Skyelab at WMC

Although, as the soundtrack begins to fade and the human babble rises, post-orgasm clarity kicks in ad nauseum. My promenade begins to feel more like “Arrow Up” on a Wii. It’s me and my best tennis racquet attachment vs. hoards of stillettoed boob jobs with exceptional attitudes. And the world is going to suffocate in cheap silicone if I don’t take vengeance first..

But. I’m letting it go today. I’m in a good mood because I opted for my comfy, dancing sneaks. The air smells delicious and the music is more than inviting, quenching any ill will. Me and my girls are ready to go dancing and the line up is delightful. It was my first Winter Music Conference although I’d always wanted to go to an American music festival. I’d cavorted through many a counterpart in the English countryside back in the day, and wanted to see if they’d compare. That, and Gilles Peterson had already given it a head nod, and if he’s down, I’m down. I was there to check out anything with drums and bass, which was equally a ploy to avoid the Eurotrash and find like-minded souls in the madness. I found them with fair ease because they sparkled like real gems in a giant rock of poorly gold-plated plastic. I danced with them till 7am every night, massively unaware that I ever contained such impressive stamina.

Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib & Aloe Blacc at the Stones Throw ‘Hella International’ party. (God bless Stones Throw.) Brooklyn’s Taylor McFerrin & TK Wonder performing beside the UK’s Bugz In The Attic’s, Daz-I-Kue, for Raw Fusion. I managed to miss King Britt & Vikter Duplaix because someone moved their boat forty blocks north from where it was supposed to be. Oy. All good though. DJ’s Ronzilla & True from Manhattan’s AlmaNYC missed it with us, and led us to a sick Detroit House party courtesy of Ubiquity’s Jeremy Ellis. But it was Goldie, Adam F & Andy C at the Ultra Music extravaganza in Bicentennial Park who fit my criteria beautifully. Drum n’ Bass was what I’d started out clubbing to, so I got to relive my 18th birthday at Metalheadz when that sound had come fresh off the train from Bristol. Ladies didn’t just perspire back then. Eardrums were blown out and we’d have to wobble out the Blue Note from a workout that’d give Billy Blanks a run for his cash..

But there was a revisited, unexpected joy standing in a giant field with not tens, but thousands of music lovers, from all over the world. I’ll forgive them for not wanting to dance like a frantic tit as I do, because on the inside, their excited, energetic presence had me frozen like ice cubes in the mouth of former Governor Bush himself. The effect this mass of strangers had on me made an effortless generational crossover from my first experiences of music festivals. Despite being sixteen at the time and easily bowled over by most things. I was suffering from something raw, and gorgeous, and humanistic, that it superseded anything terrestrial.

So I am going to say the loathed and perhaps inevitable.. I subconsciously craved, and then satisfied myself with a euphoric and spiritual experience.

Obvious though it may be, obnoxious as it may seem, it often takes reminding when I have little opportunity of these experiences otherwise. I am not, nor will ever partake in organized religion. Nor have I ever been interested in the copious intake of extracurricular narcotics. Being shot in a tin can from A to B on the New York City subway isn’t quite what I mean by a gathering of the masses either. This particular music festival was a reminder of what kind of energy is gained standing amongst thousands of people who were there for the same reason as me. Music lovers, oblivious and unaffected by the grime and the dirt, for a sense of something much bigger than them, and the feeling that they were part of something huge and truly endless.