Photos by Alex Rendon

​Our sister paper's account of the drama that unfolded with the Winter Music Conference and Ultra Music Festival divorce this year and all finger-pointing that ensued left us curious regarding how everything would actually unfold for the weeklong dance music festival.

Noticeably lacking in 2011's WMC list were the agency shows, like Windish Agency, which always bring down a great assortment of talent, and other reliable parties like the one hosted by online dance music store Beatport. Additionally, Ultra's reported exclusivity contracts made this year's WMC a rather skimpy one in terms of headlining über-DJs like Deadmau5 and Tiesto. But what we came to find out during the day and a half we spent soaking up the action was that many of this year's attendees truly preferred it this way.

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Photo by Ian Witlen

Ultra may be expanding to a three-day bender.

​Word is swirling around that Ultra Music Festival's organizers have decided to expand next year's festival to three days, presumably Friday through Sunday. Supposedly the decision was made after this year's sellout event.

We've emailed Ultra's publicists for comment and are still awaiting a response.

But word of advice to the festival's organizers: If you want this expansion to go off without a hitch, take our advice and get a little more ambitious and daring with the bookings. This year's lineup left a lot to be desired when it came to progressive acts. If large festivals like Coachella have found success it's because it's ahead of the curve setting trends, not following them.

We probably promised a few posts back that we wouldn't talk about Winter Music Conference or Ultra Music Festival anymore, but we just stumbled across this great video of Afrobeta performing live at last month's festival. The duo got an awesome late-evening slot on the Bayfront Live Stage, which sources told us is because their manager also happens to be one of Ultra's founders and organizers -- ain't no shame in using your connections to get more exposure. The video above shows Cuci Amador and Tony Smurphio performing their track "Play House," which is off their newly release Do You Party? EP.

After the jump, more bonus-video goodness with a live performance of "As Long As You Like."
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Michaelangelo L'Acqua spinning at the W South Beach during Winter Music Conference.

​This past Winter Music Conference, the W South Beach held a private party in the penthouse of the hotel which featured a live performance by the Golden Filter (a personal favorite) and celebrated the release of Symmetry, a CD compilation curated by music director of the W brand, Michaelangelo L'Acqua.

We actually missed the event all together due to unforeseen circumstances (damn our drunk friends!), but we caught up with L'Acqua after the WMC mayhem to talk to him about about what one exactly does when they are a musical director for a global hotel chain, and how it felt to work with the likes to Karl Lagerfeld and Tom Ford.

New Times: As musical director for the W brand, what does your role encompass exactly?
 
Michaelangelo L'Acqua: There are a lot of exciting initiatives I am working on as W's Global Music Director. I'm currently producing our live music concert series "Symmetry Live" as well as our global DJ series, curating our hotel play lists, producing our record series Symmetry. I am also involved with the music event production for W Hotel openings; we have nine openings this year around the globe.
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photo by Nicole Cussell

The evening's headliners had interesting choices in headgear.

Saturday, I took a day of rest and hibernated rather than try to hit up any day parties. I knew I was going to get sweaty as hell at Get Physical's annual WMC throwdown later that night. Ever since I randomly wandered into this event for the first time, back in 2007 at Studio A, it's become a benchmark WMC event for me. The label pumps out some of the smartest, but still danceable and melodic, tech-house around, attracting a cool crowd that comes ready to dance without any bullshit. This is an event that goes late, and that you don't just stop by: it's an investment, but one with crazy returns in the wee-hours headlining set. This year, it was a four-person tag-team set between the guys of M.A.N.D.Y., Matthew Dear, and Damian Lazarus. More >>

Yes, WMC ended on Sunday, but considering I ended my experience some time technically on Sunday, I've just now gotten my head screwed back on straight. Blame the amazing Get Physical WMC party on Saturday night/Sunday morning, the best edition of that party yet. But I'll get to that shortly. From Friday to then, here are some other parties that were worthwhile over the weekend. More >>

​For those of you tragically not in attendance that night, legendary UK DJ Greg Wilson made his highly anticipated WMC debut (in fact his Miami debut altogether) at Electric Pickle on Wednesday, March 24, schooling us all on the authentic disc jockey artform. Beyond simply reinstating the definition of what a true vinyl-spinning beat-juggling DJ does, he epitomized a return to form that seems to have marked the breakthrough trend across the board at WMC this year. There's no denying that disco-house is majorly back, and not just as a style of EDM, but as an old school DJ discipline -- the art of the DJ re-edit, a trick of the trade which used to be par for the course with post-disco DJ pioneers like Larry Levan.

"Many DJs began to place mixing ahead of programming in terms of priority, selecting what they played not because it was the best record, but because it mixed out of the previous record seamlessly," said Wilson in our WMC Q&A, lamenting the sub-par M.O. of so many contemporary DJs. "This was putting the cart before the horse as far as I'm concerned. I'm all for mixing, but programming is the most important skill a DJ possesses and, in comparison to the DJs of the past, I think that this was an area that suffered."
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We are sort of stretching this since Winter Music Conference wrapped up Sunday, but it just took a while to finally sit down and process everything we did over the course of last week. But here it is, our final call on all the great and not-so-great things that we experienced last week.

Photo by Santiago Felipe

Somebody probably got pregnant during Major Lazer's performance.

​Best Performance at Ultra Music Festival: Major Lazer

You can read our review for our complete thoughts as to why Switch and Diplo deserve this honor. It was unlike any Ultra performance we had seen before, and better than anything that was going on at the main stage, we are sure. Plus, there were foam laser hand gun thingies. Can't argue with that.

Best Performance Outside of Ultra: Duck Sauce

Given that the Fool's Gold Showcase at Grand Central was the first time A-Trak and Armand Van Helden have performed together under the Duck Sauce moniker, the night itself was a pretty big deal. But throw in soul and disco, with some electro for good measure, and you've got a winning combination.

Best Party You Probably Couldn't Have Got Into Anyway: Belvedere Music Lounge at the W South Beach

The party was for VIP and press only, and, since we are press we got to attend. Never mind the awesomely bad AstroTurf -- if you rubbed your feet on it and touched somebody you gave them a jolt of electricity. There were endless cocktails, plenty of celebrity and semi-famous (not really) DJ sightseeing, and gorgeous swimsuit-clad Belvedere spokesmodels. Yes, we saw a camel toe or two.
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Photo by Ian Witlen

Deadmau5 performing at the main stage at Ultra Music Festival.

​It's over. Jesus Christ! It's over! We are sad and glad at the same time. Sad because we have to wait another year for the next Ultra Music Festival. Glad because our city can return to some kind of normalcy, and we can finally go to bed at a decent hour.

But in case you want to relive the hazy two days that was Ultra Music Festival, we have an endless amount of pictures. Check out all the slideshows below:

• Day 1, Part One
• Day 1, Part Two
• Day 2, Part One
• Day 2, Part Two
• Fashion at Ultra Music Festival

Photo by Ian Witlen

​Major Lazer
Ultra Music Festival at Bicentennial Park, Miami
Saturday, March 27, 2009

Better than: Ninety-nine percent of the acts at Ultra.

Making fun, party music is a difficult thing to do. No, seriously. You can either go the obviously route and create straight-up track about partying (i.e. most of LMFAO's catalog), but where's the fun in that? Part of an artists responsibility to their craft is pushing the limits and introducing new sounds.

That's perhaps why when Major Lazor -- Switch and Diplo -- released their debut, Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do, I was instantly floored. I even picked it and its summer anthem "Pon De Floor" as the best thing released in 2009. But in the end it is simply just party music, but with a huge twist. Switch and Diplo mix traditional dancehall and Jamaican riddims with electro beats. It shouldn't work but it does.
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