​The best DJs dig deep into the sounds they're spinning. And that doesn't mean just the the components of a given track - the structure of the beat, the motion of a melody, the drive of a bassline, and so on. No, the best want to know where a song comes from, be it who did what and why, or the wherewithal that made it all possible in the first place. To do so, these DJs get into the minutiae of the music, the facts that most figure in a track. This way when they let loose with the spin, they know just what makes it so dizzy.

Just such a DJ is the cat called Sire Esq. He named himself in homage to his U.K. birthplace (Sire is a British honorific, and Esquire "just sounded good next to it"). This beat-obsessed Miami-based head-spinner is as much aware of a song's history as he is of what it will do to a dancefloor.

Much of that can be attributed to the fact that Sire Esq. moonlights as a music critic, and his byline can be found everywhere from Vibe and New Times (for whom he still occasionally contributes) to hip hop sites such as Mass Appeal, Elemental and Wax Poetic (for whom his first piece -- on DJ Le Spam -- is set to run this summer).
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​Need an excuse to keep partying well after the weekend is over? Leave it to the Opium Group and Mokai (235 23rd Street, Miami Beach) to give you a solution to your problem with Ransom, the Monday night party at the recently renovated Collins Park lounge.

The party, hosted by Mark Lehmkuhl, sort of takes now-defunct Bella Rose's Black Sunday murder mystery theme but gives it a Patty Hearst twist. Every week some prominent nightlife fixture gets held up for ransom, and the only way it gets returned is you party your ass off. Victims have included Jason Odio, Lyndon Smith, Zack Bush, and more recently Roman Jones' iconic bust which sits atop the bar at Louis.

Kidnapper soundtrack is provided by DJs Ross One, Mr. Mauricio, Damaged Goods, and Sub Zero.

Need photographic evidence that the party is still alive? Our cameras were there not too long ago to document the mayhem.

courtesy of Tara Ink

​Who'da thunk they'd even heard about dubstep up in West Palm Beach, let alone been in on the action? But it's true. The U.K.-birthed electronic music phenomenon is alive and kicking up in South Florida's third county. That either means those folks are hipper than we think, or we've been fooling ourselves all along.

Perhaps it's a bit of both. Because with Respectable Street's Proper Dosage going down each and every Wednesday night, the West Palm Beach scene has proven that they too can be up to the minute.

Okay, so dubstep isn't actually very new. In fact, the form's been kicking around across the pond for a decade now. But SoFla only recently made it a habit. But like anything to which we become addicted, it's a habit that's gonna be damn hard to break.

Much of West Palm's newfound need is due to the efforts of a DJ named the Reazin, and his four partners: Milkman, Benjamin Linus, Chuck Nasty, and Rok is Dead. It was they who brought the idea of dubstep to Respectable's in the first place, convincing the club that this was just the thing to replace the long-running weekly After Dark party. And it is they who are ensuring that the bass-heavy import will throb its way into your subconscious for many moons to come.
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​Back in August, Head Spins gave you the goods on WDNA DJ Gene De Souza, whose Café Brasil show has been heating up the local radio waves every Sunday for the past seven years. But De Souza's show is not the only hot action coming out of the true-blue independent station's Coral Way studios each week. In fact, his road to Rio leads directly into the Latin Jazz Quarter, another of the sizzling offerings found Sundays down on the dial at 89.5 FM.
 
Indeed, Latin Jazz Quarter is one of DNA's signature shows, and it runs seven days a week at various times. But we're here now to hype that Sunday night edition, broadcast from 8 to 11 p.m., which is hosted by Majica and Mano P, arguably the genre's most formidable power couple.

And yes, Majica and Mano P are indeed a couple, and they have been legally hitched since 2002. The two were brought together by their band, the Baboons, a 16-year-young enterprise whose Evolution was Miami New Times' "Best Album of the Past Twelve Months" back in 1999. The band veers seriously Latin, but it goes more for the funk than the jazz. 
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Audion

A heads up to Miami's downtown cognoscenti: Michigan's esteemed Ghostly International label will be celebrating 10 years of forward-thinking music and subculture at White Room on Saturday, December 5. Founded in 1999 by DJ Sam Valenti, Ghostly has become one of the most highly-acclaimed international platforms for cutting-edge and genre-defying contemporary music and multimedia, along with its more dancefloor-centric sister imprint Spectral Sound.

Ghostly's eclectic musical contingent will be represented on December 5 by the experimental Detroit techno/avant-pop forays of Audion, a.k.a. Matthew Dear, electro-tech producers Michna and Bodycode, and synthpoppers Solvent, along with Get Physical's M.A.N.D.Y. and Miami's own DJ Conway. This much anticipated musical extravaganza also marks the return of Miami's beloved SAFE, who brought us some of the finest underground electronic dance music bookings of the last couple years, and will be teaming up with Miami's legendary festival audio designer Terry McNeil to guarantee this will be one night of mind-blowing sounds. 

Click here to get your $15 pre-sale tickets.

Ghostly International 10 Year Anniversary Party. Saturday, December 5. 10 p.m.-5 a.m. White Room. 1306 N. Miami Ave., Miami.

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photo by Gokhan Kali

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via myspace.com/djmednas

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