Brooklyn’s Got The Beat: Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival 2011 Recap

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GQ just declared Brooklyn the “coolest city on the planet”. Since electronic dance music is the coolest music on the planet, the claim rings true.

One of the hippest places be in New York last weekend was not behind some velvet rope in Manhattan. Many of the most respected names in the dance music biz gathered across the Williamsburg Bridge on a stretch of North Sixth Street. The Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival was an embarrassment of riches for any EDM lover. If I could make any complaint, it is that there were too many amazing acts playing at the same time. Choosing between vocal wizard Reggie Watts and Detroit techno pioneer Matthew Dear is like asking my mother to choose between my brother and me (spoiler alert: she chose me because I’m awesome, and humble).

The blustery weather Friday could not hold the crowd back from an electronic musical feast. I kicked my night off with Michna’s down tempo grooves and complimentary Vitamin Water to hydrate my adventures. Come midnight, the digital diva reverbs of Cubic Zirconia sparkled. I barely had enough time to squeeze in amongst the enthralled throngs of Brooklyn’s finest in Cameo to catch the tail end of UK trio Eclectic Method’s movie-sampled set. I stuck around Cameo to catch the first twenty minutes of Reggie Watts vocal looped, flipped, and squashed beat box bonanza. But then the live band rock-tronica of Matthew Dear back at Public Assembly tapped my inner indie-rocker. Casey Spooner of Fischerspooner fame DJ’ed a set with Lauren Flax that left blisters on my feet.  My night melted into bliss with the electronified hip-hop and reggae beats of Hud Mo where the krunk crowd danced until the Cove security threw our asses out.

You’d think I’d be done with BEMF after Friday’s aural pleasure. Please! Saturday I started at Zablozki’s for a taste of Beats In Space curator Tim Sweeney. I snuck in for a hot minute to catch JDH’s electro-indie grooves in Public Assembly’s backroom before the swelling crowd literally pushed me out the door. So I ran like Forest Gump up to Brooklyn Bowl where hip-hop legend Stretch Armstrong pistol-whipped the crowd into a dance-crazed frenzy. Daedelus looking snazzy in some 18^th Century getup diddled my ears in the best possible way. But Four Tet fanboy that I am ran all the way back to North 6^th to elbow my way to the center of Public Assembly’s backroom to soak in the end of his delicious DJ set. I stuck around for a regrettably short time to rock the fuck out to Thugfucker, before getting my titty’s twisted by Tittsworth back at Brooklyn Bowl. Deathface haunted my wet dreams with some dark, delightful dance music that sent me home stoked to live in Brooklyn, the grooviest city on the planet.

Photos via: villagevoice.com