Hometown Heroes: Friendly Faces We Should All Know for Wet Electric

So it’s that time of the year again and Wet Electric is set to have a phenomenal production with amazing headliners that EVERYONE wants to see! With artists like Dada Life, Destructo, Bro Safari, 3lau, and several others it’s going to be an amazingly fun time in the sun over at the Big Surf Waterpark. While these acts are the “headliners” and they bring a lot of hype to the show, I wanted to write an article for all of the locals playing.

Once again these are the people who a lot of the times are either too busy running their own companies to play across the globe or they are the young stars chasing their dreams who are soon going to come up. So without further-ado, let’s go ahead and take a look at our Hometown Heroes!

Bass4breakfast b2b Briarwood Skittles – This b2b duo is made up of Chris Wunder (Briarwood Skittles) and Kenny Demlong (Bass4Breakfast). I’ll talk about Chris first and then move to Kenny. Briarwood Skittles was raised in AZ and began djing in 2008. He then moved to Colorado in 2010 and began playing shows around Denver, including venues like Mynt Mojito Lounge, 1515 Bar, Opel, and several underground parties. In 2015 he moved back to Arizona and since then has joined the new “BassFam” which is a group of DJs here in the valley. Bass4Breakfast shares a similar story to Briarwood Skittles as they did grow up and go to high school together. He started Djing in 2007 and played his first gig at his sister’s wedding in 2008. In 2012 he then joined Chris in Denver and started tearing up the scene there until he moved back to AZ in 2015 as well. Kenny is a member of the BassFam as well.

Blossom – Although only having debuted her DJ career in August of 2015, Blossom has come a long way in a short amount of time. She’s instantly recognizable by her pink hair, bubbly personality, and even more by how she throws down absolute fire for everyone in the crowd. She’s a big fan of anything heavy in bass, but more specifically she holds UK Garage, Dubstep, and Experimental Trap very close to her heart. Though she hasn’t been around for more than a year with her DJ career everybody knows that she has the capability of climbing to the top and a lot of people are just waiting for that moment to happen. Check out one of her bootlegs in this mix that I’m sure you’ve heard of before (It’s the Diplo and friends mix with Ghastly in case you didn’t see that). It starts at 5:22!

Bijou – Next up is the big hitter Bijou. If you don’t know this man, I’m not sure where you’ve been in the AZ scene because this guy is making it RIGHT NOW. With a new collab with Dr. Fresch as well as a collab w Vanilla Ace coming out in May 13, he packs all the heat that Arizona can offer to provide! It was also announced that on August 12th, Bijou is gonna be playing mainstage over at the Das Energi festival in Salt Lake City! Check out his song with Ryan Collins below titled “Back It Up”.

Laffit Rivas – Laffit Rivas gave it to us pretty simple as he said ,”Its always just been about the music for me”. He is a resident DJ for Groovant/Gotham Grooves/Funk’n Deep and he primarily plays techno. Any big banging song that has dark, trippy, groovy or a little bit of funk in it he says he loves though. Check out his mix below to see how Laffit really throws down!

Morgan Laine – Morgan has been performing out for about three years now. He’s opened for well known artist such as DJ Blend, MAKJ, Joel Fletcher, Timmy Trumpet, and Will Sparks. Morgan says that he is, “very universal when it comes to music genre, since I enjoy a little bit of everything… Lately, I enjoy playing festival hard house (big room) mostly influenced by harder style sounds.” Check out Morgan’s mix below and don’t forget to see him this weekend!

https://soundcloud.com/djmorganlaine/promomix

Mike Dao – Mike Dao was born and raised in Arizona and is currently 26 years old. He is an open format DJ meaning that he plays and caters to the audience and venue. “I prefer to play the heavier side of music but I also love vibe music as well. My bar gigs are more commercial music,” he states. Mike had been spinning for about a year publicly and is a resident at Fat Tuesday Tempe. He’s also played out at Zuma, Loco Patron and Rooftop in Tempe, Wasted Grain and Urbane Manner in Scottsdale. Additionally he has played both upstairs and downstairs Monarch Theatre in Phoenix.

Matt in the Hat – Emerging from the underground as an EDM DJ, Matt in the Hat’s diversity and talent was quickly noticed by the industry as Scottsdale Nights adopted him as a DJ. He proves his experience on the decks as he works the crowd with his bass heavy tracks and leaves fans inspired by his well-crafted performance. In 2016 Matt won the SWAT DJ competition and soon after doors were opened for him to play all over the west coast.

https://soundcloud.com/m_i_t_h/swat-lake-havasu-2016-prodject

Nuck n’ Futz – Nuck n Futz is a DJ Producer Duo based out of Scottsdale Arizona consisting of Dan Orlando “Funkefeller” and Andrew Knoepker “R3D”. They started production together in 2012 and since then they’ve released records with multiple labels (here’s a list https://pro.beatport.com/artist/nuck-n-futz/240676). Over the last 6 years they’ve played some of the biggest events in Arizona including 4 years at Wet Electric, Decadence, Phoenix Lights, WMC, Burning Man and they’ve toured in Chicago, California, Philly, Miami and Nevada. Check out their mix below and see what banging music they’ll bring to Wet Electric!

Hope y’all took the time to look through each of these locals sound clouds because they have great material that I know everyone would love! It’s definitely worth it to get over to Wet Electric sooner rather than later to catch some of their sets. Either way I know all of you guys are going to have a great time at Wet and as always be safe! If you still need to get tickets you can grab them right here!