Wewe

Crosstown Rebels have announced plans for Day Zero, a 24-hour party taking place in Mexico on December 21st, 2012.

The event is timed to coincide with what the Mayans believed to be the end of the current "World Age"—that is, the cosmically significant occurrence at the center of the 2012 theories. Many people describe this event as some kind of apocalypse, but Crosstown Rebels boss DamianLazarus assures us that "it’s more of a new beginning—the beginning of a new chapter." Day Zero is a celebration of this transition. It's taking place among the temples at a never-before-used Mayan theme park in Playa Del Carmen. The party starts 6:00 PM on December 20th and ends at 6:11 PM on December 21st—the exact moment this cosmic shift is expected to take place.

The lineup is a unique mix ofcore Crosstown artists (Lazarus, Jamie Jones, Art Department, Subb-an, Amirali, Infinity Ink, Fur Coat, Francesca Lombardo), friends of the family (Acid Pauli, Maayan Nidam, Thugfucker, Metrika, Matias Aguayo) and a few interesting curveballs (3D of Massive Attack vs James Lavelle, Trentemøller and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs). There will be Mayan dancers and shamanic rituals, anticsprovided by Crystal Rebels and lots of crazy visuals (e.g. video-mapped floating pyramids).

Day Zero is meant to be the first in a series of special events around the world, though no plans exist yet for future editions. Last week we called up Lazarus in Ibiza (post-disco nap, pre-Paradise at DC10) for his side of the story:
How was Burning Man?

Incredible, it really is like no place on earth.The Rebel Heart—that is, the Crosstown Rebels and Robot Heart party on the Wednesday—it’s become something of a phenomenon. It’s just so intense, literally like partying on another planet. We had about three or four thousand people there for the party. We drive out to the Playa, deep into the desert and then everyone follows on their bikes. It’s just such a bizarre occurrence. You start a partysomewhere, then it starts moving and everyone starts following behind you, like all these art cars come and surround the party. I guess they kind of make a nightclub, if you like. It’s pretty special, man.

In a way that seems like a similar experience to what you’re trying to create with Day Zero. Would you say that’s true?

Burning Man offers up the experience for freedom of expression and Ithink this event will offer a similar platform. A chance to creatively open up and join with like minded people. We are in discussions with a couple of amazing art cars that we discovered at Burning Man this year about the possibility of them joining us in Mexico.

I should point out, though, that the actual venue that we have for Day Zero 
is like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my life: it’s anas-yet unopened to the public Mayan theme park, so it has three pyramids, two lakes, four swimming pools. It’s as good as being in the real thing. We are going to have the stage in front of the main pyramid, and we are working with an incredible visuals company. We are going to be video-mapping onto the pyramids, and we have a lot of incredible surprises that will be awaiting people for theevent. Basically the idea was to pull together the dream location, the dream lineup, dream partnerships, people that we love working with, to make this event something people have never seen before. It just kind of feels like the planets are aligning, and that’s exactly what is going to happen.

Can you give me an explanation of the significance of the date? What exactly is the context?

It’s thefirst time in 26,000 years that there will be a galactic alignment
of the planets. The Mayans foretold that this would be the end of a life cycle, and many people kind of see this as being the end of the world. Most people who have any kind of understanding of the relevance of this date would say it’s more of a new beginning—the beginning of a new chapter. I think that the date December 21st,...