Pillowtalk - BPM Diary

Pillowtalk BPM 2012 Journal - By: Sammy D

January 2nd
Arrived in Cancun from New York. All our gear was lost, all our bags gone! Never fly Continental. I don’t care how desperate you are, never fly Continental. We couldn’t sleep. I was stressing my balls off.

January 3rd
Praise Allah!!! Ryan shows up to our villa with our bags just in time for our 10am sound check. Getting prepared for the Scissor & Thread /Life and Death Show. Met up with Frank and Tony and Jordan from Black Light Smoke for early sound check at Mamitas Beach Club. We were feeling stressed because sound check was so long and we wanted to be considerate to the other artists’ time. Finally, the party got going a little behind schedule but the weather was perfect and the crowds started to roll in. The party ended up being fantastic. We went on at 5pm with the sun going down, we had really amazing time. We were able to perform a new song from the Life and Death family called “The Outcast” as our closing song. Such a poignant song for the times we are living in. The crowd was quite amazing and we definitely felt the love. Afterwords, Thugfucker closed out the show and was definitely a highlight of the Festival. They absolutely killed it! We headed back to our villa in Playacar 2 and had a chill night.

January 4th
Finally get to sleep in after touring for 10 days. Much needed. Praise be to God!



January 5th
Woke up early to get tickets to the “Jungle” party, which was at this beautiful Mayan temple 30 minutes outside Playa. Rolling deep with our crew, we arrived just at sundown. I felt really comfortable in my poncho! We walked into the jungle and ran into the Wolf + Lamb crew and Crystalmafia girls. We were feeling right at home at such a strange and beautiful place. Caught Art Department, Mr. C and Shaun Reeves. We were also excited to run into our home town boy Derrick “Tone of Arc.” We partied our goddamn pants off and got lost chasing chupacabras on the finest psychedelics known to the human race. Finally left the jungle around 2am and went back to Playa for the Wolf + Lamb party at La Santanera. Thank the Gods above that Hamilton was able to move the showcase upstairs to the open air bar. Performed an impromptu set of our new Wolf + Lamb Ep “Far From Heaven.” The crowd was on fire that night! It was definitely another highlight of the Festival. Back to the villa for some much needed sleep.

January 6th
Slept in and headed down to Canibal Royal for the No. 19 party. Arrived in the nick of time to catch the best set of the whole damn festival, Tone of Arc! His live set was the biz! It was followed beautifully by Tanner Ross and Deniz Kurtel. Hung out in an old ship on the shore with Gadi, Zev and Greg of NRP for the remainder of the party then headed back to our villa for another chill night.

January 7th
This is the day of the famous Rebel Rave In The Cave. Our whole house was super jazzed, except for me, 'cause I was not ready to shoulder fight with a thousand and one ravers! It ended up being way too crowded, but the music in the side room was fantastic. Russ Yallop, Droog and Richy Ahmed had the right idea. We decided to leave early to hang out on a roof top with friends. We arrived right before sunrise and was happy to see Maryrose, Angel and Philipp from MANDY. DJ-ed for a small group of friends on that rooftop for an amazing sunrise, it was epic. A view of the roof is below.



January 8th
Went back to our villa and walked in on two hundred people gettin’ down and gettin’ with it. It was an after party for people that came from the Rave In The Cave. My good friend Davi Williams was DJ-ing in our kitchen. Proceeded back to the pool and hung out all day…good friends…good times…sweet ass beats. After we got everyone out from the villa, we had some down time to prepare for Tulum and the Visionquest Full Moon party at Papaya Playa. Headed out to Tulum with a van load of us. The hour long drive allowed us to preview all of Tone of Arc’s new jams (imagine The Clash meets Prince) amazing music from one of the raddest dudes around! Papaya Playa was the shit! Got to see Shaun Reeves and Ryan Crosson tag team for seven hours or so. It was amazing night under the moon in a wonderfully designed club brought to you by our Berlin friends from bar 25. The wind was whipping off the shore and we were witness to Pooky laying down one of the all time greatest liquid groove sessions I have seen in all my 22 years of raving! It was part Baryshnikov, part slo mo Neo from the Matrix sprinkled with Turbo from Breakin’. It was breathtaking! We raved until the sun came up and now our time at BPM was coming to an unfortunate end.

January 9th
Went home, packed, I hooked up with my dear friend Maryrose for a cab to the Cancun airport and took a flight to San Francisco. Was sad to leave for sure. I want to thank the BPM crew and everyone who put on the festival, we were very honored to play, and if anyone is left on the planet next year, I would definitely love to come back.

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