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When environmental education group Global Inheritance began their partnership with Coachella in 2004, the idea was a simple as having a bunch of artist apply paint to garbage cans in an effort to encourage recycling while helping to keep the concert grounds debris free. Seven years on, and GI’s efforts at the annual music festival have become some of the weekend’s most talked about activities. Whether it’s exchanging 10 empty water bottles for one full one, or peddling a bicycle to recharge your cell phone, Global Inheritance doesn’t just educate and amuse a few concert goers, it finds a way of making the event better for everyone, even if they never step foot out of the VIP area.

This year, Global Inheritance has come up with their most interactive concept yet. Building on the idea of human power, the group has put together the Sweatshop DJ initiative—a human powered DJ set-up that allows ambitious jocks to take to the decks in the desert, so long as they can bring enough friends to fuel the sound system via their own pedal power. It takes a lot of human movement to keep the juice flowing—12 friends in all, turning cranks, pedaling bikes and running on a gigantic hamster wheel. But the opportunity to rock even a passing crowd at Coachella is too great of an opportunity for amateur DJs to pass up.

“We want to inspire people to rethink the way we look at energy consumption,” explains Global Inheritance founder Eric Ritz, while declining to tell us what music he personally prefers. “It doesn’t matter,” he insists. “I support all shapes and sizes.”

Learn how to be a Sweatshop DJ at globalinheritance.org

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Writing about the Sasha and John Digweed boat party is a thankless task because the truth is no words, no pictures and no video can adequately approximate the magic of being there.

Not that the details can hurt. Imagine a yacht, the kind where polite people welcome you to the party as if they were happy to see you. Then glance around the deck and see people like Dj Dan, Hernan Cattaneo, John Graham, Nick Warren hanging out, catching up on things. Eating a prime rib dinner, making as many trips to the open bar as you wanted. Oh, and sailing across Miami with a bunch of your favorite people, who you haven’t seen since the last party, while Sasha and John play the perfect, sexy “backyard” set of the year. Throw a circle of good energy around the enterprise and it’s suddenly like maybe there really is a reason to believe in Santa Claus. Because this party, if you are lucky enough to be there, is the ultimate gift.

Even more to the point, it is probably the last of the Miami traditions left standing. The Masters at Work Party, Danny at Space, all are barely memories now. But the boat party, which began back in the days before the dot com boom had burst, is alive and well. And, for me, it’s still the real reason to make the trek to Miami.

Words by Neil Feineman, Photos by Jipsy

 

Photos by Jipsy for Nefariousgirl.com

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