Welcome to a brand new year. Some things may change over the next 12 months and some might remain the same. Now, other sites are filled at this time of year with predictions of who will become big in 2022 and so on. But not here. Instead, here’s Part 1 of my more light-hearted (and altogether less likely) predictions for what the next 365 days have in store…
In January, rumours will start to eminate from Detroit that Derrick May has spent the last few years producing an album and is about to release it. The dance music press will fawn over it – ignoring the sex abuse claims, Erick Morillo style – until a reliable Detroit source informs me it’s nonsense. I then subsequently publish this news, whilst the press ignore it and refuse to correct their mistake.
February will start with a crunch meeting at Defected’s London HQ. Simon Dunmore will launch into an angry tirade about the Jesus Loves UK Garage shirts they’ve been unable to sell, with Sam Divine interjecting they’ve been giving her nightmares. Dunmore’s generals will put forward a theory they’re cursed, but Dunmore won’t have any of it. Elsewhere, I’ll get an email about the farting DJ and Terrence Parker will end up in front of someone who he owes money to.
In March, Carl Craig will mysteriously come across yet another batch of old DATs and floppy disks which will contain parts for some track he did in the early 90s. He’ll then announce another remix competition instead of paying a few people to do the job. This blog will also probably receive more news about the DJ who can’t stop farting and ponder whether readers are getting bored of hearing about him yet.
With April likely to be the first full month of the festival season, Yousef will be telling us how brilliant everything is, the thin-skinned duo CamelPhat will be complaining because someone said something about them that wasn’t very nice – and news will come out of another highly lucrative Saudi Arabian gig that nearly all of the usual business techno DJs will be on. And expect someone to have not learned from Jeff Mills what happens when you defend taking Arab money.
May will see Defected reducing the price of their Jesus Loves UK Garage shirts being cut to 50p and Sam Divine personally hand delivering them in an effort to finally get rid of them. Elsewhere, DJ Sneak will say something which gets him into yet another row about who is the biggest OG, and Danny Rampling will continue to insist he was right on the pandemic all along – even though he wasn’t.
Someone will come up with the bright idea of holding an outdoor festival in London during June. Inevitably, it’ll rain through the whole three days and the organisers will feign surprise at the British weather. Sterling Void will announce his mother has died for the third time, Low Steppa will tour Birmingham with Mixmag to tell them about his favourite roads in the city, and the farting DJ will get in touch to offer me an interview in exchange for no longer writing about him.
Which I’ll obviously decline.
What does the second half of 2022 probably not have in store? Part two of this series is out tomorrow…