Posts Tagged ‘ house music ’
Hey guys, I haven’t updated the blog weekly with each new SDHC, but you can always find my latest songs and previews over on Soundcloud. Definitely follow me on Twitter as well to get in on the House Music ruckus!! STAY TUNED FOR SOME UBER-EXCITING NEWS COMING OUT OF THIS HERE DANCE IS A FEELING CAMP =)!!!
SDHC 39 – King of Hearts
If I lived in West Palm Beach, I’d go to Monarchy every weekend, and I would even try to land a DJ residency there. Why? Because after my experience visiting the club last night for the Robbie Rivera event, I can unequivocally tell you that Monarchy is one of the best things to happen to Florida’s House Music scene. When the service, people, music, and dancing come together the way they did last night, you know you’ve found a special spot.
First, there was the friendly, attentive, and professional staff—doormen who answered my questions, bartenders who quickly delivered stiff drinks (and with a smile), and an owner who personally checked in to see if I was having a good time throughout the night. For a club with all the flash and glitz to match South Florida’s nightclub conglomerate, Monarchy sure stood out with a customer service I’d not seen since my days at my favorite club out West.
If there’s one thing that can make or break a House Music venue, it’s the people, and in this regard, Monarchy really impressed. It was a trendy, sexy crowd, to be sure, with your usual staple of well-dressed guys and pretty girls in chic couture, but there was a surprising friendliness to the place and it was obvious that most people came for the dance floor, a point I’ll return to in a minute. There was Stephanie from Chicago and her friend from Detroit; Anthony the jet-setting businessman with fun stories about New Orleans, and his girlfriend Tiffany; Amanda who chatted about music and how the club’s been on a roll since Tony took the helm; strangers high-fiving one another throughout the night; and the random dude who somehow ID’d me through the dance fog and mentioned that my House Dance videos on Youtube impacted his outlook on dancing. A few girls here and there stiffened up or put up the predictable blocks, but the amount of it was so little that it felt more like an intimate neighborhood bar than a mega-club. Just happy people having a good time without the pretentious veneer so typical of similar places.
The music was good, though less daring (and less Tribal) than I’d hoped for. I’m a sucker for underground House, and even when I spin Big Room tunes, they trend more towards Defected than Dutch vocal house; last night’s music trended in the Dutch direction, but that’s really less of a flaw than a to-be-expected consequence of what worked for the crowd given how the night was programmed. As an opener, Noel Sanger delighted the audience and kept up the energy with pounding vocal Tech and Electro House, and people were dancing well in advance of Robbie Rivera’s ‘Dance Or Die‘ set. By the time Robbie started playing, the dance floor was already packed; Sanger had done his job.
Frankly, I came to hear ‘Tribal Sax‘, a Robbie tune I’ve featured in several DJ sets in the past, and about an hour into his set, Robbie delivered. As I heard the familiar saxophones cut into the mix, an unexpected thing (and best moment of the night) happened: a large circle formed, the phone cameras came out, and people started showing off their best moves to the Tribal House beat. A few B-boys jumped into the fray, windmills and all, and one of them tried to battle; I opted for the carefree freedom of House Dance and took it easy on the spins (too many napkins on the floor). Moments later, several girls rushed in to reclaim the dance space; you could tell they were having fun and came to dance. You couldn’t even walk more than a few feet in any direction without seeing someone completely lost in the music, and that’s what every club night should aspire to.
So this really gets to the heart of why Monarchy matters: a club’s worth is measured in the unique synergy of service, people, music, and dancing that it can deliver. Music may change from night to another, or from one headliner to the next, but when those other elements are strong—when you walk away feeling like you had a great experience and connected meaningfully to others and to the dance floor—that’s what keeps you coming back for more. That’s what house music is and always should be about, regardless of the genre. Monarchy represents exactly that: a club, among the palms, worthy of its crown.
-Danny Dance
Follow my DJ sets and music production on Soundcloud, or my shenanigans on Twitter. Follow Monarchy on Twitter, or buy tickets to upcoming shows.
The first day of a new year is as great a time as any to take a good look in the mirror, peer through the eyes of your inner destiny, and take stock of your dreams. As productive as 2011 was for me personally, professionally, and musically, I feel that one of the biggest lessons of last year was how important it is to bridge your actions to your ambitions. As the song goes, “heaven is only one step away,” and however you define your own heaven during your time here on Earth (a time I call ‘This One and Only Chance to Live and Dance‘), taking that one first step is critical.
For me, personal paradise consists of achieving an iteration of myself that I know exists in there somewhere, one that answers, “What am I capable of when I push myself to my personal and creative limits?” It’s an important question, and if I was placed here at the caprice of a random universe, as the cosmically improbable consequence of atoms coming together just so at precisely the right time in the right place, then I want my life to be an opportunity to make up my own right reason for being here. I intend to spend 2012 laying the groundwork for just that.
But what does it take to do that? How can we structure our days this year to create an atmosphere that builds on all we’ve learned and turns those lessons into successes? How can I use my passion for House Music to fuel my financial self-sufficiency and create a sense of real accomplishment? Can the inherent limitations of time—after all, everything takes time: businesses take time to build, plans take time to unravel, and even patience takes time to yield its virtue—be reduced so that I reach my goals sooner? I don’t have the answers to these questions yet, but on my quest to become a world-class sample-based House Music producer and build a successful music business through my new Dance Is A Feeling LLC, I’ve come to understand that there are key factors I can’t compromise if I’m going to ‘get there’:
Without goals, we are little more than leaves in the protean wind of time, plotting an inconsistent path rather than a reliable arc towards our destinations. I need to make goals that fully support where I’m trying to go; these goals can be simple and even general, but their effects are deeply felt when seen through. Something as basic as “improve as a music producer“ guides my path towards an end that I can work my way to, and setting these kinds of goals is the first of the important pieces of a plan.
The second piece is equally crucial: when people make resolutions or set goals but do not reach them, it’s often as a result of not making solid habits. A habit must be written down and tracked regularly; it has to relate directly to your goals in a direct and persistent way. Examples of habits that guide my goal of becoming a better producer are to read an hour of books like ‘The Producer’s Manual‘ each day and to create two new songs daily. These actions—habits—feed the goal in an iterative way.
Thirdly, and necessarily, I need to develop the discipline to stick with my habits through thick and thin, every single day of the year; the destabilizing pillars of normal life, be they sleepless party nights, day job-induced tiredness, and emotional hangovers of romance, can’t become fodder for slacking on the habits that support my goals. This is probably the easiest link to break in the chain, but also the one of most consequence. As a friend mentioned earlier on my Facebook wall, “No one is on all the time”, which is true—but we have to try.
If you’re wondering what it takes to stay sane when adhering so strongly to your vision, the answer lies in your health. If you are sound of mind, sound of body, and sound of spirit, you’ll be more likely to be sound of—in my case, one of the things I strive for—sound of music. I recently challenged myself to a 99-day fitness duel made up of four simple things I can work on: walk daily, do push-ups and sit-ups on alternating days, and stretch regularly. Though I’ve dealt with debilitating lower back pain for years, lateral lumbar scoliosis be damned, I’m committed to managing the pain and mitigating its impact on me this year. And health need not be just physical—the more things you do that make you happy, from spending time with friends & family and allowing romance into your life to watching the latest Louis C.K. comedy special and dancing outdoors like nobody cares—the healthier you’ll be in support of your discipline.
Finally, I can’t control the universe or even all the things in my little slice of it, but I can control the choices that I make, and these choices impact everything from my health on up. Things like choosing to let the right people in and the wrong people go; choosing how I spend my time or who gets to spend it with me; choosing to tackle my daily habits before turning on Words With Friends (I’m a hopeless addict); and choosing experiences that ultimately support my goals rather than slow me down will help me stay beholden to my health and answerable to my vision.
So plans are wide amalgams of goals, habits, discipline, health, and the choices you make; if you have the foresight to envision what you want, and the courage to bridge your actions to your ambitions, steadfastly moving towards your goals, you will someday answer all your inner questions, you’ll move a step closer to your heaven, and you’ll make the very best of This One and Only Chance to Live and Dance.
-Danny Dance
Intruder (A Murk Production) feat Jei ‘Amame’
From Defected:
Now and again a track emerges that is effortlessly cool as well as being an out and out show stopper. It happened this year in Ibiza with Intruder ‘Amame’, each time it was played there was a constant enquiry of ‘What’s this tune’ and ‘how can I get hold of it?’
Amame has been floating around a very select DJ circle on limited vinyl pressing for some months. This is a Murk production from Oscar G and Ralph Falcon under the guise of Intruder, a guise that has re-emerged after some 20 years after it was first conceived.
Any Murk production is a rare thing, and a record of this quality and breadth of appeal is perhaps even rarer. Straddling the often tricky to navigate border between house and techno without difficulty, it features one of the most hypnotically memorable vocals of the year courtesy of Miami vocalist Jei.
It was early tracks like ‘Reach for Me’, ‘Liberty City’, ‘Some Lovin’’ and ‘If You Really Love Someone’, that gave Murk their first major lift upon release in 1993. Later came ‘Fired Up!’(‘96) with its powerful signature vocal under their Funky Green Dogs guise which became their biggest hit and turned them into big stars of the early 90′s.
Now 20 years down the line Intruder ‘Amame’ is being championed by the likes of Kerri Chandler, Dennis Ferrer, Seth Troxler, The Martinez Brothers and even Ricardo Villalobos, ensuring that all those loitering around the booths of DC10’s closing party and Fabric’s birthday were enquiring of its story. Now the story can begin to be told…
Listen to it here:
Intruder (A Murk Production) featuring Jei by Defected Records
Hey guys! Have a brand new single out on 1200 Traxx! Crush it! 
Danny Dance – Just A Crush (Original Mix) (Single)
Genre: House
Release Date: November 14, 2011 (Exclusively on BEATPORT)
Label: 1200 Traxx
Catalog: THT1242
01. Just A Crush (Original Mix)
Promo Video
Press Release
After his recent debut EP, Here For The Dancefloor, Danny Dance returns with another banger packed with that feeling: ‘Just A Crush’, a funky, bassline-driven single with his signature feel and dance floor storytelling. The track has generated passionate word-of-mouth among friends of Danny’s music, and is sure to uplift and bring back memories of a long-lost crush as you dance.
Purchase on Beatport:
http://www.beatport.com/release/just-a-crush/831610
KEEP DANCING!