"VERSAILLES ELECTRO" - An Electronic Music Journey - Part One
Hey everyone,
It's been a while since I've reported on major events here on the blog, and something really, really significant just recently occurred that I have to talk about. Recently, on June 8th, 2019, I was at a very special and unique dance music event in France. The event was "Versailles Electro", and it was a celebration of French Touch house music at the legendary Castle at Versailles, outside of Paris.
This party was truly special, and not only because it was the first electronic music party held at Versailles. For myself, and a lot of the 13,000 people in attendance from around the world, it represented a remarkable, multi-decade journey for both themselves, and electronic music in general.
As many of you know--particularly those who have followed me and my career--electronic music has long been the ignored black sheep of the pop culture world. From its beginnings in the rave underground in the 1980s, electronic music was viewed with both suspicion and often derision by the mainstream press, law enforcement, and with the passage of the RAVE Act, the federal government as well. One has to remember that during the height of the 90s rave scene, when electronic music was breaking out of the underground and into the mainstream, it did so largely on its own. The genre received nearly zero airplay on American radio, and received little to no support from mainstream record labels, ad campaigns, marketing, media, what have you. Very often the only news stories you would find in the public domain were ones that demonized the scene and the people in it.
Yes, people like these ones at the Chateau. Similarly, I began my photographic career nearly twenty-five years ago in the L.A. clubbing underground. Like the rave scene, I started almost literally from nothing, deep in the warehouses and after-hours clubs that made up the L.A. rave scene in the mid-90s. A quarter of a century later, after innumerable parties, festivals, clubs and riots along the way, now both the music and myself have converged on the rarefied grounds of European royalty. It is no exaggeration to say that it has been a remarkable journey, for both this culture and myself, one that forces one to marvel at the perspective of it all.
This party was thrown by Pedro Winter, a.k.a. Busy P. For those of you who don't know, Busy P is a renowned international producer and DJ, who in the mid-00's was the manager of the biggest electronic music group in the world: Daft Punk. Later on, he went on to have a hand in putting together another French dance music supergroup: Justice. These days, Pedro runs Ed Banger Records, one of the most respected electronic music labels in Europe. "Versailles Electro" was Pedro's chance to showcase the best of Ed Banger's talent, which he's been doing at gigs around the world for years, anyway. However, this one was different--this one was truly a major peak, and everyone who was in attendance this night knew it.
This fact is realized the moment one steps onto the grounds, for the main Chateau at Versailles is one of the most memorable buildings one will see in their lifetime. Formerly the seat of power to Louis XIV, this place was specifically designed to impress the royalty and dignitaries who would pay the Sun King a visit, and it does so in spectacular fashion. To have a dance party in the gardens of such an enormous, ultra-upscale, ultra-aristocratic location, featuring the music which sprang from this dank, dark American underground, seems almost outlandish at first. Indeed, when the announcement for this party was made back in March of this year, the dance music world pretty much collectively gasped at the thought.
For me personally, there was no question as to what I was going to do--I had to be there, for both personal and professional reasons. In fact, I was making my media clearance arrangements before I had even landed a major outlet. Luckily for me, the legendary UK dance music magazine Mixmag came through, as did Pedro Winter himself, who personally made sure that my credentials were taken care of. It's safe to say that there are few major event organizers left in this business who will make sure themselves that things like this are taken care of. My hat is off to you, Pedro--you show what real professionalism is all about.
More to come very soon in Part Two of this story. Let's just say that things got very visually spectacular once the sun went down. Here's a peek:
It's been a while since I've reported on major events here on the blog, and something really, really significant just recently occurred that I have to talk about. Recently, on June 8th, 2019, I was at a very special and unique dance music event in France. The event was "Versailles Electro", and it was a celebration of French Touch house music at the legendary Castle at Versailles, outside of Paris.
This party was truly special, and not only because it was the first electronic music party held at Versailles. For myself, and a lot of the 13,000 people in attendance from around the world, it represented a remarkable, multi-decade journey for both themselves, and electronic music in general.
As many of you know--particularly those who have followed me and my career--electronic music has long been the ignored black sheep of the pop culture world. From its beginnings in the rave underground in the 1980s, electronic music was viewed with both suspicion and often derision by the mainstream press, law enforcement, and with the passage of the RAVE Act, the federal government as well. One has to remember that during the height of the 90s rave scene, when electronic music was breaking out of the underground and into the mainstream, it did so largely on its own. The genre received nearly zero airplay on American radio, and received little to no support from mainstream record labels, ad campaigns, marketing, media, what have you. Very often the only news stories you would find in the public domain were ones that demonized the scene and the people in it.
Yes, people like these ones at the Chateau. Similarly, I began my photographic career nearly twenty-five years ago in the L.A. clubbing underground. Like the rave scene, I started almost literally from nothing, deep in the warehouses and after-hours clubs that made up the L.A. rave scene in the mid-90s. A quarter of a century later, after innumerable parties, festivals, clubs and riots along the way, now both the music and myself have converged on the rarefied grounds of European royalty. It is no exaggeration to say that it has been a remarkable journey, for both this culture and myself, one that forces one to marvel at the perspective of it all.
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| The most impressive trek to a party location, ever. |
This party was thrown by Pedro Winter, a.k.a. Busy P. For those of you who don't know, Busy P is a renowned international producer and DJ, who in the mid-00's was the manager of the biggest electronic music group in the world: Daft Punk. Later on, he went on to have a hand in putting together another French dance music supergroup: Justice. These days, Pedro runs Ed Banger Records, one of the most respected electronic music labels in Europe. "Versailles Electro" was Pedro's chance to showcase the best of Ed Banger's talent, which he's been doing at gigs around the world for years, anyway. However, this one was different--this one was truly a major peak, and everyone who was in attendance this night knew it.
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| Pedro Winter |
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| Early on, just after the gates had opened. |
More to come very soon in Part Two of this story. Let's just say that things got very visually spectacular once the sun went down. Here's a peek:
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