Calle Ocho, Cloudy Sky, Twenty-Six Degrees Of Retro

It started at 5:06 PM with Corona's synth stabs spilling out over Calle Ocho — 26 degrees, cloudy sky, Brickell and the I-95 already knotted with Sunday traffic. Pipo opened the Mixtape Power Hour with Feel It and A Deeper Love back-to-back, the kind of one-two that doesn't ask permission. By the time Masterboy and Xpansions hit, he'd turned the mic into a quiz show: which Miami label first pressed a house record, and when? The hint was Alston. Most guessed TK. Most guessed wrong.

The answer came at 6:17 PM over DJ Jean's The Launch — Alston Records, 1986, the missing link between Miami Bass and what came after. Thirty-one guesses, eight correct, Miguel T. first on Facebook. From there the hour tilted European: Yves Deruyter's Belgian bass, the Rotterdam cartoon-pop of Vengaboys, Lexy & K-Paul sliding into The Source like someone easing off the brake.

Dance Explosion took over at 7:05 PM and the light outside started thinning. Bizarre Inc, La Bouche, Koala's Planet Blue while the sun dropped behind the clouds. Café Del Mar at 7:33 PM was the only pause the set allowed itself — a breath before WINK cracked the room back open with Higher State Of Consciousness, and Alex Party and Urban Cookie Collective closed the block with the windows rattling.

Retro Club Classics carried the last forty minutes. Snap!, Nightcrawlers, Inner City's Big Fun landing like a question — where were you in '88? Deee-Lite, Gala, Pearl River at 8:50 PM with its three-kid groove that won't let your head sit still. Mr. Vain at 8:54 PM, smoke-room nostalgia at 28 degrees, and the time machine powered down at nine sharp.