A new addition for 2004 is the M3: Miami, Music, Multimedia. This event, sponsored by Motorola and showcasing technology's role in dance music, gave up-close-and-personal panels with industry professionals, and threw some amazing parties. My pass started off just like everyone else's at the corner of 11th and Collins, in the heart of South Beach. Upon arriving to the Hotel Nash promptly at 10 a.m. on Friday the 5th, I found that I was a little too early to begin. Patiently I waited for the registration to open and to get my festivities under way. While waiting, I met up with a couple members of the Rewind magazine crew. After a chat with Darren and Krystal, we retrieved our fancy blue press passes, shiny Motorola lanyards, and our multi-purpose M3 shoulder bags, went our separate ways and officially started WMC 2004. So my tiny blue M3 press pass began its life in a box on the south side of the Hotel Nash in South Beach.
After picking up the passes the first time I used it was at CroBar for the 4:20 Hope Recordings and Circo Loco DC10 Ibiza party with Timo Maas, Berhouz, and a live performance by Way Out West. This legendary Miami club now has now opened in New York and the original Chicago location is still standing strong. Seeing such acts as Way Out West perform a live set is amazing enough for one night, but combine it with Circo Loco DC10 and Timo Maas and you cant really ask for anything more. The energy of this club is so high even when the lights come on for last call, it doesn't stop anyone from dancing.
After a light night of dancing and carrying on, my pass and I were off to the M3 Summit tent. This was a mammoth tent erected on the southernmost end of South Beach and it contained all that is dance music. Technics unveiled their new SL-DZ1200 digital CD player. For me, this was the digital product of the conference. This new CD player combines a motor-driven platter that replicates vinyl on a Technics turntable exactly. It has the same motor as the world famous SL-1200 line but has the coolest features built into it, such as a sampler, multiple cue points, and an SD card slot for your digital music.
After drooling and gawking for a while, it was on to the Motorola booth for some MotoMixing. Motorola rolled out their new system for making your own personal ringtones by way of building songs from loops that they provide. It is totally the next generation wireless phone. After mixing some rings, I grabbed a couple bottles of Vitamin water (which kept me hydrated and healthy during my stay in South Beach) and headed in to see the keynote speaker for the day.
On this first day of the event, the pass and I grabbed a front row seat for the multitalented Pete Tong. The subject of the panel was the expansion of dance music past, present, and future. Pete Tong's expertise in this business was evident by watching him on the panel. Pete discussed his home radio station BBC Radio 1; this station reaches millions of people in the UK on a daily basis not to mention over 150,000 per week using the Listen On Demand player from Radio 1. Pete began his radio career in 1991 with the first dance show called "Essential Selection". This current running show was followed up two years later with the "Essential Mix," a weekly showcase of DJs and artists from all over the world. In the mid-90s, BBC Radio 1 went on-line and by 2001 everything about Radio 1 was on-line. BBC Radio continues to be one of the driving forces behind the dance music movement all over the world.
Digital distribution was another hot topic on the panel. Tong described any distribution of music as "positive" and gave a few examples of dance record labels that have digital download stores. UK bad boys the Audio Bullys were given a strong recommendation by Tong and were described as "the next up and comers like the Chemical Brothers were when they began." Wrapping it up was a bit of interesting information about the name Tong. As it turns out it is officially in the dictionary as a pseudonym for the word wrong, such as "Damn, why is stuff always going so Tong."
