Disclosure Remixes Pharrell’s “Frontin'”
In between festival gigs, Disclosure have shared a new remix. The Lawrence brothers have taken on “Frontin'”, the 2003 debut solo single from Pharrell featuring Jay Z. “Little re-work we did of one of our favourite songs ever…,” they wrote on Soundcloud. “Might give this one away for free when we reach 1m likes on facebook… we shall see đ ENJOY!”
Posted by Jenn Pelly (Via Pitchfork)
Digital Dave on Club Killers Radio
Wow, can you believe it’s been over 100 episodes!! We never thought the podcast would get this far or become as popular as it has, for episode 101 we bring you the the return of Pittsburgh main stay DJ Digital Dave.
Dave brings you versatile mix filled with mainstream club anthems including our new Calvin Harris “Summer” Trap mix. Check out the full track time list after the jump. Continue reading →
Five First Impressions of New Drais Nightclub
1. That âwow factorâ: Nightlife owner/operator Victor Drai claims he always gives clubbers at least one reason to drop their jaws upon entering his clubs, and on this writerâs visit, chins were slamming the floor at the top of the Draiâs Nightclub stairs. The only downside of that momentâthat first sight of a new all-stops-pulled dance space, surrounded by LED screens and trumped only by the view of the exotic Beach Club (and Las Vegas Strip) dead aheadâwas wondering if the rest of the night could match it.
2. That party: Our fears were quickly allayed. Maybe it was just the casualness of a Friday night in Las Vegas, but on May 23, Draiâs only felt crammed toward the front of the dancefloor, where revelers prepared for headliner Eric Prydz. Drai had hoped for less DJ worship at his Cromwell topper, and by and large, there were more clubbers than concert-gazers, but for some, old habits seem to die hard. Luckily, the dancefloor was large enough to accommodate the rest of us who enjoy actual dancing, and dance we did to one of the best Prdyz sets weâve heard in awhile. Also adding to the comfort level: wide walkways for shuffling patrons and an open pool area for some thump reprieve.
3. That outdoor oasis: And speaking of: Draiâs Beach Club is arguably more gorgeous than the 11th floor view its marketing touts. Not even the occasional sprinkle could drive attendees from socializing poolside or taking in the adjacent Strip or even sitting a spell if they happened to catch some open cushion. Its red/white/gold color scheme gave the space its class, while the towering palms dotting the pool perimeter lent it a bit of paradise.
4. That nu-school disco ball: If all eyes werenât on the DJ boothâwhere dancers also slinked and shimmied in front of and aside the man dispensing the beatsâthatâs because the star of the show may have been the steel, illuminated polyhedron levitating above the dancefloor. It looked like a cross between the Death Star and Caesarsâ old Omnimax Theatre, and while it didnât immerse the room in spinning lightsâother mechanisms provided different room-chasing effectsâit mesmerized nonetheless. Itâs probably dominating your Instagram feed right now, as it should be.
5. That bass: A horizontal speaker stack graced the rear of that aforementioned dancefloor, and it discernibly jumbled the organs of anyone dancing within 10 feet of it (or sitting atop it). It was pretty potent during Prdyzâs straight-ahead progressive house set, so imagine what brain-rattling reverberation a trap-friendly DJ set could cause. That might be reason enough to endure one.
Posted by Mike Prevatt (Via LV Weekly
Photos by Drais Nightclub
Pure at Caesars Palace closes after 9 years for makeover, reopening in 2015
The high-profile Pure nightclub at Caesars Palace will soon disÂappear. Hakkasan Group announced Wednesday it will close the nearly 10-year-old club May 26 for an extensive renovation and expansion that will open in 2015. Hakkasan Group President Nick McCabe said Pure will reopen under a new name and concept.
âPure had a huge amount of success and it truly was a pioneer in the industry,â McCabe said. âPure really changed the market.â McCabe said the club will be expanded by taking over space that now houses Caesars Palaceâs poker room. The poker room is expected to be moved to a new space near the race and sports book. Pure, which opened in 2004, was one of several Las Vegas and Atlantic City nightclub and restaurant operations London-based Hakkasan acquired in February when it purchased Angel Management Group. Hakkasan operates the multiÂlevel Hakkasan nightclub and restaurant inside the MGM Grand Las Vegas, which opened a year ago at a cost of more than $100 million.
âPure was built at a cost of $15 million,â McCabe said. âThe market has changed.â The current Pure space covers 36,000 square feet and includes several rooms and an outdoor terrace overlooking the Strip. The location attracted numerous celebrities over the years and gained national recognition. More nightclubs and dayclub spaces are opening this year. Draiâs 65,000-square-foot rooftop pool/beach club/nightclub opens Memorial Day weekend atop The Cromwell. Meanwhile, the $415 million SLS Las Vegas opens Labor Day weekend with several nightlife attractions, including a Las Vegas version of The Sayers Club, a Los Angeles music venue.
McCabe said the Stripâs evolving nightclub market created a need to renovate Pure and bring a new concept to the space. He knows what replaces Pure will be compared to the popular Hakkasan at MGM Grand. âWeâre our own worst enemies,â McCabe said. âWeâve set a pretty high bar for ourselves. Caesars is one of the premier properties on the Strip and it requires nightlife experience.â Pure will donate its furnishings to Opportunity Village, Hakkasan said.
In April, Hakkasan and MGM Resorts International formed MGM Hakkasan Hospitality, a hotel management company that will design, develop and manage luxury nongaming hotels worldwide. The new company will work to develop properties in key international gateway cities and resort destinations worldwide under the Bellagio, Hakkasan, MGM Grand and Skylofts brands.
Posted by Howard Stutz (Via Las Vegas Review Journal)
If Not Twitter & SoundCloud, Who Will Make a Deal?
Conversations about acquisitions happen all the time, so maybe the story about Twitter and SoundCloud discussing a deal was more of an interesting leak than a close call. In the past two days, weâve learned that there were conversations between the two, there was a deadline for exclusivity of talks, and that it passed with no deal.
Re/code, which first reported the conversations Monday, said Tuesday that Twitter walked away from the deal. But it was clear that SoundCloudâs price would be high, perhaps too high for Twitter to justify. And indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported that Twitter decided âthe numbers didnât add up,â and backed out.
Few know who leaked word of the conversations, but where will news of the no-deal lead? For starters, a lot more people are now acutely aware of what a good acquisition target SoundCloud would be for a larger media company, and the analogy of the Google/YouTube deal is fresh in peopleâs minds. People are guessing what the price would be — $2 billion? More? And if there were indeed a period of exclusivity that Twitter enjoyed, itâs over now, so other bidders are now theoretically in the mix.
Berlin-based SoundCloud is a popular service that would have helped Twitter solve a growth problem. It could neatly add a music function to a social network, or augment any of numerous other media properties — at least, ones that are able to part with a couple of billion dollarsâ worth of cash and stock.
As for Twitter, the SoundCloud conversations are a reminder of the past failure of its Twitter Music service, and an indicator that itâs still trying to find a way to incorporate music as a key element of its platform. If its talks with SoundCloud were indeed serious, thatâs a sign that it would rather buy than build something new — and with a depressed stock price, it may have to shoot for a less expensive option in the near term.
Posted by Paul Bonanos (Via Billboard)
EDM Business Worth Over $6.2 Billion.
Electronic dance music is a $6.2 billion global industry, per a new report issued at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, Spain Wednesday (May 21).
As compiled by EDM trade group the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM), the figure includes revenue from festivals ($1.03 billion); Las Vegas club dates ($800 million) and other global club gigs ($2.4 billion); traditional recorded music sales ($800 million) and streaming/video services ($600 million); sales of DJ software and hardware ($360 million); DJ earnings from other ventures ($60 million) and value from other platforms like Soundcloud ($140 million).
A graph from the 2014 IMS Business Report which estimated the worth of Electronic Music at $6.2 billion.
Elsewhere in IMSâ report, the organization points out the explosive growth of electronic/dance music sales in the U.S. (the only genre to post year-over-year sales gains in 2013, per Nielsen SoundScan) as well as DJsâ earnings, with the top 10 DJs on Forbesâ 2013 Electronic Cash Kings earning a combined $225 million, nearly double the $114 million earned by the top 10 in 2012.
And although Calvin Harris, Avicii and David Guetta have been big mainstream hitmakers as of late, young DJs like Hardwell, Zedd and Nicky Romero are showing the highest margins of growth in their social media “likes,” each growing their followers by more than 350% apiece in 2013, according to data from Rankings EDM Monitor. Hardwell in particular quadrupled the fans he added per day year-over-year, comparing a three-month period from Feb. 5 to May 5 in 2013 to 2014, the period before and after the influential Ultra Music Festival. Per Music Metric data, Hardwell saw as many as 70,000 new fans on social-media a day during Ultra 2014.
Now in its sixth year, the IMS Summit in Ibiza will host guest speakers including Nile Rodgers, Steve Angello, Seymour Stein, Paul McGuinness, George Clinton and Miles Leonard.
Posted by Andrew Hampp (Via Billboard)
SNL Pokes Fun At Overpaid EDM DJs
SNL’s Digital Shorts had been in cold storage since creators Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer left the show several years ago to pursue careers outside of 30 Rock. Luckily, the trio came out of deep freeze for Samberg’s season-finale hosting gig on the show, creating a pitch-perfect send-up of overpaid DJs, endless techno breakdowns, and the inevitable drop that blows minds. Perhaps literally. Watch, then watch again.
Posted by David Miller (via The Verge)
Club Killers Radio Episode 100
This past week we hit a milestone with our weekly podcast, episode 100 featuring Club Killers offical DJ Bento live from Tokyo, Japan. It’s been about 3 years since we started the podcast, at first it was monthly then we took it to the weekly format and the organic growth of it has been phenomenal! Now over 25,000 itunes subscribers and over 1,000,000 plays on Soundcloud.
I wanted to personally thank all the listeners who have made these mixes part of their daily workouts & weekly festivities. And of course a huge thank you to each and every single DJ who has blessed us with an hour long mix. It’s so amazing to share all these great DJs from across the country and the world with our listeners. We appreciate your continued support. Check out DJ Bento’s full track list after the jump! Continue reading →
Watch Disclosure & Sam Smith Break Down âLatchâ For Beats By Dre âBeat-by-Beatâ Series
Linking up with Beats by Dre to share insight on their massive collaborative track, “Latch,” Disclosure and Sam Smith are discussing the story behind the song’s creation, touching upon everything from how the two creative forces came together to why “Latch” stands out from their other work. Clocking in at just under two minutes, the video is directed by David Black, and features input from Guy Lawrence, Howard Lawrence, Sam Smith, and songwriter Jimmy Napes.
Posted by David Miller (Via Hypetrak)
The Chainsmokers new deal worth over $1 Million.
The overnight success of The Chainsmokers is a testament to the power of social media’s viral nature and the ability of DJ-producers Alex Pall, 28, and Andrew Taggart, 24, to capture the zeitgeist. Now, the No. 1 music publisher and the head of one of the biggest label groups are betting that the creators of “#Selfie” are no one-hit wonders — both signing the duo to seven-figure deals.
Sony/ATV chairman/CEO Martin Bandier and his team had been keeping an eye on the EDM act for some months. But neither Bandier’s team — nor Republic Records, which had signed The Chainsmokers a few weeks before the Âpublisher’s deal — expected “#Selfie” to blow up as big and as fast as it did.
“We were already in talks but this added whipped cream to the cake,” says Bandier. “It made us add a little more money to the deal. I do mean a little.” Sony/ATV isn’t talking about the terms, but it’s believed to be worth over $1 million, according to a person familiar with the terms.
The New York DJs first drew attention from the big labels after a series of successful dance remixes. They signed with Creative Artists Agency for touring. They were cooking up fun ways to promote their show at Liv, a Miami nightclub, when the idea for “#Selfie” arose.
“We had this idea to make this video of selfies of our friends and fans,” says Adam Alpert, the duo’s manager. The song was literally put together in an hour and was meant to be a bit of a joke. It went up on SoundCloud for free, and a mutual friend suggested it to DJ Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak label, which promptly signed the act to a three-song deal. The song broke onto Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart on March 1.
Within days of the song’s release, every major label was calling with a deal offer, says Alpert. In late February, Dim Mak did a pressing and distribution deal with Republic for three songs in the United States. According to a person familiar with the terms, Dim Mak received a $250,000 advance and 70 percent of master royalties (less expenses).
The Chainsmokers signed a multi-album deal with Republic simultaneously, to take effect once the obligation to Dim Mak is fulfilled. The Republic deal is said to be worth over $1 million, according to two people familiar with the terms.
To date, “#Selfie” has been downloaded over 726,000 times (according to Nielsen SoundScan), peaking at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and has been viewed on YouTube nearly 100 million times. Billboard estimates the song has generated more than $2 million thus far.
Posted by Yinka Adegoke (Via Billboard)
Cheating The Beatport Charts: The Costs and the Consequences
The music business has always been difficult to break into for any artist, regardless of style or genre. For DJs, itâs getting even harder given the increasing competition. Innovations in technology have lowered the barrier to entry for creating dance music, while the press attention on our community means interest is higher. The result is more DJs and producers making more music than ever. More competition makes it harder to get noticed.
The history of the music industry is filled with scam artists who claim to offer shortcuts to success. Payola, MySpace bots, fake âlikes,â phantom âplays,â paid âfollowers.â Like every other digital platform, Beatport has seen its share of fraudâartists and labels who try to boost their sales chart position as a way to generate attention and gain âWeâre No. 1â bragging rights.
Weâre flattered that a Beatport chart position can have such a profound impact on a DJâs career. Itâs what drives us to do everything in our power to ensure that the DJs gaining that recognition deserve it. To do so requires constant vigilance, innovation, and communication. Over the past few years, weâve noticed an increase in services offering to boost a trackâs Beatport chart position for a price.
In response, we monitor our charts daily, looking for anomalies. Weâve built and continue to improve upon technology to prevent chart-boosting efforts. Weâre not saying weâve succeeded or will succeed every time, but weâre getting better at it every day.
When we spot a boosted record or track, we remove it from the store, and weâll continue to do so. Our next step is to permanently ban the offending artists and labels. And weâre not bluffing.
As much as this type of thing saddens us, it makes us angry even more. To anyone tempted to use one of these so-called chart-boosting services, we urge you to first consider the cost. Not the monetary cost of what these scams charge, but rather the cost to your career, to your reputation, and the cost to your soul.
First, if youâre artificially boosting your sales to fake the demand needed to score a favorable chart position, youâre robbing someone else, someone more deserving, of that same spot. Youâre doing more than cheating. Youâre stealing. Youâre lying. Youâre taking false credit for something you didnât earn, and youâre hurting someone else by doing so.
Second, chart-boosting rarely works. There are some very easy and obvious clues that help us spot the scammers. These scammers talk a good game, but theyâre really just preying on the desperation of aspiring DJs in order to line their own pockets. More often than not, the money spent on these scams is just wasted.
Third, you might get caught. Thereâs nothing the music industry hates more than an exposed fraud. Do you really want to chance short-term gain for long-term embarrassment?
Cheating is as destructive a vice as there is. Success won legitimately and organically is far sweeter than taking any shortcut, no matter how tempting, easy or anonymous it may seem at the time. Those trying to cheat are being watchedâŚnot only by us, but by the entire community.
Posted by David Miller (Via Beatport)
Pasquale Rotella’s Insomniac & Interscope Geffen Launch New Label.
EDM comes to IGA. Insomniac CEO/founder Pasquale Rotella has partnered with Interscope Geffen A&M to create a new EDM label, Insomniac Records.
Insomniac Records brings the experience of more than two decades of promoting some of the largest dance music events in the world to its new affiliation with Interscope Records.
âWe formed Insomniac Records because we saw the need for a label that fosters the unique talents of dance music artists while also giving them a powerful platform to share their music with fans around the world,â said Rotella. âThe Interscope team has an unparalleled track record of success and I believe that with our combined efforts, Insomniac Records will launch the careers of undiscovered artists while also attracting established producers, allowing them to create music that the fans will love.â
âInterscopeâs core is built on finding great talent at the forefront of music whether itâs artists, producers, or executives.â said IGA COO/president Janick. âPasquale and Insomniac have built and nurtured an amazing culture and weâre excited to be a part of it.â
The first official EDM label at Interscope, Insomniac Records will be home to producer/DJ âArtyâ (Artyom Stolyarov), the first artist signed to the new label, with a full-length album coming later this year. He posted a teaser of his forthcoming single, âUp All Night,â on his SoundCloud. The Russian-born producer/DJ released his first production at the age of 19 and has since collaborated with many of the top DJs around the world. Arty has been a longtime supporter and performer at Insomniac events, including the Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas.
More than one million fans attended Insomniacâs events in 2013 alone, including club shows, concerts and large-scale music festivals, including the Vegas edition of Electric Daisy Carnival, the largest electronic music festival in the world, which more than 345,000 fans over three days last year. In addition to EDC Las Vegas the company creates dozens of music festivals and experiences annually, including Nocturnal Wonderland, which has been held in San Bernardino and Texas; Escape from Wonderland and the all-white New Years Eve festival, White Wonderland, in Anaheim.
Posted by Roy Trakin (Via Hollywood Reporter)