Kat Says: “Friendship is the Best Ship”
Inside Friendship 2024, where decades of dedication turned into a surprise Dog Blood reunion.
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Hey Friends,
I saw a meme the other day that said something like “whatever happened to the Bermuda Triangle? In the ‘90s, we were so concerned, now it’s just whatever.”
As someone who recently spent five days and nights lost in a nocturnal whirlpool of sound and liminal space, I would like to submit that the Bermuda Triangle has not disappeared so much as it has shifted to the left.
If you shake a couch cushion over the Gulf of Mexico just northwest of the coast of Belize, you might just find my brain, my lost earplugs and a few discarded nickels.
And how did I lose my mind (and earplugs) at sea? Why, by sailing the Norwegian Joy cruiseliner for Friendship 2024, of course.
How do I even begin to describe that week? Should I talk about Skrillex playing on the sands of a private island or the Dog Blood reunion that took even the cruise’s spiritual captain, Gary Richards, by surprise?
Should I talk of Nala and Marry Droppinz’ knee-breaking back-to-back in the Q lounge; or pro skaters dropping onto DIY ramps from the second-floor railing of the main deck while Mr. Carmack rinsed the Bobby Shmurda parody “Gay N****” by Lil Allah (found it on Soundcloud, lol wtffff)?
Would you like to hear of ‘90s house icon Todd Edwards playing catch-the-rubber-ducky with dancing fans in the theater while singing along to his Daft Punk collab “Face to Face;” or how Dr. Fresch and Bones threw down the hardest bloghouse set this side of 2008 in a dim and sweaty portside bar while some electro monk sat crosslegged, meditating not two feet from the speaker?
Oh, you just wanna watch the video of Destructo dropping the new Justice single “Generator” as the grand finale to his “classics” set alongside Jimmy of Bob Moses? I got you, Shipfam.
Further Reading: Inside the Magic of the Friendship Festival Cruise’s Maiden Voyage, Set to Return in 2020 (Billboard Dance, 2019)
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Friendship. A truly debaucherous congregation made of lost minds, good times and groovy souls; it’s the only place so many of these things can happen because everyone aboard—from the newbiest of fans to the headliner-est of the performers—is in awe of what it all means.
To truly understand Friendship, you have to know about Holy Ship. To truly understand Holy Ship, you have to know HARD—and to truly know HARD, you have to know a bit about the HARDfather, DJ name Destructo, known to ShipFam as “dad,” aka Gary Richards.
Richards—who we will hereon break from journalistic tradition and refer to as “Gary,” because everyone does—is the motherfucking man with the motherfucking plan.
It all started when he threw a party called HARD on New Year’s Eve (which also happens to be his birthday) on the cusp of 2007-2008. At the time, it was an act of desperation. He was suddenly jobless and reverted to throwing parties as a means to support his new baby, but as electroclash icon Peaches counted down to midnight and handed the stage over to then-breakout stars Justice, something shifted.
It was the dawn of not just a new year but a new cultural watershed. It was the birth of bloghouse, the genesis of what would become EDM, and as HARD grew into not just one party but a series of events across the country, it was the beginning of a new era for dance festivals in the United States.
Gary had his finger on the pulse of the emerging movement. Just 10 months after that first HARD NYE, dude threw a Halloween party called HARD Haunted Mansion with a lineup that boasted Justice, Soulwax, Simian Mobile Disco, Boys Noize, Deadmau5, Crystal Castles, Crookers, DJ AM and more. Again, this was October of 2008. I mean, excuse my French, but what the fuck?
What makes Gary different from his peers is that he books the bill not with money in mind but with a nose for the culture. For him, it’s about moving the needle by mixing esteemed talent of the past with exciting names of the present and cutting-edge sounds of the future.
Just as cosmic dust swirling in the abyss of space gathers in gravitational clumps and grows to become a whole planet, HARD became a flag under which artists and devotees of the nascent indie-electro revolution could unite.
I know it sounds like I’m being biased or hyperbolic, but if I were the only person who felt this way, why did Bob Moses’ Jimmy Vallence grab the mic at the end of his B2B with Gary on the Norwegian Joy’s back deck to say this?
“ShipFam, I just wanna say, when I was a kid growing up in Vancouver, dance music wasn’t a big thing,” he said, a loop of Justice’s “Phantom Pt. II” blinking in the background. “I used to watch videos of HARD Fest and the acts that Gary used to bring on YouTube, and this song is a song that inspired Tom and I so much, so help me complete the circle. I just want to listen to this one tonight of you. Give it up for Gary!”
That moment in the mid-to-late 2000s was about the music, yes, but it was also about an energy (youthful and riotous), a style (skinny jeans and cool jackets), and an ethos (do it yourself, because no one is going to do it for you, and if you wait for someone else to do it, it will never happen).
It was a zeitgeist with massive depth, and thanks to early social media, it was reaching kids like me in Florida, Vallence in Canada, and other awakening music-lifers around the world.
HARD wasn’t the only brand guiding the bloghouse compass, but it was one of its truest ships in the night. It turned out to be one of the alt-aught brands with the most growing and staying power, too.
Further Reading: Hard Miami 2012 With Busy P, Boys Noize, and Destructo at Grand Central, March 22 (Miami New Times, 2012)
I remember going to HARD parties at Grand Central here in Miami during the Winter Music Conferences of the early 2010s. The lineups were incredible back then, but reading them today sounds like a fever dream.
Amtrac, Oliver, Destructo, Brodisnki, Busy P, Boys Noize and Gesaffelstein all on one small stage in one night? Yes. That happened, and I was there.
How about Boys Noize, Zeds Dead, RL Grime, Cashmere Cat, Tchami, Tourist, Branchez and Shift K3y in 2014? Yup yup, that was one night, too—and these aren’t even the flagship HARD events.
Each year, HARD was doing serious work booking multi-day events including HARD Summer and HARD Day of the Dead in Gary’s HQ of Los Angeles, but things were taken to a whole new nautical level when HARD debuted the first-ever Holy Ship in 2012.
I will admit I was not cool enough to be on the first Holy Ship, but I was cool enough to be friends with people who did. My Neon Liger family went aboard and came back screaming wild-eyed stories about Skrillex buying everyone shots at the bar as soon as they walked on the boat, Steve Aoki sitting next to them all night playing poker, and how fucking insane it was to watch Fatboy Slim DJ from inside a pirate ship while shaking ass on the sandy beaches of a private island in the Bahamas.
I didn’t even fucking go, and I watched the official recap video so many times I have the soundtrack committed to memory (shout out my friend Ricky who makes an appearance at 2:50!). So when Holy Ship announced Justice would be on the second sailing, I gave up the $250 reservation fee without a second thought (and I was very broke at the time! A recent college grad and struggling new journalist!).
That sailing was transformative, and not just because I fought stage security and won so Justice would sign my DIY “Stress” hoodie.
It was special because it was my first time experiencing what all of ShipFam knows to be true: that this boat is more than just a floating festival, but is in fact a temporary micro-community wherein electric nights bleed into idyllic days, and the stresses of late-stage Capitalism melt under the euphoric power of a few thousand music lovers dancing together under a starry sky.
I mean, really, who doesn’t wanna get fucked up on a giant cruise ship with their friends, shoveling free pizza slices and soft serve into their mouths while the coolest DJs in the world play headbanging sets from every ship surface flat enough to hold a pair of decks?
Holy Ship reigned for a glorious five years. In the meantime, Gary sold HARD to Live Nation where he continued to run the HARD show with more financial resources. Then, in 2017, it was announced that Gary and Live Nation were parting ways. As one Redditor so succinctly put it: “The real news is He is no longer Holy Ship.”
Capital-H “He” was quiet for a couple years, and then, in 2018, He started a new company called All My Friends, and The Friendship was born, mwahaha.
I hadn’t been on Holy Ship since 2015, but I did climb aboard the Maiden Voyage of Friendship to cover it for Billboard (here’s that story again). Some returning Shippers commented that the vibe of Holy Ship had changed over the past eight years, but that Friendship 2018 felt like a return to old glories.
It was definitely magical and surreal. It had the air of a secret society, like you just knew everyone aboard could be assumed a kindred spirit because you’d led a life that brought you all here.
We were all so dedicated to this sound, and even to the brand’s singular curator, that we would put our lives on hold and pay thousands of dollars (my 2018 press ticket was comped, but I paid to go as a civilian in 2020) to experience something that could simply not happen anywhere else in the world—like watching Busy P, Boys Noize, 2manydjs and Destructo go B2B in an overcrowded cruise cabin packed with some 50 or so music maniacs until the party overflowed into 12th-floor elevator deck.
My favorite thing about Friendship is the Dial-A-DJ parties. Cool people are gifted these little cards with a telephone number that says DJs are standing by. When you call that number, the operator gives you a date and time, and in that moment, a DJ from the lineup appears at your door with speakers, decks, lights and everything needed to throw a renegade DJ set right in your cabin.
During that first Friendship, my friend Zach interviewed Gary for Mixmag when he noticed the song playing over the Ship’s internal speaker system.
“Is that ‘The Great Gig In The Sky?’” Zach asked.
Gary admitted that it was, and said he’d made a mix of all Pink Floyd tracks to play over the loudspeakers. This year, the hallways of the Joy were bursting with ‘90s classics, bloghouse-era deep cuts and modern gems I know I’ve added to my Kat Scrawls playlist.
I’d stumble out of my room to grab six coffees at 2 p.m. and hear a song I hadn’t thought of in years that brought tears of nostalgia to my eyes. More than once, someone would stop what they were saying, cock their head and ask “do you hear what’s playing?”
I never once heard a repeated tune, and to know Gary spent however many hours putting that playlist together just so folks could stay locked the vibe in the subtlest manner possible? That’s the kind of minute magical touch that gives Friendship curatorial edge over the competition.
“In Gary We Trust” has long been an adage among ShipFam, and it’s because of small considerations like that, as well as big ones—like how he renegotiated his contract with Norwegian after folks complained in an after-ship survey that 2023’s Pearl cruiseliner was too small and featured too few hot tubs (only one?!).
Not only did Gary manuever a changeover to a bigger boat, he somehow convinced Norwegian to reroute the Joy, taking it to the resort island Harvest Caye off the coast of Belize just so he could throw an overnight rave and deliver his signature “Sunrise Sermon” DJ set—a fixture of ship programming since the Holy Ship days—not on the boat’s deck as in previous years but right there on the beach.
“They had to move all kinds of things around to get us to Belize,” Gary confirmed to me earlier this week. “Heavy lifting for the family. I chose that spot because it has lights and a dock. I always wanted the sunset and sunrise on the island. That was my inspo from back in the day.”
On the first Holy Ship, customers were excited by the intimacy offered between the fans and the artists themselves. As time goes on, however, its the relationship between the Shippers themselves that steals the show. Call it a cult of kindness, if you will, but folks in the ShipFam Facebook group often meet up for concerts in cities across the country, offering their couches and guest rooms to strangers because of the foundation of trust and likemindedness being fellow Shippers affords.
I myself have ShipFam friendships spanning years, and the chance to reconnect with familiar faces and meet even more would-be friends gives the week a sort of summer camp feel that’s as wholesome as it is exciting.
That community-centric vibe is highlighted even more on the fest’s official merch site, which features customer-designed robes, hoodies, tops, jerseys, hats, pashminas and more, all of which are labeled "for Fam by Fam" and credited by name to each creator.
As good as the lineups are, it’s that sense of unique community that keeps Shippers coming back year after year, despite the heavy investment of finances, PTO and overall energy.
Loyalty is rewarded on Friendship, too. Having sailed for four year now, this year saw Friendship’s first official “graduation ceremony.” A holdover tradition from Holy Ship, guests who have joined the festival for at least four years are invited to an exclusive party and gifted an enviable wearable. In the Holy Ship days, it was a blue cotton robe. This year? It was a sick Friendship bomber jacket.
My friend Ashley graduated this year. Everyone say ”Congrats, Ashley!”
All that love is mirrored between the artists themselves, and it’s encouraged by Gary from start to finish. As a guest of the team on this year’s sailing, I was privy to the kick-off meeting where Gary welcomes and orients the talent about the week ahead.
He encouraged everyone to crash each other’s sets and give fans exciting and unplanned back-to-backs. He told them to indulge and play things they’d usually not play for fear of alienating crowds, shouting out A Hundred Drums’ Psytrance set on the Friendzone main stage in the process.
Above all, he told everyone to let loose and have fun, because it’s his mission to make sure every DJ goes home as satisfied as the paying customers, therefore looking forward to next year—and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that.
The approach works. This year’s lineup was full of OG Shippers. DJ Craze, Rusko, Skrillex, Justin Martin and Boys Noize were all there for the first ever Holy Ship, and they came to throwdown in 2024 because they know what’s in store.
Come to think of it, there’s never been a Friendship without Boys Noize on the bill. He’s sort of become the boat’s musical mascot, DJing non-stop from sail away to final disembarkation, popping up on the main stage, the island party and even Dita Von Teese’s private Dial-A-DJ cabin rave.
This year, Boys Noize commemorated the relationship by bringing “Girl Crush” collaborator Rico Nasty aboard. The pair debuted a slew of new tracks together during his Friendship sets (Boys Noize told me they have enough collabs for a full project release, and an EP may be coming soon), and even filmed a music video for the songs during a Dial-A-DJ party.
But it was definitely the unplanned Dog Blood reunion—the duo’s first since 2019—that set this year’s Friendship on fire.
It was a huge coup just to have Skrillex play an intimate set on the private island, and he wasn’t really scheduled to appear boat-side at all. Gary of course had a room ready for the Grammy winner just in case and, inspired by the summer camp vibes, Skrilly climbed aboard with his friends and quickly prepped the Boys Noize B2B as an official Dog Blood-branded event.
I kept joking with my friend Jaime that their “Fine Day” collab was emerging as the unofficial theme song of Friendship 2024, so it was incredibly fitting.
“I'm only going to do it once,” Skrillex said, grabbing the mic after his breakneck set on the beach before handing the decks over to Gary for the Sunrise Sermon. “It’s late, its early, and we're going to have a good time and not get too sentimental, but we've got to give a round of applause for Gary, because he's really done a lot for this scene in a lot of ways. You guys already know. I’ve given this speech 10 times already but, we’ve got to give it up for Gary Richards, because he really means a lot to a lot of us. He's always bringing out the best new shit and making sure that all the friends, the ones that have been here since day one, are still together, so make some noise for Gary Richards.”
The crowd obliged, starting a chant of Gary’s name.
And on and on, ad nauseum, you get the fucking drift. What makes Friendship special is that everybody really, really cares. The love and attention to detail creates space for magical things to happen, things that just wouldn’t happen anywhere else.
That’s why I knew, of all the places I could be in the world, I was most likely to hear the then-unreleased Justice single aboard Friendship. I was anticipating it all week long. I thought Boys Noize might play it, but of course it was Gary fucking Richards, one of the last indepedent event producers in a sea of LiveNation and AEG conglomerate competitors.
Look. I have no insider information on this, and I am absolutely talking out of my ass, but if a certain rare duo decides to come aboard and take a hyper dramatic victory lap on Friendship 2025, don’t be too surprised. I, for one, would not. At this point, it’s par for the course.
Wow, did you read all that? If you did, you might just be ShipFam. Either way, I hope you learned something. Maybe I shed a little light on a good time, Idk.
Friendship already announced the dates for 2025 and opened early reservations for ShipFam. (Those who have previously sailed always get first dibs on new reservations). I’m not paid for this, but if you want to get on the waitlist, you can do so at thefriendship.com.
You know what I am paid for, though? This newsletter! But only if you decide to join the paid tier, thereby gaining access to extra goodies like the Kat Drawls podcast and whatever the heck I feel like sharing. Kat Scrawls and all of Super Kat World is currently a reader-supported venture. So please, look into your heart and consider joining the fam. 😘
What is Super Kat World? Well, I made an infomercial over the holiday break that helps explain it all. Enjoy :)
Alsooo
BIG NEWS! Kat Calls is officially making its way to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and whatever digital streaming platform carries your favorite programs :) I’ve got the first episode from April 2020 uploaded, a sweet lil chat with Droeloe, and more is coming in very soon. Go follow, listen, like, support—ALL THE THINGS!
While I was on Friendship 2024, my interview with the living legend DJ Craze finally published to Spin! We chatted about his most recent DJ routine clip, “Tablism.” which is itself a love letter to the artform that gave his life magic and meaning. He never holds back, so please enjoy the read. Perhaps I’ll release the full audio conversation as a Kat Drawls podcast. Would you be interested in that? Lmk!
Hot off the fucking presses! Last week, I spoke to David Guetta for the Grammy’s website and got the backstory on 10 of his biggest hits, including “Memories” with Kid Cudi, “Titanium” with Sia, “When Love Takes Over” with Kelly Rowland (which only happened because Kelly Rowland approached him mid-DJ set and was like ‘yo, can I sing on this beat?’ WTF?) and more! This just went live 15 minutes ago, and it’s actually really interesting. Please check it out 🙂
Absolutely Necessary
(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)
I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it's full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.
Here are this week’s five highlights:
Justice - “One Night/AllNight” Feat. Tame Impala
Omg, the way that I have been beside myself waiting to talk about this album with y’all. I can tell you right now, it might be the best Justice album yet. IDK! I am really thirsty for it to come out so I can chat about it with friends and fold the world’s perspective into my superfan bias lol. Yesterday offered the first taste of things to come, dropping this lead cut with Tame Impala as well as single B-side “Generator.” “One Night/All Night” is dark and disco-infused, while “Generator” is †-era crunchy af.
“We wanted this track to sound as if a dark/techno iteration of Justice had found a sample of a disco iteration of Kevin Parker,” the band says in a joint-statement in the official press release. “Kevin has a sense of melody that’s fascinating in the sense that he manages to write melodies that feel both simple and natural, but very peculiar at the same time. This song oscillates between pure electronic music and pure disco but you never really get the two at the same time. This very idea of switching instantly from a genre to another within a song runs through the whole record, and is maybe showcased the clearest in ‘One Night/All Night.’”
This is the official quote on “Generator:”
“To us, this one sounds like ‘Getaway’ by the Salsoul Orchestra, but with gabber and classic 90s hardcore techno sounds. Disco/funk and electronic music at large have always been core elements of the music we make as Justice. In Hyperdrama, we make them coexist, but not in a peaceful way. We like this idea of making them fight a bit for attention.”
Also fuck it, here’s what the “One Night/All Night” video director Anton Tammi has to say about the clip, which is itself a play on the official album artwork which IS NUTTY. “I suggested to them that what if we dive in? What if their music video was a journey inside the cross? I dreamed of creating a piece like this. A strange and experimental object that looks like rave lighting inside human lungs and strobe light around a human heart.”
Lol, /end Justice rant. Get ready for a year of Justice content from me. Sorry not sorry.
Yard Act - “We Make Hits”
Speaking of incredible albums set to release this year, my new favorite post-punk-revival-revival band, Yard Act (I detailed my discovery of this British band in my essay about music discovery in one’s 30s [it’s hard! Even for a pro like me!]). Now is a great time to join the Yard Act fandom, because the group’s second album Where’s My Utopia? is coming out March 1, and I heard the promo link and it’s sooo good I listened to it three times in one day! Enjoy this hilarious single about being unironic sell outs!
Mindchatter - “Brain Pills”
As a card-carrying Millennial hipster, I do enjoy irony so much. Mindchatter’s “Brain Pills” is an extremely funky and mildly mellow synth-pop jam that pokes a bit of fun at the producer’s depression, because we have to laugh to keep from crying, right? Right! This is a cut from his EP This Is A Reminder That You Are Not Behind Your Face, set for release on Foreign Family Collective next Friday, Feb. 2. Trying to get bro on Kat Calls when it comes back in March, so stay tuned!
Joy Orbison - “flight fm”
Yo, this bass BUMPS. This is a real face slappin’ brain melter right here. Watch your teeth because they might rattle out of your fuckin’ head. According to the press release, the English producer made this track while waiting for a lift to perform at last year’s Lost Village Festival, then played it after testing it through the car speakers. Daaaaaaamn. That’s crazy.
Fun fact: I interviewed Joy Orbison for Miami New Times last October, and I published the uncut conversation as the third Kat Drawls podcast in December. Synergy! I don’t even plan this shit, it just happens lol.
Lubelski - “Synth City”
Let’s round off this week’s list with an eight-minute synth-funk banger from my friend Lubelski. He dropped this tune as an ID during his set at Ultra Music Festival last March, and I lost my whole head in the crowd. Later, he told me the backstory of the tune—which you will absolutely get to hear yourself when I finish editing that interview video in the next week or two. Look, I’m a one-woman operation and shit takes me a while but it DOES get done o:-)
MKAY! Wow, this was a beast of a newsletter, and I hope you enjoyed it. S/O my unofficial sponsor, coffee, for helping make this episode a reality. More to come, as always. Next week, it’s a rant about the state of music journalism and a manifesto of what the job means to me. Hope to see you there. I love you, bye!
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!