In many ways, it’s sad to see the modern day Mixmag – a shadow of its former self. Back in the magazine’s heyday in the 1990s, the publication had some guts and wasn’t afraid to occasionally ask difficult questions. Of course, when your magazine is led by a great, principled man like the recently deceased Dom Phillips, this wasn’t in doubt.

Today, Mixmag is the kind of publication which refuses to stand up for its own journalists. Just weeks ago, dance music press darling Annabel Ross was hired to write a piece for the magazine about Movement Electronic Festival in Detroit. Carl Craig found out about it, and was livid. As one of Derrick May’s friends who has publicly backed him over the past two years, he made an ultimatum.

The craven organisers at Movement refused to tell him to back down, and Ross was given the boot. Ears To The House sources in the dance music press say Mixmag did try to make representations on Ross’s behalf, but that nothing came of it. The magazine have never published any articles over the subject – and Mixmag, Carl Craig and Movement Detroit have all failed to deny the story.

These days, Mixmag wants an easy life – and their latest effort is a 12-minute puff piece posted on their YouTube channel and website all about how Sacha Lord’s The Warehouse Project is the greatest club in the history of the world. Or something along those lines…

It’s an interesting assertion, isn’t it? And yet in Sacha Lord’s own territory of Manchester, he and his club aren’t seen with anywhere near the same level of enthusiasm. Quite some years ago, we recall an incident where he tweeted an article about the demise of a number of clubs in the city.

When people started pointing out they believed he was partly responsible for this situation – not least through the Warehouse Project and other Sacha Lord enterprises using exclusivity clauses that bar acts from playing elsewhere in Manchester for a time before and after their gig – he suddenly went very quiet.

Your London bias is showing there, Mixmag…