Sky Blu @ Slide

DJ/Rapper Sky Blu (pictured below) will be DJing at Slide, a San Francisco nightclub which really does have a large spiraling slide, on March 4th. Tickets are currently $20 plus fees for general admission.

Along with fellow Los Angeles native Redfoo (pictured right), the two make up the immensely popular electro-hop group LMFAO. The duo has widely received mainstream success ever since the 2009 release of their first album Party Rock which features the chart topping hits "I'm in Miami Bitch", "La La La" and "Shots".

However, it is the "Party Rock Anthem" (below) single from their 2011 album Sorry for Party Rocking that has brought to light a previously underground aspect of the EDM scene. Shuffling, a dance that originated at raves in Melbourne, Australia back in the late 1980s, has resurfaced in today's EDM culture and garnered a new audience of admirers. Although shuffling has been a large part of rave culture for years now, LMFAO were the first mainstream performers to bring the dance into the limelight, and "Party Rock Anthem" is quickly becoming the Shuffling anthem. The duo even held a Shuffling contest to find dancers to perform in the upcoming music video for "Party Rock Anthem".

Asides from the Slide appearance, neither member of LMFAO are set to perform anytime soon in California. However, Redfoo is set to appear at the Marquee nightclub at The Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas on March 7th and Sky Blu is set to DJ at the Surrender nightclub at The Encore Hotel in Las Vegas on March 11th.

Notes: Club 997 Show #35 is out

Steve Aoki @ The Hollywood Palladium

Tickets went on sale today ($35 plus fees) for Insomniac's 4th edition of their Enhanced Concert Series on April 2nd at the legendary Hollywood Palladium, a popular stop for many EDM DJ's as of late. This show features Steve Aoki along with Tiga, DADA LIFE, BART B MORE, and Peace Treaty.

Insomniac is probably the biggest production company specializing in EDM events in the US. They work hard to bring us three of California's biggest annual Massives: Beyond Wonderland, The Nocturnal Festival, and the biggest of them all, The Electric Daisy Carnival, which is the only two day EDM event in all of California. But at the same time they are responsible for a multitude of more intimate events at smaller venues such as the Hollywood Palladium, a fixture on Sunset Blvd since 1940.

The show's headliner, Steve Aoki (pictured below), has taken the term DJ and catapulted it into a limelight that nobody before him even dreamed of. Steve, the California-raised son of Japanese Olympic wrestler and Bennihana restaurant chain founder, Rocky Aoki, and half brother of model and actress, Devon Aoki, certainly has carried on his family's prestigious name. Asides from a successful debut album in 2008, a number of popular remixes, and the club hit "I'm in the House" (below); Steve has all but cemented his name in Hollywood lore with his own record label, Dim Mak, a clothing line by the same name, endorsements and designer spots from WeSC, KR3W Apparel and Supra Footwear, a Korean restaurant called Shin, a production company called Deckstar, a magazine called Aoki, and guest appearances on the popular video game franchise NBA2K. Currently he is set to appear this weekend (February 20th) at 4th & B in San Diego. Tickets are $45 plus fees. He also makes regular appearances on Fridays at the Surrender Nightclub at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas.

Beyond Wonderland 2011

Beyond Wonderland, an annual Alice in Wonderland themed EDM festival at the NOS Event Center in San Bernardino, recently announced the lineup for its main stage: The Queen's Domain. Beyond Wonderland, along with the Nocturnal Festival, are the two biggest annual EDM festivals hosted in San Bernardino. This year's festival falls on March 19th and tickets are currently at $70 plus fees for general admission.

Headlining The Queen's Domain as well as the entire festival is Kaskade (pictured left). The San Francisco based House/Trance/Pop DJ is currently ranked #35 on DJ Mag's Top 100 after jumping 16 spots from 2009 to 2010. Much of his US success stems from his mainstream appeal. Many of his songs feature female vocals and mellow beats that are easy for new EDM followers to listen to. This may be a reason why his two most recent albums "Dynasty" and "Strobelite Seduction" have produced a dizzying number of hit singles that continue to grace the tops of the Billboard charts.

Asides from Beyond Wonderland, Kaskade is set to perform in Los Angeles on May 20th at The Hollywood Bowl alongside Kylie Minogue. Tickets currently are $55 - $150 plus fees depending on section. He will also be DJing at The Marquee at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas on March 12th. Tickets are $30 plus fees.

Note: Club 997 Show #34 is out.

Coachella 2011 tickets come and go

Sorry for the late update but along with everyone else who missed out on tickets, I didn't think Coachella would sell out in less than a week.

Coachella, which is a 3-day music festival in Indio, CA, announced its much anticipated lineup on January 18th. Tickets went on sale on the 21st and were sold out by the 26th, which makes this the fastest selling Coachella by far according to Goldenvoice, the production company that throws the event.

The lineup featured a plethora of well-known and respected DJs (along with many hip hop, alternative, and rock acts). But perhaps the two biggest EDM names were Steve Angello and Axwell, whom along with Sebastian Ingrosso make up the hugely popular Swedish House Mafia (SHM), a collective of three of the premier House DJs of our time.

Steve Angello (pictured left) is currently ranked #14 on DJ Mag after rising 49 spots from 2008 to 2010. This huge climb can be attributed mainly to the formation of the Swedish House Mafia in 2009 and the release of their debut album "Until One" in 2010. The album has garnered Steve and the other members of SHM mainstream fame in the US that they never had before thanks to the chart-topping singles "One" (below), a collaboration with Pharrell Williams, and "Miami 2 Ibiza".

Axwell (pictured right) is currently #10 on DJ Mag and could be considered as the most individually successful member of the trio. Prior to SHM's formation Axwell had already been creating remixes for many mainstream artists such as Usher, Clipse, Faith Evans, N*E*R*D, Nelly Furtado, and Madonna. However, SHM's rapid ascent in both the club scene and the mainstream world has been unlike any before it. The trio is so largely popular that they recently released a documentary on Virgin Records entitled "Take One", which chronicles their historic climb to fame in the last two years. Unfortunately, if you missed out on your chance to get Coachella tickets the trio will only be appearing one other time in the US in the upcoming months. They will be hosting and headlining the first ever "The One Night Stand at the Masquerade Motel" on March 26th in Miami, FL. Tickets are currently $75 plus fees.

And on a side note: The full version of Tiesto & Hardwell - Zero 76 is out as well as Club 997's Show #33 so be sure to check those out.

Club 997 Show #32

Yesterday Club 997, a weekly radio show that runs Fridays from 1-3am on San Francisco's most popular radio station MOViN 99.7, released their latest podcast of their January 14 show after taking a one month hiatus for the holidays. The show, which averages 30,000 downloads for each podcast, is hosted by DJ E Rock and mixed by Miles Medina, both of whom are icons in the San Francisco nightlife scene.

DJ E Rock (pictured left) has been a professional DJ since the age of 15 when he started at KMEL 106.1, another storied San Francisco radio station. Over the next 15 years he would take the DJ scene by storm. Asides from hosting Club 997 E Rock is also the entertainment director of one of San Francisco's biggest clubs, Infusion Lounge, and is the stadium DJ for the San Francisco Giants. He has also recently signed with Moodswing 360 as a traveling DJ to further expand his music dominance outside of the Bay Area.

Miles Medina (pictured right) is a young DJ on the rise and the man behind the music for Club 997. He is best known for his inventive Hip Hop and House mashups. Miles was originally asked by E Rock to be a guest DJ on Club 997 and eventually became the show's resident DJ after an impressive performance. Both Miles and E Rock are regular fixtures in the Bay Area nightlife scene as well as throughout the rest of California and Las Vegas.

Tiesto & Hardwell - Zero 76

Tiesto, a perennial powerhouse in the electonic dance music (EDM) world for over 10 years, has recently collaborated with 22 year old up and coming DJ Hardwell to bring you "Zero 76" (below). After months of speculation, a teaser of the song was finally uploaded onto youtube yesterday with promises of a full release in the near future. As of this moment the video already has 130,601 hits which just goes to show how much attention the EDM scene has garnered in the last few years. A lot of this popularity can be directly attributed to the two aforementioned DJs.

Tiesto (pictured left), who specializes in House music, is considered by many to be one of the most popular and well-known DJs in the world. He is currently ranked #3 in the world by DJ Mag, and has been in the top 3 since 2007. Although he won't be making any appearances in California in the near future, he is set to be the resident DJ the first Saturday of every month this year at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, our neighbor to the east. Tickets range from $40-85 depending on date.


Hardwell (pictured right) has taken the House scene by storm the last 2 years with a flurry of chart topping hits and groundbreaking performances. Although his popularity continues to grow throughout the world, his presence in the US is still somewhat limited, and he is only set to make two appearances here (NYC and Miami) in the upcoming months and probably won't make it out to the west coast for awhile. Hopefully this collaboration with Tiesto, who's name is synonymous with EDM, will help strengthen Hardwell's following here in California and bring him to our side of the country.