Click on the picture for full hotel details

US festival promoters Electric Daisy Carnival have warned that super-cheap hotel packages for ravers attending their upcoming Vegas will soon sell out, reflecting the still increasing popularity of EDM in the States.

Though festival tickets cost US$275, revellers can pick up accommodation at luxury casino resorts including Circus Circus, Excalibur, Luxor, Monte Carlo, New York, New York, MGM Grand, Mirage, Mandalay Bay, THEhotel, Aria and the Bellagio, for just $49, they said.

“Our last block of discounted rooms is starting to go quickly; make sure to book yours before it’s too late,” EDC announced in a statement on their website.

“These are definitely the BEST deals you can find in Las Vegas during EDC Week. Don’t forget, the fun begins on June 5 and goes all the way to June 12.”

The ultra-cheap hotel offer also coincides with EDC’s first ever music conference EDMbiz, which they revealed this week will include various heavyweight speakers such as Burning Man co-founder Marian Goodell and Beatport CEO Matt Adell.

In a heavy business angled press release, organizers promised ‘attendees will gain keen insight towards pressing issues and current debates as the world watches EDM take its place in pop culture history’.

“EDMbiz will facilitate relevant conversations focused on the most pertinent topics specific to the scene,” they continued.

“These will include best practices, social media, technology platforms, festivals, direct-to-fan relationships, licensing, branding, sponsorships, and sustaining community, humanity and credibility during a period of massive growth.”

Delegates staying at the Conference venue the Cosmopolitan will have to pay US$169 a night, however, though the price remains extremely low compared to costs for even 3 star hotels in Miami during the Winter Music Conference week.

http://edmbiz.com/

http://bit.ly/KS1V10

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click on the picture for more information

Pop stars including Coldplay singer Chris Martin, Boy George and Soul 11 Soul star Jazzie B have lent their support to a new campaign alerting young people to the dangers of listening to too much loud music, alongside Gary Numan and Judge Jules.

Though Jules said he’s had no problems personally with either hearing loss or tinnitus he said many friends and fellow DJs are sufferers and recommended ‘be wise and wear earplugs when going to clubs or when exposed to loud music’.

80s electro legend Gary Numan agreed though revealed he’d been less fortunate with his own hearing.

“I didn’t look after my ears and I’m in trouble,” the Tubeway Army star confessed.

“It’s getting serious to the point that I can’t mix my music properly anymore, so it’s majorly impacted on my career. If I’d just looked after them when I was younger then this would never have happened, so I very much regret it.

“I would often be at gigs, standing at the front next to the speakers, not wearing earplugs, thinking I’m cool and being manly, but that’s just rubbish, it’s stupid. So look after your hearing and wear earplugs,” he urged.

Soft rock superstar Chris Martin also revealed he’s been suffering from tinnitus for ten years and emphasised the same message.

“Now we always use moulded filter plugs, or in-ear monitors (on stage), to try and protect our ears,” said Chris, “You CAN use industrial headphones, but that looks strange at a party,” he added.

The dangers of wearing highly visible headphones was also emphasised by New York cops this week, who warned that vicious street thugs are behind a crime wave in the City in which scores of people wearing Dr Dre headphones in particular have been brutally beaten and robbed.

Singling out hipster headquarters Williamsburg as a prime crime hot spot, cops said ‘dozens’ of people have been assaulted there in the last four months, with many more unreported thefts also believed to have taken place.

“If you are wearing those headphones, you might as well wear a sign that says, ‘Come and rob me,’ ’ one investigator told the New York Post. (http://nyp.st/KXx4QF )

http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click on the picture to read the statement in full

DJ Danny Tenaglia has announced he is taking an indefinite break from DJing, via a statement posted on Facebook in which he spoke candidly about being deeply unhappy.

Admitting he had long been ‘yearning for something new and different besides music’, the 51 year old New York star said he decided to stop after enduring a miserable trip to Canada.

“I was traveling back to Miami alone as my co-workers flew back to NY and I was just looking out the window the whole flight and for 3 hours I was just thinking HOW AM I EVER GOING TO PROPERLY RESIGN (not retire),” he said. . . . And when I got home I realized I left a small carry on murse bag with many personal things, keys, passport and so on and at first all I could feel was FURY!!”

click to watch

Six days later, and still without his passport and wallet, he described experiencing an epiphany or revelation, of what to do.

“LADIES & GENTLEMEN: As of this day, I am “resigning” (not retiring) and all future gigs will sadly BE canceled except for My Belated Birthday @ Pacha on Sat April 28th! This will BE my final gig until I feel I am ready to return back to the decks.”

Earlier in the statement he talked about the relentless superstar DJ treadmill of ‘Airplanes, Airports, Hotels, Foreign-isms’ and was equally blunt about the reality of his financial situation.

“I HAVE SEEN THE MOUNTAINTOP as a DJ and I just need to STOP and smell the roses of my life and simply try to “Grow Up and BE who I really am” but “everything” – including the need for finances to afford my Loft of 10 years in NY which I can no longer afford and must let go of by July,” he revealed.

“I know many people think I am wealthy but I assure I am not! I have lived well and have very nice things to show for my earnings, but I cannot stop working!!”

His statement prompted a deluge of comments on Facebook and Twitter including scores from fellow international DJs and friends. While many others simple ‘thanks, best wishes’ messages some were more specific, suggesting Danny’s stresses are far from unique amongst his superstar DJ peers.

“Take time for you family, because this music life will break you down mentally and physically,” Chicago pioneer Ron Carroll recommended, “Keep GOD 1st, and I know your return will be massive as ever,” he predicted.

Angel Alanis was more pragmatic.

“If I were you I’d leave my stuff with a close friend(s) and just travel for fun and work here and there in studio, but more than anything be free and roam for myself,” Angel advised, “Or just lay low on the beach or on some lake in the mountains.”

Tommie Sunshine also paid tribute.

“You taught me so much about DJing and so much about myself while dancing to your music,” said Tommie.

“I am so happy for you that you are being so daring and going out into the world to see what it has for you. Not many people ever take chances like that.”

“I will never give up my first love with MUSIC, but there has to BE something else (or someone) out there waiting for me,” Danny wrote at the end of his message.

“Please BE kind, this has not been easy and I am a very sensitive person. God BE with US all! See you soon!!” he concluded.

http://on.fb.me/IN1zKG

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click to find out if you're doomed

For the apocalyptically minded out there, check this fantastic new website which reveals radiation damage, blast waves and death rates for a whole range of nuclear devices dropped on your town.

As the site says; “”A convenient rule of thumb for estimating the short-term fatalities from all causes due to a nuclear attack is to count everyone inside the 5 psi blast overpressure contour around the hypocenter as a fatality. In reality, substantial numbers of people inside the contour will survive and substantial numbers outside the contour will die, but the assumption is that these two groups will be roughly equal in size and balance out. This completely ignores any possible fallout effects.”

Click on the link for more bomb maps:

New York; doomed?

Berlin; doomed?

New York DJ Jason Brooks sets off on a fantasy stroll, sorting out bad guys and generally puttting the world to rights, before ending up in a club where everybody suddenly starts formation  dancing. Only in America…. (though a good solid house track…., well worth checking….

Thigh high boots; click to buy (not in Egypt)

Top Salafi preacher Mustafa al-Adawi branded high heels a ‘source of seduction for men’ this week, as he announced a fatwa prohibiting the saucy shoes.

“A woman can only wear high heels for her husband,” the Egyptian cleric decreed, “but she is not to do so outside her house,” he ordered. (English Alarabiya: http://bit.ly/v6hsiw )

News of the high heel ban emerged just two weeks after top Saudi religious policeman Sheikh Motlab al Nabet ordered women to refrain from showing ‘tempting’ eyes, in addition to the face and hair-covering headscarves they’re already forced to wear.

The Sheikh (from Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) reportedly issued his decree after a husband got into a fight with one of his religious cops, after the policeman ordered his wife to cover her attractive eyes, Asia News reported (MuslimWomenNews: http://bit.ly/tY8neq )

In more high heel shoe news, the New York Times reported that fashion conscious male hipsters are increasingly adopting platforms, such as Mr Black regular Jeff Piace.

“I wish society was more acceptable of men wearing heels,” Mr Piace told Times reporter Trish Romano last month, “I think it’s fun. I think it makes a statement.”

Ageing English soccer star David Beckham previously tried to spark a revival in 2007, impressing Times critic Matthew Syed (though not so many others) for  ‘changing the contemporary notion of masculinity, softening it, smoothing it, widening it, diversifying it’.

“He has also made it possible to be a real man and sensitive,” the Times columnist declared, “To be a real man and concerned about one’s appearance; to be a real man and to cry in public; to be a real man and to wear dresses and high heels.”

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

12 inch dance mix:

Three of Lou Reed’s greatest masterpieces: live….

Ludlow street, Lower East Side

20 odd years ago, Jonty lived and almost died in New York City, suffering a horrific lift accident at seminal 80s club Danceteria (where he worked at the time). Crushed and literally dragged between the base of the lift and the wall of its shaft, he suffered six normally mortal injuries, receiving the Last Rites some 40 minutes later as he waited outside a hospital operating theatre for the anaesthetic to kick in . . .

Danceteria, West 21st Street, New York City

‘I don’t want to break my legs!’

I’m hanging by my fingertips from the base of the still rising elevator, looking down at the garbage-packed floor of the shaft, some 15 feet below and I’m thinking fast- incredibly fast. At this precise moment, time appears to be standing still as I calculate the options between hanging on or jumping what’s already a bone-breaking distance to the bottom.

‘The top of the shaft is 12 stories higher’, I think, making the decision pretty simple; ‘I’ve got to jump (‘but I don’t want to break my legs!’) and I’ve got to jump now (‘I DON’T WANT TO BREAK MY LEGS!’)

So I jump.

As I tumble down the elevator shaft my mind effortlessly trawls through my (astonishingly) crystal clear memory banks, conjuring up a childhood TV show I’ve seen in my youth called Blue Peter, which one day featured parachutists demonstrating landing techniques. With razor sharp recollection I note how they collapsed and rolled, then do exactly the same thing myself, collapsing and rolling to take the force of the fall on my arm.

The technique works almost perfectly and though my left wrist is fractured, I haven’t broken my legs (though now I’ve landed I no longer know or even care) and instead I curl myself up into the coma position (another previously unknown nugget of wisdom my mind’s just recalled) and stretch out on my side.

Almost immediately, my workmate Micky is peering into the floor of the open shaft, just feet above me, drawn by my screams from moments before (or rather gurgles, my lung’s been punctured by some of the fractured ribs). We’re both employed as Danceteria day staff/ jack of all trade boys and we’ve been in the basement loading ice before I’ve slipped and been caught.

‘What the fuck happened’’ he shouts, looking up the shaft at the still rising elevator ‘Fucking lift’s fucking crushed me, fucking hell,’ I gasp. ‘I’m fucked.’

Micky is worried the lift’s going to reach the top then come back down and finish the job but I’m actually not worried at all: I’m in far too much pain to care and my inner voice is also telling me ‘don’t move’ (‘your back might be broken’).

As it is, my back isn’t broken and the elevator reaches the top then stalls, so I’m no longer in any more immediate danger, though as I’ve already told Micky, I’m definitely, definitively fucked.

Moments before, I can remember being crushed between the elevator’s steel platform and its concrete shaft wall like being tugged beneath the wheel of a steam roller though other bits of what happened are already blank. I can recall being dragged into the tiny space and my belly’s contents being physically forced up my throat, with the elevator base crushing my waist (my arms, chest and head are inside; my hips and legs beneath).

And then I’ve been literally switched off like a light-bulb, only regaining consciousness when I’m hanging underneath the elevator’s base moments later, after somehow slipping through the gap.

In later years, this part of the accident will pre-occupy me intensely (‘Am I really dead’ have I been reborn/Am I the same person or a different spirit’) Logically, I can deduce that from the second degree friction burns up and down my spine, my torso’s been gradually pulled into the grinder. Yet somehow my chest, shoulders and head have ended up passing through unscathed.

Guesswork tells me that I must have been dragged up to where the ground floor fire doors are (they’re set back six more inches) then been disengaged from the lift, allowing my shoulders and my head to slip through (completely unmarked.)

Back in the bottom of the shaft, I’m cursing and seriously in pain (though surprisingly the pain is weirdly tolerable, it’s bad but not that bad) when a stranger appears as if from nowhere, and says ‘I’ll call an ambulance’.

Smartly dressed and impressively calm, he disappears up the stairs never to be seen again (my guardian angel?) and soon after, a mobile intensive care team arrives and the paramedics begin immediately scissoring off all my clothes.

‘A glamorous death’

As usual I’m wearing my regular daytime street gear of black combats, slashed T shirt and seriously distressed black Doc Marten boots (they’re held together with masking tape). Nothing too extreme, though my heavy liquid eyeliner, jewellery collection (over 100 bracelets, necklaces and chains), nail varnish and wing mohican haircut with braids prompts the ambulance men to write me up in their accident report as a ‘white male transvestite, aged 20.’

This will later cause much amusement to my real drag queen friends- I might be in the habit of wearing fishnets, leather miniskirts and full make-up by night, but I’m not really a tranny- I’m a dressed up punk with the attitude of ‘if I’m gonna’ wear a little make-up why not a lot’.

And if I look better in make-up occasionally why not wear liquid eyeliner all the time?

Firing questions at me (‘what happened? what’s your name? where do you live? do you have insurance? DO YOU HAVE INSURANCE?) the ambulance guys are TV (television) style slick and efficient, quickly, if uncomfortably, sliding a hard backed stretcher under me, strapping me onto it then carrying me out through the club’s main entrance. A small crowd of clubbers have gathered (Danceteria’s opened just minutes before) and it’s as I exit the club that I first ponder death.

‘I’m dying a glamorous death, I look fantastic,’ I realise, observing the ring of curious faces surrounding me. The blood bubbling out of my mouth is surely complimenting my makeup and presumably ivory white complexion, I think, though as far as the actual dying is concerned, I don’t care at all (all I want is to stop the pain). And to this end, I’m cursing, or alternatively, begging the ambulance men.

‘Drug me, fuck, drug me, shit, knock me out, fuck, drug me, please,’ I plead, though they either ignore me or say ‘we can’t, not until you’re at the hospital, you’re going straight to surgery’.

Otherwise they keep on firing questions;

‘Do you take cocaine’ (‘No’), Who’s your next of kin? (‘Micci [my girlfriend], ‘What’s your address’ (Ludlow Street and Houston’) Do you have any last messages’ (‘No’), Are you sure you haven’t used cocaine tonight’ (‘No!’)

Apparently, if I’ve done cocaine that day, they can’t give me anaesthetic straightaway (meaning they can’t operate immediately so I’ll die) but fortunately I’ve never really enjoyed coke and quit speed since being smashed in the face at a Clash concert in London. Alcohol is my drug of choice, though normally much later.

Last Rites

Five minutes later we’re at St Vincents Hospital in the West Village, hurtling through floodlit corridors on a gurney, which reminds of being on TV again, though the pain remains real. And then I’m outside the operating room, waiting to be gassed.

‘Count back from 10’, the anaesthetist says just as a white-haired nun shuffles into view.

‘Are you Catholic?’ she demands.

‘No’ (I think about her religion with that razor sharp clarity of thought again; I was raised Catholic, but at this precise moment, her faith and her God mean absolutely nothing to me at all. Nothing.

‘No, I’m not’, I truthfully reply, ‘not really”.

‘Do you want the Last Rites?’ she continues, undeterred.

Her persistence sparks another flood of thoughts about religion which conclude with the comforting revelation that death, at least mine, doesn’t matter- at all- it’s actually somehow strangely appealing: release!).

‘No, I don’t want them’. The nun starts praying anyway. (‘I said, No. . .’ ) Then I’m switched off again as the anaesthetic takes effect.

‘That’s one way to get out of a date’

My next waking moment is three days later, when I find myself in an intensive care unit, tubed up to a life support machine and surrounded by friends. Micci my girlfriend is there plus Laurie- my planned secret date for the night of the accident.

Micci had been out of town, Laurie’s a gorgeous, if moody, model I’ve been flirting with, who years later ends up an LA grunge star. Right now though both look concerned and lovely though immediately, I understand I have to make a choice.

Knowing I don’t actually know Laurie, I grab Micci’s hand, prompting Laurie to depart saying ‘that’s one way to get out of a date’- ouch!

I soon learn that I’ve survived six usually mortal internal injuries (liver, spleen, pancreas, gall bladder, colon, severed bile duct), and I am something of a medical miracle (additional injuries include one broken arm, three fractured ribs and loads of second degree burns all over my back- the flesh has been literally burned off by friction).

A team of world specialist surgeons have cut and diced me for over eight hours, taking no less than four different body parts out, though they’ve stitched me back together, somehow, into one fully functioning piece. And pain, I understand, is relative; I feel a bit better.

For the next seven days I remain in intensive care, bolstered by the dazzling kindness of friends and even strangers from the city’s nightlife world who continually visit and raise my spirits.

I’ve been playing guitar in a garage/goth band called Latex Sex Camp, whose last gig was at Danceteria just 5 nights before the accident, so I know lots of the punks and characters in New York clubland and lots of them (far more than I’d imagined) know me.

And every night, when the visitors and nurses have gone, I enter a strange netherworld (presumably courtesy of the fantastic Demarol/ morphine shots they’re giving me every four hours) in which I surf above the city, hanging out at clubs and stealing crates of fruit juice off of the backs of lorries.

I’m on a Nil By Mouth diet regime and end up going without liquid for seven days, so I’m bursting with thirst, both in my nocturnal dreamworld and daytime reality. Each dawn I return to my hospital bed, where I’m joined by visitors I regard as distinctly unwelcome guests; unknown silent waifs and strays who I assume are recently deceased clubbers, waiting around to see if I’m going to join them.

New York nightlife at this point is plagued with death; AIDS is just starting its horrific cull, while drug overdose fatalities and murder rates are at historical highs.

Out of danger

One week on, I’m out of danger, the night ghouls have vanished and I’m (somewhat grudgingly) having to re-engage with life and all its day to day struggles. Spiritually, I’ve changed irrevocably, understanding death (‘there’s nothing to fear’) and more importantly life (‘make the most of it, while you’ve got it’).

Saved by the skills of St Vincents’ truly magical doctors and nurses, I’m also aware of being part of some bigger force (hopefully) that’s kept me alive to fulfil some destiny.

Days before the accident, I’ve been startled by a huge black wolf dog, watching me from the roof of a tenement building on the Lower East Side, so much so that I’ve warned a friend at the scene; ‘that dog’s looking at you, take care’.

Years later, I learn (via Google) ofancient folklore of black dog apparitions being harbingers of doom, though in hindsight, I believe I already knew that the dog was looking at (and coming for) me.

I’ve also been saved by my desire to rediscover the sheer wanton pleasure that I’ve previously been indulging in, 24/7, since arriving fresh off the London plane just four months earlier.

My British accent and punk lifestyle have opened the doors to a fantasy club world that’s come close to my definition of paradise on Earth and I’m keen to rediscover it as soon as I can.

Of course, like The Eagles’ New Kid in Town fable, I’ve already lost paradise forever, though some years later I’ll find a similar sense of excitement and possibility when I dive headlong into rave culture. In fact, rave culture will quickly inspire me to take up music journalism and eventually to set up Skrufff in 2001.

Fast forward

20 years later I’ve renamed myself Jonty Skrufff after the world’s prettiest Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Skrufff. And speaking of dogs, I haven’t seen any otherworldly canine apparitions yet though I always keep an eye out, for when the Black Dog returns.

Jonty Skrufff

Click on the picture to listen to a DJ set recorded in Moscow, April 2011