Miami is quite simply the best week of clubbing in the world. End of story. Sure, Ibiza stretches through the Balearic summer sunshine with five months of craziness, but WMC is one week of the best of it all crammed with partying, record industry meetings, greetings, doing record deals, plus great restaurants, buying cool trainers, hearing new tunes that you’ll be hearing all year long and waking up with the worst ever hangovers. It’s great. No, it’s bloody amazing. Clubbers and industry folk from 70 different countries all get on the dancefloor and the beach for an event which is now in it’s 24th year.
I’ve been going for years and can hardly remember anything. But here goes… seeing Erick Morillo dancing at his party on a glass table, slipping and smashing it nearly killing himself falling on the floor, Masters of Work DJing and their vocalists singing under the stars – a lump in my throat every time I think about it, the Tong bash at the world’s best hotel – The Delano one year, the Global Underground boys feeding a parrot to a crocodile in a pet shop down Collins Avenue, Dave Beer at last year’s Back To Mine party (well there’s messy and THERE’S MESSY), promoter Louis Gee from Scream getting the collywobbles in a strip joint and legging it out of the door with his jeans half way down his legs, the mad synchronised swimming displays in the pool at The Shelbourne, sitting on South Beach at silly o’clock watching clubbers pick piece of driftwood up to snort coke off, going out on a jet ski with a few people and witnessing a friend smash into another friend knocking out three of his front teeth (very funny), Nikki Beach – the best open air venue in the world, The Forge Restaurant – like eating in a scene from The Godfather film, Pharrell Williams trying to pull my girl on his rooftop party at The Shelborne, my dad pressing the doorbell of Madonna’s house and a cop car swooping on us within thirty seconds and oh yes… the dreaded plane journey home feeling like you have just gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson. And then landing in freezing fucking Blighty.
The event was founded by then DJs and Record Pool Directors Louis Possenti and Bill Kelly with 80 dance music industry dudes in attendance at the Fort Lauderdale Marriot before moving to South Beach five years later. I think their International Dance Music Awards are shit and a waste of time so we’ll gloss over that part of it. Last year’s week of looniness saw 147 parties, 2211 artists rocking the beat. If you wanna rave, check www.ultramusicfestival.com – madness on a stick.
New news for this year includes the 1st Annual WMC 2009 VJ Challenge at The Miami Beach Resort & Spa (so many great things going down at this gaff) hosted by VJ Psyberpixie and Felix Sama, also great to see WMC and The Grammy’s team up again for another engaging Producers Forum, the WMC DJ Spin Off Competition which is now expanded now to two days with DJ Shortee and Felix Sama hosting ‘tings. Do people actually head down to the Exhibitions and Forums? How would I know, I will be found gliding across a pool on a Lilo with a Pina Colado nestled by my nuts most days…
