In keeping with this issue's theme let's do a bit of traveling in order to cover the world of music.

Destination: Los Angeles

The Grammy Awards out in LaLa Land made a winner out of Britney Spears for the song "Toxic" in the Best Dance Recording category. Electronica purists may shake their heads in disgust at the pop diva winning this award, but truth be told, whenever the electro-funk Armand Van Helden mix was played it packed the dance floors. Congrats to Basement Jaxx for winning Best Dance Album for Kish Kash and to Jacques Lu Cont, the Grammy winner for Best Remixer for his work on No Doubt's "It's My Life." Even though the dance awards were not presented during the televised portion of the Awards, it's nice to have the Academy recognizing the annual achievements in this musical genre.

Britney Spears

Basement Jaxx

Destination: London
While the GLBT community's favorite new band, Scissor Sisters, was just one of the musical stories in the U.S. in 2004, they were THE musical story in the U.K. Their number-one-selling album outsold Usher, Norah Jones, and the Brit's very own and very popular Robbie Williams.

Destination: Miami
South Florida is the place to be in March for those looking to dance and party the butts off. First up, March 2 ­ 7, is the Winter Party, one of the largest circuit events in the world. DJ Roland Belmares is set to spin the signature beach event with the usual cast of DJ characters scheduled for the many other parties.

Winter Music Conference

Expect to see lots of Chicagoans and other northern snowbirds looking for some warm weather relief. A couple of weeks later (March 22 ­ 26) an even larger event, Winter Music Conference (WMC), brings together the global electronic dance music industry for its annula lovefest and celebration. All the big name DJs ­ and I do mean ALL of them ­ remixers/producers, and artists join an international set of clubbers and fans for a smorgasbord of events and parties so glorious and grand that it has to be seen and experienced to be believed. Lots of new music gets launched about the time of WMC so expect plenty of reviews from me in the next few issues. During WMC, winners of the Club World Awards, also known as the Disco Globes, will be announced. Chicago has two nominations this year: Sound-Bar in the Best Super Club category against the likes of Avalon (Boston), Crobar (NYC) and Mansion (Miami); and Zentra (home to Sunday night's very popular OTDL party) in the people's choice Nightstalker Category against Rise (Boston), Stereo (Montreal), and Sullivan Room (NYC).

Destination: Austin
While the electronica set gather in glitzy Miami and South Beach, all the best live band and individual acts head to the Texas state capitol for some barbeque and the SXSW Music and Media Conference (March 16 ­ 20). The acronym stands for "South By Southwest" as absolutely no one says each letter of the abbreviation. The cool people all just call it "South By." In it's 18th year, SXSW is the place to see a seemingly non-stop onslaught of new and emerging acts from all over the country - each hoping to catch the attention of a record label - as well as those groups, domestic and foreign, just breaking out and routinely finding themselves being talked about in the pages of Spin magazine. What Sundance has kind of become to the film industry, SXSW has been to rock music for many years.

 

SXSW

Destination: New York City
For those who like their dance music deep, dark, and dirty with pulsing tribal rhythms, the Saint-At-Large Black Party in Gotham on March 19 offers Victor Calderone and Chus & Ceballos in the DJ booth. This is a bold, but phenomenal musical pairing that's perfect for Black Party and it's leather clad attendees.

Destination: Spain
Speaking of Chus & Ceballos, the Spanish duo have created a remix of "dirtyfilthy" by Superchumbo featuring Celeda (Twisted America) that has electrified dance floors everywhere. They've supplied a funk beat so strong that you need another application of deodorant while dancing to it. Some true reative brilliance going on here.

Destination: San Francisco
Om Records has recently released a long player by Greernskeeper called Pleetch. It is a diverse collection of tracks in which the eclectic meets the electric, or as they like to say: "P-Funk and e-funk strutting hand-in hand." Whatever you call it, it's a fun and totally likeable CD with Chicago DJ James Curd as front man for the group named as such because they used to be golf caddies.

Destination: Chicago
Mucho kudos to two local DJing favorites, Chris Eterno and Earl Pleasure, for their outstanding remix work on Shay Jones' new EP, seven-O sessions, soon to be released by Seven-O Music. Eterno's two mixes and Pleasure's single effort show that their respective DJ booth skills translate well into the studio. You guys are making your mommas, and us, proud.