What a madness again... Since last talking to you I've been back to the USA & to Japan - both for just 3 days. All for the love of Ninja Tunes 20th Aniversary. Japan was incredible. I played in Tokyo & Osaka - twice a night; once by myself and the other for the legend that is Roots Manuva. The shows were special but what was even more deep was Manuva's horse boots he rocked on stage.

LA was amazing too; Particularly the chicken & waffles from Roscoe's Chicken Waffles :

Also studio runnins have still been in full effect, i had a wicked day with Dave Okumu, of the wonderful the mercury prize nominated 'The Invisible', recently. Check what went on!

And lastly but never least, star of last months blog, David 'Ram Jam' Rodigan, was on my show last week. It truly was an honour to interview him. Listen back to hear him take over for 10 minutes in Toddla's Tea Time...

Easy!

It's been a while and I've just been to Amsterdam... Tulips, bikes, canals and clogs. Went with the Mrs and we had a lovely little break and the 'Dam is one of my favourite cities in Europe to hang out in. But of course I have been gigging as well and the best thing I've played in a while was the 10 years of Trueplayaz party at Fabric ... Good to hang out with Rider as haven't seen him for a while. Contrary to belief we are not joined to the hip!

Also on the bill were Andy C, Friction, Hype, Grooverider, Kenny Ken It was a big night & who's who of the D&B world! I need to give a big up to Fabric for representing Drum & Bass for this long.

One of my highlights was the mighty Spurs winning 3-1 to Inter Milan recently, but since then we've been on shocking form... come on Harry Houdini sort it out!

Headed to Manchester for a a gig in the D&B capital of the north and for once I wasn't late, but I only got a 15 minutes set because everything ran late! Gutted!!

Did you all enjoy Halloween? My daughter had a great time trick or treating! She got dressed up as a witch! When did Halloween become so big In the UK?! seems like we have jumped on the USA bandwagon! But hey more free sweets for me.

Twitter.. Got the game going somebody stop me.. Or follow me! @fabiodnb

Can't believe its November alreadddddyyy wish which means Christmas is just around the corner! On my list to Santa will be an I pad, new winter coat and Satsuma! (Plus a bag of coal for the Mrs!!)

Hopefully hitting Mumbai next month.. Never been to India before so should be Interesting! I always love visiting new countries to play shows and spread the word of D&B.

Best Tune: Slow Down - Dj Die & break
On an Urban tip - Far East Movement - Like A G6
Films: HAVE TO SEE Due Date... from the makers of the hangover! Plus the star of Due Date Robert Downey was in with Scott Mills the other week.
Best TV: Coronation Street - Very Sad about the passing of Jack Duckworth - I have been a corrie fan for many years! (I bet non of you knew that!)
Best Food: Japanese - noodles & tempura all the way!!

Hello my danceblog chums and chumettes... hope you've had a raving mental week and are polishing your dancing shoes for the weekend! If you stil happen to be up at 5am on Saturday morning make sure you check my show on the one and only BBC Radio 1. Amazing session from a young singer Misty Miller, the 2 Bears come out of the woods and drop in to the studio for a chat and we play records from all over the shop.

If you find some time over the weekend check out the documentary I did on Croatia. Some are calling it the next Ibiza but really its just a beautiful place to holiday and dance. Check the doc here.

In other news the Amsterdam Dance Event is fifteen years old in 2010 and, even though I didn't make it out, I've been following the goings on via Twitter. It seems its been one of the strongest conferences to date, I guess as dance music is at it's highest peak to date thanks to the work of Monsieur Guetta and the Swedish House Mafia in particular. ADE holds its own Golden Gnome Awards, with the inspirational Mystery Lands festival winning Best Festival and Richie Hawtin winning Best International DJ. A real highlight came for the Lifetime Achievement Award which was given to Detroit 25 - a collective celebration including Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen and many others. Except they didn't show up to collect their award! Elsewhere, a conference first when Todd Terry did a keynote interview from his hotel bed at the plush Dylan Hotel. And Richie Hawtin did a special session where he deciphered the Plastikman live show with his co-creator Jarrett Smith. A fascinating presentation, it included hilarious video footage of Hawtin from the last 15 years. And what about the parties? I hear Dubfire, Carl Craig and Global Communication (their return after reforming) was pretty flippin' special at the Air club. Cocoon hosted a big event at the Powerzone, and as Sven is in the middle of his annual detox, he was looking pretty refreshed. He revealed that next year is his 30th Year in DJ-ing, so expect some big moves from him next year with special releases and I hear special US festival appearances for the first time. A big year in 2011 for anniversaries as me old Radio 1 mucker Pete Tong is celebrating 20 years on BBC Radio 1. 20 years? I've got some work to do yet until I reach his legendary radio status. Anyway keep listening and happy raving!

Rob da Bank

I was sent a cheeky bootleg this week that really got me thinking about how established the music scene I'm involved in is these days!! The track was a remix of an old hardcore tune I remember loving when I was doing my paper round and on checking the date it was 15 years ago! Not only did this make me feel old at 28, it also struck me that many people out raving to this track today would have barely been out of nappies when the original was released!

Its crazy to think tracks like Prodigy's "Out of Space" are almost 20 years old, and sound as fresh today! Back in '92, when this was released, it would have been unheard of to play a 20 year old track to 20 year old party goes, yet I regularly do this now, week in, week out, and not only does it go off, everyone in the rave knows every word to the track!! I think this just goes to show the longevity of the music that can be perceived as 'novelty' by a lot of people. This proves it's very much here to stay :)

Kutski

Hiya...

For me, the past ten days has literally been a case of left right and centre (or should I spell it center, as part of my trip was to the United States). Looking at a map, the left was a gig at the huge and legendary Monster Massive festival in Los Angeles, the right was a gig in Dubai, and the centre was a number of shows over the Halloween weekend in the UK.

First - Monster Massive festival in Los Angeles, USA.
I finished my Radio 1 show at 1am on Friday night/Saturday morning 22nd Oct, played the Ministry til 4.30am, and was at Heathrow for LA at 10am the following morning. Leona Lewis was sat nearby on my flight. I was sorely tempted to give her a CD of my bootleg of her Stop Crying Your Heart Out, produced earlier in the year, but I'm not sure how much she knows about mash-ups and booties.

On arrival into LA there wasnt much time to spare, as we rented a car and headed straight for our hotel on the Beverly Hills/West Hollywood border. We arrived at the hotel around 6pm but there was little time to rest, as I had to head straight out to the gig with my US tour manager AJ.

Following a tragedy that occurred earlier in the summer, all Southern Californian festivals now have have a 2am curfew, meaning that I played a relatively early set (8-9.30pm). However, my outdoor arena (one of five arenas in total) was very packed from the word go.

Marcus Schossow was also playing this arena, as was Gareth Emery. Backstage, I was given my very own Hollywood-style mobile home Winnebago dressing room, and for as long as my jetlag permitted, we had our own little party in there with some friends. As you can imagine, I was absolutely exhausted from the long flight and immediate DJing.

Back at the hotel, the minute my head hit the pillow I was fast asleep. I was in bed by around midnight, allowing me to head to Ye Old Kings Head English pub in Santa Monica to watch Man City v Arsenal live the following morning. Great result.

LA is my favourite US city, so I spent five days relaxing there, before returning to the UK to play four gigs over the Halloween weekend, in Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Birmingham and Edinburgh. I've been playing in the US for all the other Halloween weekends over the past decade, and in that time I didnt realise just how much more seriously the folk back home take dressing up for the occasion. It was a spooky experience. I contemplated fancy dress myself, but trying to mix through a Halloween mask would have proven too difficult.

My next outing was to Dubai on Thursday 4th November. In many Islamic countries, the weekend falls on Friday and Saturday, therefore Thursday night is equivalent to a Friday night in the West. For this reason, I have forthcoming Thursday night appearances in Egypt and Jordan, in addition to a recent Abu Dhabi show, and my visit to Dubai.

Any gig in Dubai is inevitably to a largely ex-pat crowd, as indigenous United Arab Emirates residents make up only a relatively small percentage of the population. I was lucky enough to play in the huge and partially outdoor Chi @ The Lodge, which (as a venue) wouldn't feel out of place in Ibiza. Although drinking of alcohol is permitted in hotels and clubs, as a DJ (and therefore an employee) it's illegal to drink, meaning that I watched my friends drinking whilst I couldnt behind the decks.

Although, like the rest of the world, the Dubai economy has slowed a lot of late, it still seems to have more cranes and more buildings under construction than anywhere else Ive been, and over the 8-10 years Ive been visiting, the 24 hour speed of building construction leaves European builders far behind. They constructed their entire subway network in under two years.

Oh... And of course there's sun. Dubai must have well over 350 sunny days per year, never dipping below 20c, even at night. So you can safely pack your shorts.

Then when I got home on Friday there was a smouldering pile of new tunes waiting for me, which you can hear the best of on my show from Friday night... Great tunes and Armin van Buuren & Chuckie on the show. If you missed it, listen again right here.

I wanted this mix to be something that would stand the test of time, that wasn't just a snapshot of 2010 but something that covered a lot broader time period. There are a bunch of edits or I guess "mashups" as some call them that I've done, as well as a lot of unreleased material, including one unreleased track of mine. Generally when I play out live I play a lot more of my own tracks, but I didn't want to do that here as people can hear those any time they want. I wanted to give exposure to stuff people haven't heard before and really create something diverse.
You can check out my mix in it mini form below.

Let me know what you think to my mix below.
Wolfgang

This weekend's Essential Mix came from Berlin's first lady of minimal, Magda from Minus records. If you missed it, here's a flavour of her two hour mix in just under two minutes..! And you can still hear the full version here. If you heard the mix, let us know what you think of it in the comments below. Huw