Hey Mick

'You could have said no' and 'They dangled a carrott and you took a bite'........??????

How many times do I have to tell people the reasons why I went totally mental and wrote an e-mail of quotes they could use about hardstyle? It was nothing to do with a carrott.... absolutely nothing to do with 30 pieces of silver and nothing to do with anything for my own gain. You know that. Hardstyle was a word I really liked when I first heard it, a few months later Toby @ Cypher told me that Mixmag were on it, and I wanted it represented properly. I'll never know whether it did any good, but my whole feeling is that the main focus of the article was originally going to be Neo and their new 'hardstyle' music policy.

After I flipped and went out of my way to explain it properly to the jouno in an e-mail I was actually told the whole article was re-written from a different perspective. I can't say for sure what it was originally but I'm sure they had written it from the perspective of hardstyle is the new hardcore. Now, even though the article is completely musically wrong, it focuses on 'hardcore is the new hard dance'. Well, at least that must be better than 'hardstyle is the new hardcore'. If that's the case, I've done something right. I helped take the focus off hardstyle. Besides, there's absolutely no way I'm sitting on the fence when someone from the press writes a load of bullshit about my music.

Anyway, what's done is done. I know what I did was for the right reasons and you can throw the accusations about as much as you want, but at least I'll know in my heart that I tried to do something positive for our scene. The fact with this one is that I didn't have the control over what was going on to steer it in the right direction. There is definitely a way you can manipulate the national press but you have to have total control over what's being said. Most times I've ever been interviewed in the press, I've had that control. That, I didn't have in this case.

PS Dirk would definitely have said more if he'd have known who Mixmag were... We need to be represented! That's why I did what I had to do! The fact that the only thing they used from my three paragraphs worth of quotes is a mish mashed made up sentence about hardcore is my own fault for not having control. All is not lost, but it's been a very very big lesson learnt for the future...