So whilst Ears To The House was on something of an enforced hiatus, the controversial MDL Beast Soundstorm festival announced much of their lineup for 2022. Most of the lineup isn’t remotely surprising – names such as Carl Cox, David Guetta, human diazepam Solomun and Adam Beyer would frankly appear anywhere if the money offered is right.

But more of a revelation to us was the absence of one particular name. Regular readers might recall that Jeff Mills came under heavy criticism from this site and elsewhere online over his appearance at the festival. Several others did, but he was the only one moved to comment on the situation – and to say he messed it up was quite the understatement.

Mills initially defended his own appearance on a Facebook post by self-declared baron of techno Dave Clarke. After that thread’s comments section got quite animated, Clarke deleted it and Mills moved his explanation to his own page – where he implied those complaining were actually jealous of his massive salary for doing the event – which we understood to be around $100,000.

He subsequently received another pasting from his own followers and deleted everything. Isn’t it lucky that no one took screenshots at the time?

Anyway, we noticed he’s not on the billing for this year – and we can’t help but wonder why. Was it because of his utterly pathetic attempt to defend himself last year? After all, DJs like Carl Cox were also criticised and said nothing in response – and they’re still on the lineup.

Two sources in Detroit claim that his botched explanation is linked to his non-appearance this time round. One said “Jeff was pretty wounded by the criticism the last time round. He’s one of the good guys in Detroit and really didn’t expect his fans to take the news of his appearance so badly. He was really taken aback at the bad response when he tried to defend himself that it’s put him off doing it again.”.

And another said “I don’t know if he was asked back, but I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t have been. His set was well received. I was in Dubai and saw it. It was great, he enjoyed being there and he got paid very well, but I know the criticism online did get to him. He’s just not used to that kind of thing.”.

Those attending MDL Beast Soundstorm festival get to listen to the likes of Solomun instead. That’ll be fun for them…