To us, the Miami Winter Music Conference has always been about hanging out with friends in the sun rather than going to fancy parties full of cool people. For five years in a row at WMC, we’ve hung out with our Australian super best friends Infusion, did our gigs and went to parties that almost always sucked. After spending most of our nights going from party to party, queuing and dealing with heavy handed Miami club security, we’d usually give up and go somewhere full of healthy looking and well slept people to do more drugs and drink cocktails until we dropped—or got kicked out.

Around three years ago, we decided to have a few years break from WMC. We were completely over it, as our last visit almost killed us. At the time, we were in the middle of a North American tour: we dropped in on Miami, did two gigs in the daytime, then flew off to Toronto with Juice Aleem where it was around minus 10 degrees, did a gig there, and then flew back to Miami without sleeping to do another two gigs with Juice that same day/night. (Ouch!)

That evening we ended up in a posh penthouse party with Adam Freeland and friends, along with hundreds of horrible-looking, coked-up, aging models with melting plastic faces and tits. I decided it would be a great idea if we climbed from balcony to balcony (on the 10th floor, with a massive drop between each) with a powder fire extinguisher, which we decided to fire through the open doors of guests’ rooms. Sounds fun, right? But how the fuck do you get back to the party without getting beaten up by all the people that now hate you for setting off a fire extinguisher in their room? You try and climb down the ladder that goes all the way down the side of the building whilst on ecstasy, that’s how. Bedtime!!!

Anyway, this year, after our brief hiatus, we swore things were going to be different. I awoke from a sensible first night’s sleep ready for an afternoon of pool parties, only to find it was kinda cold and raining hard. Regardless, I dragged myself out of bed to meet the others (no Infusion this year) for an unhealthy breakfast of beef burgers and root beer; the next thing I knew, it was time for us to leave for Ultra, our only gig of WMC 2010 (Ultra is pretty much the only decent paying gig you can get in Miami, so we naturally said “Yes, please!” to the offer to play). We made our way to the stage through a sea of Dayglow ravers —we were the second act on that day, following the more than excellent Boy 8-Bit. The crowd was pretty small at first, but after three or four tracks the place was absolutely packed and rocking. Dayglow or not, those people know how to have a good time!

Once we were done with our gig, we had two choices. Option A: Watch our BFFs Alex Metric and Adam Freeland play their sets, or B: totally bail out on them and get some early evening sleep before a fun-filled evening. We went for option B. After a kip, we made our way to Jerry’s Diner for some dinner, then headed to our management company’s party to meet some friends—and then I don’t really remember much of the next five hours. I know we went to Annie Mac’s party briefly, then ended up at Space (an awful fucking commercial hell hole). At Space, we decided ‘beak’ is the best name for cocaine ever, and began incorporating the word into movie titles. Here are some examples: Beakless in Seattle, Twin Beaks, Beak Street, Dante’s Beak, Unbeak My Heart, Point Beak & Dr. Beak (Topical).

Around maybe 6am, we were on our way back to the hotel for some sleep when I got a call from our manager saying he was upstairs hanging with a big English pop star whose name I’ll refrain from using and that we should come up and party. Everyone else went to bed but Alex Metric and I decided to go up. Seven hours later, we found ourselves back in Jerry’s Diner (who serve cocktails 24 hours a day) with the aforementioned pop star, dreaming up the tabloid newspaper headlines to go along with her antics entertaining Miami’s finest by running into shops trying to steal sequined-covered clothes for me to wear. Bedtime!

I “woke up” later that evening, having missed the only sunny day of our three days at the conference. Once awake, I met up with Alex Metric, my Evil Nine partner Tom and his lady to try and eat some food before we went to a private party Metric was playing at. We were supposed to meet up with a big group of friends at Joe’s Stone Crab, but the thought of crab and a big group of people I’d have to talk to just made me want to puke. We went for Thai instead but that didn’t go down too well, either; we just sat there staring at our plates, trying to drink cocktails.

Temporarily, we got back in action once we arrived at the private party. Double beak!! Naomi Campbell was there…. Wow!!! The booze was free and Alex’s set was dope (he played a slow disco early set), but otherwise the party was pretty lame and full of twats; therefore, as soon we got appropriately shitfaced, we left to meet up with friends at the Mad Decent/Fools Gold party. The music sounded great as we hung in the queue, watching lots of good-looking kids walking out complaining about the fire marshals inside closing the party down. Once again, we were left with two choices—A: Go to bed, because we have a morning flight back to the U.K., or B: Go to P. Diddy’s party at his house that starts at 5am, to which we’d been invited. We went for option A, spending most of the next day at the airport reading everybody’s tweets saying how mad the party was at Diddy’s… About twenty hours later, I’m standing at my front door in Brighton, realizing that I’ve left my keys elsewhere and I cant get in to my flat or my bed—a fitting end to a hilariously typical Winter Music Conference. Bedtime!

With such a plethora of talent, The Spirit Of Apollo has proven to be the gift that keeps on giving – especially when it comes to providing raw material for remixes. The re-rubs from the album have indeed proved nothing short of incredible, and the hits just keep on coming, with the latest coming from subversive Brighton, England-based dancefloor-destroying duo Evil Nine. The Evils have been on a major upswing of late – wait until you hear their barnstorming remix of Alex Metric’s “It Starts” – creating bangers with attitude, humor and the fattest beats in any universe.  Their take on the N.A.S.A. track may be the best remix yet associated with the project. The Evils layer insistent vocals and raps from the likes of the mighty M.I.A., Spank Rock and Santigold with equally pounding drums, heavy distortion, and anthemic basslines for an everything-but-the-kitchen sink behemoth that threatens to explode at any moment (and usually does). By the end of the track, it’s clear that when it comes to rocket propulsion in da club, the fusion of N.A.S.A. and Evil Nine proves the preferred method for take off.