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Originally posted by stevësto 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,

You are out of your fucking mind if you think the scene in Tampa is dying. Tampa HAS THE BEST SCENE IN THE SOUTHEAST (Besides Miami)... if not one of the best scenes in the USA.

In the recent year, Tampa has had NUMEROUS World class djs visit... It is no longer the cheesy breakbeat shit by Baby Anne, Icey and local bedroom nobody djs.. Im talking Ferry Corsten, G&D, Tiesto, Sunset Festival, Carl Cox, Ivano Belini... Oscar G will be playing in Tampa in a few weeks.. The list goes on and on.

For a city that does not have a true after hours place besides the Hard Rock (which is close to capacity every weekend), I will have to say that Tampa is holding it down nice and healthy.

Whats dying is the cheesy ass breakbeat scene.

Last edited by miami_icon on Jan-24-2008 at 04:19

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Originally posted by miami_icon You are out of your fucking mind if you think the scene in Tampa is dying. Tampa HAS THE BEST SCENE IN THE SOUTHEAST (Besides Miami)... if not one of the best scenes in the USA. In the recent year, Tampa has had NUMEROUS World class djs visit... It is no longer the cheesy breakbeat shit by Baby Anne, Icey and local bedroom nobody djs.. Im talking Ferry Corsten, G&D, Tiesto, Sunset Festival, Carl Cox, Ivano Belini... Oscar G will be playing in Tampa in a few weeks.. The list goes on and on. For a city that does not have a true after hours place besides the Hard Rock (which is close to capacity every weekend), I will have to say that Tampa is holding it down nice and healthy. Whats dying is the cheesy ass breakbeat scene.

so where is it always packed every saturday night in tampa? i think you and i are talking about two different things when talking about "scene".

the only place i know that is packed every saturday night is hpc and hard rock. hpc is good quality music 50% of the time. hard rock is breakbeat on saturday nights last time i checked, and the crowd has a lot of people from trailer parks and mobile homes, kinda trashy porno-ish low class type of crowd. oh the new push is busy, but really awful cheesy music and cheesy crowd.

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Originally posted by mister352 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.

your welcome and yes you are correct on those points you brought up. there are many contributing factors.

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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.

i wont deny it either. you cant help but want to play the better music you discover from other places on the globe.

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so where is it always packed every saturday night in tampa? i think you and i are talking about two different things when talking about "scene"

I don't believe every club has to be packed every saturday for the scene to be alive. I guess we do have a different view on what it is. To me its the quality, not the quantity. I would rather have a handful of clubs with people who like the music and a good crowd than a dozen clubs with bad music and people who don't know anything.

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oh the new push is busy, but really awful cheesy music and cheesy crowd.

stopped in there last night to show my friend the club and while empty (and bad hip hop playing), saw a new flyer and apparently Starkillers are starting some kind of residency there. Not sure how often but thats a nice step for Fridays. It looks like they are going to stick to more hip hop on Saturdays.

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Originally posted by stevësto so where is it always packed every saturday night in tampa? i think you and i are talking about two different things when talking about "scene". the only place i know that is packed every saturday night is hpc and hard rock. hpc is good quality music 50% of the time. hard rock is breakbeat on saturday nights last time i checked, and the crowd has a lot of people from trailer parks and mobile homes, kinda trashy porno-ish low class type of crowd. oh the new push is busy, but really awful cheesy music and cheesy crowd.

hard rock is top 40 til 1:30... House and Breaks 1:30 til close.

Solution:

Three @ Snatch

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Originally posted by ******** Seplling don't demonstrate intelligence and educatoin - knowing does.

cue the "everyone needs more snatch in their life" soundbit

Come out to my weekly, Fusion Thursdays, one night. It's not a night about making money, it's not a night about dressing up, it's just a night with good music (breaks, house, drum n bass, etc) and cheap drinks.

It's 5 bucks if you get there after 11pm, if you get there between 10 and 11, it's free. Drinks are one dollar until 1am.

I have picked the residents myself, and they are quality DJs that are diverse.

In case you didn't know about the night, it has already had: The Autobots, Hyper, General MIDI, Rick West, GEIN, Viro, J Break, and some others that I'm forgetting right now.

Coming up we've got: Noel Sanger, Jackal, FACTORe, Monk, FunkLab...and that's only for the next four weeks.

The sound in the club is great. They've got killer lasers and lights, a dancefloor, and even some sofas.

So, the scene in Tampa isn't what it used to be, but there are some us that are trying to keep the underground alive.

Support Snatch and support Fusion Thursdays.

If you don't know who the DJ playing is, it doesn't mean you shouldn't go check it out. Don't be afraid to hear new things. Only going out when a name that your familiar with is playing will NOT help the overall scene. Find a place, and support it as often as you can, because it's the only way things will keep going on.

Fusion Thursdays sounds like a night with quality Breaks. I mean Autobots, General Midi, Hyper, the Bay area's own Funklab - all quality acts. Rick West, J Break, and Jackal have all played some sick sets as well. Hope this night does well

I will def he heading to Fushion Thurs, sounds awesome, thanks for your effort to bring DJs without worrying about $$$... those are always the best parties.