Last Wednesday night, despite the lingering rain that has been pestering New Yorkers for the last month or so, I decided to venture out to the newly revamped Mansion, which is now known as M2 UltraLounge–the stealthy moniker that is cover for what’s supposed to be Ministry of Sound’s new NYC effort. If Pacha can bring the funk to New York, then Ministry of Sound sure can too, even if it it takes over a space that has seen it’s better days. I wasn’t much of a fan of Crobar, the club’s original incarnation. But, I must say the venue’s design team have given a touch of class to a huge room that was sorely lacking sophistication.

Showing up to Bacardi’s B-Live was, for me, an off, then on again affair. It was 11 pm and I’d just arrived to my friend’s house across the Hudson in Guttenberg, NJ, where I’m staying for the month to be closer to the city. I knew I had to get up for work early, because I commute about 1.5 hours each way to the office in Long Island. As I sat down to check my Facebook messages, I saw a friend sent me an earlier note asking if I was going to go. If so, she was wondering if I was going to take some shots that she could use for a publication she writes for. Despite my better judgement, I knew she needed my help. I got my butt up off the couch, jumped in the car and shot into the city to see what I could come up with. After all, she’s a great gal and I don’t mind doing a favor for a friend.

Remember, I’m supposed to get up at 6:30 AM to make my way to Long Island for my day job. Staying out late on a Wednesday night is not something I’m accustomed to, but it was for a good cause. Plus, I got some great video and ran into some friends, including Armand Van Helden and my man Ricky and his production partner, Ray, who are working on some tracks as Housing Project (MySpace). More on new music from that crew another time, for sure.

The night was definitely jackin. I go there just in time for the last 1/2 hour of Jazzy Jeff’s set. Every element of every track dropped in that 30 minutes was a bomb that warmed up the crowd for A-Trak, who broke out a big beat infused set of electronic, rock and urban rhythms that kept the crowd jumping until around 3 am. Then, it was DJ AM’s turn to take the wheels. After a few intro tracks, he dropped Notorious B.I.G. and the late night revelers kicked into gear once again.

For Bacardi, this certainly was a highly successful branding experiment. To pack an NYC venue on a Wednesday night until the wee hours of the morning says something about the talent and the offering. Bacardi staffers were everywhere throughout the venue, directing punters to get the pics taken in the Bacardi photo booth, have a custom T-Shirt printed on-the-spot, or grab a rock inspired poster. Throughout the venue, Bacardi imagery was in full effect. Of course, the sure winner was the HUGE, fully lit boom-box, which backed the DJs on the stage. I saw some walking around with messenger bags with a boom box pic printed on the flap. For a commercial effort, they got it right. People dug it and it wasn’t too obtrusive. Even the tour bus out front was hot, which photos of the DJs plasted on the sides.

All in, it was a pretty exciting night for Bacardi and NYC. Definitely a hot event. If B-Live is coming to a city near you, I wouldn’t miss it.

Check out the videos and photos below of Bacardi’s B-Live stop in NYC.

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Electric Zoo Festival

Electric Zoo New York – to be held in Randall’s Island Park, New York City on Saturday, September 5 & Sunday, September 6, 2009 – is pleased to announce more acts at this year’s inaugural festival.

The world’s No.1 DJ ARMIN VAN BUUREN and French superstar house music sensation DAVID GUETTA will helm an unprecedented line-up of over 50+ artists across 4 stages, covering all genres; House, Techno, Trance, Electro, and Indie, including DJs and live acts.

On Saturday, the heavyweight line-up is joined by Canadian prog/tech star Deadmau5, Montreal’s club veteran Tiga, LA’s scenster DJ Steve Aoki, Ed Banger, electrohouse DJ Busy P, fellow French cohort DJ Mehdi, English electro-rock band The Whip, and fiery French live act Yuksek. On Sunday, NYC’s own disco-house purveyor Andy Butler of Hercules & Love Affair, UK progressive house darling Desyn Masiello, Swedish techno auteur Adam Beyer, prolific Jedi/producer /remixer Tom Middleton, next-wave computer rock technoist Nathan Fake, and Parisian experimental house/techno outfit Chateau Flight join the festivities to close out the weekend.

The principals of Made Event, Mike Bindra and Laura De Palma explain their vision for the festival:

“We have been inspired over the years by what happens in Europe each summer, and we’re very excited to be bringing our version to America; Electric Zoo, New York’s first electronic music festival. Our intention is to showcase the top artists in each of the sub-genres, there will be something for everyone – a literal ‘zoo’ of electronic music. For us, this is the culmination of many years of dedication and hard work. The realization of this goal is another step forward for electronic music here, and we’re laying the foundation for many years to come.”

Special introductory ticket prices for Electric Zoo end on 12 midnight June 18th. Use promo code EZNY for $45 single-day passes and $80 double-pak two-day passes for General Admission. VIP single-day passes are available at $120 and VIP double-pak two-day passes at $225. VIP passes include a separate VIP entrance, access to VIP lounge with private cash bar, exclusive viewing area at main stage and access to VIP-only deluxe bathrooms. Tickets are available at www.electriczoofestival.com.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5th

• Armin van Buuren
• Deadmau5
• Benny Benassi
• Danny Tenaglia
• Roger Sanchez
• Luciano
• Robbie Rivera
• Tiga
• Marco Carola
• Chus & Ceballos
• Steve Aoki
• Busy P
• Kaskade
• DJ Mehdi
• Paco Osuna
• Chris Lake
• Speedy J
• The Whip
• Martin Buttrich
• Yuksek

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th

• David Guetta
• Ferry Corsten
• Richie Hawtin
• Markus Schulz
• Special Disco Version featuring James Murphy & Pat Mahoney (LCD Soundsystem/DFA)
• Andy Butler (Hercules & Love Affair)
• Frankie Knuckles
• Steve Bug
• Josh Gabriel
• Desyn Masiello
• James Holden
• Adam Beyer
• Tom Middleton
• Audion
• Nathan Fake
• Menno De Jong
• Chateau Flight

Enjoy the music, share your voice.

Launched in December of 1996 at the beginning of Web 1.0, Netmix.com was the first mix show Web site to feature the world’s most influential electronic dance and hip-hop DJs, in the mix. The company’s founder, Tony Zeoli (DJ Tony Z.) retired the mix show format in 2003 and relaunched as a DJ culture, music and technology blog.

We are looking for people from all over the world, passionate in the dance and DJ culture  to contribute their thoughts, photographs, and videos over the next 365 days, with the goal of remaking Netmix into one of the top DJ culture destination on the Internet. 

You will be given a user name and password to the site and you’ll be asked to contribute at least once a week on topics such as these:

• Artist, Music, Event Reviews
• DJ and Production Products and Technology
• Internet sites that serve the DJ culture community
• Web, mobile product development best practices for the DJ community
• Review of Internet radio stations and DJ mix shows online and off, which is important…we don’t want to forget about offline too!
• Videos and photos from nightlife establishments and parties around the world
• Coverage of music conferences
• Podcast interviews and/or music downloads and possibly Netmix Online Radio, which can be developed over time.

What kind of music:

Netmix is foremost a DJ culture environment. House, Trance, Techno, Drum n Bass, Hip-Hop, Electronica, Downtempo, Acid Jazz are all formats we embrace. Bring on some French, Indian, Japanese or Brazilian hip-hop…world beat is something we also want to cover. Anything that tows the line between dance and rock is fine too. We generally lean new, but if you want to post 100 YouTube videos of classic house and hip-hop tracks on a page, it’s your world.

Requirements:

You should have excellent written and communication skills, social networking and be good with technology, as you’ll be posting content from your iPhone, manipulating photos and editing video footage. You might want to know a little HTML and CSS. 

Incentives: 

Whether you are looking for college credit or jump starting your career, writing for the blog would be a unique type of writing sample that you would have to add to your portfolio- that in which you can show future employers for internships, jobs, etc. With social media on the rise, employers will find it fascinating and impressive you have contributed to a blog in the past. 

Currently, the site generates incremental revenue, but not enough to pay anyone just yet. 

This is your chance to get in on the ground floor and help grow Netmix into an internationally respected brand. Here you can learn to advertise and affiliate valuable relationships to last your entire career. 

Please send your resume with brief introduction, links to all your relevant social profiles, a writing sample and links to any images or video you’ve shot in the past 3 to 6 months at events around the world.

Send to jobs [at] netmix.com

No phone calls. Allow two weeks for a response. We will get back to everyone.

Here’s a recorded UStream.TV DJ battle from my friends over at John Jay College.

– by Tony Z.

Hey, scratch DJs. Always wanted to know how to set your stylus properly? Here’s a decent YouTube tutorial video on how to zero our and balance your tone arm and set your stylus weight properly to keep your needle from skipping during your performance.

Check out this 8-year-old, DJ Sara, cutting it up on the 1200’s. Can’t wait to see her at the DMC championships one day. It’s pretty amazing for someone so young to be so talented at this stage of the game. I’m loving this. So will you.