The festivities of Miami 2007 concludes with, what else, more parties!

This day would belong mainly to the Philly massive…a sort of reunion for the homies and ex-pats. But you didn’t had to be a Philly to enjoy the events held at the Marlin, which became a two-fer.

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The Sundae Shakedown
Up until now, I haven’t even heard of Sundae Philadelphia. The event was celebrating its first anniversary this year according Lee Jones, the founder of the event and host of the day’s festivities. The goal is to have the biggest and best parties and challenge DJ’s to rock it well. If the DJ can get a crowd excited, leave dancers sweating for more, and packed the place to the hilt, there’s a good chance that the person would be invited back for a future engagement.

Asides from the homecoming atmosphere, the DJ’s delivered and the dancers responded. And of the dancers, it’s difficult to put into words, or have the pictures do justice to show, the spontaneous breakouts from one side of the dancefloor to the next. There was even a rollerskater doing his thing (which probably wouldn’t have been allowed in most clubs). For most people, it was probably best not to attempt the mind-blowing moves that these choice strutters/breakers/rollers were able to dish out.

Hometown DJ’s repping included Rich Medina, King Britt and Rob Paine among others, making sure that people dance a happy song or three.

The Solomonic Sound WMC Decompression Reggae Bashment
Speaking of Rob Paine, he’s the founder of Philly’s dub/reggae/house label Worship Records. He was the man holding court to a reggae/dub event held in the same building later in the evening (seamlessly segueing from the previous Shakedown shindig). Alongside him holding it down on the mic was one Zacharijah from the duo Solomonic Sound System, whose mix album El Feco B & Family was heading for a release.

While I wasn’t able to stay as long for this one, the music was no less compelling. Though quite a few peeps from the Shakedown have either left or have unwind on the sidelines (the bar, the outdoor porch, and other places), there were enough dancers entranced and irie enough to carry on and feeling groovy. If house music has its house heads, then reggae and dub had its fans immersed into the rasta sounds that Paine and Zacharijah fed to them. Just like Stones Throw’s Hella International event did for hip-hop, the Worship Records stomper did for reggae.

Ursula 1000 at Sushisamba
The last event of my Miami adventure ended up being an extremely low-keyed affair at a quirky but somewhat fitting venue. Running into Gunnar and some other Om peeps for the first time in days, at first there was confusion over whether or not Ursula 1000 was a no show. As we went inside, we were assured–and pointed to–Ursula 1000’s presence on the decks.

Inside, the decor was very hip…a DJ deck of three turntables overlooked a kitchen of sushi cooks doing their thing. All of these were in the very middle of the restaurant, surrounded by booth available for seating.

I was introduced to the man we came to see, who played to a very small group of people who were more into munching than dancing. He didn’t seem to mind it; to him, it was a perfect cap to a rather busy week. I couldn’t agree more; like toasting red wine to end the festivities on a relaxing note.

When I left, it would be two hours before my time to leave the hotel and embark on a shuttle to the airport. One of the few passengers picked up along the way introduced himself to me as one of the founders of the Canadian-based house label Nordic Trax. Proof, indeed, that dance music is a small world bringing like minds closer.

Highlights:

• Quality chat time with Mr. Broke N’Beat Radio.
• The rollerskater who did his thing with style.
• All of the dancers who stood apart to the point where they were centers of attention.
• S.F. crew once again back in effect.
• Rich Medina, King Britt and Rob Paine doing things the Philly way.
• The cool guy in the wheelchair…he was rockin’!
• Finally meeting MCC/Christian from Al-Haca after several years of back-and-forth.
• Helping out a couple of fine ladies out while one of them tried getting her camera to work (hi-fives were passed around when she succeeded).
• A surprise meetup from homie Don Guapo in da house!
• Getting some irie biz from the Worship music.
• Meeting the Om peeps one mo’ time before we head back to the West Coast.

And that, my friends, was Miami 2007. I’m already looking forward to 2008. I hope to see you there.

You can view albums of the Sundae and Worship parties, as well as the Ursula 1000 gig. You can also view the entire collection of photos for Miami 2007.

A roundup of the trip will be up soon. In the meantime, you can search for “Miami 2007″ in the Search field of the site’s home page to find all of the blogs completed related to the trip.

Pass it on…peace.

Posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 8:55 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.