Festival season is officially upon us, and lot’s of events this year are looking to expand. This includes Made Event’s annual celebration of all things dance music, Electric Zoo, which has added a third day to their weekend extravaganza that will take Labor Day weekend, September 2-4, 2011. The line-up is as follows:

Friday, September 2

☛ Main Stage: Moby (DJ set), Benny Benassi, Rusko, Tiga, AN21 & Ma Vangeli

☛ Hilltop Arena: Richie Hawtin Presents Plastikman (Live), MSTRKRFT, Felguk, Gareth Emery, Markus Schultz, Robbie Rivera

☛ Carl Cox & Friends Take Over Sunday School: Carl Cox, Loco Dice, Joris Voorn & Nic Fanciulli (B2B), Victor Calderone

☛ Red Bull Music Academy Riverside: Crookers, Martin Solveig, Bart B More, Busy P, Feed Me, SebastiAn

Saturday, September 3

☛ Main Stage: David Guetta, Above & Beyond, Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77, John Digweed, Sander Can Doorn, Sub Focus

☛ Hilltop Arena: Ferry Corsten, ATB, Andy Moor, Dirty South Joachim Garraud, Mat Zo, Sean Tyas & Simon Patterson (B2B), Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano

☛ Sunday School Grove: Luciano, Danny Tenaglia, Carl Craig, Chris Liebing, James Holden, Steve Bug

☛ Red Bull Music Academy Riverside: Skrillex, Super Smash Bros, 12th Planet, Beardyman, Kid Sister, Porter Robinson, Tommy Lee & DJ Aero

Sunday, September 4

☛ Main Stage: Armin Van Buuren, Afrojack, Chromeo, DJ Snoopadelic, Calvin Harris

☛ Hilltop Arena: Boys Noize, Diplo, Big Gigantic, Carte Blanche, Excision & Datsik, Fake Blood, Jack Beats, MiMOSA

☛ Sunday School Grove: Richie Hawtin, Dubfire, Gui Boratto, Guy Gerber, Ida Engberg, Nicolas Jaar (Live)

☛ Red Bull Music Academy Riverside: Infected Mushroom, Gabriel & Dresden, Arty, EDX, Hardwell, Kyau & Albert, Mark Knight

More artists TBA!

Payment Plans

Passes to the festival can be purchased HERE. This year, Electric Zoo is also offering a payment plan for those who would prefer to not pay the full sum all at once. This payment plan contains two options. The first payment option allows you to pay a 50% deposit of your order total upon purchase of the pass, plus service fees, with the remaining 50% automatically deducted from your card on August 1, 2011. The second option allows you to pay 30% of your order total plus service fees as your first payment, with the remaining total automatically deducted in equal payments on July 1st and August 1st 2011.

Dust Reduction

Electric Zoo will also be making efforts to reduce dust this year, as the dancing and frolicking of 25,000 pairs of feet coupled with the unusually dry summer took a toll last year, and by the end of the day, the grass had been trampled and a lot of dirt had been kicked up into the air.

Here’s a list of things they’ve put in place to reduce the dust:

• Flooring will be used in all of the tents. This means that where all that dancing is going on, the grass will be protected and dirt won’t be kicked up.
• Dirt service roads will be covered with flooring. As our crew travels in golf carts and other vehicles to get from place to place around the perimeter of the festival grounds, there’ll be far less dirt stirred up.
• Making use of existing pavement for high traffic areas, including the area directly in front of the main stage. The main stage will be moved back this year in order to create more space. This will mean that a large area directly in front of the main stage will now be situated on pavement rather than grass. So when you “tear up the dancefloor” in front of the main stage, you’ll no longer be tearing up grass and kicking up dirt at the same time

They’ve also hired lawn specialists to consult with and work with Randall’s Island Park to improve on the maintenance of the field and to get it as healthy as possible before Electric Zoo.

Check out our coverage of last year’s Electric Zoo HERE, and stay tuned for more information and updates from us as the event draws closer!

Six weeks have passed since I last witnessed A-Trak create a sea of bodies shake the floor at Webster Hall for the Downtown 5^th Anniversary Party. Next Saturday, April 30, A-Trak will be gracing New York with his presence once again. Scion is bringing the Magic 8-Ball Tour to Terminal 5, featuring A-Trak, Kid Sister and The Gaslamp Killer.

For those who don’t know, A-Trak was the first DJ to take home all three competition titles (DMC, ITF, Vestax) and the first to win five World Championships. He won DMC’s World DJ Championship at the mere age of 15, making him the youngest person to ever win this competition. However, when A-Trak performs live, his main concern is the audience, making sure they dance and flow in sync with his roaring beats of disco, house, funk, and occasional rap. But his magnetic scratch techniques and turntable skills will inevitably be apart of the equation. The new Ducksauce (DJ A-Trak and DJ Armand Van Helden) album is just about complete, so I’m looking forward to novel up and coming tunes weaving their way into his set.

Performing alongside A-Trak will be Melisa Young (a.k.a. Kid Sister) whom A-Trak produces and has signed to his label Fool’s Gold. Kid Sister draws inspiration from the music of her youth. She blends electro pop, hip-hop, ghetto house, and Chicago house into one cohesive sound and performs it with deep soul.

The third on the line up is The Ghostland Killer, a LA based DJ who releases his mixes off of Flying Lotus’s label Brainfeeder. His sound is unique and has ample range. From Indian instruments, jazz horn lines, symphonic string melodies, and light percussion to dubstep, heavy basslines, and controlled static, he does it all.

Comfortable shoes are encouraged because this will be an entire night of hard dancing. Join us at Terminal 5 for this show as we jump into the New York summer scene together. This show will be a treat.

Tickets range from $25 to $35 and can be purchased HERE.

Next month, A-Trak will embark on a cross-country tour with Kid Sister and The Gaslamp Killer. A-Trak has a knack for combining electro and hip hop (if you don’t know what we mean, CLICK HERE to check out his last mixtape, Dirty South Dance 2), and is best known for his legendary scratching skills, for which he won the DMC World Championship at the tender age of 15 (the youngest winner to date). Lately, A-Trak has kept busy as one half of Duck Sauce, who’s single, “Barbra Streisand” was an international hit. We’re hoping this tour will give us a preview of what we can expect from A-Trak’s upcoming album.

Joining the Magic 8-Ball Tour on the ones and twos is The Gaslamp Killer, who we saw this past weekend at A Taste of Sonar in London. From what we saw, GLK is a perfect match-up for this tour; like A-Trak, he has an uncanny way of mixing hip hop with electro (and has some scratching skills to boot), but the two artists’ styles are completely different.

The Magic 8-Ball Tour hits NYC’s Terminal 5 on Saturday, April 30 with special guest The Clipse. Get a full list of tour dates and links to purchase tickets HERE.

With good weather comes outdoor concerts, barbecues and cruises. The Rocks Off Concert Cruise is back in full effect, bringing Chicago-based duo Flosstradamus on June 16. Autobot and J2K (Kid Sister’s brother) will bring their unique mix of club, hip-hop, house and juke aboard the Temptress as she sails around New York City for a three-hour tour.

The cruise boards at 7 PM and departs at 8 PM from West 41st Street. CLICK HERE for tickets and more info, and check out the Flosstradamus remix of Matt & Kim’s “Yeah Yeah” below.

Matt & Kim – “Yeah Yeah” (Flosstradamus Remix)

The line outside Webster Hall stretched around the block on Friday for what turned into an epic night. Girls & Boys resident DJs Alex English and rekLES had the crowd going crazy early on with a rare dubstep set. Kid Sister took the stage at around 1:15 and performed several songs off her debut album, including “Right Hand High” and “Big ‘n’ Bad”. For the encore, Rusko took over the decks as Kid Sister performed his remix of “Pro Nails” along with “Step”, which he produced.

MeanRed had it right when they described Rusko as the “tasmanian devil of dubstep” – his boundless energy had him moving so fast it was sometimes difficult to capture the moment on camera. The audience had no problem keeping up, throwing sweaty fists into the air and gyrating to Rusko’s wobbles.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL ALBUM

Last Wednesday, Fool’s Gold Records celebrated the release of Kid Sister‘s Ultraviolet with a party at Griffiin. With music by label founders A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs, it was refreshing to hear good music in a regular club setting. Dave 1, Diplo, Theophilus London, Spank Rock, Amanda Lepore and even Mrs. Macklovich (A-Trak and Dave 1′s mom) were in the house to celebrate Kid Sister’s big debut.

Nick Catchdubs was manning the decks when we arrived. He spun a good selection of pure hip-hop, possibly in anticipation of A-Trak’s electro set that followed.

A-Trak started off with a short speech congratulating Kid Sister and “aNYway” by Duck Sauce. The beginning of his set was dominated by electro, leaning more towards commercial club tracks before moving on to the good stuff. He played Jack Beats’ dubby remix of La Roux’s “I’m Not Your Toy”, an electro mix of Kid Sister’s “Big n Bad”, and his own remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Heads Will Roll”. He later moved into hip-hop, dropping crowd pleasers like Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and Puff Daddy’s “Bad Boy For Life”.

Click here to view the photo gallery, and check out Jack Beats’ remix of “I’m Not Your Toy” below.

La Roux – “I’m Not Your Toy” (Jack Beats Remix)

After a long wait – two years to be exact – Kid Sister (aka Melissa Young) has finally released her debut album. Originally titled Dream Date and set for a July 2008 release, Ultraviolet came out this week with beats and synths from Fool’s Gold Records founders A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs. With the help of XXXChange, Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso, Rusko, Herve & Sniden, Yuksek and Spank Rock, Kid Sister creates flows with lexical quirks that makes Ultraviolet an enjoyable listen. The Chicago native joined the coveted club of female rappers in 2007 with her breakthrough billboard chart single “Pro Nails”, featuring Kanye West. Kid Sister got her start while touring with Flosstradamus (her younger brother, Josh Young makes up half of the duo), when she caught the attention of A-Trak, and the rest is nothing short of bumping erotic beats and warranted dancing.

The release of Ultraviolet makes it clear that Kid Sister has grown into a persona, taking the time to harness the interests that she garnered from her collaboration with Kanye West.  Many artists take their brink and rush for the glory, but by allowing herself the time to mature, Kid Sister yielded a magnetic and fun album of polished dance tunes and charismatic lyrics.

Tonight (Wednesday, November 18), Fool’s Gold Records will celebrate the album’s release at Griffin with DJ sets by A-Trak, Nick Catchdubs, DRek Martinez and others (click here to RSVP). You can also catch her live with Flosstradamus at Webster Hall on November 27th.

Update: Click here for photos from the release party

Check out Rusko’s dubalicious remix of “Pro Nails” below, and click through for the “Right Hand Hi” music video and track list for Ultraviolet.

Kid Sister – “Pro Nails” (Rusko Remix)

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