2008: shows of the year

And this year there’s a clear, but surprising winner:

You wouldn’t know it, but San Fran DJ John Howard is a very hard man to find a picture of.  He did, however, demolish the room at Hush last New Year’s Eve.  There were no fancy tricks, no black magic scratching, no laptops, and not even very many CDs, as I recall.  Just spectacularly lush house/disco, inch-perfect programming, great mixing, and wonderful flow.  It was a set to restore one’s faith in dance music – Larry Levan would have been proud, to say nothing of Ron Hardy.

Honorable mentions in store for:  Richie Hawtin, Heartthrob, James Zabiela, and Jamie Lidell.  Seems to be a good year for the letter J.