Music

The uhntz-uhntz hasn’t even died down. But just minutes after wrapping its six-day 2013 edition with Swedish House Mafia’s last show ever, Ultra Music Festival has already announced a plan for next year’s insane EDM extravaganza. “See you all next year at Ultra Music Festival 2014!” the fest’s organizers tweeted,…

Ever since George W. Bush had to pull his dick out of the mashed potatoes (yes, it was definitely “that kind of party”), the United States of America, the politicians that govern it, and the voting populace at large have all been tied to a swinging pendulum of manic populism. Who…

Photo by Marta Xochilt Perez After going all country music on Ultra 2013 this weekend, Avicii’s taking vacay for a day. (At least until it’s time to return to UMF tonight and “come, rave, love” one last time with his countrymen in SHM.) And it’s totally obvious where the Swede…

Via statigr.am/jasonmalliaHow quickly some stars have ascended in the EDM boom. Just a few years ago, in 2009, Toronto-based producer Deadmau5 could be found at Ultra Music Festival on the live stage, essentially opening up for Simian Mobile Disco. Last night, though, trying to get the main stage to witness…

Photo by George Martinez With the rise of the ubiquitous Internet, street fashion trends rolled in, heavy and dark like a storm cloud, over the style world. Instead of dressing sorta like supermodels on the catwalk, we had to start wearing exactly whatever some fashion editor in Italy was sporting…

Major Lazer’s Walshy Fire, Diplo, and Jillionaire. Major Lazer shows are unlike anything else you’ll see at an EDM fest. The Diplo-led crew’s performances are an enthralling orgy of confetti-spraying machine guns, hyper-sexual dancing, and human-sized hamster balls, all set to a peculiar mixture of dancehall, dubstep, pop, and every…

Photo by Jacob Katel With Lil Wayne just out of the hospital after a series of seizures and a Codeine relapse, no one’s fronting about the role drugs play in the world of hip-hop. The EDM scene is also deep into intoxicants, and no one’s going to tell us otherwise…

Photo by S. PajotThere are robot masks in Miami’s streets. What are the odds of electro-mechanical machines (manufactured in France) descending upon Ultra Music Festival 2013 to enslave the EDM generation? We’d say the chances of a sudden and unsuspected robot invasion at UMF probably hover around 13 percent. Oh…

We here at Crossfade are still praying to the gods of robot music for a miraculous Daft Punk cameo at Ultra Music Festival 2013. But as YouTube user Deniz Korkmaz just ecstastically commented via UMFTV: “OMFG SLASHHH.” Of course, not everybody’s superstoked about the former Guns N’ Roses axe slinger…

Photo by Victor Gonzalez Ultra Music Festival is a zoo. From land sharks to killer whales, pink flamingos to African zebras, UMF 2013 is starting to feel a lot like a World Wildlife Foundation fundraiser, complete with endangered species and cuddly critters. Sure, they’re inflatable. But try explaining that to…

Photo by Ian Witlen We knew we were in for something special after speaking with Swedish progressive house DJ-producer Eric Prydz about Ultra Music Festival 2013. Shit, just having the aerophobic house master on this side of the pond is enough an occasion to plant your ass at UMF’s main…

Photo by Jacob KatelSpaceGhostPurrp runnin’ the live stage at Ultra Music Festival 2013. SpaceGhostPurrp can be a prickly dude. He’s so young, smart, and deep. And all that online attitude. You can’t help but envy him his complexity and talent and resent what sometimes comes off as a sense of…

Photo by Victor Gonzalez A check of the weather: Sunshine and a ten-percent chance of rain. Which means we’re rocking nothing but underpants and furry boots for weekend two of Ultra Music Festival, just like the “Top Ten (Almost) Naked Raver Bros” we met last week. But girls just want…

Photo by Ian WitlenUltra 2013’s main stage with Tiësto (and not Kaskade). Kaskade and Tiësto, two undeniable titans of the current electronic dance music landscape, took to the decks on two different stages toward the end of Ultra Music Festival 2013 last night. They could have easily shared time on…

Things that are cool in one context are often not cool in others. For instance, if you arrived at the Pitchfork Music Festival in your kandi best, you would certainly not be the belle of the ball. You’d be a lame-o freak in neon, crying over a box of doughnuts…

Move over, bedazzled bodices, feather frocks, and rhinestone pasties. There’s a new burlesque in town. And if you’re thinking Hurly Burly Burlesque is anything like those muscly, baby-oil-slathered, overly tanned Chippendale’s dudes, think again. What this gritty, bearded, tattooed and, well, fitness-disinclined band of burlyesque “dancers” brings is beyond your wildest, or…

It’s still a month off, and advance and early bird tickets for the inaugural Tortuga Music Festival are almost entirely sold out. That’s not to say that you still can’t gain entrance to see the Fort Lauderdale Beach fest with Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, the Avett Brothers, and other big…