs for putting me up on the screens, they were running most of the content that day and graciously patched me in. 

DD Now going into these visuals more, how much input did Porter Robinson have on all the imagery? Did you show him a bunch of ideas and bounce it off his thoughts, or did you present it all to him and he was like, “fuck yes”?

GD We had a really good back and forth going for the two months leading up to the tour. I would send batches of ideas and he would come back with notes. We actually found a lot of common ground when looking at our Tumblr feeds for references. Somewhere in the middle I went and did visuals for him at Coachella, which gave me a chance to see some of the stuff I was working on and pick it apart a little more. We also worked with two other video artists who prepared content for the show so I was grabbing their stuff and making it VJ-able during that time as well. 

DD Yah, he seems very involved with all aspects of his presentation as an artist. How would you describe the theme of these visuals? There’s so many themes melding together; video games, anime, Mayan/Egyptian shit, nature and space..

GD I think Porter wanted something that was stylish and artistic without being too serious.  Looking at Tumblr feeds as a pool of ideas contributed a lot, and we definitely follow some blogs that go heavy on the themes you mentioned, as well as gifs and internet memes. I like referencing internet stuff in my visuals because it gives people something to grasp on too. And we might be of a generation where video games and nature and space are all sort of naturally dazzling to us, cuz we grew up paying attention to them so much (or maybe that’s just us nerds ha). It’s good to have some graphics that feel recognizable in the same way Porter plays songs people recognize as sort of arrival points in the set. 

DD Any funny memories from the tour you can share?

GD There were lots of funny times with the crew out there, everyone was awesome to hang with. I can’t think of any specific things off hand I’m still sort of coming out of the blur of playing a show every day for a month. One thing that was funny during the shows was when Porter would change his routine a little bit to mess with me and our lighting designer. On the mixes he did often, sometimes he’d change it by 8 or 16 bars which he knew full well was messing with us. We’d end up launching our cues then have to sort of dial them back and wait for the right moment, and I could see Porter laughing on stage cuz he knew we were scrambling. I think our LD Ben, found a way to shine lights in his face or something to get back at him. Made for some fun unpredictable moments.

DD Haha nice. Where do you go from here?

GD WIN WIN has a new record coming out this fall and we’ve changed our live mode from a DJ/VJ setup to drums, guitar, synths, and live visuals. Very excited for all of that stuff. Here’s our latest single

And we printed some posters that are sort of visual preview.

Plug plug plug haha! I’ll be working on more dates with Porter too, we’re figuring out which shows and festivals make sense to bring a VJ too. You may see some of the elements I made in pre-programmed form at some of his DJ gigs, where projection is available in the meantime. 

DD Well I wish you the best with all that. Thanks for talking time to talk with Disco Droppings.

GD Sure thing, thanks for having me!

Ghostdad – Twitter

djghostdad.com

– Jimi Jaxon

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In My Eyes – EDC Las Vegas 2012

2012/06/18 //
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I came back from North America’s largest electronic music festival frustrated and inspired. EDC markets itself as a “one of a kind, full entertainment experience”, but from my observation this year, more effort was put into the size of the stages and the number of lights, and less on booking innovative, forward-thinking artists. The first strange call by EDC, was booking Michael Woods first on the main stage, from 7:00-7:30pm. Festival goers were not able to enter the festival until a little after 7, so everyone missed most of Woods’ set. With huge tracks such as “I Said (Michael Woods Remix)” and “Oyster (Michael Woods Remix)”,  I was disappointed to see him placed at the very start of Day One.

 

After wandering around the grounds, my wonderful crew and I got to the main stage early to see Hardwell (Knife Party was playing right after). After listening through his set, I noted a bland delivery and songs with such similar drops, some of them sounded almost identical. The crowd enjoyed it, but the set was incredibly underwhelming in my opinion, a big step down from the sets I saw last year at EDC Las Vegas. One of the most anticipated artists of the festival this year, Knife Party played next, and I was so hyped to see what they came up with. Unfortunately, it appeared that Knife Party didn’t plan their set out at all, with several sloppy mixes and an overall presentation that was forgettable. Big letdown..I do have faith that they just had a bad night and will arrive at Paradiso Festival this weekend with a stellar set.

Just when my buddies and I were getting pissed about the mediocre sets we were experiencing, Afrojack takes the stage. Last year I had crazy memories of Afrojack’s 2 sets; I was in an elevated state and imagined Afrojack’s set killing audiences and opening up another reality. Ha. Now in 2012,  he showed why he’s one of the top DJ’s on the lineup. An epic intro teased the crowd with bits and pieces of his biggest tracks, and from there out, we were hit hard. A solid vision held the set together, with productions that came through fuller than many of the other artists performing on the main stage. One small note to MC’s and DJ’s, talk less, your music speaks loudly on its own. After he finished, many of my frustrations from Day One subsided, Afrojack had delivered. I didn’t feel like I was going broke on this festival for nothing.

 

On Day Two, I caught Digitalism’s DJ set. Had a distinct groove throughout, and I was refreshed to hear something different. The most memorable performance though was hands down, FEED ME. The stage set-up featured his trademark “teeth” rig, which lit up in perfect sync with his thrilling productions. The crowd was rabid during “One Click Headshot”..I had fingers guns pointed at me from all directions, with friends screaming the words “..I mean my heart’s beating, my heart’s beating My hands are shaking, my hands are shaking but I’m still shooting, and I’m still getting the headshots. It’s like BOOM headshot, BOOM headshot BOOM HEADSHOT!”. Fucking cheers to Feed Me, you were everything I hoped you would be and so much more!

 

An epic bummer for Day Two happened when all the music in the festival suddenly stopped. We soon found out that because of high winds, the stages were shut down for fan safety. Due to this event, I missed Richie Hawtin, and was very sad. Part of me understands the dangers of stages collapsing, people have died in the past. But this is the biggest electronic festival around, generating millions of dollars, and they can’t invest more in securing their stages? After standing around for a while, wondering if the music would come back on, one set of Funktion-One speakers turned on. A massive crowd was treated to a spacey, dubbed out set from a mysterious DJ, it was quite magical.

The energy on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Day Three was electric to say the least. After losing half a night of the festival, everyone seemed ready to go out with a bang. No one solidified this idea more powerfully than Porter Robinson, who played from 3:00-4:00am. This 19 year old spanked so many DJ’s on this years lineup with ease. The visuals were some of the raddest, most trippy displays I’ve ever seen, and he played a staggering number of genres (including 2 hardstyle influenced tracks). He had the crowd entranced, and confidently delivered a godly set. Porter Robinson is what an event like EDC is all about, and I just wished I saw such effort from more of the other performers.

Huge numbers of fans spent every cent they had to attend this festival (like my friends and I), and they deserve to have something innovative and utterly mind-blowing. The lowest point of EDC Las Vegas was the Q-dance hardstyle stage. Complete joke. EDC invested so much into that stage, giving it a monstrous look, and had DJ’s play some of the most under-produced, shitty dance music I’ve ever heard.

I normally spend my time writing about  things I like on Disco Droppings, but was so shocked by some elements of EDC Las Vegas 2012, and felt someone should present some constructive criticism. I also wanted to congratulate those who brought their A game. If you have the cash and want to do something nuts this August, head down to LA for HARD Summer, the lineup is everything EDC Las Vegas failed to deliver.

– Jimi Jaxon

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