Courtesy of Erica Nusgart Images

Rebecca Scheja & Fiona Fitzpatrick at Escape From Wonderland

See Also:
*Rebecca & Fiona - Dim Mak Studios - 7/12/12
*Richie Hawtin Uses His CNTRL: Beyond EDM Tour to Educate Your Ass, Then Make it Shake
*Top Five Best and Worst Parts of Escape From Wonderland - NOS Events Center - October 27,2012

Rebecca Scheja and Fiona Fitzpatrick are best known for their seductive long eyelashes, sky-high platform shoes and being one of the few electronic dance music female DJ duos out there. What most people don't know is that besides their chic thrift store apparel they are also skilled producers, songwriters and vocalists. With a debut album I Love You Man under their belt and collaborations with artists such as Tiësto and Kaskade the Swedish pair is ready to affirm that they are more than just two "drunk girls" with famous DJ boyfriends.

Rebecca & Fiona have been playing world-class nightclubs and the largest festivals worldwide since forming in 2010. Tomorrow they roll through Exchange LA for Insomniac Event's Inception Saturdays were they will show Angelinos what they are truly made of. We got the pleasure of chatting with the Swedish pair backstage at Escape from Wonderland where we talked about repetitive DJs in EDM today as well as how their current boyfriends are influencing them.

Alejandra Loera / OC Weekly

Danny Johnson, 12th Planet, SPL, Flinch and Drew Best of SMOG Records

The SMOG crew has single handedly helped pioneer the dubstep music movement in Los Angeles and Orange County. Starting as a promotion company to throw dubstep shows at a time when there weren't many places to hear this new sound, Drew Best and Danny Johnson teamed up to create an event called "An Experiment in Dubstep" in downtown LA on August of 2006. Soon this underground dance movement grew exponentially and so did SMOG which became a record label a year later with12th Planet (born John Dadzie) as the main artist and partner.

This weekend SMOG Records celebrates their six year anniversary with artists like Antiserum, Truth, SPL, Noah D, Pawn, Kelly Dean, Steady and more at the The Roxy Friday November 23rd. We met up with Best, Johnson, 12th Planet and Adam Glassco better know as Flinch as well as Sam Pool or SPL as he is known in the bass world, to talk about their incredible success as a record label, artist development hub and lifestyle brand.

See Also:
*Best Record of the Past 12 Months - Flinch's 'Light It Up'
*Rusko Talks About Bringing UK Dubstep to Cali and Shares His New EP for Free
*Turbulence: OC's Latest EDM Experience Moves Into the Observatory, Stages a Takeover

Courtesy of Daniel Yoshinari

Pendulum DJ El Hornet & MC The Verse

Pendulum DJ Set
Yost Theater
November 15, 2012

Though original Pendulum band mates Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen have taken a break from touring live to work on their side project Knife Party, Paul 'El Hornet' Harding and MC Benjamin 'Verse' Mount have continued DJing and just embarked on a 12 stop North American Tour. They stormed through the Yost Theater last night in downtown Santa Ana as the second stop on this highly anticipated tour. This special 18-and-over event though booked by San Diego based LED, was mostly promoted by OC's own White Rabbit Group for an evening of banging beats and bass-in-your-face goodness which ignited a raging party despite the rain.

LED favorite FYOR was one of the opening selectors who had the privilege of warming up the crowd and sharing the stage which such an iconic band in the electronic dance music scene. We might have still been recovering from the madness at the Datsik show a couple of weeks ago, but we noticed the sound was a tad lower than normal this time. Regardless FYOR did a respectable job of splicing in some house with the electro hits the 18 year old crowd loves. Our favorite was Gesaffelstein's "Control Movement" which had the perfect warm up groove. By midnight however, those on the dance floor were packed like sardines and ready to be taken back by Pendulum's old school drum & bass sound.

See Also:
*Rusko Talks About Bringing UK Dubstep to Cali and Shares His New EP for Free
*Top Five Best and Worst Parts of Escape From Wonderland - NOS Events Center - October 27,2012
*Datsik Firepower Tour - Yost Theater - Monday October 22, 2012 [with VIDEO]

Courtesy of James Moriarty

AZARI & III

On Saturday November 10th, "Sonar On Tour"--Barcelona's international and world-renowned festival of electronic music and new media art-- ends it's eight day circuit at the Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles. While the tour had an abrupt cancellation due to the impact of Hurricane Sandy at the New York Roseland Ballroom, the Spanish mega festival creators have been making their way through the East Coast and Canada with stops at the Chicago Congress Theater to the Metropolis in Montreal. Boasting a mix of live acts and DJ sets from Die Antwoord to Nic Fanciulli we decided to talk to the Sonar head of international media Georgia Taglietti and one of the bands on the tour AZARI & III about their coming to America.

"You already have a lot festivals in America so we choose to bring a tour to see how the public reacts and get a feel of how you perceive our brand," shares Taglietti the EA to the directors of the Sonar Festival brand. "What we bring on tour is a microcosm of what we do in Barcelona, which is 100,000 people over a three-day weekend for night and day parties." Established in June 1994 by the same three directors today, Sonar's principles were to blend artistry with entertainment while honoring the avant-garde and experimentation that comes with the possibilities of electronic music and it's culture. Hosting four outdoor stages, "Sonar by Day takes off pure entertainment and the feeling you get from learning about new music, media and art exhibitions," explains Georgia. "Sonar by Night goes into a 25,000 person venue which has a stage set up that supports our live acts as well as our DJ sets."

See Also:
Damian Lazarus Plays Music For 24-Hour Party People...Literally
Orbital Tell Us How to Make it in the EDM Scene
Top Five Worst Places to Get Your EDM News

Courtesy of Robert Sorey Photography

Markus Schulz at Sutra

Markus Schulz
Sutra
October 30, 2012

In an attempt to redeem myself after an interviews-gone-wrong fiasco at winter music conference, I decided to finally check out the unicorn slayer Markus Schulz at Sutra in Costa Mesa last night. Seven months ago, I had the opportunity to do an on-camera interview with Schulz after a night of heavy partying and let's just say I wish it wasn't caught on camera. But when he came to Orange County on Tuesday as a part of Sutra's seven-day Halloween party streak, I had no choice but to finally redeem myself and check out the trance master myself. Sutra was all decked out in spooky décor and the crowd was ready for a night of heart pounding, heavy hitting trance a la Mr. Coldharbour Recordings himself. The vibes at the club where rage valley inspired as hard core Schulz fans where there in full force ready for a Halloween treat.

By midnight the hype at Sutra was so overwhelming that fans were screaming Markus' name to get on stage. Normally known for playing over eight-hour sets the OC party crowd was ready for some deep dark and progressive unicorn slaying trance. Known as a genre that's full of fairy unicorn ladi dadi type music, Schulz has put trance music on the map for being able to go just as hard as any other electronic dance music genre known for their booming bass. In essence Markus Schulz has killed that fairy, rainbow lovey dovey melody infused style of music that is usually associated with trance and slayed away the unicorns with his hard sound. Still at a heart racing 140 beats-per-minute Schulz's own tracks like "Deep in the Night" and the infamous "Rotunda" prove that trance is not just for the love-sick music fans.

See Also:
*Top 10 EDM Halloween Parties in OC
*Sutra Throws a Seven Day Halloween Party
*Kristina Sky Was Dragged To Her First EDM Rave in the '90s, She Hasn't Looked Back Since

Cynthia Chavez / OC Weekly

Major Lazer at The Observatory

Major Lazer
The Observatory
October 18, 2012

On Thursday night, EDM trio Major Lazer brought everything from dance hall, reggae, hip hop, house, electro, dubstep, moombahton, trap and drum & bass to The Observatory in Santa Ana. This bass-heavy bacchanal was unlike the typical dance music shows we attend, with lots of crowd interaction and get down music all night long. The venue which holds over 1,200 people was packed (yet not sold out) and felt like sauna with all of the sweaty, booty-popping fans in attendance. Not to mention that half the girls there were just wanting to express themselves to Diplo or drool over his hotness. And of course there were plenty of hot girls on stage twerking it for the guys as well.

Flashy lights and lasers adorned the room when Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire took to the stage to "get the party started," as they yelled over the mic around 12am. Everyone followed suit putting their hands in the air and jumping up and down to all of the hard electro. The mic was noticeably on too loud as Walshy's voice echoed over the jamming reggae inspired sounds which were carefully spliced together with all of the banging EDM. It really didn't seem to matter however, as he incited everyone to put their lighters and cell phones up while their heart rates increased to the rhythms. They even incorporated hip-hop classics with this years hits like Jay-Z's "N*ggas in Paris."

See Also:
*Top Five Worst Places to Get Your EDM News
*Jillionaire Says Major Lazer Can Free The Universe From Boredom at EDM Shows
*C'mon, No Doubt. We Can't Even Have a New Album Teaser? (Plus, a Collab with Major Lazer!)

Anton Zaslavski, aka Zedd

Anton Zaslavski, better known by his DJ alias Zedd, is no stranger to the music world growing up in Germany with two musician parents. By age four, he'd began playing the piano and drums and receiving training in classical music. "I played classical music until I was 12 years old and realized it wasn't as cool," says Zaslavski. "Then I joined a rock metal band and played the drums with them for almost 10 years." He played in Dioramic, signed by Lifeforce Records, even once he began his electronic music producing career in 2009. "Once I started touring as a DJ I flew back to Germany to make another album with the band, but it just didn't make sense for me to stay in the band if I was always away," Anton says. With hardly any accent, you could barely tell he's only been touring the States for a year.

Zedd's interest in electronic music came from hearing Justice's "Cross" which made him want to produce electronic music and incorporate it with his band. "I knew Daft Punk and Justice but that's it," he says. "I really just did it for fun. Then one day I sent Skrillex a remix and next thing you know he brings me on tour and my life is changed." Anton went from playing a show with his band once or twice a week to DJing for three months straight after releasing songs on Dim Mak Records and OWSLA (Skrillex's label). "I do miss my family and friends from home but you kind of get used to it," says Zedd adding that when he does get a break he goes straight to the studio.

See Also:

*Slander: Two Former OC Frat Boys Help Take TrapStyle Worldwide
*Nocturnal Wonderland: Our Recap From A to Z
*Singularity Highlights the M in EDM

Derek Andersen & Scott Land aka Slander at Radius Fest

Derek Andersen and Scott Land met as fraternity brothers at University of California Irvine. Their DJ careers started as half a joke and half destiny. Originally DJing parties for their fraternity because at the time everyone only played hip-hop, Andersen was passionate about bringing house music to OC. After DJing only house music at his own party Derek teamed up with Scott to make Slander as a way to entertain their friends. It wasn't until DJing a beach party in Havasu for all of their fraternity bros that they realized they had found their calling. At the time the EDM scene was just about to blossom in Orange County and what they created was an innovative and fresh brand of house music that eventually, with connections from their fraternity, banged in every major OC club opening for world renowned DJs like Dillon Francis and Madeon.

Little did they know a mere two years later they would be pioneering a DJ movement that incorporates hip-hop with dance music in OC. The birth of their new trapstyle sound is actually what they were originally trying to get away from but magically creates a symbiosis of the two sounds. They headlined a show at Ten Nightclub in Newport Beach last night and tomorrow they are opening for A-Baum at the Yost Theater in Santa Ana. We caught up with Derek and Scott in their Newport home-base and talked about their transition from house heads to trapstyle advocates. We also learned a little about the genre that is taking the blogosphere and internet by storm.

See Also:

*Borgore on His Dubstep Track With Miley Cyrus: "I'm Fucking All These Chicks, That's What I'm Going to Sing About"
*Krewella Want to Play Hard With OC Fans This Weekend
*Bassrush Massive @ the Orleans Arena

Clayton Le Panda

Sex Panther

See Also:

*Audrey Napoleon, EDM's Electro Queen, Went From Performing in Malls to Producing Her Own Clothing Line

Before embarking on their semi-erotic EDM duo Sex Panther, Ryan Fontana and Aaron Cool were just two regular guys who loved music. They both played guitars and Cool had played the piano as a child. They were fans of electronic dance music attending every show and festival they could. Fontana, a Hawaii bred entrepreneur moved to Orange County to attend Chapman University with an emphasis in film production. While working for the Gotta Dance Dirty music blog on some video projects early last year, he found out that they ran the side room at the infamous club Avalon in Hollywood.

"I asked 'dude, what's deal with that booking could I play there some time," says Fontana. "Jonah [the GDD Founder] was like 'yeah play there on Friday, can you play on CDJs?'" Fontana had no idea how to use CDJs. Those two days leading up to the show he went to Guitar Center for hours to teach himself. Then Newport Beach native, Cool came into the store and they started chatting. "I was like 'I'll give you some drink tickets if you come to Avalon Friday," he says. They exchanged info, but Aaron never made it to the show. They did however, run into each other a couple months later. "We never had the specific intent of starting a DJ duo," says Ryan. Yet here they are, touring all over the world as Sex Panther a little over a year later.

Courtesy of Bjorn Jonas

Alexander Ridha, aka Boys Noize

See Also:

*Insomniac Donates $115,000 From EDC Sales

*CD Review - Boys Noize, Oi Oi Oi (Boys Noize/Last Gang)

Today Boys Noize premiered it's remix of "XTC" by MMM in the UK a couple hours ago and now in the US here. The remix amplifies the classic Boys Noize old school disco house sound elongating the intro and allowing for a more electrifying banging in-your-face punch when the robotic "ecstasy, one for me" lyrics surface. The remix gets even more delightfully strange as it goes on and is sure to rock dance floors everywhere.

The original song "XTC" was released as a preview two days ago and will be officially released on August 6th on Boys Noize Records. The song was first heard as he opened his sets at last years Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Electric Zoo in New York and apparently at the festivals all around the world. A year later, the techno gem has finally surfaced and the German DJ/producer fans couldn't be happier.