Good day Sir! Or indeed Madam. Welcome to the first putting of fingers to keys for me, Dominic Stanton, for the newly spruced up Treble O website! I see the others have come up with an interesting idea to spread knowledge and wisdom on important matters such as Jazz and Youtube, whereas I am going to vent my spleen at you, with all the rage and passion of a middle aged civil servant. In Cheltenham.

So what can I tell you about? Well, I went to Miami for the second time this March, as it was Winter Music Conference time! And what does that entail? Well, four solid days of drinking, talking non-sense, exchanging CDs and business cards and definitely NOT sleeping. The ‘Credit Crunch’ in the US was blamed for general low attendance, but both the Bugz/Jazzanova party at SoBe Live and Co-Op party at Jazid both went off, presumably owing to my DJing presence at both. That’s actually rubbish, it was partly due to the hardcore nature of some of the fans of the music in the states never hearing it from the ‘source’, and to some great organisation from Mr and Mrs Daz-i-kue.

So who did I see? Where? And when? Well Taylor Mcferrin was dope at Raw Fusion, as were Ayro and John Arnold, still fine tuning their crazy MPC/guitar/singing mash-up show, performing at both Co-Op and the Amalgama Pool Party. Some lucky folk, like Benji B, got to meet Erykah Badu at the Giant Step party at The Delano, although reports back that ‘she was tiny’ were leaked to the broken beat press. I met godfather of Dub-Step, Skream, but we were both very drunk at the time and I doubt he had heard of me anyway. But we laughed at very little together for a moment just the same. Stalwart showmen like Rich Medina, Sun Tzu crew and Karizma all did top jobs, supporting the cause to abolish the playing of constant dull house music around the conference.

My two longest lasting memories will be, however, unrelated to music. On the first night, suffering severe exhaustion/jet-lag/booze overload I ended up raving on with Benji B and his entourage. Little did I know I was to become the entertainment for the evening, performing Yoga techniques, crap dancing and slipping in and out of my shoes with all the style and finesse of a David Blaine style git-wizard. In my dreams. I behaved like an arse. I even managed to insult our own Benga, at a Dub-Step party we crashed right at the end, downtown. He didn’t realise it at the time, but my ridiculous dancing and rolling around on the floor was merely to create a mockery of the endless barrage of heavy dub being dropped. In retrospect all I can say is, Benga, Benji and downtown Miami, I am sorry. I must have looked drunk because I had to run around a corner to relieve myself, and not noticing how close I was to the start of a freeway, some lads drove close up to me and opened their door to bonk me with it. Just lightly on the legs, and for their own amusement, but it made me realise how vulnerable I was. So like a child running to the comfort of its mother, I ran back to the safety of the group. I awoke in the morning to find I had lost both my headphones and my trusty flat cap. And my dignity.

Luckily the next day, both were retrived, though sadly I will never be able to look some of those present in the eye again. To cheer myself up I went for a walk around my little bit of downtown, near Biscayne Bay. And what did I find? A nerd shop. And inside? A full size Darth Vader costume for $99, with mask and lightsaber! Wow…all sorts of ideas filled my head of turning up at parties dressed as the Dark Lord and wowing all with my James Earl Jones impression. Alas, it was not to be, as my vengeful conscience reminded me what a fool I had been the previous night, and not worthy of such a treat. I skulked out of the shop, in search of scrambled eggs. And beans.