From the archives: my full, uncut 2018 interview for Winter Music Conference

 While going through my computer archives recently, I re-discovered a long interview that I had done for the folks at Winter Music Conference back in 2018. However, something looked a bit odd, something that I couldn't quite remember. So, I went online to WMC's web site, and found the interview...or rather, the greatly edited version of the interview. They'd cut out about one-third of what I'd had to say. This vexed me a bit, so I've decided to put the entire, unedited version here. It goes a lot deeper into certain points that I originally made, which didn't make WMC's final cut. This helps explain some of my motivations in the worlds of photography and electronic music, to a much greater degree than what was originally published. So, saddle up, partners, this is gonna be a long ride. Hope you enjoy it.

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(ORIGINAL DATE: 8/20/2018)

 

Hi Michael, thanks in advance for taking the time with this interview. Hope you enjoy the questions. Please start by introducing yourself to readers. Ideally something personal about you, and also about your love for photography. We all have a natural style that on some level works for us, what's yours? What’s your point of view, your hobbies, goals, secret passions, how/when did you got your start in photography (any interesting anecdotes, anyone you owe big time?), what's it like to grind or roll your way through life doing what you do, etc. Those are all mere suggestions, please discuss you and photography in whatever way feels natural. Insert your intro here:

 

My name is Michael Tullberg, and I’m one of the longest-running electronic music journalists in the country, with a career spanning more than twenty years. Back in the 1990s and 2000s, I photographed and wrote for most of the electronic music magazines of the day, and also shot album covers for icons like Carl Cox, Ferry Corsten, DJ Dan and others. I was lucky enough to be at the center of American raving culture—Southern California—at the time when the music stormed across America and changed pop culture forever. I parlayed that experience into a position at Getty Images, who I’ve been shooting for since 2004. They send me to red carpets and concerts all across Hollywood, but when they brought me on board, they knew next to nothing about raves or electronic music. I ended up introducing them to parties like “EDC” and “Nocturnal Wonderland”, and boy, were they surprised when they saw my pictures. More recently, I’ve written and published two books about the rave scene, DANCEFLOOR THUNDERSTORM and THE RAVER STORIES PROJECT.

I started photographing night life in the Hollywood clubs beginning in 1994, and covered a wide range of scenes, including the mainstream, the upscale Beverly Hills club scene, Gothic, Industrial, and the occasional below the radar casino party. I even shot a swingers organization’s Halloween ball once—now that was memorable, let me tell you. I graduated to the rave scene in 1996, and that pretty much devoured almost all of my time for the next several years. I’ve always been attracted to what happens in the after-hours, and I recently found a clip from an old interview that I did back in 1997 that I think sums up my early philosophy about photographing ravers and clubbers pretty well:

 “I love to shoot the dancers because dance is one of the oldest and most primal forms of self-expression that has ever existed. And when someone is completely immersed in that dance state, they connect with that inner self, that inner creativity. It’s a direct tap into it, when you get to the point where it’s no longer a matter of conscious thought. And when that happens, that’s when the pure creativity comes out. And…those little moments of that are what I try to capture,  because I find them intensely beautiful and raw, and sometimes strange, and most of the time, wonderful. If someone’s in that state where conscious thought is gone, most of the time there’s very much an air of serenity, of…someone who’s been elevated to that cloud up there and they’re just riding that. And it’s fueled by the spiritual and physical energies within them.”

 “To me, there’s something wonderful and beautiful about someone who’s just completely sucked up into the moment that they’ve become completely spontaneous and free, and they can do what they want. Most people would look at something like that and say, “Oh God, that guy’s a freak, this is wrong.” They see something sordid in that, and I see something very liberating and beautiful. And that’s really the whole point.”

 That’s the liberating thing about night life, and it isn’t exclusive to the rave scene, either: you can be anything or anyone you want. You can create an entirely new identity for yourself if you like, one that lets you express yourself in ways that the everyday world will not allow. This can actually sometimes be a vital act of self-preservation, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone at a party say, “If I couldn’t come out and dance, I would go crazy”. I knew that they were entirely serious, even if they were laughing at the time.

My photography, particularly what could now be called my classic rave photography, always straddled the worlds of music documentary and fine art. This may sound pretentious, but I was determined to make art that was as great as the art I was experiencing live on the dance floor—and to do it instantly, right there as the moment was happening. Dance and music have been the subject of great artists for centuries, and I saw no reason why the rave scene should be celebrated any less than the Jazz Age, or the days of Moulin Rouge, or hip-hop. In fact, I drew many parallels between the rave scene and the jazz world of the 1920s and 30s, thanks in no small part to the great filmmaker Ken Burns. His PBS series “JAZZ” was appearing on Monday nights during the height of the rave scene (a case of providence, perhaps?), and I was struck by the similarities of several elements that the two genres shared. Among other things, both had dance at their core—the celebration of existence through joyous movement; both were very much underground creations; and both flourished during their period’s War On Drugs—jazz’ case of course being Prohibition. “JAZZ” was not only inspiring, but also comforting as well, because it showed me that success was indeed possible in the electronic music world…because it had been done before. The precedent had already been set.

These days, my personal and professional lives both straddle the underground and the high ends of media and music. I’ve worked on Getty’s Academy Awards photo team, and I also still go to DTLA warehouse parties. I photograph megastars on the red carpet, and also do festivals like “EDC” (first time: ’99). At one point or another, I’ve been hired by Raymond Roker, South Pole, Insomniac, Moonshine, Toyota Scion, Nissan, Karl Kani, Cypress Hill, Jane’s Addiction, and Diana Ross…to name just a few. To be able to have led a double life like this has been a pretty amazing adventure, to be sure.

 

What sort of things catch your eye in the world?   

Things that are different and unusual. I’ve almost never been interested in following trends; I’ve always been the guy who’s looking to the horizon for the next big thing. This isn’t simply for the sake of being different—there has to be substance behind the flash. This has been the case from very early on—I remember when manga started trickling into American comic book stores in the early 80s. I’d be telling my friends in junior high school things like, “You’ve gotta check these crazy Japanese comics out! They’ve got giant robots, naked women, exploding heads and stuff!”, and they would be like, “What are these funny little books that are all backwards?” The same thing happened when I discovered the rave scene in the mid-90s: almost all of my mainstream friends were like, “Wait, you mean we have to go to places outside of our little Hollywood/Beverly Hills bubble…and without bottle service???” They didn’t get it back then—they do now.

Who is your favorite photographer (dead or alive)? And why.   

There have been a few who’ve influenced me over the years. A good deal of my work was shaped by the great rock & roll photographers of the last century, and in particular, Neal Preston. He made his name in the early 70s by becoming Led Zeppelin’s tour photographer—a nice gig if you can get it! He also shot epic stuff of The Who, Queen, Bruce Springsteen and many more. What I admired about Preston was not only his uncanny ability to capture an iconic moment onstage, but that he also had the wherewithal to stick himself professionally into exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Fortunately, for me, I was able to replicate both when I became serious about covering the rave scene. I also really liked the works of Jim Marshall, Ross Halfin, Anton Corbijn and early Annie Leibowitz, but Preston was the one who really lit the fire under me.

Another photographer who rang my bell, but for completely different reasons, was the late Diane Arbus. If there ever was a case of someone diving deep into the underground to bring out images no one had ever seen the likes of before, it was her. She was an utterly fearless photographer who would literally go where no other “respectable” shooter would. I definitely felt a sort of camaraderie with that notion as I was shooting images of ravers (particularly the Club Kids) that the mainstream public was completely unaware of.  I have the feeling that she would have loved shooting Club Kids.

To be honest, though, my classic rave style took more cues from motion pictures and paintings than still photography. Anime was definitely a huge influence, as was 60s and 70s sci-fi, and Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists like Monet, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec. The Japanese influence provided the bright color and movement that dominated my work of that period, and the Impressionist influence conveyed the vibrant post-realism energy of those paintings. I wasn’t necessarily interested in producing photographs that were perfect replications of reality. I wanted to instead show the vibe, the buzz, the emotion, the magic of what was happening on that dance floor, just as classical artists have done in their own way for centuries. This is one reason why some of my best rave pictures are ones that are nearly illegible, in the traditional photographic sense.

I also discovered that when you make big enlargements of high speed film, the grain from that film becomes so big that it resembles an Impressionist painting. As I was looking to make fine art images, this suited me just fine.

 

Are there any musicians out there whose stuff is particularly visual to you? If yes, please explain. 

There are, and I’m gonna preface this answer with the following statement: I’m not interested in artists with the biggest LED displays and unusual stage setups. What grabs my eye are musicians who have the flair for the dramatic, or at least the genuinely authentic. So if we’re talking about the electronic music world, I naturally have to mention Rabbit In The Moon. I can’t think of a more visual band in this genre than these guys, for obvious reasons! I remember the first time I saw Bunny whip out the power sander and the iron mask, and then shower the front row with flying sparks—I was like, “What the fuck?!?” He very nearly threw me off the stage that night, actually!

As any rave photographer will tell you, DJs can sometimes be a struggle to make an interesting photograph of. Some of them just don’t move behind the tables, and this visually become pretty boring after about five minutes. This is why I treasure being able to photograph people who bring their own energy to their set, and who actually know how to perform. I mean people like Carl Cox, Donald Glaude, DJ Rap, Krewella, Mix Master Mike…I don’t mean people who just jump around to the music. You have to be mixing, not pressing buttons.

I’ve always enjoyed shooting guitar players, and I’ve shot a lot of the great ones. I’m sure this is over-romanticizing things, but to me, at their best, guitar players have been like musical gunslingers. There’s a certain awesomeness about one man being able to sonically shake an entire arena full of people, whether it’s Jimmy Page, Johnny Ramone, Jack White or whoever. It’s a shame that the era of the guitar hero is over with, because these people used to be able to form a credible band around them, based on their abilities and reputations. Not anymore.

One of my favorite non-electronic artists to photograph live is John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of course. I’ve shot him twice fronting Public Image Limited, and the thing about Lydon is that he always brings it onstage. No fakery or gimmicks, just high energy emotion and stage presence. No matter what you think of him personally, your attention automatically gravitates toward him during his live shows, because there just isn’t anyone else out there like him. And when you throw in such groundbreaking proto-alternative music like PiL does, it really does become a great performance. I really wish that I could have been in London during the original punk explosion that the Sex Pistols kicked off in the mid-70s…that would have been incredible.

And if you want to go completely over the top as far as visuals are concerned, I have to put in Roger Waters’ performances of “The Wall”, which I fortunately was able to shoot at the L.A. Coliseum. That truly is multimedia art at its most gargantuan scale, and arguably Waters at his most brilliant.

 

Favorite director or artist? What sort of films/art are you drawn to? And why.   

Well, if we’re going to start at the beginning, then by far the most influential director in my early life was Chuck Jones. As far as I’m concerned, he was one of the best American film directors, period—who just happened to do animation. His period at Warner Brothers’ “Termite Terrace” was probably the apex of 20^th century American animation. His work was so good, so intelligently crafted and drawn…and, happily for me, filled with liberal amounts of TNT, falling anvils and sarcasm. His comic timing was impeccable, literally down to the frame. I remember vividly when I first saw Duck Amuck on my parents’ couch one Saturday morning, because it was the first time that I realized that this was a cartoon about cartoons. And, Daffy Duck being so hilariously tortured by his animator (spoiler alert: Bugs Bunny) had me rolling on the floor hysterically.

However, I’ve been drawn primarily to movies and TV shows from places outside America, and particularly from Japan. When I was a kid, I was first snared by kaiju eiga in 1975 or ‘76, before the first Star Wars film came out. It was the original Godzilla: King Of The Monsters that did it: I was enraptured by that film, and it turned me on to other Japanese monster movies, and to Japanese pop culture in general. As such, one of my favorite directors is the great Ishiro Honda, who co-created the entire kaiju eiga genre. It was Honda who turned me onto his lifelong friend, the immortal Akira Kurosawa, and you don’t get better Japanese cinema than Kurosawa. I mean, Seven Samurai, Throne Of Blood, Yojimbo, Roshomon, Ran…how do you top that?

Anime was huge for me, too.  The first ones that really hooked me were Star Blazers and Force Five, the latter being a compilation of five classic Toei super robot shows like Getter Robo G and Gaiking. What I loved about anime was that it was completely different, it was so non-Western. It was about as far away from the Disney approach that you could get—it was bigger, bolder, faster, brighter, and unafraid to go into areas that American cartoons would not. You could hurt or even kill off main characters. This was hammered home even more in the mid-80s when Robotech hit syndicated TV—that was huge. There was nothing else like it at the time, and it really was the beginning of Japanese animation on American TV. But if you really want to get into it, then it was undoubtedly AKIRA that did it for me—what an incredible mix of mindblown and mindfuck that was. That film kicked open the door to serious anime in the West, and it opened my eyes to directors like Katsuhiro Otomo and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Let me tell you, I made the people at my local video stores very happy, because I was renting anime tapes from them two or three times a week.

Sci-fi also played a major part—I mean, what child of the 70s wasn’t touched by science fiction? Star Wars, Close Encounters, Alien, Blade Runner, The Thing…so much great stuff for a young person to absorb.

 

What does photography have over video/film?   

It doesn’t have anything over video and film, it’s just different. Yes, there are certain shared characteristics between the two mediums, but those mediums operate fundamentally differently. A still picture freezes a moment in time, whereas a motion picture creates something larger. In a still, the image is the end point, the reason why the image was made in the first place. In a motion picture, the image is only one part of the bigger puzzle, which includes sound, editing, dialogue and storyline. There’s a reason why silent movies aren’t made anymore: the pleasing combination of all of those elements.

The same image, in two different mediums, can have two entirely different purposes. If you pointed a camera at, say, a Joshua Tree in the desert, a still image of that tree would generally be looked at with a certain aesthetic. That aesthetic could be one of beauty, of solitude, of forlornness…but the point is, it usually doesn’t offer much outside of that visual impact. It looks great on a wall, and that’s pretty much it, outside of any personal feelings or meaning the viewer might attach to the image by themselves. In a motion picture, that same image is used to (a) create atmosphere, (b) establish a location, (c) help move the plot along, (d) set up the next scene—essentially the same thing, (e) sometimes add symbolism or metaphor to the film, and possibly (f) impress the viewer. And besides, in a motion picture, that image is going to be gone within a few seconds anyway, as the story progresses forward.

If there’s any characteristic that a still image has that a moving image doesn’t, it’s the sense of permanence that the still has. The frozen picture gives an air of finality, especially when it’s viewed by itself, away from outside distractions. You can linger on a photograph in a way that you just can’t in a movie, for there’s something seemingly innately wrong with pausing a movie, and looking at the paused image on its merits as a still. It’s not meant to be a still, it’s not natural.

And, it’s interesting how when you view a scene in a film over and over again, usually you’ll grow bored with it after a while…but a still photograph can remain on someone’s wall for sometimes decades.

 

How and when did you discover dance music, what was your first impression of the music and scene?  

 I actually discovered dance music twice, if that makes any sense. The first time was in 1989, in Boston, at the late, great Venus D’Milo on Lansdowne Street, behind the left field wall at Fenway Park. I was between my junior and senior years at college, back in my home town of Boston, which was a very meat-and-potatoes, basic rock & roll kind of town in those days. The city didn’t have many dance clubs, and some were of questionable quality (one famous club had roller disco going until 1987—that’s how in touch they were). So, when Venus popped up, announcing that this was going to be a true high end dance venue like the New York Palladium, I was intrigued.

Even though I was very much a rock and roller at heart at this point, I had heard plenty of electronic music elements in music from groups like Pink Floyd, ELP, Queen, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and others. I have also always become very bored very easily, so I’ve always been on the lookout for something stimulating and different, even if it wasn’t necessarily within the mainstream. And believe me, growing up in Newton, Massachusetts was the living personification of boredom—the entire city pretty much shut down at 8:00 PM. So once Venus opened their doors in Downtown, I decided to see what the deal was…and it was very different from what I had been expecting. Spotlit on the roof of the place was a larger than live Venus De Milo statue, with neon hula hoops around her hips. There was a plant box stationed above the main entrance to the club, which was flipped 180 degrees so that the plants grew down towards the ground. The place had its own motto, the best for a club I’d ever heard before, or since then: “Venus D’Milo: we welcome you with broken arms”. It screamed of attitude already, and I hadn’t even gotten inside yet.

Once I’d made my way in, I was impressed by the décor: a wild mixture of the Palladium, and “Phantom Of The Opera”. Many of the rooms had large brass chandeliers, with orange flickering-candle light bulbs in them. Fake Mediterranean paintings and drapery adorned many of the walls. The dance floor itself was the most sophisticated I had yet seen—certainly the best one in the city.

I was intrigued by the unfamiliar music I was hearing. It sort of sounded like disco—which I’d hated, growing up—but more modern, and a little more interesting. What I was actually hearing was early house music, but of course dumb suburban me had no idea what house music was at that point in time. Very few in Boston did, to be honest—everyone in the mainstream just called it techno, even though there was very little real techno in those songs. It was being used as an umbrella term for electronic music in general.

I was hypnotized by Venus, and I ended up going there a few times over that summer, and then later on after I graduated. I ended up liking the music, even though I was too intimidated to ask many people about it at that point. I was in wildly unfamiliar territory here, and I knew that most of my rock & roll friends would not have gotten the point of a place like Venus, at all. So, not wishing to be ridiculed by my buddies, I kept my little secret mostly to myself, before taking off to Los Angeles some months later.

The second time that I really discovered electronic music—at its full potential—was when I graduated from the L.A. clubbing scene to the rave scene in 1995-96. I had begun my photo career in the clubs, and I’d been shooting in several different social scenes, but as usual, I was getting bored. I needed something new, something away from the frequently elitist, snobby, velvet rope attitude that was rampant at many of the upscale clubs in Hollywood. The music in those clubs was mostly terrible as well—nothing really new or cutting-edge outside of the Industrial/Goth scene, and although I shot in those scenes from time to time, I definitely wasn’t a Goth. So, I had my antennae up, looking for what was coming down the road. That turned out to be the resurging rave scene, making its big comeback after about two years of being forced way underground by a big police and media crackdown. It was, in fact, the beginning of the Second Wave of the American rave scene, the time period (1996 – 2002) when electronic music exploded across the country, with Southern California at its core.

I’d never been to a rave before, but I knew of their existence thanks to the weekly clubbing magazines that were thriving in L.A. at the time. And of course, there was that laughably horrendous episode of “Beverly Hills: 90210” where Jason Priestly, Shannen Doherty and the gang all go to a warehouse party where people are taking “U4EA” (you may roll your eyes skyward here). So, I was curious, and in the spring of ’96, I began venturing out. That was my real beginning in the world of electronic music.

 

Can you pinpoint the moment that made you want to document what was happening?  

 Immediately, for two reasons. Reason number one was that I had learned by now that my camera was my ticket to getting into clubs and parties without paying the cover charge, and sometimes getting free drink tickets from promoters on top of that. Those are great things when you’re on a budget.

Reason number two was that I was very quickly blown away by what I was experiencing in the rave scene, and I immediately understood both the musical and the cultural significance of this movement. It was obvious to me from the very beginning that this scene was going to go somewhere, and that I had to start covering it. The music was just so much better than what was being played in the clubs at the time, there really was no comparison. It was underground entertainment at its best, where up-and-comers like Insomniac, Go Ventures and B3 CandE went head to head to compete for the ever-expanding rave audience. The creativity and imagination behind their parties was fantastic, particularly taking into account how low-budget they often were. Technologically, they weren’t anything like the festivals you go to today, for there were no giant LED walls or livestreaming.

We had the best DJs in the world coming through L.A. on a regular basis, with many of them choosing to stay put and plant roots. This only helped solidify L.A.’s position as the center of American raving culture. There were other factors, too, the most obvious one being that unlike most other places in the country, Southern California had a wide variety of party locations to choose from. We weren’t restricted to having gigs in warehouses or certain types of clubs—we had parties in the desert. We had parties in the mountains. We had them on the beach. We had them in mansions. It was just about any place that someone could stick a sound system, away from prying eyes. And of course the great SoCal weather helped a lot, too—no danger of a party being snowed in!

I can’t stress enough what an incredible period the Second Wave was in L.A. You have to understand that we were so spoiled in those days, when it came to entertainment. It was a unique era where all the elements came together to form a perfect storm of dance music. Most of the year (but particularly in the summer), you could go out from Thursday through Monday and expect to find some great DJ playing somewhere in the city. The parties ranged to tiny ones with 50 people, to early festivals containing 40,000. Any kind of music was available, whether it was house, breaks, jungle, hardcore or ambient. And the atmosphere was so warm and embracing, totally the opposite of the elitist bullshit in the Beverly Hills clubs that I had thankfully abandoned. It was something very special that will never come again.

It was such a privilege, being at the center of it all, knowing all the promoters, DJs, musicians, doormen and venue owners that I did. It reached the point where most of the time, I didn’t even have to call ahead to an event any more—I could just show up, and would be let in, no questions asked. I particularly gained a great deal of pleasure when I would walk up to an exclusive place like the Viper Room, cameras dangling from my shoulders, past the long line of people waiting to get in, and then give a high-five to the doorman before strolling right in, directly underneath the large sign that said “NO CAMERAS ALLOWED”. I’m sure there were more than a few in those lines who were like, “Who the hell is that asshole?”

 

What is it about shooting this world, inside clubs and at festivals that speaks to you? 

I think DJ Mark Lewis put it best: the celebration of life through dance. When everything is clicking the right way, there are tremendous amounts of energies that get transmitted between the artists and the fans. This isn’t hippie-era nonsense, either, for I have seen it happen, many times. I could see it even in the very early days of my involvement with the rave scene. That’s a critical difference between an electronic music show and a traditional pop, rock or hip-hop show, where in the case of the latter three, those energies are mostly transmitted one way—from the artist to a mostly passive audience. It’s essentially a replication of the traditional proscenium stage. In the electronic music world, there is (or at least was) much more interplay between the artist and the very active audience. Back in the day, there was very little separation between the two, as DJ tables were often placed on card tables or stacks of cinder blocks on the floor of the venue. They weren’t isolated on a platform, fifty feet above their fans like they are at most of today’s festivals. This is one reason why I enjoy shooting underground warehouse parties more than I do festivals, because at their best, the warehouse parties remain true to that original rave ethos. Festivals are filled with flash and splendor, which are great, but underground parties are still the heartbeat of the rave scene, as far as I’m concerned.

You don’t need 100,000 people to understand what it’s all about. 100 very often does just fine.

 

When/how did you first learn about WMC and all the parties happening in Miami? What year did you first go, how many times have you been overall? I’d love for you to talk a little about what this time of year means to you, what sort of connection you have, has going taught you anything, informed your craft in some way, etc.? What have you taken away from your experiences overall.  

I first heard about Winter Music Conference in 1997, once I had gotten myself established in the L.A. scene as a photojournalist. My fellow scribes and editors were filling my mind with stories of these epic parties that were going on down there, so I naturally got the itch that could only be scratched on South Beach. I first attended WMC in 1999, and since then I have done WMC six more times. It’s a great time to get the hell out of L.A. for a bit, although I imagine that it means a lot more to people who fly in from colder climates.

Miami is a fun party town, and most of the food naturally is fantastic. I remember vividly when I was introduced to mahi-mahi Caesar’s salad at WMC, because that’s an incredible culinary match that could only have come from south Florida. I always liked the fact that the parties in South Beach were almost all in close proximity to each other, so you could walk from many of the gigs to another. You definitely had to learn to pace yourself, too, if you wanted to hit all of the events you wanted to. It was actually pretty good training for covering festivals, now that I think about it, since festivals and WMC are definitely both marathons.

WMC offers many things to its participants, and I think one of the most important ones is the mingling with fellow electronic music fans and artists from around the globe. It forces a wider perspective about the music and the scene on you, reminding you of the scope of this culture beyond your own personal experience or geographical location. Ironically, it also strengthens the bonds between yourself and your friends from home who accompanied you, in a “road trip” sort of way. It was great that you were able to do all of this poolside at the Fountainebleu or the Radisson in the late 90s, when the big-name DJs would still be hanging out there. They could do that back then, but not today—they’d be mobbed.

The Conference is also a good opportunity to see what impact, if any, your name has in this business. I remember the second time I attended, poolside (of course), talking with a young photographer from Chicago. When I mentioned my name, her eyes got really wide and she almost sputtered out, “You’re Michael Tullberg?!?” That’s when I realized that my work had begun to touch other people, that it wasn’t just me running around shooting gigs for myself any longer. That’s a pretty good feeling, to be sure.

 

Looking back over the years, what has been your most memorable night or day spent in Miami during WMC. Details, please—why was it so? 

 To be honest, much of my early memories of WMC are something of a blur. There was a good reason for this, other than the prodigious amount of alcohol that I (along with everyone else) consumed on a regular basis. This was that I was shooting for several dance music mags at the same time—URB, Mixer, Insider—and they were paying my expenses while I was down there. Consequently, I was being shuttled from party to party to party, getting as much coverage as I could under deadline. When you go to so many gigs in a row like that, year after year, it all begins to run together eventually.

Fortunately, I did manage to take notes from time to time, and there are some gigs that stand out. One of those was the URB magazine boat parties—those were a lot of fun. They always had great DJs in there, like Mark Farina, Tall Paul and Pete Tong. There was a URB party one year at Space in 2001 that was totally off the hook. Mixer had a good one at Level that same year, with John Digweed headlining. Daft Punk at Crobar in ’99 was fantastic. The first edition of Ultra, on South Beach itself, was a great time—although I understood fully why they moved downtown. Getting in and out of there was a mess. Carl Cox at Nikki Beach…what more needs to be said? And, one year at the Giant Hotel—I think it might have been 2002—they had Liquid Todd, Ashley Casselle, and also Valerie & The Vibe Tribe performing with strap-on dildos…always a memorable evening, don’t you agree?

 

Do you have any Miami memorabilia, flyers, promos, swag?  Tons. I saved practically everything from those days. I keep telling myself it’s because I’m a rave historian, but the truth is I’m just a pack rat.

 

Can you list a favorite photo you’ve taken while in Miami for WMC and a song that best reminds you of that image? Please explain how they relate to each other in your view.  I don’t know if any one song can truly sum up WMC in my mind, but I can tell you about a couple of my favorite WMC photos. The first is of Carl Cox having a good old time with some friends of mine in the VIP section of either Crobar or Level. To me, that really sums up what the party aspect of this is all about—the high energy celebration that’s just short of bacchanal. Probably the only way it would have been even better is if they had done it on the beach. The second is of DJ Mousse T spinning at one of the URB boat parties, with the South Beach skyline in the background. That’s the Miami vibe, right there.

I think the song I remember most from WMC was Armand van Helden playing “Koochy”, which heavily remixed Gary Numan’s “Cars”. It was in 2000, before the song’s official release. The crowd loved that one.

 

From your perspective, what are some of the biggest issues, problems, concerns with dance music and the surrounding culture, and have you thought about how best to solve?  

 Most of the problems associated with this culture have been around for a long time. The mainstream media often continues to be a thorn in the side of this scene, in part because they still don’t really understand it. The electronic music world has never really fit into the traditional pop music paradigm that the mainstream press has been plugged into for the past several decades, and has suffered considerable image problems as a result. Until very recently, there have been precious few electronic music artists who’ve made any meaningful impact on the mainstream music charts. There haven’t been any rave versions of Taylor Swift or Justin Timberlake, the type of artist that the media easily latches onto and exploits. Fat Boy Slim and the Prodigy were the exceptions in the 90s, and neither of them achieved much chart success beyond that period, so the mainstream shrugged their shoulders and left them behind.

The thing is, the story of a group of people that stands up to adversity and then triumphs beyond their wildest dreams is normally one that the press loves to run with. In their minds, that’s the American Dream right there: entrepreneurialism, doggedness, passion and perseverance. What often throws them is the fact that the rave scene accomplished all of this largely by itself, without needing to plug into the mainstream pop machine. It wasn’t served up to the media on a platter the way that regular pop artists normally were. Indeed, the original m.o. of the rave scene was to avoid the spotlight, so the party wouldn’t get busted.

In a way, it’s understandable that the mainstream still doesn’t get it, since much of electronic music lacks the elements of song structure that is radio friendly. Much of the time, there are no verses, hooks, choruses, or even lyrics in some cases. In the case of the 90s rave scene, there was almost no emphasis on hit singles, or even commercial success; it was all about the parties, and the mainstream press just didn’t get it, at all. It didn’t fit into their ready-made pop music paradigm, and that confused them. Since there’s little for them to latch on to automatically—the way they normally do with pop—it becomes that much easier for them to dismiss it.

 

What gets you excited about the future?   

The fact that this thing—this scene—that we started all those years ago is not only alive, but thriving. Yes, there are generational differences, but that’s the case in every musical genre. My hope is that the EDM generation decides to distance itself from its present pop leanings and discover more of the original rave vibe (not to mention the killer beats) that created this culture in the first place.

I also am heartened by the fact that several of the musical outlaws our generation grew up with are now big-time composers and arrangers for film, TV and games. I’m talking about people like Junkie XL, Paul Oakenfold, David Holmes, Jason Bentley and others. It means that our culture has successfully infiltrated the regular pop world, and it’s not going away. We’re not going away. In that respect, the struggle for survival is over, and we won. Now it’s a question of winning control of electronic music’s image, and that struggle is going to keep going for a long time yet.