Tour Detroit Featuring Alexander Robotnick this Saturday!

It has been a few months since there has been a Tour Detroit party. Made up of DJ's Erno the Inferno, Joe Vargas, Steven Robert and Craig Hejka Tour Detroit is a group that puts on a series of parties is like no other. Our first experience with Tour Detroit was back when we first started Hip In Detroit. We got the background on the group and the parties from Joe Vargas and Steven Robert and then headed out to their party at an old warehouse in Detroit. Whether electronic music is your thing or not, these events are a great time.

This weekend Tour Detroit is having a very special edition featuring world famous Alexander Robotnick. This Italian musician has been making music for decades and is kind of a legend. Tour Detroit gives you a whole run down on his history on the Facebook event page here.

The party is happening this Saturday at TV Lounge in Detroit. Admission is $10 and doors open at 9 p.m. There will also be sets by Tour Detroit DJs Joe Vargas, Steven Robert , and Erno The Inferno. Check out a new mix from Robotnick below and then head down to TV Lounge to see the man in the flesh this Saturday!

~C

Let's Go To Mars With Daniel Wang

Tour Detroit has been taking over the city and throwing some of the most epic dance parties in town. This time they are bringing a legend into town to make sure you shake your ass to the sound of disco. Yes, you heard me right disco. Not disco infused, not disco inspired but real live disco like it was heard on the dance floors in the 70’s. This is the opportunity for all of us who dreamed of wearing Halston and getting down tonight to do so. 

Daniel Wang was born in California, raised in Taiwan and currently resides in Berlin. He first made a name for himself in the mid 90’s in Chicago where he formed and worked on his own label called Balihu. His music philosophy is that all music can be summed up with 200 pieces of vinyl while the rest is merely variations of those 200 albums. 

He will be playing Saturday (October 16) at TV Lounge with the regular Tour Detroit crew including Steven Robert, Joe Vargas, Erno the Inferno and Craig Hejka. This event is only $10 presale here or $20 at the door. This is a do not miss event for anyone that likes to drink, dance and have a great time.

Disco is alive and kicking in the Motor City this weekend! My only question is where is that romper I have been dying to wear?

~S

Womp Womp Movement is Here!

This weekend there is another HUGE event going on. You probably won't run into us there though. It's Movement, also known as DEMF. The event features over 100 electronic music artists on 5 stages in Hart Plaza. I've heard from friends that attend every year, that if you are into electronic music, you have to go. Since I'm not, I won't be there. However, the event attracts over 100,000 people from all over the world. 

In addition to the main party at Movement, there are some other great after parties going on around town. The one that stood out the most to us is happening Saturday night at Club Waterfalls Ultra Lounge. It features Detroit native Jimmy Edgar along side many other DJs including our friends from Tour Detroit, Steven Robert with Erno the Inferno performing together as T&A and Joe Vargas. Cover is only $5 and re-entry is allowed. They claim they will have great drink prices, too!

Tonight there are a ton of Pre-Movement parties. However, we suggest that you head down to St. Andrew's for Funk Night DEMF Edition featuring DJ Head, DJ Frank Raines, Diamond D, Guilty Simpson and Will Sessions. Cover is $5 if you are 21+ or $10 if you are 18+. Make sure to say "hi" to our friend East Side John while you are there! 

Movement is going on Saturday - Monday. So if you love electro beatz, head down to Hart Plaza. Otherwise, you might want to stay away from the Riverfront this weekend.

~C

Intellivision Was Incredible!

This week's Tour Detroit party brought us to a random loft in the middle of a neighborhood on the East side of Detroit. Since this was our first time going to an official Tour Detroit party, we were pretty excited about it. Becca was especially excited because parties like these don't really exist in Western New York, where she grew up. 
As soon as we walked in there was a great vibe in the building. Steven Robert and Joe Vargas were already spinning and the music kept us dancing until the wee hours of the morning. Not everyone was there to dance. A good amount of people were there just to enjoy the atmosphere. 
The party was great. Here are a couple shots that we got from the night.

 

If you haven't already, make sure to check out our interview with Steve & Joe from earlier this week! 

Keep an eye out on their Facebook to hear about the next party they have coming up!

~ CB

"Your 'Tour Detroit' Guides This Evening will be Steven Robert and Joe Vargas"...

Every decade seems to bring about a different style of music that is reminiscent of that time. In the 20's there was Swing. The 50's brought about Rock 'N Roll. There was Disco, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Pop, Techno, Funk, and the list goes on and on. Tour Detroit, is a group that has managed to bring all of these styles together, plus some, to create a series of parties that have become legendary in Detroit.

Tour Detroit is made up of Joe Vargas, Steven Robert, Erno the Inferno and Mike Mackool. According to Joe Vargas, "Tour Detroit was born out of all of us having played a few parties together, and wanting to do it way more often... We drew a lot of inspiration from different sources like, Dorkwave, Organic, Interdimentional Transmission, the family parties, etc. and a lot of dingy, virtually unknown spaces we were going to at the time." The group started by having parties in the warmer six months of the year, starring different guest DJs, and featuring a different venue for each event.

If you have never been to a Tour Detroit party in the past, Steven Robert explained that you can, "Expect to hear both new and old music. We try to keep it fresh, but we're also always digging for the older deep records as well. As for the crowd, they're great! They're just there to dance and have a good time."

Yes, there are DJs, dancing, and it is a party, but these gatherings are not to be confused with rave parties from the 90's or an evening at Tiki Bob's. According to Vargas and Steven Robert, these parties have "Soul" and "Better Music". Steven continues by saying, "People come out to listen to some of the best House and Disco you can find. Not to bang skeezy broads in Ugg boots...Okay, some of them want to bang skeezy broads in Ugg boots."

You can guarantee that when these guys says "Better Music", they mean it. Both of them have been involved in music at a professional and personal level for most of their lives. Once they discovered electronic music, it seems they were hooked. When asked how they each started DJing and what made them want to get into it, they had this to say:

Steven: "I was studying jazz performance and music management at Wayne State when a fellow classmate, by the name of Dominic Arellano, was working at a Techno record label named Transmat and offered me an internship there. I knew little to none about dance music at the time. My parents were pretty serious competitive disco dancers in the 70s. So I grew up listening to disco, but that's as far as it went. Over the course of two years that I had worked there, we put on the Movement Festival twice. I learned a great deal while working with those guys. It opened up a whole new world of music to me. Without sounding too corny, there's a whole vibe about electronic music that you can't really explain. It's something you kind of have to experience. A couple years later, I bought some turntables and a mixer off of an old friend who used to throw parties back in the late 90s and I've been playing ever since."


Joe: "For me, it was going to my first party, and being fascinated by the way the DJ kept the party/music going. I kinda became a 'gear head', wanting to know more about the technical process and mechanics of it all.
That plus a kind of curious fascination with dance rock from the 80's, my emerging appreciation for disco and funk, and more current love for 'indie dance' or whatever, plus, the rich history that Detroit has in electronic music, AND my aforementioned love of gear kinda put me over the edge, ha."

After chatting with the guys, it became apparent that Tour Detroit parties are about good music, good people, and having a good time. 

This Saturday, Tour Detroit Presents: Intellivision. The location for the party is undisclosed, unless you RSVP to the event on Facebook. Along side the great music and killer sound system, Prismviews will be there projecting visual art, that should add to this already awesome event. 

So, if you haven't already, RSVP to this event on Facebook, and while you're at it, get out your dancin' shoes! Hope to see you all Saturday night!

~C