Erick Morillo—an underground
icon known for grinding out
club gig after club gig and often
playing slow-burning, uncom-
promising sets that last until well
after sunrise—did something
rare recently. He took some time
off to clear his head.
"I took a big long break," he
says. "I stopped playing
September of last year and came
back in May. I missed it so
much. I kind of refound my love
for deejaying again."
So he showed up at Space in
Miami and played for 11½ hours.
And with his monthly residency
at the nightclub LiFE in the new
SLS Las Vegas, where he
deejayed the August 23 grand
opening, he's willing to make his
sets as lengthy as the crowds want.
"I don't care—I can go as long
as they want to go," says Morillo,
whose stamina has improved
since he went completely sober
more than six months ago. "I'm
doing what I do." What he does,
and what he became famous
doing at clubs like Tao in
Venetian, where regulars knew
they could show up at 7
am for a
Morillo gig and still have hours of
partying ahead, is play dark,
sultry sets that happily ignore
the pop-laden beats of commer-
cial DJs remixing No. 1 songs.
"I'm playing rough and
tough underground music with
some vocals here and there,"
Morillo says. "I know how to
straddle both worlds, keep it
sexy and underground. I don't
have to play hit record after hit
record. That's not my job. I'm
going to be the alternative to
everything else in Vegas. This
is the sexy move right now."
See you at 9
am.
slslasvegas.com
The MaraThon Man
Erick Morillo
courtesy
of
erick
morillo,
mark
owens
(opposite)
