Fort Knox Recordings and The Vinyl District are proud to present Memorial Weekend Blowout at U Street Music Hall this Sunday night, May 29th. Get your summer started off right, and blow out that three day weekend with the best DC funk, soul, reggae, and dub beats.
Memorial Weekend Blowout
Sun, May 29, 2011
10:00 pm – 3:00 am
U Street Music Hall
$10.00
Tickets available through Ticketfly
Ages 18+, ages 18-20 must buy tickets in advance
LIVE SETS:
See-I
Empresarios
DJ SETS:
DJ Who
Thunderball
Empresarios’ DJ Arsam and Sonny Cheeba
Continuing our week-long spotlight on the Memorial Weekend Blowout artists, John Bowen and Javier Miranda of the Empresarios were gracious enough to take a moment to talk about the on-going Latin American/Caribbean musical movement. In their words, “It’s got sabor galore… The remixers are from all over the world, so many styles represented. Some flashback drum & bass, bossa, electro… something for everyone… lots of dancefloor movers.” The first of the two Empresarios’ Sabor Tropical Remixed EPs is now available digitally on Beatport and will be available physically worldwide on May 31st.
For those new to Latin American/Caribbean music, would you say you are somewhat a teacher to virgin ears?
We have a solid Latin foundation, but I wouldn’t say we are teachers… We go all over the place with our music, so more like mad scientists, experimenting with traditional Latin American/Caribbean sounds into our own thing.
Have you ever been the victim of any wild audience antics? If so, what happened?
Victims? Not quite, but we have already witnessed some bizarre occurrences!! At our debut show at U Street Music Hall last December, we had a guy totally black out on the dance floor during our second song, and it was early in the night! We do get drunk people trying to come up on stage to play the congas or sing on the mic. And there has been this one really persistent fan who comes to our shows and insists on playing with the band—she means well though!
If you could start it all over again would you change your style? Or would you be born again the same way, musically?
Def would want to be born again the same way… This was the way things were supposed to be. Everyone in the group’s different style makes it all come together so uniquely. Someone compared our sound to a bowl of soup… Lots of flavors coming together making something delicious.
On an international scale where do you see the influence of Latin music? Is it only going to get greater?
It’s such a feel good sound that lends itself well with other styles of music. More and more, it’s showing up in everything from club bangers to downtempo lounge… It’s like reggae music, everyone wants to get the good vibes from it in their sound.
