Ovum Records celebrates 15-years with their 14th-annual Ovum Party on Wednesday, March 24th. The festivities take place at Shine nightclub in the Shelborne Beach Resort Hotel from 10 pm to 5 am. In the main room, Josh Wink vs. Steve Bug, Nic Fanciulli vs. Joris Voorn, David Squillace vs D’Julz and Luis Bacchetti. DJ Sneak, Doc Martin and Manik are in the lounge.

Josh Wink recently announced the opening of the Josh Wink store online, where you can pick up the Banana T-shirt to show your a fan of Josh’s new studio album, When A Banana Was Just A Banana.”

Follow Ovum on Facebook Page: ovumrecordings or on Twitter @ovumrecordings. Follow Josh Wink on Facebook: JoshWinkOfficial or Twitter @JoshWink1.

Take a listen to these tracks from the new album in the Beatport player below.

Josh Wink Resident Advisor Podcast

This is a hot new tune from AVH, which scored a number one on the British charts. Check it.

Another video curated from the YouTube archive sees one James Zabiela cutting it up at Studio K during this year’s Winter Music Conference. Check it out. We thought it was hot!

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Axwell produced this video postcard from WMC 2009. The audio sounds really nice! Love Axwell’s tracks, which you can check out on MySpace. He’s definitely come on the scene in a big way.

His most recent, “Leave The World Behind,” is blowing up worldwide. Sorry, no links yet avail from iTunes to purchase. You might want to check Beatport for this track.

Axwell’s upcoming gigs:

Apr 10 2009 8:00P Spin, San Diego, USA – San Diego
Apr 11 2009 8:00P Avalon, Los Angeles, USA – Los Angeles
Apr 12 2009 8:00P Bal en Blanc, Canada – Montreal
Apr 30 2009 8:00P Pacha ,Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt – Sharm el Sheikh
May 15 2009 8:00P INOX, France – Toulouse
May 22 2009 8:00P Catwalk, Barcelona, Spain – Barcelona
May 23 2009 8:00P Venue, Athens, Greece – Athens
May 31 2009 8:00P Paradise Bay Beach, Malta – Malta
Jun 4 2009 8:00P Skive Beach Party, Denmark – Skive
Jun 5 2009 8:00P Forum, Denmark – Copenhagen
Jul 4 2009 8:00P Stade de France, Paris, France – Paris
Jul 18 2009 8:00P Extrema Outdoor Festival, Holland – Best
Aug 12 2009 8:00P SHM@Greenbeat Festival, Croatia – Zagreb
Aug 21 2009 8:00P Catwalk, Barcelona, Spain – Barcelona

Here’s 10 hot−no wait−cool videos culled from YouTube for your enjoyment. I’m not saying they are the best videos, but they certainly give you and idea of what was going on at WMC this year.

1. Swedish House Mafia

Swedish House Mafia (Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso & Steve Angello) dropping their new track “Leave the World Behind” (Dirty South remix) at Beatport Pool Party during Winter Music Conference 2009 in South Beach.

2. Way Out West at the DJ Mag Party

3. ROGER SANCHEZ – BANG THAT BOX LIVE FROM MANSION WMC 2009

4. WMC 2009 Promo – Dubfire @ BEATPORT Pool Party w/ LEE KALT – House Music TV 167

For when you want to WATCH more than you want to LISTEN… DUBFIRE of DEEP DISH takes the stage at REMIX HOTEL – BEATPORT Pool Party. JESSICA and MALINDA show the crowd that good looks and hot bodies go perfect with house music. The crowd is all fired up as the “DEEP of the DISH” takes us all on a mid-afternoon tour of the Underground.

5. WMC 2009 – Louie Vega (WhodanyTV.com)

“Little” Louie Vega rocking the party at the Beatport stage during WMC 2009, Miami Beach. He is half of the famous production team Masters at Work.

6. Sharam- party all the time @ Cameo March 25th WMC 2009

7. Lil Jon + Diplo @ Mad Decent WMC 2009 Pt. 1

8. Steve Lawler @ DJ Mag Pool Party, Shelbourne WMC 2009 03/25/2009 3

9. Ultra Music Festival 2009 Miami – Carl Cox day 2

10. Armand Van Helden – “Where’s Your Head At” @ Mn2S Nikki Beach WMC 2009

While we were out and about covering WMC from the Netmix perspect, About.com’s Dance/Electronic Music channel DJ Dewight Barkley was equally as busy traversing the many parties and happenings at this years event. Check out the post-WMC wrap-up by DJ Dewight Barkley on About.com Dance/Electronic pages.

A3C Festival

(ATLANTA – April 7, 2009) The A3C Hip Hop Festival organizers announced today that the 5th installment of the annual A3C Hip Hop Festival will take place across multiple venues in the East Atlanta Village, October 1-3, 2009.

The A3C Hip Hop Festival has grown exponentially over the past 5 years to become the largest Hip Hop festival in the southeastern United States. Past events have featured a historic reuniting of Hip Hop legends The Juice Crew, the nationally acclaimed breakdance battle “Red Bull 4 Corners,” fashion shows, producer battles, street art exhibits, a world class producer battle, technical demonstrations, panels and over 40 live performances annually.

Past performers range from major label staples like Biz Markie, The Clipse, Little Brother and Bonecrusher, to independent mainstays like Del The Funky Homosapien, Souls of Mischief, Aceyalone, Black Milk, as well as up and coming superstars like Wale and B.o.B. The festival also strongly focuses on having a solid representation of smaller, national-touring, regional and local artists.

The move to fall dates and the move to a multi-venue format will allow the A3C to continue to bring more content to balance craved Hip Hop fans across the country.

Brian Knott, A3C Hip Hop Festival founder explains, “This year’s event represents for us the final step in a plan that was hatched five years ago. When we started the A3C we had the dream of bringing a balanced Hip Hop event to Atlanta that would someday rival what SXSW and CMJ have built in New York and Austin for rock music. With the overwhelming success of last year’s event we felt this was our opportunity to make a bold move and do something in Atlanta that would serve as an annual rallying point for all the elements of Hip Hop and all the flavors of Hip Hop music nationally.”

The East Atlanta Village (EAV) has experienced a meteoric rise over the last two years with the opening of a number of new listening rooms, small and mid-size venues. While still maintaining its independent attitude, the growth of the EAV has created for the first time in a decade a centralized area in the city to hold a multi-venue event and still enable fans to walk from room to room.

“Five years ago when we started A3C the EAV was still on the cusp of becoming what it is today. The growth of the EAV and the growth of the A3C have really been very similar. It seems like we are arriving at this point at the same time and we are really excited about the marriage. We feel like the EAV is our 2nd street in Austin,” said Knott.

ABOUT THE A3C: Now in its 5th year, the A3C Hip Hop Festival is a 2 day, 3 night event held annually in Atlanta, GA featuring live performances from some of Hip Hop’s most elite artists. The live performance schedule is enhanced by day and nightly events showcasing some of the most exciting break-dance, graphic art, fashion, film, equipment demonstrations and panels relating to Hip Hop culture.

The 2009 A3C will be held in multiple venues all located within easy walking distance of one another in the East Atlanta Village. Since 2005, the event has featured over 200 of the most exciting artists in Hip Hop including The Juice Crew, Biz Markie, The Clipse, Souls of Mischief, Little Brother, Wale, and B.o.B.

In 2008 the event was attend by over 9,000 fans and featured partnerships and co-sponsored events with MySpace, Red Bull, Scion, URB, Pabst Blue Ribbon, New Era and Stanton.

– from A3C Festival Press Release

There’s nothing like being friends with the DJ, lol. I shot this video from the booth at Aero (off 23rd and Collins) on Saturday night, March 28, sometime around 3 AM. The club was jumping as AVH kicked his classic hits, including My, My, My, Witch Doktor, Full Moon and more. The crowd was having such a good time, this dude started throwing money around…literally! He threw a stack of dollar bills up in the air. Too bad it wasn’t C-notes. I guess it’s the economy and he must have been holding back.

Seeing Armand giving the punters what they came for, over twenty two years since we’d first met in Boston in the late 80’s, got me reminiscing. I remember when we used to drive home from the East Boston studio of Mega-Mixx, the remix service we worked for back then. While Armand was remixing tracks til the wee hours of the morning−like Shawn Christopher’s Another Sleepless Night−for the long defunct service, I was in the back room calling mom and pop vinyl shops in Japan, Australia and Germany to sell them the latest issues.

We’ve both come a long way and have enjoyed success doing what we love to do. My career took me toward the Internet, while Armand pursued making great house music (and we can’t forget about hip-hop with Sampleslaya).

Shout outs to Ricky, who’s in one of the photos below. Ricky is a long time friend of Armand and he’s such a stellar guy. He told me he was making tracks now, so look out for Ricky’s studio sessions, soon to hit an MP3 player near you.

Also in the booth, Dan Ross from X-Mix, Mark Farina (jumped on the decks after Armand), Atrak, Kimyon, Ricky and Australia’s Ashley Grey from Xelon Entertainment.

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WMC 2009 Blogging, Podcasting and RSS Panelists

The Blogging, Podcasting and RSS panel at WMC 2009 focused on the various ways to get out the message through blogging, podcasting and RSS. Although BPM.FM and Play.FM are more streaming services than podcast outlests, the point was that Dance music radio has moved online and is where many people are accessing their favorite mix shows and artists.

The conversation turned to the new Flip video recorder, which is, for some, equivalent to the iPod for music. It’s a nifty $150 device ($200 for more storage) that has a built-in USB output, which means not having to worry about carrying around a USB cable. And, it syncs your video direct to YouTube for instant web channel publishing. The company was recently acquired by Cisco.

Flip Video (Photo courtesty of Pure Digital)

We also covered the power of Wordpress and it’s over 2,500 3rd party supported plug-ins, which enhances the power of the popular Open Source to a full blown CMS, if that’s what you need.

From left to right: panel moderator Laura Betterly (Yada Yada Marketing), Stuart Miller (Smart Move Music), Jamie Peterson (BPM.fm), Diego Sanchez (DMSR.com), Tony Zeoli (Netmix.com) and Thomas Buchstaetter (Play.fm).

Here’s a short clip of New York’s Dance music leader, Pulse 87.7 Program Director, Joel Salkowitz, discussing how the station came about, his role in it, and the recent action by Arbitron to add stations in the 87.7 range to their regular books. Other panelists included Vic Latino from Long Island, New York pop station, Party 105.5; Mike Spinella, Director of Industry Relations at AOL Music; and Skyy from Sirus Satellite Radio.

Fresh of my set at the Adidas store, I’m hanging with superstar Entertainment Attorney, Matthew Kletter and DJ Elyse (Ft. Lauderdale – systemaddix.com) at Cafe Del Sol somewhere on Collins Avenue. We’re getting ready to head to the IRIS rooftop party, then to the X-Mix event at Aero. Stay tuned for more updates from WMC.

Yahoo Music! GM, Michael Spiegelman hosted today’s panel on Social Media and Revenue at the Winter Music Conference 2009. Guest panelists included Andrew Fox from ClubPlanet.com, Ron Sperling from ConcertSceneTV.com, Micahel Lucero from Microsoft’s Zune digital music platform, Jim Mahoney from A2IM and Ron Suarez from LoudFeed.com.

Most of the discussion centered around using social tools to build an audience and then take your perceived reach to brands to capture discretionary spending dollars that brand manager have to play with. Andrew Fox implied that in today’s music market, brands are were the dollars are coming from, taking up where major labels have cut back.

The colorful Ron Sperling from ConcertSceneTV.com gave his perspective as a media producer and former ad agency executive who has created experiences. He impressed upon the room the importance of the live element of music and how larger dollars are won because of the importance of the fans personal connection to the music and how that effects what they’ll spend.

Yahoo Music! GM, Michael, Spiegelman did an excellent job in his first year moderating the panel, pulling an impressive list of guests to the table. In year’s past, WMC has had a difficult time pulling executives from this level of the Internet industry, but this year was an exception.

Micahel Lucero from Zune briefed the audience on brand deals with artist through Microsoft products like the X-Box and let artists know that Zune does have programs for new artists to get exposure through the service.

Rod Suarez was making his first ever WMC appearance both on a panel and as a delegate to the conference. His company, LoudFeed, is providing artists with viral marketing tools.

An extraordinary discussion led by BT around the implications surrounding the mainstreaming and commercialization of dance music. One conference delegate questioned the push for greater exposure for electronic dance music and DJ culture, wondering why we seek greater exposure when our audience is perfectly content keeping the music for themselves.

There has always been a push for greater access to the mainstream by underground artists, but those artists may get co-opted in the process, leaving them without the recognition due for their genius and musicianship, while enriching others on the mainstreaming of their work.

BT says, “People knowing it, doesn’t make it bad.” But, he validated the delegate’s question with a very distinct viewpoint on the issue. “Why can we acknowledge that guy that made the record” right now?, before it’s “saturation” into the mainstream.

Sharam points out that it may be someone’s dream to win a Grammy for their work, so why not push for that type of accesibility in the same way others have in the past, with the realization that with mainstreaming comes a trade-off, and there is little control over music once it leaves an artist’s studio.

I really enjoyed this discussion and think it’s one of the finer moments in Winter Music Conference history.

Hosted by the National Association of Recording Arts & Science, DJs Fedde Le Grande, Sasha and Sharam joined producer Brian Transeau (BT) an moderator Kurosh Nasseri for an afternoon discussion on the pros and cons of pushing for more opportunities at the Grammy Awards, as well as the intricate nature of pulling off certain sounds they use in their original productions.

While BT is busy taking his work to a PhD like level, by actually writing code to create sounds, Sasha talked about one time stringing together $40 and $50 guitar foot pedals, then running a synth through them for effects that can’t be replicated digitally. It was a pretty intense, educational and enlightening discussion for a well attended session today at the Winter Music Conference. I’ll soon post video of the session. I think one of the highlights in Winter Music Conference history, for sure. Stay tuned.

DJ Lars started off the day with a DVD DJ competition put on by Pioneer, the leading manufacturer of DVD DJ or VJ (whichever you prefer) equipment. Lars operates a visuals service, DVJVision.com. He recently announced he’ll be working with DubSpot, New York City’s leading DJ and Remix Production school, to teach DJing with DVD’s and Pioneer gear.

I also hit the Digital Distribution panel, moderated by well known entertainment attorney, Matthew Kletter, who has worked with many of the leading DJ/Producers and signed deals on behalf of artists to numerous to list.

The panel was heavily attended. Beatport’s Shawn Sabo shed some insight on why the leading online store for dance music is limiting new labels and their program to ensure that label’s meet a $500 a month minimum to stay in the store. As the business of digital music grows, the barriers to entry fall, creating an opportunity for anyone to call themselves a label. Beatport wants to ensure that their content is relevant to the tens of thousands who shop the store every day. The distributors on the panel were in agreement with the fact that, although they want to see labels succeed, they want to make sure the labels make it worth their time and effort, by putting together a solid marketing plan and release schedule to get behind. Without that, it’s just not that easy to prop up those who can’t, for some reason or another, commit to being a real record label.

While all the new upstarts wants to be on Beatport, Juno or the other popular services, the new labels have to understand that these companies are inundated with requests and don’t have the staff or bandwidth to support every release out there, nor should they, because some subjectivity must come into play in terms of quality control. With tens of thousands of people shopping online for quality music, these services must put up barriers to entry based on taste and the real opportunity to sell.

However, Craig O’Neill from IODA did bring up the frustration distributors have with label exclusives, inferring that they limit the opportunity for a record to have an extended life. With dance music, once a record is out for two to four weeks in one store, the other stores either don’t or won’t pick them up, leaving good records without an extending opportunity. I think the distributors would like to see companies like Beatport cut their exclusivity windows to allow for greater saturation over more services, so that records have a longer, supported shelf life. While Beatport has implemented a new program to cut exclusives down to as little as two weeks, the distributors argue that any exclusivity can still hurt a record, instead of helping it along. The fewer places means the fewer opportunities.

Sabo also shed light on Beatport’s now defunct affiliate system through Linkshare (which Netmix used often to sell tracks from our Podcasts), which–in his words, was just not worth the effort; mainly because of the fraud that was occuring through their partnership with Linkshare.

On a personal note, after FIVE LONG YEARS, I finally got a bit of face time with someone from Beatport. I want to thank Mr. Sabo for taking the time and making the effort to have a one-on-one conversation, and I look forward to more industrious relationship with Beatport in the future. I won’t go into my past issues, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s all water under the bridge.

Will I still hold their feet to the fire if I see things that need to be challenged? Of course, I definitely will.  However, today’s meeting with Mr. Sabo was genuine and I’m looking forward to our next conversation to set something up for Netmix and Beaport. Thanks, Shawn. Good looking out, man!

Kletter kicked off the panel with the question: “do you really need to secure a deal with a well known label?’ Chicago’s Groove Media Group Managing Director, Marea Stamper, took a crack at the question in this YouTube video. For anyone in the room, listening to Marea’s perspective on things was surely and educational experience. She really covered some ground here regarding deals, labels and the process and talked about how you shouldn’t just depend on shopping your music to high profile labels. Given the digital world and the reach you have today, you can start putting out records to make some noise, before taking that leap.

On the Press and PR panel, Jim Tremayne, Editor at the venerable DJ trade pub, DJ Times was admamant about publicists delivering a short, detailed bio, hiqh quality imagery and, despite the ease of digital, still wants to get CDs from artists. The main reason is that the artwork, combined with high quality photos and the music can sell an artist into a spread in a magazine, simply because presentation wins in the end. As an editor, it shows him that you’re serious about what you do and you’re willing to put everything you’ve got behind supporting your work.

If you’re just sending a MySpace link, a download and asking him to take photos of your MySpace page for publication, in his words, “MySpace photos are not press ready.” You have to do more to stand out and show the editors of these magazines that you have put in the time to get their attention. Of course, the music has to be appealing, which is very subjective. But,  in the end, if you have a great package, you’re going win over the artist who didn’t deliver the goods.

Kat Baker from Get In! PR brushed a broad overview of what it takes to get a PR initiative going. Timing and planning are very important. Notably, she mentioned that she makes sure not to send out a full album digitally before it drops. It will only go out to trusted sources, for fear that it might leak on the web. When she’s working singles, she’ll send out more low fidelity MP3’s to press, while making sure she can track the open rates for the emails that go out, as well as press logging into the system they use to download and listen to the tracks. Having that level of control is of obvious importance to the PR effort, so you can administer the campaign effectively and plug holes without being surprised.

We were walking to dinner from the Royal Palm and bumped into Dave Dresden and Davey Gold (pesudo-retired dance music industry radio promo veteran and New Jersey DJ) on Collins.