Mix of the Day: Ultra Nate
Should be pretty clear to you by now that I love Ultra Nate. She's certainly on anyone's shortlist of great House Music divas. She's been through the mainstream wringer and the underground too. As an artist, her career ought to be taught in those Discovery Center management classes as a blueprint - nobody, ever, has done it better (and is and is still doing it, in fields like promotions in that many artists of her stature deign as not worth their time). She's worked with some of the greatest production teams in House Music history and her body of work is second to none. And I can say as an editor, she gives great interview.
And she's also become a fantastic DJ. Her mix for 5 Magazine is one of the most popular we've ever done - partly, no doubt, from people with a skeptical eye checking out her chops but also because it's really fucking good. People have a right to be jaded, too - there have been more "celebrities" sullying the name of DJing than ever, but the proof is in the mix.
Ultra maintains a podcast at podomatic.com - their players are ugly and that site is seriously a mess, so let's see if we can't spread the love over here. This is episode 6 - you can download the MP3 over there.
01: Better Way - Darryl D'Bonneau
02: La Mezcla - Michel Cleis ft. Toto La Mompasina
03: Glad I Found You (Instrumental) - Yasmeen (Scott Wozniak Mix)
04: Oh Lord - Mishal Moore
05: Work Me - KT Brooks
06: So Sexy - Peven Everett
07: The Awakening - Julius Papp
08: Rockin' After Midnite - Marvin Gaye (Quentin Harris Mix)
09: Up To You - Lady Alma
10: Breaker's Theme - Mr. V
11: Headphone Silence - Dennis Ferrer
Deep Sugar, 1.3 Million Shots of Licka + More
A round-up of sorts from the world of dance music today:
Ultra Nate's Deep Sugar was picked the "Best Dance Party" in Baltimore by the local Baltimore City Paper.
Ultra Naté's legendary Deep Sugar party keeps on trucking over baby-powder-coated dance floors every month in its adopted home of Paradox. From big names in house like producer Louie Vega to turntablist DJ Spinna to choice locals like KW Griff and the Unruly Records crew--which takes over the club's back room every month with its powerful DJ roster--Deep Sugar delivers again and again.
Fabric, the UK label/venue/blob taking over every aspect of music one step at a time, is celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a 4 day party featuring Ricardo Villalobos, Steve Bug, Kenny Larkin, Halo, Fred Everything, Doc Martin and more. Full line-up from the
press release here.
Some fun facts about Fabric:
- Number of hours of music = 18,000, based on about 35 hours a week average.
- Number of fabric couples = That we know of... 3 couples that met at fabric and married, countless couples that have hooked up and not remembered the next day.
- Number of people through the doors = over 4,186,029
- Number of slipmatts used = 65
- Number of broken needles = about 1600, roughly 3 a week.
- Number of microphones broken by MCs = 53
- Number of cases of beer = about 160,000
- Number of bottles of wine = about 50,000
- Number of shots necked = over 1,300,000 pure shots
- Number of glasses = 312,000
- Number of limes/lemons = 350,000
- Number of tonnes of ice = 1 x glacier
- Number of rewinds = not enough yet.
- Number of tunes played = loads
- Number of bartenders hired = 600
- Number of toilet flushes (rank) = 8,299,200 flushes!!
- Number of people that have got lost in fabric = everyone
- Number of flyers given out = 30,000,000 (yes, thirty million) flyers
- Number of artists = over 20,800 acts between Friday and Saturday night
- Furthest cab ride home = Cardiff
- Number of Joe Beades = 1. Our handyman extraordinaire - the only reason fabric is still standing today.
Smart Bar's website was included in this design mag's Showcase of Music Night Clubs Web Designs. Some of these are utterly gorgeous:
Practically a one-page website, with buttons only for extra info, the Smart Bar website sports a few digital sticky notes with a very a fresh look.
Here's an interesting
interview with Daniel Mnookin from Chicago's Siteholder label on the Cacophonous Bling blog. Quite a bit quoteworthy here if you can manage to tell the questions and answers apart. Formatting!
And two hot releases that have been rocking my socks: Getting a Rise, the second release from Jay-J's album Love Alive (that was fast); and the Fall EP from Franck Roger, who seems to release more great music with less fanfare than anyone I know of.
Photo from myspace.com/ultranatemusic.
