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On Tuesday in Los Angeles, Fred again.. played the first of his eight nights at The Shrine, a run that, when complete, will be the most consecutive shows a single artist has ever performed at the venue during its nearly 100-year history.
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Roughly 40,000 tickets have been sold for this residency, and a sign posted outside the box office on Tuesday night firmly stated “tonight’s show is sold out,” a disappointment to the blindly hopeful few that rolled up to the window a few minutes before he went onstage with the hopes of getting inside.
But unless you’re willing to brave the secondary market, where tickets are currently going for $200-plus, you’re probably not getting into these shows. The rest of the L.A. residency is sold out, as were the three nights at New York City’s Forest Hills Stadium that the London-based producer played earlier this month.
It’s a lot of hype, and the 30-year-old artist at the center of it turned up onstage around 9:45 p.m. in his standard uniform of a baggy T-shirt and those kind of cargo pants that unzip at the knees and convert into shorts when need be. The T-shirt was black and a had a small Nike swoosh over the word “again.” The cargo pants were orange and remained zipped as pants throughout.
And the crowd — composed mostly of people who appeared to be in their 20s, not surprising given Fred’s core demographic and the fact that The Shrine is on the USC campus — roared with the first notes of 2021’s “Kyle (i found you).” This production is one of many bright, enthusiastic, sort of poignant songs the artist born Fred Gibson has delivered to the zeitgeist since emerging from the strange haze of the late pandemic and then, with the return of live events, quickly becoming the first real post-EDM dance music superstar.
While the stars of that aforementioned dance music era became famous on maximalist, adrenaline rush songs that typically celebrated partying and vague notions of fun and romance, most of Gibson’s work is a lot more earnest, with his music and general aesthetic demonstrating a familiar and very modern kind of intimacy forged through Facetimes and video clips and the digital bric-a-brac we share with each other on our phones to make distances feel shorter.
It’s unsurprising then that it only took Gibson about 10 minutes to announce “I want to say, before we play anything else, I just want to say thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I appreciate you so much.”
Fred again.. at The Shrine on Oct. 24, 2024.
Julian Bajsel
The producer and his frequent stage companion — a muscular, extremely enthusiastic co-performer who Gibson always only introduces as Tony — then rolled into “Dermot (See Yourself In My Eyes),” one of many tracks of the night that demonstrated Gibson’s efficacy on the piano, and that he really does have a lovely voice. The crowd came alive for the Swedish House Mafia collab “Turn On the Lights again” which featured the song’s vocalist, Future, projected onto the massive three-screen stage setup Fred has been using on tour for a few years, with each screen meant to emulate a phone screen.
For the Shrine shows, this stage production has been expanded to include four gargantuan LED panels hanging from the ceiling. These ceiling panels gave the space a glowing, immersive feel as they displayed images of airplanes in flight and blue sky with clouds and slow pans of the crowd staring back at itself.
Gibson demonstrated a fair amount of trust in this crowd, when, about 30 minutes into the show, he jumped offstage and — with the help of two security guards — made his way through the horde to a satellite stage in the center of the room. Here, one of the light panels lowered from the ceiling to create a sort of club effect, and Gibson used this time to play some harder hitting stuff — including, much to the crowd’s thrill, his skittering, undeniable Skrillex collab “Rumble” and a bunch of hectic drum ‘n’ bass that got much of the heaving crowd to lower their phones down and just dance along for a few minutes. This seemed a likely moment for Gibson’s other more club-oriented hits, 2022’s “Jungle” and his 2023 Skrillex and Four Tet collab “Baby Again” although neither of those tracks were heard last night.
Fred again.. at The Shrine on Oct. 24, 2024.
Julian Bajsel
Upon Fred’s return to the mainstage, the show returned to it’s more softer-edged programming, with Gibson — who performed a bunch of the set while sitting down — taking a few minutes to tell the story of the birth of his niece, who was born the morning after his massive Glastonbury performance this past June. Happily, he showed us a few seconds of baby niece footage, then aptly played his latest, “adore u.”
Some may find Fred’s infants and gratitude vibes as overly earnest bordering on saccharine, but there’s also something refreshing about the straightforward celebration of happiness, togetherness, adoration and love that characterizes the bulk of his output, particularly in a genre where the cooler than thou vibes can often feel not only dull but alienating.
The show ultimately lasted about an hour and a half, closing with The Blessed Madonna collab “Marea (we’ve lost dancing)” and a singalong of “Billie (loving arms)” (Shout out to the woman in front of us in the crowd holding up an actual lighter in this moment.)
Towards the end of the night, Gibson told the story of his first ever set in L.A., when he played for “like, 50 people” at The Roxy in December of 2021, having landed in town 90 minutes before this show began due to a lag in he and his team getting their visas. A few months later, his euphoric sets at Coachella 2022 made him a star, a few months after that he played three packed shows at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and this past spring he headlined Coachella alongside Skrillex and Four Tet.
Southern California has always been a very strong market for dance and is clearly an increasingly strong market for Gibson — something he’ll demonstrate again (and again, and again) tonight (Oct. 25) over the next week’s remaining shows. With the screen panels offering a friendly goodbye — “get home safe everyone, thank you” — to the crowd making its way out last night, it feels okay to assume that he really was so glad to be there, that he appreciates so much.
While the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics often bring out the biggest musical stars of the Games’ host country, Daft Punk will not be among the French artists performing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Yesterday, French outlet Le Parisien […]
Defunct dance duo LMFAO hit a hard-partying high mark this week when the video for their 2011 electropop anthem “Sexy and I Know It” hit the one billion views mark on YouTube. The song that ran up to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in January 2012 is the […]
Last week, the the 28th edition of the annual Amsterdam Dance Event brought thousands of dance industry professionals and nearly 3,000 artists to the city. Over four days (Oct. 18-21), they attended hundreds of panels and more than a thousand after-dark events in more than 200 locations around the city.
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There was much fun and many parties. Of course, a lot of knowledge about the dance music ecosystem was also dropped amidst it all. The conference is “inspiring and gets everyone together,” ADE co-organizer Meindert Kennis told Billboard ahead of the event, but, “we also focus on hands-on information … In the end, that’s what a lot of professionals are coming for, and they need to take home value for themselves or their organization. We try to implement that in all the different elements of ADE to really help the industry push itself forward.”
Here are ten such takeaway points from ADE 2023.
Greater sustainability in the industry can be achieved by more strategic tour routing.
A presentation by Claire O’Neill, the CEO and co-founder of sustainability nonprofit A Greener Future, explored the many ways dance music and the wider industry can mitigate carbon emissions, from limiting meat consumption to avoiding private jets to routing tours more efficiently.
“When we have high-speed tours that are happening and you throw on an extra gig and have to go from one place to another … it’s costing a lot of extra expense, people’s time, trucks on the road, flights,” said O’Neill. “Slower tours and better planning are something we’ve been working on with agents and promoters for some time. It’s a slow burner, because these are very entrenched cultures … in order for us to change some of these systems, we’re going to need to actually change the deal structures … If we have to do dartboard tours and fly people all over the place in order to achieve [a show or tour], it’s never going to be sustainable.”
Labels can help break an artist from emerging markets by focusing on listeners from that market who live elsewhere.
During a discussion on how artists from big, foreign markets can gain global traction, Selina Chowdhury, the Head of Marketing for Emerging Markets at Warner Music Group, noted that “something that’s been key and a focus for our artists is marketing to diaspora markets. For example, [for] India, we’re looking at Canada, Australia, the U.S., the U.A.E. and more. There’s probably well over 30 million people.”
She added this this marketing can be achieved by collaborations with artists in these diaspora markets, through touring in these places or through “custom short form content” that can travel and resonate with potential fans thousands of miles away.
Punjabi music is about to be huge.
“I think something that we’ve been starting to hear a lot about in the international music scene, and we’ll hear a lot more about, is Punjabi music — which is really exciting,” Chowdhury added during this presentation, referring to the style of music that originated in India’s Punjab region. “We have a lot of artists that are using traditional rhythms of melodies and are fusing them with more contemporary styles like R&B and hip-hop, especially out of Toronto.”
She specifically name checked Canadian artists Ikky, AP Dillon and Indian artist Diljit Dosanjhdoji, who this year became the first ever Punjabi artist to perform at Coachella.
There’s a method artists can use to get their music noticed by Beatport curators.
Roughly 30,000 tracks are submitted to digital download store Beatport every week. “We’re still one of the only platforms that really puts a lot emphasis on human curation, but obviously we have limits,” the platform’s SVP of Creator Services Helen Sartory said during a panel on essential info to know about the brand. “We can’t listen to and put judgments on 30,000 tracks a week.”
Sartory said that the most crucial thing artists can do to stand out is to have a great relationship with their distributors. “It’s the distributors that send us their list of priorities every week and say, ‘Out of all of the tracks we’re sending this week, these are the ones that we really want your curation team to spend some time on,’ and we do listen to everything on that priority list,” she noted. She added that despite some misconceptions, the platform does not require that artists have a certain social following or level of revenue attached to their music to get placement on the platform.
“It really just is about, ‘Do our curators vibe with the music, and do they think there’s a place for it in their genre?’” Sartory said.
Track tags and IDs are essential to help curators understand what’s working “in the wild.”
“If you’re a DJ and you’re posting clips of an amazing moment in your set, please credit the track and credit the artist, because we’re looking at all that stuff,” Sartory said during this same Beatport presentation. She referenced a statistic that 90% of DJs are not ID-ing their tracks in their social media clips, making, she says, “a real problem for the industry, because we want to be able to track that data.”
She also encouraged managers to push for music recognition technology to in clubs and at festival and for artists to register all their music with CMOs, so everyone gets paid when music is played in a set. Such registration also ensures that “when the music performed in the wild, we know about it,” says Sartory. “All of these data points are super important. It sounds boring, but through this [data] we can really spot exciting things happening, and that’s what we can get behind as a platform.”
Some artists had totally different careers before making it in music — just ask HoneyLuv.
During the conversation, Black Dance Music – A Conversation Across Multiple Generation, Detroit legend DJ Minx, BBC Radio 1 presenter Tiffany Calver, and house producer HoneyLuv, this latter artist referred to herself as “someone who likes to live multiple lives.” Indeed. Before rising through the dance scene, she played college basketball, which was “literally my life until I was 21. But then I suffered my second ACL tear in my knee and was like ‘yeah I can’t keep doing this, or I’m not going to be able to walk.’”
Having seen members of her family serve in law enforcement and the CIA, she then decided she also wanted to be in the CIA. To help get herself there, she enrolled in the navy, “but after the second year I was like’ this is not for me.’ I felt like I wasn’t challenged, and I like to be challenged in life.” During this “depressing time,” her friends suggested she do something in music, so she’d practice DJing in her barracks until 1a.m., then be back on duty at 4.am. That was just three years ago. “Never in a million years,” she said, “did I think I’d be in this position.”
Beyoncé‘s Renaissance “shined the light” on Black house artists.
“I did not appreciate them saying that Beyoncé brought back house music — because girl, where did it go, it’s always been right here,” DJ Minx observed during this same conversation. “That was the one thing that got to me. But I also have to say that we have to think about it from the other perspective, as well. Hundreds of thousands of people saw the Renaissance tour. Those people are now onto us that weren’t before… Let [Beyoncé] shine the light where it wasn’t before, because a lot of people do not know that we’re over here killing it. They didn’t, but they do now.”
The White Lotus theme song is meant to give you anxiety.
In a conversation with The White Lotus theme song composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, he said the song’s “chaos somehow resonated with [the show’s] characters. This music is not really about Hawaii or anything like that, it’s really more about the chaos these stories are creating and the way the characters behave. They’re like savages. They’re abusive. It’s pretty wild, so the wild side of the music is representing that, and somehow mocking them too.”
He added that all the screaming in the song, by design, contributes to the show’s tension. “That’s something we talked about with [series creator Mike White],” added Tapia de Veer. “He wanted it to feel like something terrible was going to happen by the end of an episode…and even though the music is groovy, it made people anxious in some weird way.”
There are straightforward steps artists can take to gain traction on Spotify.
A panel discussion with several Spotify employees noted that the platform currently has 551 million monthly active users, including 222 million paid subscribers in 184 markets. The team said that artists can help connect with fans on the platform by keeping their artist pages current, citing a 77% traffic bump on these pages when an artist releases new music. But given that 50% of artists customize their artist pages after a release, audiences are often missing key info.
Spotify’s Canvas feature, with which artists can pair an eight-second visual loop to a song, also impacts consumption. The presentation noted that listeners who see a Canvas are 5% more likely keep streaming the song, 145% more likely to share it, 20% more likely to add it to playlists, 1.4% more likely to save the track and 9% more likely to visit an artist’s profile page.
A redesigned events feature is also helping artists make more money through Spotify.
A repositioning of the upcoming events of an artist’s Spotify page has, according to the presentation, given these events sections 70% more views, generating 15% more ticket sales.
Troye Sivan is red-hot on Billboard’s various dance/electronic charts upon the arrival of his third studio LP, Something To Give Each Other. The set debuts at No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums (dated Oct. 28) amid a flurry of activity for its individual songs.
Something To Give Each Other enters with 31,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. Oct. 13-19, according to Luminate. Of that total, 16,000 are from album sales, with 15,000 from streaming-equivalent album units, equating to 20.3 million official U.S. streams for its songs in the tracking week. It lands as his fifth top 20 album, at No. 20, on the all-genre Billboard 200.
Something To Give Each Other marks Sivan’s first chart-topper on Top Dance/Electronic Albums. He previously hit No. 8 in 2016 with Blue Neighborhood: The Remixes. It’s Sivan’s first time reigning over Top Dance/Electronic Albums, while Bloom led Top Internet Albums for a week in 2018.
On Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, Sivan spreads the wealth among recent singles. “Rush” is the chart’s top Sales Gainer, with its 178% surge in weekly sales powering a 6-4 bump. Meanwhile, “Got Me Started” is the top Streaming Gainer, up 58% as it bounds 13-5. He follows David Guetta, Elton John and Rihanna to become the fourth artist to double up in the top five this year.
Elsewhere, Sivan scores three debuts, as “What’s the Time Where You Are?,” “Silly” and “Honey” bow at Nos. 18, 28 and 29, respectively.
Something To Give Each Other achieves international success, as the album’s “One of Your Girls” debuts on the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. tallies, at Nos. 60 and 64, respectively. Having entered in July, “Rush” surges on both lists, notably flying 193-126 on Global Excl. U.S. Plus, the former track is a new entry on Norway Songs at No. 15 and Ireland Songs at No. 23.
SXM Festival is returning to its Caribbean home of St. Martin this spring, with a just-announced crew of artists.
The dance festival’s phase one lineup, released on Tuesday (Oct. 24), includes techno creator Kevin Saunderson, house mainstay Loco Dice, Israeli producer Adam Ten, British duo Eli & Fur, German legend Anja Scheider and many more. The event will also feature a sunrise event curated by the ever-vibey Anjunadeep.
SXM has happened on St. Martin since 2016 and will once again take place in locations around the island, with beach parties, pool parties, villa parties, boat parties and jungle parties all on the lineup. The majority of the festival happens on private beach adjacent to the jungle. The event will also offer day trips including hikes and cultural excursions.
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Tickets go on sale Nov. 2, with both three-day and seven-day passes available.
“With great excitement and anticipation, we present phase one of the 2024 lineup, marking the beginning of our seventh edition,” says SXM founder, Julian Prince. “This launch sets the stage for an incredible journey of music, art, and unity. The carefully crafted lineup is a testament to our unwavering commitment to providing an unforgettable experience for our festival-goers. It is a celebration of the limitless creativity and passion within the electronic music community.”
“Together,” Prince continues, “we will weave a tapestry of emotions, where joy, exhilaration, and pure euphoria converge beneath the Caribbean sun. Join us as we ignite the spirit of SXM Festival and unleash the magic that has made it an extraordinary event.”
See the phase one lineup below.
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Although Marshmello has proven his cross-genre appeal by topping the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Pop Airplay charts over the course of his career, the producer scored a long-awaited first in 2023: a No. 1 single on the Latin Airplay chart for his unexpected hit with Manuel Turizo, “El Merengue.” The tropical single was the first new endeavor in a year full of them for the veteran producer, who on Nov. 3 will release Sugar Papi, his first Latin album and first full-length that features an artist on every song.
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“I’ve always been eager to make a body of work [but] wasn’t sure when the right time was,” he tells Billboard News. “Sony Latin reached out to me and was like, ‘Hey, would you like to do a Latin album?’ I’d always wanted to tap into Latin music and it just seemed like a perfect time for us to knock out the album I’ve always wanted to do…It was a no brainer.”
Sugar Papi is filled with Latin music legends and rising stars, from Nicky Jam and Anuel AA to Young Miko and Tiago PZK. And while most songs are rooted in Latin rap, trap and reggaeton, nothing was off-limits in the studio, with Marshmello setting up sessions in Miami to meet with each artist. “I showed up in Miami to write this album and was like, ‘I don’t have anything prepared,’” he recalls with a laugh. “Part of my job, my main job, is on the spot creation.” That quick-thinking helped him and his collaborators finish the entire album in less than two weeks.
“I wasn’t just going to go and make this huge ‘every big artist in the world’ [project], I was just going to work with the artists that I vibed with,” he says, noting he was particularly fond of his sessions with Young Miko. “She just showed up and was so nice and humble, killing everything I’m showing her. In the vault, there’s two other songs that we did and it’s straight rave music, old ’90s like Eiffel 65…Crazy crazy vibes. There’s a lot of songs in the vault that could pop up. “
That wasn’t all that Marshmello had to say about what’s ahead, teasing more on the way. “I don’t know if I’ve said it publicly but I’ve been in the studio this whole summer writing a new album, kind of redefining what Marshmello is,” he says. “I just had some sessions recently where I had some Latin touches…I could definitely see a lot of elements that I’m learning [returning].”
Watch the full interview above.
Chart-topping DJ, producer and songwriter Marshmello talks about diving into Latin music; the process of creating his first Latin album, Sugar Papi; working with Young Miko; the success of his track “El Merengue” with Manuel Turizo and more!
Marshmello:It was interesting. I kind of showed up to Miami to write this album and I was like, “I don’t really have anything prepared.” Part of my job, my main job, is on-the-spot creation.
Lyndsey Havens:Yeah.
Marshmello:Just making it, you know what I mean? Making it work. Yo, what’s up? It’s Marshmello and this is Billboard News.
Lyndsey Havens:Hey, I’m Lyndsey Havens for Billboard News, and I’m here with the chart-topping, DJ, producer and songwriter Marshmello!
Marshmello:What’s going on?
Lyndsey Havens:What’s up, man?
Marshmello:Chilling.
Lyndsey Havens:You’re no stranger to our charts. We have a lot of firsts to talk about with you right now. You have a major label debut album coming out: Sugar Papi, first Latin album, first proper album, new artists on every song.
Marshmello:First album, yeah, a major label album.
Lyndsey Havens:Tell us a bit about how and when the idea for this album even came about.
Marshmello:I’ve always been eager to kind of make a body of work. I wasn’t sure when the right time was. Sony Latin reached out to me and was like, “Hey, would you like to do a Latin album?” And I’d always wanted to tap into Latin music and it just seemed like a perfect time to first knock out the album that I’ve always wanted to do and Latin and everybody was so cool and so nice. It was a no-brainer.
Lyndsey Havens:Did you ever think that Latin would be your first album?
Marshmello:Even though I wasn’t putting out Latin songs, over the years, I just befriended so many people, so many Latin artists. I knew it would happen, I just wasn’t sure when and it was just kind of sent by the universe.
Lyndsey Havens:Yeah. I mean, what conversations did you have with Sony Latin about the appetite for this right now?
Marshmello:I wasn’t just gonna go and make this like, huge, every biggest artist in the world on a Latin album, like, I’m just gonna work with artists that I vibe with, and that I just like, genuinely like their music, you know? And so I think, like, you’ll see, like, on the tracklist and who I worked with, you’d be like, OK, like, just, like, a good vibe.Watch the full video above!
This week in dance music: Texas Eclipse Festival 2024 announced a heady, heavy lineup, Dutch festival DGTL announced that it’s making it’s U.S. debut this December, BMG acquired Martin Solveig’s catalog, Kenya Grace made history as the first artist to hit No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs with a track produced, written and sung exclusively by a woman, and we talked to her about the track, the Mayan Warrior team announced that it will bring a new car to Burning Man in 2024 after its original rig burned down this past April, we got exclusive CRSSD Fall 2024 sets from Basement Jaxx, Nikki Nair and Interplanetary Criminal and we spoke with III Points co-founder David Sinopoli ahead of the festival, which launches today (Oct. 20) in Miami with headliners including Black Coffee, Caroline Polacheck, Skrillex and Fred again..
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That’s a lot, and there’s more. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Barry Can’t Swim, When Will We Land
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The Label: Ninja Tune
The Spiel: Barry Can’t Swim has released more than half his debut album, When Will We Land?, in singles over the last few months, but damn if it doesn’t all sound so good all together. The Scottish producer has a talent for lushness and groove, building the standout “Always Get Through To You” to an exultant place while bringing in Afrobeats, house, jazz and ambient influences throughout. Vocal snippets give the project a human, sometimes slightly melancholic, mood and depth. The Edinburgh native is on tour in the U.K. and Europe for the remainder of 2023.
The Artist Says: “I’m not really one for putting soppy s–t on socials,” the artist, born Joshua Mainnie, wrote on Instagram, “but it’s an incredibly moving thing to know there are people out there that actually want to listen to my music and hear this album. It’s been almost 2 years in the making and some of it was written when I was still working a full time job. Can’t believe it really.”
ISOxo, kidsgonemad!
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The Label: 88Rising Records
The Spiel: San Diego’s ISOxo released his very-much-anticipated debut album today, and with it demonstrates why he’s simultaneously the future of bass-forward electronic music and one of the most exciting things currently happening within it. Pummeling with the same velocity of early Skrillex and containing the same kind of sleek, sharp edges of Justice, the album is raw, powerful, aggressive and inventive, with the artist balancing out walloping maximalism with more delicate moments like on the Spanish-guitar tinged “Moonspell.” The producer, born Julian Isorena, has four sold out shows at The Shrine in Los Angeles next month.
The Artist Says: “This album can be split into three parts. The first few tracks have a cocky, rebellious energy that builds to a breaking point with ‘pressure’. The second part is about trying to reconnect with the passion and feeling of making music with no restrictions or expectations (how2fly). And part three builds again into the high energy from part one and brings back those themes but from a more hopeful perspective. kidsgonemad! is the whole journey of growth and self-discovery from brash rebellion and angst to hopelessness, and finally acceptance and self-worth.”
Rêve, Saturn Return
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The Label: Astrwalwerks
The Spiel: Montreal dance pop artist Rêve — a Billboard emerging dance artist to watch — is proving why with her debut album Saturn Return. Giving Future Nostalgia vibes, the album is sleek, fun, sophisticated, singable and extremely danceable, containing earlier hits including “Whitney” and “Breaking Up With Jesus” and new gems like the shimmering “Contemporary Love” and the power-lunged power anthem “Disco At The Strip Club.” The project was produced by Banx & Ranx, known for their work with Dua Lipa and Little Mix, and Grammy-nominated producer Carl Ryden, who is well-versed in the dance pop world through his work with Kylie Minogue.
The Artist Says: “The album was carefully crafted to make listeners feel sexy, vulnerable, empowered, euphoric, and free,” says the artist born Briannah Donolo. “My goal was to create a sonic dimension where everyone has a space to feel safe to experience and celebrate the full range of human emotion. I’m known for my dance vibes, which you’re getting plenty of with Saturn Return, but I also wanted people to see a more emotional and vulnerable side from me – because spilling my guts is my favorite thing to do.”
Poolside, Blame It All On Love
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The Label: Counter Records
The Spiel: A longtime arbiter, of funky, groovy, smooth as hell music you can dance to (or just clean the house to), Poolside is back with his fourth full length, Blame It All on Love. It is, as they say, a vibe. Swimming largely instrumental end of the pool, the album is a lush, slinky, sorta sexy affair that features work from Cut Copy’s Ben Browning (“Ride With You”), Panama (“Back To Life”), Ora The Molecule, Life on Planets, Slenderbodies, Munya and Mazy (“Each Night.”)
The Artist Says: “I’ve spent 15 years being like, ‘F–k your rules,’ and I finally feel like I’m not trying to prove anything or anyone wrong,” the artist born Jeffrey Paradise says. “It’s just pure, unfiltered expression, and that’s why I’m really excited about this record.”
Claude VonStroke, “The Creeps”
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The Label: Dirtybird
The Spiel: The one and only Claude VonStroke is very aware of what season it is, giving spooky vibes on his latest, “The Creeps.” A simmering, ominous house beat is the foundation for vocalist Barry Drift to expound on the real terror of a bad trip, stating in a low growl, “Blood is everywhere, the drugs are so dramatic!”
The Artist Says: “A good horror film is very difficult to make because it has to be scary enough to make your skin crawl, but fun enough so you can enjoy grabbing your partner’s arm during a jump scare,” says CBS. “I decided to go for it and make a track just for Halloween based on the concept that a guy takes drugs and cannot figure out if he is in reality or a horror film. It’s a precarious balance between cheesy and creepy, but that’s the entire fun of Halloween, isn’t it?”
When David Sinopoli answers the phone, he’s at his Miami nightclub Jolene, rolling joints.
Sinopoli, along with member of his staff, are prepping roughly 1,000 joints as part of the gift bags artists will be getting at III Points, the festival Sinopoli co-founded in 2013, which launches its 2023 edition on Friday (Oct. 20) at Miami’s Mana Wynwood center and its adjacent blocks. Other goodie bag items include crystals and magic mushrooms. (But not too many, as in past years, a few artists got so high that they had trouble getting onstage.)
“It’s become [a tradition] where we can all get together, eat some food, everyone plays music,” Sinopoli says of this annual rolling session. “It’s really nice, fun and quite wholesome.”
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It’s also one of the personal touches that have made III Points a standout on the U.S. electronic festival circuit over the last decade, while also elevating Miami one of the crown jewels cities in the country’s electronic scene. It’s founders grew up in Miami, and the lineup is 60% local acts — Coffintexts, Jonny From Space, Nick León — along with 2023 headliners including Skrillex, Fred again.., Iggy Pop, Caroline Polacheck, Grimes and Black Coffee. The food vendors and visual artists are also all from the city, as are many of the 50,000 people who attend over its two days.
“I think it’s just very authentically Miami, and a real time capsule of Miami sonically and visually right now,” Sinopoli says of putting on a festival with an identify and real personality. “I think people feel that when they come.”
III Points is able to rep the city so well because Sinopoli and his team — “they’re connected here 365” — know it so intimately. Sinopoli is also the co-owner of Space, the city’s 24-hour bacchanal of a nightclub that he, along with Davide Danese and Coloma Kaboomsky, took over in 2016. He’s also the owner and operator of Factory Town, a 190,000-square foot arts and nightlife complex built in a World War II-era mattress factory, as well as the cocktail bar Floyd and Jolene, the intimate “sound room” where Sinopoli and his some staff are rolling Js.
David Sinopoli
Giano Currie
Born in New Jersey, Sinopoli relocated to Fort Myers with his family when he was 15. He was diagnosed with cancer while in high school, once spending five months in isolation at a Durham Children’s Hospital. A bone marrow transplant from his brother eventually brought him back to good health, and after he finished high school, Sinopoli went to college in Gainesville. He rose through that city’s nightlife scene then making a name for himself in South Florida, where he founded III Points in 2013 with his business partner Erica Freshman. Their statement-making debut lineup featured James Murphy, Jamie xx and DJ Shadow, a crew that was 180 degrees away from the big-name EDM DJs dominating the city’s club scene in that era.
Carving out a place for underground and indie-leaning electronic music, and getting acts to town that might otherwise never play there, “is part of the reason I started III Points,” Sinopoli says.
Routing a tour to Miami has long been financially challenging for artists, with many acts just skipping the city altogether. “To play Miami and be supported by Orlando and Tampa on the way down almost doesn’t make sense [for artists],” Sinopoli says. “A lot of time Orlando and Tampa don’t support the same things Miami does. Miami is in Florida, but it’s not f–king Florida.”
III Points has also been embraced within the industry for booking new acts agents are excited about, but who don’t often yet have major name recognition. Sinopoli says while such signings “maybe are not making the most sense financially,” they payoff is in fresh lineups, industry goodwill and the opportunity to break artists and grow along with them.
As the festival has expanded Sinopoli says many agents now just block off the weekend in advance then look for an offer from III Points. This is easier given the fest happens in the fall, the opposite side of the year from Miami’s other major electronic music festival, Ultra. While there’s some lineup overlap, each largely does its own thing, with Ultra driving loads of business at Space, Factory Town and Floyd each March.
Business was also shored up when III Points partnered with electronic festival behemoth Insomniac Events in 2019. The company took an ownership stake in Space and became partners in all of Sinopoli’s business ventures. “They sat with us for a long time before they stepped in in some of the areas we really needed them,” he says. “They let us make mistakes first, before they were like, ‘We can help you with that.’”
“I’m not even 40 yet,” he continues, “so I’m learning so much by mistake, and sometimes you can’t afford to keep making mistakes, because it will put you out of business.”
Insomniac has been especially helpful in training him and his team in marketing and budget management. “We would think we made money or only lost that much money,” he says, “then the real report would come out and it’d be like, a swift kick in the stomach. They helped us understand that you start with this budget, then every 30 days you cut it down, then cut it down again.”
The partnership was especially stabilizing in the pandemic and its aftermath. In 2020, III Points moved its dates four times: “It was [Insomniac’s] backing that allowed us to do it,” Sinopoli says. “If it was up to us, we would have cashed in and walked away.”
Adina Yev
The peace of mind of solvency allows for a focus on music and experiences. When assembling lineups, the team first considers who hasn’t been to Miami in awhile, and who’s never been at all. Sinopoli also dreams up the moments and vibes he’d like to create, then plugs in the artists mostly likely to conjure them. This worked especially well in 2017, when The xx played the mainstage with a glowing light on the festival’s giant disco ball (“the largest disco ball on the southeast!”) that gently twinkled on the side of the warehouse wall.
“It almost looked like raindrops, then all sudden this cold drizzle of rain started coming down on the crowd.” Sinopoli looked next to him and saw his production manager was crying. “Because it wasn’t something we could have planned,” he says. “It was like this f–king God moment.”
This weekend will, fingers crossed, deliver other such magic. III Points’ six stages will host the aforementioned headliners, along with Explosions In The Sky, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Alice Glass, SBTRKT, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Moscoman & Whitesquare and many other stars and up and comers culled from both around the world and around the block.
Sinopoli laughs when asked if he feels like he runs the city’s electronic scene. “No! No, no,” he insists, listing a dozen names of people on his staff that help make it all possible. He’s been having a lot of big-picture conversations about the festival’s ten-year anniversary, but his days are more about details, like lights on the disco ball and joints rolled with love.
“We’re so deep in the bubble that I don’t really even grab on to any outside significance of it,” he says. “It’s really just about the next show.”