New heat: open.spotify.com/album/1QMWA…

Added! open.spotify.com/playlist/1E…

Please, we are 129 years old #NoCutsToLibraries

Quite a few DJs who don’t follow me and I don’t follow either seem to have been triggered to repeat themselves here or defend something they said about Grimes earlier on their own feeds. I wasn’t addressing you, I really don’t know you. I must have seen 20 or more comments yesterday. With things like this it's addressing a general topic, it's really not about you. Maybe if you feel compelled to comment it might be fair on folk less rigorous than me to open with a disclaimer here that earlier you made a post about how Grimes shouldn’t be allowed to DJ? And my post above triggered you to make a rebuttal? I’m not a Grimes fan, I’ve no clue about her other than she was unfortunate enough to have married Musk and fortunate enough to have left with bulging pockets. But I understand she was a producer and DJ before this rather unlucky/lucky period of humongous and obscene wealth. Dunno how many of you have had to stand up in front of thousands rather than hundreds, but it is highly nerve-racking, especially with tons of other acts, dozens of staff and millions of things that could go wrong. It reminds of some years ago when a (female, sorry but it is very relevant) DJ colleague of mine was playing at the huge stage that Space Ibiza started to have in their car park at opening and closing. Despite being a veteran of some standing she went up to the decks and out of sight of almost everyone but me - a shambling VIP out of his mind staggered over the main power cable in the wings and pulled it out with his feet. The whole main stage went dead. This was early days of ‘forums’ and nerds still wrote letters to magazines. Within hours the narrative was that this legendary woman shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near electricity for fear her vagina would kill innocent bystanders. It was literally a free-for-all of furious man-children beating their brows and clutching their pearls that anyone would be let near the decks that ‘didn’t know how to use the kit’. She was literally DJing when they were in short pants. But this was all the ‘proof’ the nobheads needed. The message I took away from it was that the nerds were so pissed off it wasn’t them up there doing that gig, anything that went wrong was simply proof of the permanent and great injustice they constantly laboured under. I know this is a different scenario, I don’t need anyone else to explain to me how Grimes handled it terribly. I don’t need any more mansplainz about what happened, I’ve got eyes. Frankly if you have ever even come close to a cock-up at a mega event and especially one that makes it look like you don’t know what you are doing (especially if you do) it can end careers. It can crush you into dust. It’s what DJ nightmares are made of. No wonder she flipped out and said deranged nonsense. I’m a big steaming communist and I hate the rich, loathe that dubstep racket and I particularly think DJs are often really awful people, but despite these many prejudices my immediate reaction to seeing that clip of her was to feel sympathetically sick for her and cringe so hard I nearly snapped in two. Cos I’ve been there. Couple of times. Things go wrong a lot. Which is why so many of her peers do not DJ at all, they mime. And so many of her generation, including some huge and credible names, cannot DJ without sync either. Unlike a LOT of current DJs, she was actually up there to DJ. It might not be as achingly cool as your way of doing it, but she was still only doing what something like 80% of all current DJs do. Just seeing all the comments seemed to be saying an awful lot more about the commenters being superior beings calling her out than any actual concerns about showmanship or value for money. If some of you are livid about sync I’ve got some bad news for you, a lot more DJs than her, including I bet a few you love, all use sync and might very easily find themselves in a spot like hers. And you know what? I could cite a dozen situations that might be something that could happen to you and people could re-purpose as YOU not knowing what you are doing. Anyway, as many of you took such great pains to explain to me why I am wrong, the above is my considered rebuttal. Be nice for fucks sake. It’s not a case of ‘if’ one day that will be you up there being handed your arse, if you are around long enough it is a ‘when’. Count on it.