As usual, John Digweed again did his New Year's Eve gig in Los Angeles. I didn't go and I'm glad I didn't because I'm too old for the masses of people that showed up to hear the entire line up at Together as One, including David Guetta, Sander Kleinenberg, Dubfire and Digweed. It just doesn't seem worth it when you want to see only one of the performers and they only end up playing a couple of hours. In addition, I've already seen Digweed on New Year's Eve in Los Angeles: for 9 hours, on his own and in a club way back in 2003. Thus, there's very little chance I'll see Digweed again on New Year's Eve unless a commensurate event surfaces in the next few years.

However, a few weeks before the last day of the decade, I noticed that Digweed was going to be headlining a few shows after the Los Angeles event, including Seattle on New Year's Day and Ruby Skye in San Francisco on the 2nd. It was then time to dust of the Digweed shoes and plan for a night out.

Since moving to the Bay Area from Manhattan in 2005, I've now had a chance to catch Digweed on three occasions and this third visit was by far the icing on the cake. My friends and I arrived at Ruby Skye around 11pm, found our reserved table on the second floor and enjoyed the sounds of the veteran Kazell. Like Jimmy Van M of the Twilo days, Kazell is an experienced opener who always establishes an excellent foundation from which Digweed can not only build upon but move in any direction he may see fit. Kazell's set was a good one and wrapped up around midnight. On came Digweed to a multitude of roars, cheers and rants. The night had officially began.

It was surprising how many vocals Digweed played in the first hour or so but soon after, the music got aggressive and then stayed aggressive almost the entire night. From about 2am until 4am, the music wasn't melodic and it wasn't housey nor was it minimal. The music was just god damn mesmerizing and absolutely insane. From recent remixes of classics like Saints and Sinners "Pushing Too Hard", Tone Depth's "Rumblefish", Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place" to the newly minted "Come Home" by Yousef, Digweed played at an astonishing high level and the San Franciscan crowd was all the more happier to urge him upward. On two separate occasions my friends and I thought the night might've been winding down and Digweed might transition into more disjointed sounds but we were wrong both times as Digweed incessantly hammered us with big room drama in the form of absolutely annihilating progressive house. To say the least it was a phenomenal night of music and one I was glad I got up for as my days of clubbing are indeed waning. I'm now convinced though that my limited nights out have to be worth it and the only way I can somewhat guarantee myself an excellent night out is to catch Digweed when he's in San Francisco. Uncompromising music leads to uncompromising nights out so I'll definitely be looking forward to Digweed's return to the west coast.

The Essential Mix of the year for 2008 went to Flying Lotus. I'm sure Steve Ellison deserves it because it's pretty hard to get that kind of recognition. However, to be honest, I haven't even heard the Flying Lotus mix because my favorite Essential Mix of 2008 was John Digweed's live set from Amnesia.

To me this Essential Mix displays to us all a little side of Digweed that we all know and love: peak time madness. There are indeed a few live Digweed sets that have found their way onto the net in the last 10 years that properly portray that middle-of-the-night chaos. Let's see, the first that comes to mind is the 4 year anniversary of Sasha and Digweed at Twilo set that was aired on Kiss 100 in April of 2001 (what a crazy night). The other is Digweed's 4 part Beirut set from Lebanon. But there aren't that many that really give the electronic head in Wisconsin a taste of what a Digweed night is really like, especially if you don't get a chance to see him live. So, it's even rarer when Digweed knows his set is being recorded and still lays down the law.

Digweed starts the set with the new Tom Middleton remix of Bedrock's "Forge", transitions perfectly through Guy J, On Spec and Gianlucca Motta and finally to what I consider a classic Depeche Mode mix. That's the Josh Wink Vocal Interpretation mix of "Freelove". It's a 6 or 7 year old track but I don't think Digweed chose it because he's necessarily in love with it but rather due to the fact that the track mixes flawlessly into Remute's "Condensated". "Condensated" is a seriously high flying tech-house track which only seems to get faster and more intense as it progresses. It's perfect music if you ask me. Digweed then takes us down a level with Christian Smith's superb "Flyertalk" before hammering Amnesia with Timo Maas' "Subtlelite". There's nothing subtle about Timo Maas latest addition. The track is a collage of hammering tech-house, lasers, congo drums and gnawing synths. The sequence between "Condensated", "Flyertalk" and "Subtlelite" is so damn good that it literally makes anyone with an ear for good mixing and track selection want to be instantly on the dancefloor. I can only imagine what Amnesia was like! The rest of the mix takes us downward but definitely does not lose the interest with a new mix of Mistress Barbara's "K-10" and Winona's "Without You".

Every once in awhile Digweed reminds us who's the king of peak time progressive house and this is certainly the case with his live set at Amnesia. The only thing better would've to been there in person. Alas, my Ibiza days are far from over.

It's time for a new beginning.  For those that followed electrophobic.com, you'll know it was once a site full of electronic music content surrounding the house/progressive house scene in New York and other destinations.  With time though, the site has gone the wayside as there wasn't enough content and not enough hands to push updates to the site.  In addition, the code-base just took too much time to maintain.  Rather than let all the musings disappear into the ether I thought we'd centralize them into a blog.  I can't promise it will be updated daily but stay tuned for a thought here or a thought there about what's going on in my electronica world.