Markus Schulz wrapping up his set while I prep for mine... Oh yeah I luv my Never Summer snowboard!

Hard to believe but WMC 09 has already past. The months and weeks leading up to WMC are filled with high expectations and pure excitement. Once you land in South Beach Miami you’re so ready! Your mind is racing 110mph and you are already planning for not the next party, but for the party after the next one that you just have to hit!

My biggest fan, my wife, to the right and a new fan to the left!

Private party at The Living Room in South Beach

This was supposed to be a small gig in a back room at the club The Living Room with my brothers in arms Damian and Seismyc (H3LIUM-3). Unfortunately Damian had to cancel due to private matters, so it was up to Seismyc and myself to spin the night away. Sucked big time for Damian who could not catch any breaks this year. We will be back better and stronger next year my friend!

The back room was a decent size room with a good sound system. Due to the location we were probably not going to see a lot of traffic, but it was a cool place for us to relax and spin some good music with our friends!

In true form this gig was not going to go as planned. Seismyc threw down some sick tracks and was just about to handle over the reins to me when the promoter Nate came over to chat. The main room where Cato K and later on Markus Schulz were about to spin had a shitty ass system. The mixer was barely working and the CD players… well I don’t know what to say… yuck! Basically Cato K had seen the system and told Nate that was no way Markus would spin on that system. Not sure Cato would have either… Can’t blame him, this was a worst case scenario at any club. So Nate came back to us to see if we could move our setup (Brand spanking new DJM-800 and 2 CDJ-1000′s that Damian had let us to use for the night!) to the main room. At this point I didn’t really know what was going down, but I could tell Seismyc was pissed. In his eyes, and mine if I’d have known wtf was going down, I was about to get shifted on my gig again! (At the previous pool party that day I only got 30min to spin due to sound system problems… long story and another blog post!)

Closing out for Markus Schulz WMC 09!

Nate had an idea though, and man was I happy he did! He offered me to close out the main room after Markus Schulz. Markus had just won “Best American DJ” that Thursday at the IDMA awards! I’ve never backed down from a  great opportunity before and I was not going to this time! Nervous… Check…!

So in a matter of seconds the situation went from a mellow gig with friends to a major gig closing out for the #1 DJ in America! It’s good thing I got a chance to first hang with Cato K, such a cool guy. I helped him with the setup of our equipment in the main booth and hanged out there for most of his set. Thanks man for letting me hang, I really appreciated it! I hope I get a chance to spin with him soon.

Classic DJ momment? Not sure what is going on here...

After Cato K wrapped his set it was time for Markus Schulz to spin. Markus, also a super nice guy, took time to take pictures and talk to pretty much everyone at the party. During his set he dropped a couple of brand new tunes. (Officially debuted at Ultra the following day.) I obviously took the opportunity to hang in the booth with Markus as well. You don’t get to many opportunities to hang with DJ’s like these two. DJ stalker… Check!

Dropping a sic tune during my WMC 09 gig!

Markus set lasted about an hour and he asked me a couple times if I was ready to take over. In my head I was thinking, no keep on spinning, I’m definitely NOT ready! I had not prepped to follow up on a progressive trance set since Seismyc spins house music. Luckily one of my favorite, “Laktos” by Sebastian Ingrosso, is a pretty progressive track and I decided to wing it and start my set with that track. I was a bit intimidated to be honest, and I took the “easy” way out… slowly fading Markus track out while I sheepishly brought mine in. Not fancy and not ideal. Something Markus pointed out to me… in a nice way.

Michael and me after my WMC 09 gig! Thanks for all the pics my man! Follow Michael on Twitter.

A couple of days prior to WMC I discovered that the acapella/lyrics in “Get Wild” by Sharam fits perfect during the breakdown of “Laktos”. I never got around to actually edit the two together, so during my opening tune I decided to try it live… Unfortunaltly I don’t know how it would have worked out, cause the 2nd channel on the mixer was getting feedback via the channel Markus had used and it took me and Seismyc a couple minutes to figure out wtf was going on. (Felt like hours…) Luckily we had our “light bulb” moment and fixed it just in time for me to cue up my 2nd track. I dropped Laktos again towards the end of my set and to try out the live mashup again. I think the crowd ate it up? Fun stuff!

After “Laktos” I continued with some big room house a la Axwell. Seemed right and I felt like I needed to over compensate my lack of fame (Next to those two giants!) with some popular tunes. Not sure I would have done that in hind sight. I probably would have dropped some techy trance first, Marco V and Sander van Doorn type of tunes. The crowd seemed to respond ok though, and I just kept at it. Dropped one of my fav mashups from “House Music and Beyond – Vol 1” Pjanoo vs Running and it got the crowd going.

After an hour or so of pure house music I took a more techy route. Dropping a lot of tunes from my “House Music and Beyond – Miami” mix including my mashup “Where are you Tungsteno” plus some new goodies coming soon on my next mix.

I ended the set with a tune that just felt so right, “Sunglasses at Night (Tocadisco Heavy Mix)” by Tiga & Zyntherius. What a rush this set was. Loved every second of it! Now if I only would have remembered to record the set…

THE Party Crew! Thanks everyone for hanging til the end!

Thanks everyone who stayed and partied with us after Markus Schulz and Cato K. Major thanks to Seismyc for all the support and most of all to Damian for getting everything setup for us during WMC. Nothing would have been possible without Damian’s persistence! Michael: Your photos are invaluable!

Can’t wait for WMC 2010. Bring it on!

For gigs and promos please email: me[at]djdomas.com.

House Music and Beyond - Miami

Listen to my WMC Promo mix. This mix got aired on DI.fm/Electro channel.