Music Electric Zoo: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

September 8, 2011 - 7:44 am

It has been ten years since Daft Punk released Discovery, an album that many highlight as being a key player in pushing electronic music into the mainstream. Now, the demand for electronic music is greater than ever. Electric Zoo, the premier electronic music festival now in its third year, invaded New York this past weekend looking to meet that demand. By addressing several issues from the record turnout last year and upping the length of the festival from two to three days, Electric Zoo seemed to be living up to the symbolic phrasing introduced by the iconic Daft Punk ten years prior, to be: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. At the end of the weekend, approximately 85,000 people passed through the concert gates to take part in one of the largest electronic music festivals to ever take place on the east coast.

Read the full story

Featured Gallery Music Ph.D. in Funk-ology: Chromeo

August 10, 2011 - 10:37 am

Of all the performances at Saturday’s HARD Summer Music Festival, Chromeo was responsible for rallying the masses into an energetic frenzy more than any other act. The project, composed of P-Thugg (Patrick Gemayel) on keyboards, synth, and talk box and Dave 1 (David Macklovitch) on guitar and lead vocals pride themselves on creating a dance-worthy eclectic sound which they affectingly refer to as lovers funk.

Prior to show time, P-Thugg set up equipment for the gig as Dave 1 invited ChinaShop into his trailer for a preshow chat. In the calm before the Chromeo-induced storm, Dave revealed the genesis of the duo’s “ridiculous” nicknames, his persistence for finishing up his Ph.D., and discussed the surreal experience of being personally invited to jam in the home of Darryl Hall.

Read the full story

Gallery Music HARD or BUST

August 9, 2011 - 11:33 am

If this year’s HARD Summer Festival theme had to be summed up in one word, it would have to be “naked.” On Saturday, the celebrated electronic music festival brought thousands of music lovers to Los Angeles’s Downtown Historic Park for the sold out music fest. Swarms of festival goers arrived in their rave-worthy best; dressed in the smallest amount of clothing they could get by in without earning them a police record.

Read the full story

Music Chromeo: A Time Warp in Funk

August 13, 2010 - 11:57 am

Chromeo: gotta get back in time

Posing by a Delorian seems like a fail-safe marketing move – you see Marty McFly’s car, and you’re probably interested in what’s being offered. In this case, it’s also quite appropriate, as Chromeo consists of a couple talented guys (David Macklovitch/P-Thugg and Patrick Gemayel/Dave 1) who’ve immersed themselves in the electrofunk and R&B pop of yore, and whose own brand comes so close to sounding exactly like Klymaxx or Tito Jackson that one might believe they really did fly back in time to steal their sounds. But it’s not only a devotion to that old sound, but a duo whose hard work remixing a variety of artists — everyone from Lenny Kravitz to Hall and Oates, the latter of whom they’ve even been compared with — is finally getting them some exposure. (Though to be fair, one of them being the brother of the one-and-only A-Trak, winner of the 2007 DMC World Championships, surely can’t hurt their chances). Throw in that unmistakable reverence for 1980s/early 90s radio-R & B and pop like Tito and Rockwell, and Chromeo proves all it takes is that love for rehashed music, and maybe a little patience as you wait over a period of a decade or 2 for the musical cycle you’re in to repeat itself, to get yourself noticed. The right amount of work and the right timing is everything. Enough lecturing; Red Bull Music Academy Radio can school you best.

Music Chromeo – Dusty Crates & Dope Tapes

September 22, 2009 - 12:41 pm

Chromeo

When you need a precise demolition crew of beatmakers and disc jockeys to absolutely smash a party, there are a few cats in the game better than the Montreal tag-team of Dave 1 and P-Thugg, collectively known as Chromeo. Their mastery of early ‘80s disco tracks and funky synth beats have earned them a special and coveted spot in today’s music scene. It’s really no surprise that the peeps at !K7 records recently reached out and asked them to curate a compilation for their popular DJ-Kick series (a project formally helmed by the likes of Hot Chip and Tiga).

Read the full story