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the scene in tampa is dying

hi guys, im not sure if ive met any of you tampa st pete folks in person, this is steveo/stevie t. (actually i met james west briefly at mangroves) im not active much online.

please dont hate me for what i say, i would be just as blunt in person as i am here. i put this as a new thread from http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...6&forumid=43&s= so the other thread would stay on topic.

G&D is at best average. they were exactly as ive heard from livesets, not very impressive, but i went anyway. they play the typical way that most skilled producers play. see, back in the day (im old), djs built their name by how they play live. nowadays, someone can make a hit track and next thing you know they're djing the prime time slot ... poorly. G&D belong doing what they do best, being behind a computer in a dark room.

to the person that said it was packed, it was not even close to packed. why do people say stuff like that? is it for promotional reasons? how many people could possibly read that thread and how much would that help future bookings? come on now.

to the person that said it was too loud. yes it was too loud at times. they would pump the volume way too loud to compensate for a non dancefloor friendly track or a track played not at a good pitch to give it drive, and then turn it down for other tracks. yea way to go G&D.

to the person that said they could only get them on thursday. nothing new, no surprise there. its a simple formula the big guy's agents go by: (the metro area's population in millions x $3000) / 1 through 7. 1 being saturday, 10 being sunday. then multiplied by other factors like time of year and promotions reliability/repu. also the bigger the act, the less likely you will get a sat night spot because of all other cities worldwide you compete with, there are only 52 saturdays a year.

nobody was really sweatin and busted out moves on the dancefloor. it was like a gathering of internet zombies doing the wishy washy side to side dance.

to be fair, touring djs do not play their A game 5 nights a week on tour (can you blame them?), but i saw them at niki beach WMC and it wasnt much different.

this night made me sad a bit, because it made obvious how different things were, like back in the 90's. Tampa was the pride and joy of the breaks scene. home of hallucination records and RITM. there were no better breaks in the USA than in the tampa orlando area, period. people from as far as texas to north carolina knew about the famous ampitheatre. 7th ave was closed off and packed not just every sat night, but every friday night too.

i dont know if we were just more extreme back then, throwin down till we threw up, or if it was this:

at some point over the years, more people got online and were exposed to house etc in other parts of the world, which caused breaks to become a dirty word, like trance. djs started to emulate global underground cds and other house acts, and that was the beginning of the end. imagine if there was no internet ... djs would play only what they're exposed to in their area, they would be influenced by each other locally, not globally. this is how each area of the world would develop their own sound, chicago house, funky house san fran, detroit techno, the southern breaks (from west socal, texas, to florida). the minute a dj starts to tracklist other djs and emulate is when everything slowly starts to go to shit. what emulating djs dont realize when they hear a liveset, is that the music style sounds the way it does because of the area in the world it originated from, and the TIME OF NIGHT it was played. ive lived in europe and visited ibiza. people here seem to think they play minimal over there at 12pm or 24/7. would you believe, they play poppy vocal stuff early in the evening and work their way into the more repetitive 4x4 stuff later? they used to anyway, dont know about now. if any minimal djs read this i hope they take that comment and apply it to their attempt at understanding why they have an empty dancefloor in tampa.

this isnt about breaks, thats just an example. the point is creativity and originality is gone. everyone copies everyone else. everyone is guilty of it, not just tampa, not just small local djs, G&D is guilty of it too (yea you read me right, im calling them out, they were TA members back in the day, tracklisting other djs, they will deny it to the death like other big names, but dont be fooled), and a lot of other big name acts are guilty of it too. i lived in san fran also in the 90's for a few years, they had their own funky farina house sound that they cherished. guess what? its gone now, just like breaks in tampa. instead they play the same stuff everyone else does like electro commercial house crap.

there are many other factors to why the dance scene is slowly crumbling, like too many bars and clubs opened over the years and now theres not enough people to fill them, or drink prices/the slow economy, the iraq war, everyone and their mom is a dj now, everyone and their mom is a producer now so the market is over flooded with crap making it impossible for a small guy to find quality leading them to retreat to tracklistings. theres other factors but i didnt want to make a really long post, i know my friends could add a few points too.


thanks,

Music changes.. People change.. Sounds change.. The scene changes..

A good summation even though there are some disagreements. I will add some of my own views to it later.

Just wanted to add that, indeed, death of EDM scene from Tampa is Total and coincides with the slow torturous death of Ybor city. If the city council has its way, Ybor city is gonna be extinct (under the garb of making it supposedly "family friendly") in next couple of years or so.

Overall brilliant post.

But did you really expect G&D to play anything remotely underground? Expecting an awesome crowd and awesome tunes @ G&D is foolish. The real sad part is that we don't get any good names here and we're forced to see popular acts like G&D, etc.

Again, you make some really good points, great read.

I dunno about great, maybe grumpy...

I'm the one who said it was packed. What I should have said was this-- There was way more people there than I expected. Packed would be not being able to move. Sorry to mislead the masses. I have been to club events were there were just a few scattered groups of people, etc. G&D was a full crowd. Thats what I meant.

Its funny because you say that last nights show made you realize it was dying, whereas last nights show gave me hope that it wasn't. I'm old too (30) and i've been around. It all changes. Most of the time people didn't come to Amphitheater because of the music. You bitch about the commercial electro house, but do you get more commercial than Amphitheater? That place was more hype and partying than anything regarding the music. Most of the breaks from back then are just hard to listen to today anyways. It wasn't a revolution thats for sure.

Sorry all the zombies weren't breakdancing on their heads or whatever you would have them do. Sorry that we were just having a good time. Sorry that I like underground *and* poppy stuff. Actually - i'm not sorry for any of that. Thats why I had a great time.

You're right about someone making a hit track and then becoming a good DJ (in the publics eye). Certain masses can't distinguish DJing and producing. Its the same as us listening to "techno" music. They just don't know.

As far as G&D being average at best; i would argue then that the ratio would go something like this 5% great 90% average 5% just plain bad. In the end its just a dude(s) playing songs. No matter if its the greatest dj in the world or your friend in the other room. It comes down to what you are expecting or wanting out of the night. I'm past the point where I HAVE to hear something groundbreaking or the night wasn't worth it. Should I be trying to impress girls with the way I (can't) dance?

its good to know we can still set our calenders to this discussion.

the only time i've heard a downright dark, dirty, and innovative set from them is afterhours at RISE, boston : december 2006. absolutely brilliant. the next night, we caught them play a banging night in chicago. they tend to play edgier sets where they know they can take a chance with the crowd, otherwise, it's a kinda fluffy night.

and yeah, the scene's absolutely changing...everywhere.

i agree with a lot of what you said steveesto and i actually thank you for the comment you made on one of my sets b/c it really motivated me. The scene in tampa is pretty dead imo. I pronounced it from coma to dead when they kicked out all the saturday night dj's from amp that had been residents for quite some time and now i believe they spin spanish music on saturday nights at the amp. i would venture to say though that it has been pretty shitty for a while and not just recently. the curfew laws really destroyed florida. I wish i would ahve been born a few years earlier to enjoy hearing the likes of sasha and such playing on a consistent basis in venues in orlando. sucks but thats just how it is.I don't agree with what you said about minimal though. regardless of what time it is, granted some songs "sound" better during the day or night, if you know how to build a good set you'll rock it no matter what.

im going to have to agree with raven. It was a fun party and that was that. I go out to have fun not to sit there and think man what a mediocre set. i went to PVD at amp and I will be the first to say the G&D set blew that out of the water. I think that Ybor is finally getting good acts. Sorry for not being around during the famous tampa break days, but as for me breaks suck. It was a good set and a good croud, hottest girls in ybor for sure. Czar to me is finally doing what amp should have done and bringing in new acts that have not been to tampa. and as far as the st pete area goes the scene there is getting better to with the new Push Ultra Lounge starting to bring some good acts to such as DJ Dan and Starkillers. Ive lived in Tampa now for two years and never scene such consistantly good djs coming. Also I will say it was loud but the sound there blows the amps sound out of the water. Sorry Steve you did make some good points, but I just dont agree.

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Originally posted by raven848 Its funny because you say that last nights show made you realize it was dying, whereas last nights show gave me hope that it wasn't.

+1.. thats what i thought too

quote:

I pronounced it from coma to dead when they kicked out all the saturday night dj's from amp that had been residents for quite some time and now i believe they spin spanish music on saturday nights at the amp.

Diego, if you were one of them or your friends were that sucks, but the truth is they were performing terribly. Had you been to Amp since it reopened before they did that? I did. It was terrible. It was worse than terrible. They all deserved to be fired. Sorry.
No, I didn't want them to change their style but definitely their track selection. They had to have stopped buying records in 2003... maybe earlier. Doing that would be killing the scene.
ps - the latin night at the Amp is Fridays, I think saturday is hip hop

while we are on the subject -- steveo you mentioned Hallucination -- have you been out to Hyde Park Cafe for any of Three's SNATCH sets? He plays some nice ones. He is playing some electro house stuff though -- everyone is.

also - have you been out to Push in St. Pete? or Palm Bay Club? Its easy to say the scene is dying but harder to do something about it. I'm not saying this like i'm personally keeping it alive - i go out less than I ever have - but to me the scene was alive and well last night. I met a handful of TA's for the first time, there was a good crowd, I didn't see anyone get in a fight or get kicked out (both of those happened every night at Amp) and really the only bad thing I saw was a dude put his hands up that nasty chicks skirt on the dance floor.
Otherwise everyone was there for the music and to be happy. And thats what I saw.

This doesn't mean that its not in trouble - its always in trouble, or on the rocks but really, the internet is killing music? I have thousands more songs that I love than I possibly could have in 2000. What is wrong with that? If small djs can't find good stuff to play thats not commercial, its their fault, not the internet.

As far as the new club Push -- it will be interesting to see how their talent shows go. This place is really nice, but every night its the same thing - top40/hiphop/dance. DJ Lux is there all the time, and while cute, the last 2 times I saw her it was old tired pop house. I know she has to have newer stuff. So far all the dj nights have been the same format, except for when they had Common's tour dj (hiphop).
Now tonight they have DJ Dan, next week Starkillers and then Kaskade. This is vastly different than top40/hiphop/house. I hope it does well, but i'm not sure if the people of St.Pete are going to like it if all they hear is top40/hiphop/dance. Hopefully they just weren't taking chances the first month of being open, but they need to get on the ball and change up their sound or they won't make it more than a year or two. All you djs out there - get a demo to the Push people. Get some new music in there.

oh so much to say, its too much to type. really. this should be an in person talk that could go on all night. yes ive been to push. and three's nights at hpc. we should all get together and talk, maybe even form a "quality music alliance/brigade". we could wear the same uniform and hand out citations to people like dj lux (ok thats mean i dont like to talk shit about anyone, never hide behind a keyboard).

all im going to say right now is in response to someone in the original thread asking how G&D interacts with each other. simple answer ... they dont. not the 2 times ive seen them anyway. for an example of a REAL dj duo that interact with each other as a team and communicate with each other non verbally:



^^^ this is what we need to see/hear. not bullshit commercial crap. we want real soul and spirit through a turntable. we all need to stop making excuses and be honest with ourselves. you know deep down the music was not the greatest ("groundbreaking") ... thats good, thats the first step to becoming free.

To bring up breaks, is just really not a valid point. Florida has it's own fucking genre for god's sake...Florida Breaks. I for one, am sick of it.

Tampa is moving in the right direction.

i knew people were going to show their dislike for breaks. i dont like them either. it was an example that just so happens to be tampa, like it or not that is our history. the idea here is homegrown music. regardless of the genre, if people are good at playing it and making it, its a hell of a lot more real and genuine than any electro house commercial dj which picked up the music when they went to wmc or youtube. the internet has both helped and hurt music. while you have access to a lot of music now for free (just fukn admit it slsk users), it also hurts regional individuality.

Fuckin Tampa Breaks. Sorry but most of the good Funky Breaks always came from Orlando, or South FL (Infiniti, Jackal & Hyde) and most of the better Breakbeat DJs were either from Orlando or the UK. Tampa has some good DJs like Toni Feline and Sharaz, as well as Progressive House talent like Rabbit In The Moon (especially Three who dabbled in everything from Techno to Trance to Tech House and Progressive), and House DJs like Jask. Much of the Funky Breaks that came out of Tampa were the shitty Brad Smith type of Bootleg Breaks that a 5 year old can make. Now Orlando, that city had a huge and diversified scene at one time with DJ Icey (Breaks), Kimball Collins (Trance), Chris Fortier (Progressive), Noel Sanger (Progressive), Jimmy Van M (Progressive), AK 1200 (Drum N Bass), DJ KJ (commercial Dance).
As for the Amp on Friday nights, it was almost never packed on Fridays, even during its peak in the early 2000s. It was considered one of the premiere clubs in town mainly b/c FLZ broadcasted from it on Saturday nights, b/c it did on occasion bring in big name DJs (usually NOT on Saturday nights), and it had a revolving dancefloor which was almost as good as the one at Mannequins (in downtown Disney). Also, let's face it - a lot of the other clubs in Ybor were either trashy (Empire), or played Retro and Rock (Masquerade), or weren't any better then the Amp (like 1509 and Pleasuredome), or didn't last for too long (Prana, Fun).
Tampa has always been big on the more poppier and commercial type of Dance music. That's the type of Funky Breaks you heard in the clubs here. You didnt hear a whole lot of Nu Skool Breaks, and not much of that Progressive Breaks sound that Hybrid makes or Sasha played. Just rehashed remixes of old 80s songs, and Breakbeat remixes of vocal Trance anthems. At least it sounds like nowadays the DJs in Tampa play the House tunes without having to give them a fake Breakbeat sound.

Holy shit CHRles, I used to talk to you on the old Wild 98.7 boards. You, me, and shawndavid were the only two trance/progressive fans on a Florida Breaks cheese board, lol.

quote:

Originally posted by Coastie im going to have to agree with raven. It was a fun party and that was that. I go out to have fun not to sit there and think man what a mediocre set. i went to PVD at amp and I will be the first to say the G&D set blew that out of the water. I think that Ybor is finally getting good acts. Sorry for not being around during the famous tampa break days, but as for me breaks suck. It was a good set and a good croud, hottest girls in ybor for sure. Czar to me is finally doing what amp should have done and bringing in new acts that have not been to tampa. and as far as the st pete area goes the scene there is getting better to with the new Push Ultra Lounge starting to bring some good acts to such as DJ Dan and Starkillers. Ive lived in Tampa now for two years and never scene such consistantly good djs coming. Also I will say it was loud but the sound there blows the amps sound out of the water. Sorry Steve you did make some good points, but I just dont agree.

Thank you for saving me time by not typing up the same response coastie. With that being said, stevesto dont take it the wrong way, but sounds like you are stuck very much in the past buddy. I like going out to HPC, and the last G&D show. I go out there to have fun not stand in the back and come up with valid points to argue on a thread or "in person". So if you are that bitter and not happy with the "scene" and tampa... whatever.. stop going out then. BTW for somebody that doesnt like "commercialized" DJs and their music you sure picked a good name to imitate.

Cheerio.

I see last night, along with the benassi show, as a sign Tampa is still maintaining and possibly on the upswing. Being able to pull off a successful Thursday night with a top dj is definitely a good sign. Its long over due, that tampa has had a promoter consistently bringing quality talent. I think it caused the area to suffer from a dose of lack of enthusiasm. I�m sure I am not the only one guilty of not going out unless there is someone good in town. Bringing in outside talent refreshes the area with inspiration and drive to go out and support the scene. Now that a good promoter has stepped up, make sure you guys support these events so we can ensure a future of quality djs in our area (hopefully more trance).

Also, I�m not too sure about that theory of pre-internet and how that was better times. I saw the damage of exposing people only to local sounds. This caused the local crowds to be not open to anything other than what they are used to hearing which in our case was breaks. That held Tampa back and made us miss out on some great music, just because it had a straight beat.

quote:

Originally posted by raven848 Diego, if you were one of them or your friends were that sucks, but the truth is they were performing terribly. Had you been to Amp since it reopened before they did that? I did. It was terrible. It was worse than terrible. They all deserved to be fired. Sorry. No, I didn't want them to change their style but definitely their track selection. They had to have stopped buying records in 2003... maybe earlier. Doing that would be killing the scene. ps - the latin night at the Amp is Fridays, I think saturday is hip hop

i'm goin to try to say this, in the most uncocky way possible, but i could throw down, ten times a sicker set than some of the residents tehre did. but, i don't know the inside story. so maybe they were forced to play certain tracks and the likes. in any case, mondo did a decent job of opening up for a big name whenever they came by, and i always enjoyed the drive over there b/c i would roll over there with 5 of my closest friends, blast a banging 1 hour set as loud as i possibly could on the way there and get blasted at the amp. that is why i enjoyd it.

quote:

Originally posted by malon-e Holy shit CHRles, I used to talk to you on the old Wild 98.7 boards. You, me, and shawndavid were the only two trance/progressive fans on a Florida Breaks cheese board, lol.

Hey! longtime man. There were some other ppl on the board who enjoyed House and Trance, but maybe not to the same extent. If I remember correctly, you too were exposed to the Orlando scene (not just Tampa) as you lived there for a while at a time there were some good events.
There's definitely other people here that I remember from other boards like Lil B.

As for Gabriel & Dresden, I saw them last year here in Nashville - pretty good set to be honest.
Most of the really good shows take place in Atlanta, which seems to actually bring in a lot more variety in terms of DJs then Miami. There's a number of top notch promoters down there, and a large enough crowd that's clued up and enjoys EDM.

I was a manager at Spec's Music in St. Pete from 98-2000 and I did the ordering for the store. I bolstered the electronic section until I couldn't fit anymore discs, and then made the section bigger. I put new, fresh discs on the listening posts and endcaps and did my best to recommend quality music. And the only thing people wanted was DJ FBI mix discs or DJ X or any of those.... so if todays kids are actually listening to something else, like a G&D, or Sasha, or any "names" they might recognize (even if they aren't buying it) I see that as only a good thing.

that post was refreshing along with insightful, nice job

quote:

Originally posted by stev�sto oh so much to say, its too much to type. really. this should be an in person talk that could go on all night. yes ive been to push. and three's nights at hpc. we should all get together and talk, maybe even form a "quality music alliance/brigade". we could wear the same uniform and hand out citations to people like dj lux (ok thats mean i dont like to talk shit about anyone, never hide behind a keyboard). all im going to say right now is in response to someone in the original thread asking how G&D interacts with each other. simple answer ... they dont. not the 2 times ive seen them anyway. for an example of a REAL dj duo that interact with each other as a team and communicate with each other non verbally: ^^^ this is what we need to see/hear. not bullshit commercial crap. we want real soul and spirit through a turntable. we all need to stop making excuses and be honest with ourselves. you know deep down the music was not the greatest ("groundbreaking") ... thats good, thats the first step to becoming free.

You cant get more comercial than that video lol


The acapella was horribly mixed in as well, seen morillo do it with his eyes closed 100 times better. Just because something is underground doesnt mean its good. There is alot of good comercial songs, artist and lables as well as more underground. Never really understood the meaning of underground to be honest. You just want to hear a track that is good but only 1 guy plays it? Whats the point in that?

whats wrong with people snatch at Hyde Park is one of the best running parties in the state if not the country there has been countless talent coming through there since i can remember

Stevesto, thankyou for opening up this topic, and thankyou CHRles for your Orlando response. I think the reason both the Tampa and Orlando scenes are "dying" is because you are compairing the scenes now to the mid 90s when everything was new, both the music & xtc. Both areas blew up for 6 years & then deflated because of the curfews laws and then people got older and the younger kids liked hip hop. edm music is always going to be where it belongs, underground. We are always going to be the smaller groups going to shows that nobody else knows about. I saw G & D Friday after the Tampa show at Bliss in Orlando. I passed thousands of people going to other clubs, maybe there was 400 people at Bliss(it was packed, no room to dance), but everybody was into them totally loving every track they played. It was perfect being surrounded by people who like the same shit I do. There is truth in your internet vs. local made music theory, but face it somebody somewhere else is just making better music, I want to hear the best music(from anywhere) locally. All you can do is support the shows when they come around and bring as many people with you.

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