2010 › May

Round the World in 80 Sounds – Latintronica

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Welcome back to Gadling’s newest weekly series on music, Round the World in 80 Sounds. Europe and North America are not the only place for great dance music these days. Increasingly music fans, DJ’s and dancers the world over are looking south of the border to the dynamic and growing electronic music scenes in countries like Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. The forward-thinking sounds coming from these countries are strongly rooted in traditions of the past, blending local folk music styles with modern instruments and techniques to create a distinctly modern hybrid. It’s an energetic, fun and authentic musical experience any curious traveler will want to check out on your next visit.

The genre of electronic music began in American cities like Detroit and Chicago in the 80’s, springing to life as the Disco scene began to fade. Ever since, the music has been a fixture in the North American and European nightlife scenes. But it’s taken longer for the music to take root in the rest of the world. Only in the last 10 years have home-grown electronic music scenes started to blossom in regions like Asia, Africa and particularly in Latin America. In Argentina, a style called Digital Cumbia has risen to the fore, while in Mexico bands like Nortec Collective infuse traditional Mexican Norteño music with modern style. Meanwhile in Brazil, a slew of artists like Gui Borrato are bringing electronic music to a growing army of fans.

Ready to open your ears to one of Latin America’s most interesting musical trends? Keep reading below…Digital Cumbia in Argentina
Call it whatever you want – Electronic Cumbia, Digital Cumbia or just plain fun – the fact remains: a steady stream of good times and great music has been broadcasting from Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires now for several years. Centered around the city’s now-legendary Zizek Club, it’s a new musical movement based around Cumbia, a traditional South American musical style featuring strong rhythms and instruments like Claves, accordions and drums. Electronic Cumbia takes this traditional style to the next level, injecting it with synthesizers, hip-hop beats and gangster-style rhymes. Check out the video below and make sure to visit one of Zizek’s weekly parties the next time you make it to Buenos Aires.

Norteno and Mexican Techno
For Americans, Tijuana is not much more than a hedonistic border town. A place for those looking for a night of entertainment and cheap prescription drugs. But as it turns out, there’s a lot more going on south of the border these days, including a thriving music scene. A collection of DJ’s and producers call Tijuana home, tapping into Northern Mexico’s vast wealth of Norteno music for inspiration.

Norteño, a style of Mexican “polka” with lots of noisy horns and plenty of strong rhythms, has gotten a modern rework by Mexican electronic acts like Nortec Collective, who remake Norteño with a into a uniqeuly modern style. Along with Mexico City-based musician Mexican Institute of Sound, these artists are part of a growing electronic music movement based on Mexico. Check out this 2005 tribute to Tijuana by Nortec Collective:

Brazil’s Exploding Pop Scene
Of all the great music happening these days in Latin and South America, none is as dynamic as the exploding music scene in Brazil. Considering Brazil’s long and rich musical history, from Bossa Nova to Samba and Caetano Veloso, the current wave of innovation comes as no surprise.

Electro Rock bands like Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS) have earned consistent international attention, with their catchy, danceable rock sound. In the realm of dance music, Brazilian producer and DJ Gui Boratto has been rocking the international club scene since 2007. These Brazilian electronic music innovators take their cues less from traditional Brazilian sounds, instead applying a distinct Brazilian interpretation to the global music scenes abroad in Europe, North America and beyond. Have a listen to Boratto’s 2007 single, “Beautiful Life:”

Remembering the magic of domestic travel

by Mike Barish on

Sometime during last week’s trip to Yellowstone National Park, it hit me. It was a simple realization but also one of those kicks in the ass that only a place as massive and magical as Yellowstone can give you. With rolling hills and snow-capped peaks lining the horizon and bison mingling with antelope on either side of the road, I remembered just how diverse, majestic and wonderful the United States really is. After spending the last six years focusing extensively on international travel, I realized that the stigma that we often attach to domestic travel is nothing more than snobbery. That stigma often keeps people from exploring the vast beauty that awaits in our own backyard.

Many travelers take great pride in being able to announce the exact number of nations and territories that they have visited without a moment of thought. These passport stamp collectors and country counters often exude a special kind of pretentiousness that is meant to intimidate lesser-traveled individuals. These are the people who turn travel into a contest. These are the people who insist on engaging in the traveler versus tourist debates, mock of cruises and further other nonsense arguments that attach judgment to travel. These are the people who ignore domestic travel.

This is not to say that we should all eschew international travel. I am as guilty as anyone of ignoring domestic travel to explore the world. I do not regret those trips and learned a tremendous amount about the world and myself by leaving the friendly confines of the United States. However, I have come to realize that there’s a balance that can be struck between setting off to far away lands and introducing yourself to your own country. There’s as much to see from Anchorage to Miami as there is from Reykjavik to Ushuaia.

The sheer magnitude of the United States means that its landscapes run the gamut from mountains to prairies to pristine beaches. We have major cities and small towns, industrial centers and sprawling farms and created the concept of national parks. It’s those national parks that provided me with this epiphany. An epiphany that so many Americans had long before I did. As I spoke with strangers in Yellowstone and heard their stories of driving from California, the Dakotas and even Florida, I was embarrassed that I had neglected the wonders of domestic travel for so long.

While I may be late to the party, I found that I was welcomed with open arms. Unlike the country counters, the people who are driving around America exploring our national parks and enjoying the diversity of our massive nation seemed genuinely interested about exchanging stories rather than boasting. They offered tips, shared memories and displayed none of the arrogance of the people who ceaselessly find reason to mention how often they need to order more pages for their passports.

There’s room for domestic and international travel in all of our lives. We can mix excursions to Bali in with road trips through Texas. There’s a great big world out there, but we also have a massive backyard. You can safari in Wyoming. You can hike through a rainforest in the Pacific Northwest. We have deserts and Great Lakes. We have ethnic enclaves and regional cuisines.

Let the passport stamp collectors pass judgment. I’ll be in the backyard.

Disney’s new Animation-themed resort reflects success of two recent hotel trends

by Leigh Caldwell on

A 35-foot-tall model of King Triton, the patriarch in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” will be the centerpiece of the new Disney’s Art of Animation Resort at Walt Disney World.

The 2,000-room hotel will have four wings, themed around four Disney movies that have become new classics over the past 20 years: “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King.” Finding Nemo,” and “Cars.”

The Art of Animation Resort demonstrates the success of Disney’s recent experiments with two different hotel trends, family suites and specially themed rooms.

At Disney’s All-Star Music Resort, the company converted rooms into 192 family suites in 2006. The rooms include both a living room and a bedroom and sleep up to six, thanks to a sleeper sofa and a chair and ottoman that each convert to a twin bed in the living room.

Disney has always had suites in its higher end “Deluxe” hotels, but the All-Star Music suites and the new suites at Art of Animation will be in Disney’s “Value” hotel category. Value resorts have smaller, motel-style rooms, but they still incorporate that magical Disney theming in over-the-top public areas, like swimming pools and lobbies.

Rates at Disney’s value resorts often rival off-site hotel prices. Regular hotel rooms that sleep up to four at value resorts currently start at $82 per night. The current family suites start at $190.

“This resort was designed with the needs of families in mind, as we continue the Disney tradition of providing a great guest experience for every taste and budget,” said Eric Jacobson, senior vice president of Disney Imagineering. In 2008, Disney World unveiled its first themed rooms, the Pirates of the Caribbean rooms at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. The rooms have pirate-ship beds, treasure-chest themed furniture and a swashbuckling curtain. Earlier this year, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the pirate-themed rooms, which were located in what was the least popular area of the Caribbean Beach Resort, have now become the most requested rooms.

Specially themed rooms have become popular in Orlando in recent years, with the nearby Nickelodeon Suites Resort offering rooms featuring Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer. The Loews Resorts at Universal Orlando have also ventured into themed rooms, with Dr. Seuss and Jurassic Park-themed suites.

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will have courtyards with “larger-than-life” icons from the four featured animated films. It is being built adjacent to Disney’s Pop Century Resort, off Osceola Parkway east of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Walt Disney World had prepped the site and started a couple of buildings there a few years back, when it was the planned second phase of the Pop Century Resort. But those plans were abandoned following the 2001 recession, and the buildings have sat empty and unfinished since then.

This will be Disney World’s 26th resort, and the first new hotel at Walt Disney World in seven years. (Disney has built three new vacation ownership resorts in the interim.)

The news of a new Disney hotel has energized Central Florida, with many believing that this is Disney’s vote of confidence that the tourism-supported economy here is turning around. Ground will be broken on the project later this summer, and it is expected to create as many as 800 jobs.

“This project also underscores our optimism about the future, as we continue to invest in new experiences for our guests around the globe,” said Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is projected to open by the end of 2012.

Galley Gossip: 10 deep, dark, dirty, hotel secrets

by Heather Poole on

How dirty is your hotel room? Very. Surely you’ve seen those undercover news reports where investigators use a black light to show us things we never wanted to see like body fluids all over the walls and bedding. And what about the video clips of house cleaners unknowingly being filmed using the same rag they used to clean the toilet rim on the bathroom counter. One news team even caught a maid spraying Windex inside a drinking glass – and she didn’t wipe it off!

Now you understand why flight attendants never touch the duvet and wash out the mugs in scalding hot soapy water before drinking coffee! I have a flight attendant friend who covers the television remote with a shower cap and wouldn’t be caught dead walking around her bare feet. But hotels aren’t the only ones to blame. What about hotel guests?

Hotels are a lot like airplanes in that people do things they would never in a million years do at home, like leave wet towels all over the floor. Even I have a deep dark dirty secret that only happens at layover hotels. Two words. Tanning lotion. I’d hate to stain my own white sheets a slight shade of orange. I’ve heard rumors of flight attendants using coffee pots to clean pantyhose. Not so sure I believe that. But one flight attendant told me he uses the pot to heat up soup. I’ve tried using it to make oatmeal but it turned out completely inedible. Better doublecheck the bottom of the iron before pressing it against your nice white shirt since it may have been used to make grilled cheese sandwich. Did you know you can even heat up restaurant leftovers using an iron and a little tin foil? It’s true.

Well all of this got me thinking. Besides the obvious of course, I couldn’t help but wonder what other kinds of disgusting things people were doing in hotels rooms. So I sent out a tweet asking people to confess their deep, dark, dirty, hotel secrets. The responses came pouring in, many of which I’m unable to share here. We’re keeping it clean, people!Hotel patrons share 10 deep, dark, dirty secrets:

1. I let my kids run around without a diaper on. I’m a mother of three. Accidents happen.

2. I “borrow” the towels.

3. Bodily fluids and what not (toe jam) I’ve left on the underside of furniture, bottom of desk, and above top dresser drawer

4. Supergluing the toilet freebies to the counter and the hangers to the rack is fun.

5. Hide all the $5 water bottles in the closet. On the last day put them all back and then deny the charges at the front desk.

6. Towels under the door plus a hot shower equals a free sauna.

7. I don’t want any accidental stains in my home bathroom so I only color my hair in hotels.

8. Those huge mirrors with the bright lights are great for plucking, especially gray hairs. You can get a great back view with some of those door mirrors!

9. Booked a hotel room just so I could use the swimming pool for my daughters fifth birthday party. The hotel found out and was kind enough to let us use the conference room to eat cake and open presents.

10. I leave the bathroom a mess on purpose so the maids have to give it a good scrub for the next guest!


Jon Bowermaster: Dispatches from St. John – Day 2

by Jon Bowermaster on

Given its history of wildness, the 114-tent-and-boardwalk resort known as Maho Bay Camps is a perfect fit on St. John, as close to a true eco-resort as any I’ve seen around the world. Which surprises no one more than Stanley Selengut, the camp’s owner who put up the initial 18 tents in 1976. “That phrase – eco-resort – didn’t exist then,” says a longtime Maho Bay manager once explained to me. “Stanley and a bunch of his friends were down here and someone said, ‘This would be a great place for some tent platforms.’ Typical for Stanley, it may not have been his idea, he was the one that figured out how to get things done.”

In these days when any hotel that encourages you not to wash your towel every day wraps itself in a green banner, Maho Bay Camps is the real thing. Recycle-reuse-reduce is its watch-phrase. Showers are communal; potable water accessible in just a couple locations in the 14-acre compound; the restaurant is self-serve; urinals water-less; much of the energy needed to run 114 tents, reception, restaurant, internet solar-produced. In its art studios –open to all guests — glass is recycled by the glass-blowing studio, waste paper by the textile-makers and aluminum cans turned into pendants.

There is definitely a hippie-ish feel to the place, from the tie-dyed batiks made in the textile room to the “volunteers” who come for month-long stints, trading work for a free place to stay. During high season the place fills with families who’ve been coming now for two generations.

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I stay in tent-cabin, A-6, anchoring the far end of the boardwalk, closest to the beach at Maho Bay. It’s perfect for me. Through cracks in the deck flooring I can see the jungle below. The stove is propane, the refrigerator an Igloo cooler filled with ice, and table and chairs made of plastic. A box fan whirs, thanks to 24-hour electricity, necessary to keep the mosquitoes at bay. As I write, a frigate bird lands atop a palm just outside my window and white-tailed tropicbirds and brown boobys flit and soar. Inside, small anole lizards — gecko-like, with colorful, leaf-like dewlaps — do push ups in front of me, reminding me that this is their territory.

Letting the screen door bang behind, I find the head of Maho Goat Trail and wander down to the beach. From here it’s a mile-long walk to the start of one of the most beautiful of the park’s 22 official trails (there are countless unofficial ones, the former detailed in a variety of guidebooks and park service handouts, the latter marked with stone cairns and cryptic, handmade signs). I’m open to following any trail here since the only native mammals on the island are bats and there are no venomous snakes. The only surprise in the woods is the occasional wandering deer or donkey.

Later that one I hike down Cinnamon Bay Trail lured by its reputation for having an incredible lookout over Maho Bay. Inside the forest is dark, tropical, intensely green thanks to recent rains. The trail is narrow and steep to the downhill; you don’t want to slip. Strangler figs, kapok, cocoa, mango and bay rum trees are thick and tall, the undergrowth heavy with star-like teyer palms, sweet lime and anthurium. Turpentine trees – what locals have dubbed tourist tree – expose a pink skin beneath peeling bark. Guts, natural rocky drainages criss-cross the trail channeling water downhill; man-made swales – lines of strategically placed rocks across the trail – are angled to divert the rainwater and prevent erosion.

As I walk down, slowly to avoid slipping, a solitary black bat leads me. Small lizards, imported to the island centuries ago to help kill insects, run across the trail; a variety of snails meander. Yellow & black bananaquits dart among the trees, many of which are home to giant termite balls built in the low crotches. Halfway down the 45-minute hike the trees open up, exposing a western view from the island, over Cinnamon Bay to Trunk Bay and beyond.

As I walk I try to make out the stone terraces that once divvied the island into 100 sugarcane plantations. Everything was a clear-cut then, except for the mangoes and cocoa tree. Men, women and children slaved over the farms, in tropical heat.

At the bottom of the trail, just across from the long sand beach at Cinnamon Bay, sit the ruins of a two hundred year old plantation. Buildings, like the terraces, were constructed from stone, brain coral and occasionally imported red and yellow bricks from England and Germany. Tall stone columns, still standing, at one time supported the big room used to store brown sugar, molasses, barrels of rum and crushed and dried sugarcane stalks. There was a boiling and distillery house next door, where they used to make St. John’s Bay Rum (cologne, not alcohol!). Sitting on one of the stonewalls, sweating from the hike, nearly meditating thanks to the quiet of the forest, I can almost see and hear the young children climbing the bay rum trees, carefully stripping the leaves, putting them into sacks and carrying them off to be distilled.

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