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Los Angeles Times article on EDM
From the Los Angeles Times
NIGHT LIFE
Hard Haunted Mansion is hot ticket
Tonight's inaugural edition of HARD Halloween is just the latest in a string of massive rave-style events that are pulling in tens of thousands of dance music fans in Los Angeles.
By Charlie Amter
October 31, 2008
When most people think of the music scene in Los Angeles, images of bands rocking the Sunset Strip come to mind. But increasingly, L.A. is garnering a reputation as America's epicenter of progressive dance music. Perhaps it is time to replace the drumsticks with glow sticks?
Last weekend, the 11th annual Monster Massive concert drew more than 40,000, according to promoters, to the area around the Los Angeles Sports Arena to see DJs such as Germany's Paul van Dyk. And in June, about 50,000 dance music fans swarmed the Memorial Coliseum and adjacent grounds to check out big-name house, techno and electro DJs from as far away as Italy at the annual Electric Daisy Carnival.
Though only a fraction of the size of those two events, tonight's inaugural Hard Haunted Mansion, another rave-style soiree, is maybe the hottest ticket in town on one of the year's biggest party nights. Held at the Shrine Expo Hall, it features acts such as the Parisian electro duo Justice, Soulwax from Belgium and Toronto's Deadmau5.
Los Angeles "is one of the first cities that we embraced," e-mailed Xavier de Rosnay, one-half of Justice, a duo considered to be an heir to Daft Punk's throne among the hipsterati and the headliner at the Hard Haunted Mansion. (Justice also performed at the premiere of the semiannual Hard Festival on New Year's Eve last year.)
That Hard founder Gary Richards is even holding the event is a testament to his belief in L.A.'s enduring enthusiasm for dance music. After all, the newcomer to the concert-producing scene lost money his first two times holding Hard-branded events (to be fair, Coachella also lost money its first year as a festival).
"Since 1990, there has always been a burgeoning underground scene in L.A.," Richards, 37, said last week during a break from preparations. "People here are more open to this kind of music than probably anywhere else in the country."
Now it looks as if aggressive-sounding house and electro music -- with its noisy loops that prompt more head-banging than disco vamping from fans -- is crossing into the mainstream. Over the past five years especially, local promoters such as Go Ventures (which put on Monster Massive), Giant (the team behind the New Year's Eve party Giant Maximus in downtown L.A.) and Insomniac (the Electric Daisy Carnival producers) are prospering.
Richards, a 15-year music industry veteran, wants a piece of that electronic music pie. The ex-general manager for XL Recordings USA said he is staking his life savings on the fledgling Hard brand. So far, so good: Tickets for tonight's concert have sold out -- more than 10,000, with many of them VIP tickets that went fast at more than $100 a pop.
"I've always liked rock, but I've also loved techno since I was young," Richards said. "These days, it's OK to like both. . . . People here [in L.A.] are open to a combination of the two genres, which is what you have now with remixes."
Longtime KCRW-FM DJ Jason Bentley, one of the 20-plus DJs on the Hard bill, echoes the sentiment. "Los Angeles is a very international city more welcoming of the currents of world music," he said Tuesday, before spinning at a packed Hollywood screening of a Soulwax documentary.
"I think the inherent optimism of a 'West Coast state of mind' has helped dance music thrive," Bentley added. "The opportunity for underground artists to take their message to a wider audience is real here."
Los Angeles' geographical position also helps; savvy promoters can lure fans from San Diego as well as San Francisco (not to mention thousands of Orange County teenagers hungry for a big night out) -- without much publicity other than Internet marketing and street teams passing out fliers.
Small companies such as Insomniac and Go Ventures have helped take the rave scene into mainstream venues; and most area promoters have been improving their turnout at parties lately thanks to ever-growing e-mail lists, social networking websites and bigger budgets that help them snag top names from around the world.
"Festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival and Nocturnal kept things going," Urb magazine editor in chief Josh Glazer said of L.A.'s evolving dance music world Tuesday night at the Hollywood screening of the Soulwax documentary "Part of the Weekend Never Dies." Now, "the Hollywood hipster scene has discovered electro. . . . Suddenly 'rave' isn't a four-letter word anymore."
Amter is a Times staff writer.
[email protected]
http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...947,print.story
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Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
---JFK---
A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.
Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely - lay your life before him.
---Bruce Lee---
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