An alternative view on the Miami WMC, as seen by Terry Farley...
The bloody place is now more expensive than the VIP at Pacha and more tacky than a pair of Jeremy Scott Adidas trainers! Now it wasn’t always like this, originally the music conference was held in New York and people from all over the World danced at free parties in lofts and warehouses to DJs such as Tony Humphries and Frankie Knuckles.
However everything changes and the conference was moved to the then run down South Beach area of Miami. When our lot first made the trip out to the WMC in the early - mid 90s it was a clubbers wonderland, every party was free entry, open bars were commonplace and Masters at Work even had Cuban cigar makers knocking up free lardys while Roy Ayers played live and the barman made up as many free rum cocktails as a drunken Brit could desire. The Tenaglia parties at Groovejet were the stuff of legend, one year in the late 90s we had around 40/50 of our mob travelling to the WMC solely for Danny’s night. These travellers were not DJs or label runners but just fans; postmen, courier drivers, shop workers and the usual duckers n divers on the graft. It really was a househead heaven, everything was free, you just had to bring the energy and passion.
Then the organisers thought of switching the date so it coincided with Spring Break instead of the traditional gay White Ball Weekend. Suddenly the whole mood changed; knobhead college kids in wacky muscle vests screaming from open top jeeps replaced the chic gay New Yorkers down for the weekends events, the clubs started charging at the door and forget about free bars. The hits also dried up as the whole event became far too fat, too many DJs, too many parties, too many spring breakers not knowing what the fuck was all this about. I even heard one bunch scream 'faggot' at some queens walking along Collins Ave from a car and then parked up for a house party on Nikki beach ....WTF.
I took the family for a short break on South Beach last summer and it has changed beyond all recognition, the independent cool clothing stores were the Brits got all there Cuban 1950s style shirts from have been replaced by the giant US chains, amazing record stores that sold dusty rare disco have gone, replaced by yet another coffee shop even the bums and wino's have been shipped out. Where you once walked out of a club at 5am and would be pounced on by 6ft transsexual African American hookers offering you all sorts of delights or shady Latin kids with "premo" chemical transactions you now get drunken New York lawyers or doctors shouting “awesome” as yet another Porsche drives by....P Diddy celebrity culture replaced House culture, the spring breakers
replaced the gays and the househeads all gave up.
Still as with everything new buds bloom and hip independent record labels have started to put on small events in unique settings with a new generation of great DJs, as I’m writing this London has seen its first taste of spring and I wish I had a spare £3,000 I may well have spent it on 4 expensive days and nights in South Beach just for old times sake.
Miami never went wrong it just changed for the worse.
