Posts Tagged ‘New York City’

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Electric Zoo Festival – Day 1 Recap – Wow!

News and Events | From the mind of Eddie | 09/06/2009


If I had to sum up the first day of The Electric Zoo Festival, I would use one word, “WOW“!
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It’s early on Sunday afternoon now, and I wanted to give you a brief recap of Day 1 before heading back for Day 2!
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Before I dive into this recap, I should mention that we’re going to have loads of great content from this event! Sam is working away preparing the photos from yesterday (and, from what I’ve seen, they look amazing!). I also just finished reviewing all of the video from yesterday, and we’ve got exclusive footage from epic performances by Benny Benassi, Roger Sanchez, Marco Carola, Deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, and more! …so stay tuned to the blog to catch this content right when it hits.
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And now back to the recap…
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The first thing I want to say is that it was much easier to get to the festival than Sam or I had expected. We took the subway up to Harlem and then got on a bus that took us right to Randall’s Island. There was a long line of Electric Zoo-goers, and they were hyped up! People were sharing drinks, and you could just feel the energy in the air – that unique, unbridled, intense New York City party energy!
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When we got to the festival, I was quite impressed with how well-organized it seemed to be. Sam and I moved painlessly through the registration process and got into the event with just the right amount of security checks in place.
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When we got onto the festival grounds, I felt an instant rush and found myself saying and thinking, “This is (more…)


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Boogaloo. Brooklyn. 3:23 pm – PART TWO

General | From the mind of Deepak | 06/11/2009

CD Back including tracklisting

First, how’s everyone enjoying the amazing DEMF coverage on RV? Good stuff, huh? Who does video better??

OK, so now back to Part Two of my Blog which speaks to project in my life that really opened a lot of doors, the release of Boogaloo. Brooklyn. 3.23pm.

Last we left off, I had just hosted an amazing party at the small lounge in Brooklyn (named Boogaloo for those who forgot) with Tyrant (Craig Richards + Lee Burridge) on a Wednesday night.

Shortly after that I began to discuss with the owner of the lounge, Chance that we should release a CD for the bar thats indicative of the vibe and nights we had there. Besides the Wednesday soirée that was a huge success, we had many a crazy night at this small lounge, often times going well past closing hours. I fondly remember around 4:30am, the bartenders would pull down the shades overlooking the street and we would keep the party going. The crowd would be a mixed back, some would say even a bit rogue-ish; but they were all there to have a good time. Often the parties would end in daylight with a few continuing on, and that’s how I came up with the concept of the music for the CD – a soundtrack for after-hours. The number 3:23pm was random in choice, left up to interpretation. We wanted to assign a time not normally connected to electronic music, but for those who understand and were at Boogaloo, they would simply smirk at the time, since it was known that some of the afterhours would go into the afternoon. ;-)

I spent nearly two years on the project from beginning to end, living off of peanuts, in between jobs barely scraping by, my girlfriend at the time hating me because of how consumed I was with this project, (I remember one studio sessions beginning around 9pm and going until 8am, leaving and seeing people go to work) and running into obstacle after obstacle on why this project should have never been completed. The only reason this ever went to market, I would say is perseverance. There’s no need to go into all of the (more…)


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Headed Back up to NYC

News and Events | From the mind of Eddie | 05/08/2009

new-york-city

Last month, I went up to NYC and checked out some hot events. (See my posts about the Save the Cannibals and Simian Mobile Disco parties.) Next week, I’m planning to head back up to the Big Apple and to share some more goodies on our blog (like new music, pictures, etc.)…

I fell in love with NYC the first time I visited (when I was 18 years old). My girlfriend at the time was a student at NYU. I remember when I first got there, she told me to quit gawking at all the tall buildings because I might get us mugged.

Anyway, fast forward 13 years to now, and NYC still has a special place in my heart. My current girlfriend lives there, and RV has a number of business and industry relationships in the City…but there’s more to the connection than that…NYC is where I was first able to immerse myself in the electronic music scene. Well before the days of RV, I was checking out underground electronic music at super trendy lounges in Soho and around the lower Eastside. I was also hitting world class clubs like Twilo and Vinyl, racking up some incredible memories.

I miss the good ol’ days in NYC; I feel like the City changed a lot in the wake of 9-11…I’ve changed a lot as well…but some things are still the same; I still love electronic music, and NYC still has an incredible electronic music scene ;)

My next trip to the City is scheduled for May 13th through May 17th. While I’m there, I’ll be bringing you coverage of three killer underground events…
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HUSTLE & FLOW

General | From the mind of Deepak | 05/07/2009

Deepak Sharma

I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason and it’s all part of the flow of life.  It could be a loss of a job (but a new opportunity created), or a re-acquaintance with an old friend (who now helps manage your record label) or re-uniting with people who are now business partners.  In the ebb and flow of life, people enter and depart, but it’s your hustle that ultimately determines if the right people keep entering.

I first met Resonant Vibes back in 2006 when I was looking for digital distribution for my label, Hidden Recordings.  I was still learning the in-and-outs of owning a label, from the legality of it, to opening the bank accounts to reaching out to various distributors to carry our music. (I’ll go into how the label came about in a future blog)  It took a few months but we were finally up and running on RV.  Since the label at that time was only Dieter Krause and I, it was hard to give everyone the time they needed as we were drowning in work, only to come up for a few seconds for another deep breath before going under again.  I mean we were handling everything with the label, and still trying to produce music also.  Needless to say, a few partnerships never really got off the ground, with RV being one of those.

Fast forward to WMC 2009 and I’m working with Justin K from Rephlektor Ink who handles PR for Hidden Recordings, (BTW, It took 2+ years to work with Justin, and that’s another good blog for the future.  Oh, also, he became a father recently, and I wanted to wish him well here) and happens to mention that RV is hosting a booth at the WMC similar to what Hidden Recordings is also doing at WMC.  I had decided it was time to give the label a bit more push since we were more established.  The added visibility was good for the label, but I’m not sure if I would invest again in a booth at WMC. (Yet another future blog!)  RV happened to be only a few booths down from us and I swung by to introduce myself where I met Sam in person for the first time.  I didn’t even know he was a Brit, which got me thinking, how many Brits are there in Louisville KY?  Anyway, I sat down to set up a profile page and was immediately impressed with the progress of RV.  I saw the labels they are working with but Hidden Recordings was not listed.  I pointed that out to Sam, who responded, “Well, Deepak, you don’t send us music anymore.”  Ouch!  I quickly reached out to Dieter and let’s just say you can find a healthy amount of music and a mix from me on RV now, with more to come.

When I came back to NY, I had an email from Eddie from RV who was saying he was going to be in NY soon, and it happened to coincide with my gig at Rebel for Save the Cannibals, where I was playing with Paco Osuna.  I actually never met Eddie in Miami but after our first chat, I was impressed with his passion and professionalism.  I saw him at the gig and we spoke but decided to get drunk instead and continue the chat later in the week.  (BTW, the gig was AWESOME)  We grabbed lunch a few days later and really had a chance to understand what makes each other tick.  Our similarities range in how we approach our business, how we want to work with like-minded people, but most important how we like to work with good people.  I’m confident in saying the people involved with Hidden Recordings are a reflection of me (As I am of them) and Eddie is the same with RV.  We both agreed we are the types of people you want to root for!  We work hard, and are always hustling to meet new people and create more opportunities, and I think our growth speaks to that.

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One such opportunity is writing this blog.  I am excited to do it, as it will provide you more transparency into the day-to-day activities (often unglamorous) of running a humble techno label in NY.  My hope is you’ll connect further with the label and want to join in our journey as we continue to branch out and expand.  For example, I spoke with my vinyl distributor over the weekend, (www.complete-usa) and our 2nd vinyl’s test pressing is almost complete!  I’d love to get the record out before DEMF if possible, and it’ll be close.  Later this week, Pablo Bolivar arrives from Barcelona to stay with me for a few nights before he heads off to Toronto to play for Noah Pred at the Drake.  Then he’ll be back to play live at my birthday gig in NY at Bar 13 on May 15th.  For those who don’t know, he produced the 9th release from Hidden Recordings, which is due out the same day, May 15th, but I don’t think this will happen.  The hang-up is Dieter and I aren’t fully pleased with our remix, so I’d rather push out the date. (More blog material!)

I’ll be in touch soon, and thanks for reading the first blog (they won’t be all this lengthy) and you can reach me at deepak@hidden-recordings.com.

- Deepak


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