Dennis Ferrer headlines this year's list of nominations in the Grammy Awards' dance music and remixing categories. His remix of "Don't Believe in Love" by make-out music queen Dido on Arista Records is nominated for the Grammy for Best Remixed Recording (Non-Classical).

The actually Dance Music categories however (the so called "Field 2" of nominations) are dominated by the likes of David Guetta, Lady Gaga, LMFAO and - somehow - The Black Eyed Peas. Sadly, this continues the trend by which the Dance Music categories have become another way for major label pop artists to add another nomination to their belt, rather than honoring original productions in an exceptionally crowded Dance Music field.

The full results from Best Remixed Recording and the Dance Music categories are below.

When the Lord made Heaven He was happy. When the Lord made the platypus He was high. When the Lord made this 30+ page thread of Peven Everett's friend/protege/business partner hurling abuse from on high at the lowly people below... I hope the good Lord realizes He's made a huge mistake and sends a flood to bury it all.

I highly recommend checking this out. It has that certain talent for outrage that Richard Pryor refined in his comedy routine, of heightening anticipation by constantly topping himself, pushing it further and further beyond where you thought good taste would stop. Oh, she did not just threaten to sue a DJ who made an edit of one of her bossman's songs! She definitely didn't mean that. She'll definitely take it back in this next post when she... threatens a DJ for including a Peven song on a mix. Or when she somehow claims credit for building the House Music scene, then says it's dead and that she's moving back to London where true House Music lives.

Before you know it, it's a mass orgy. Or a riot. Or maybe both. I don't know anymore. The words sometimes come from Peven, sometimes from his friend/protege/business partner. And sometimes it sounds like a two year old bashing on a keyboard with a TeleTubbie.

It's hard to take this seriously. It's been my impression for awhile that Peven has never been comfortable as a "House Music artist". He said as much in an interview with 5 Mag more than three years ago. And the stories about a breakdown with Unified Records have been circulating for awhile too (Note that some posts from "StudioConfessionsEnt" have either been deleted or edited - including the ones in which "StudioConfessionsEnt" suggests that bringing heat in public will get their back invoices paid - but the originals are still contained in quotes from other posters. I have no evidence at all that the allegations are true. But the accusation is now in print and it's silly to pretend it's not out there.)

What I'm saying is that this has been a long time coming. The sentiments expressed here - fragmented, disjointed, twisted by seething resentment and bitterness and just plain old fucking bizarre - have been expressed before by Peven, more succinctly here:

"We have to take the House connotation off of [the music] because it cheapens it, quite frankly, to me. It cheapens it. I'm going to use that word. It's a very deadly word to use in this particular piece here, but it cheapens it. It doesn't make it worth what it really means to people like me.

"But the people who read this magazine, who actually care about the history of it, and who really want to know what really went down, what really went down is DJs have always played records. The House scene isn't made of DJs, it's made of the records they play. It's all for the DJ, but let's get off of that. Let's get more into who produced the record. If you DJ too, that's a good talent to have, it's not an easy thing to do. But it's about the record."

You know what? It took a certain set of balls to say that in the pages of a magazine zealously devoted to promoting soulful House Music. And those words have been out there in print since February 2006 and on the web since around March of the same year. If people didn't really want to believe them, I'm afraid that this will all come as a nasty surprise. That's what Peven thinks, and it's not a recent change-of-heart on his part.

That's the best that can be said. These posts? Highly inflammatory, hardly coherent, utterly futile. "Self destructive" comes to mind. And hopeless. Dennis Ferrer chimes into that clusterfuck of a thread somewhere around the 20 page mark. Pay attention to the last paragraph to see why:

This is such a small niche genre. Anything an artist can do to get his work noticed is a plus. If this means someone doing an edit of your work...so be it. I'm honored when someone thinks enough of a record of mine to edit it. If they think they can make it better..then ..Please..by all means do it!! In these modern times your records are now seen as business cards. There is not a whole lot of revenue to be made from sales. So whatever you can have done to expand your profile whether it's in a printable or audible format is a good thing. As your other forms of earning potential revenue depend on that. Long gone are the days of worrying. You just kinda keep it moving and you don't dwell. Doesn't mean someone won't catch a beatdown for booting an original. But a bootleg rmx? Fuk it....go and make me more money son!

This has to be one of the craziest things i've read. Woulda made sense in the early nineties where a different business model was being employed. Nowadays? Kinda like cutting off your own nose to spite ya face if you ask me.

UPDATE: It's still going on. Peven/Billie/StudioConfessionsEnt have started a whole new thread, apparently to paint a larger target on their big toe. Will someone call Comcast and beg them to take Peven Everett's internet away?

SECOND UPDATE: I've gotten a number of emails about this, a few of which contained links to even more incendiary comments from Peven's friend/protege/business partner accusing others of stealing Peven's music. I found more on my own. I'm not referring to the Pharrell Williams situation, which has been fairly well publicized, but accusations against individuals - solid people, all of them - in the House Music scene, not mentioned in any of the commentary I've seen about this. The fact is, as Dennis Ferrer mentioned in one of his posts, a lot of people are watching this with a whole different sort of shock and awe.

When Keith Richards first visited Chicago's legendary Chess Records in the early 1960s, he was greeted by a shocking sight. The Blues, which was the rage among British youth, was all but forgotten in the United States, and Muddy Waters was making ends meet by doing odd jobs around the Chess studios. "There was the King of the Blues, and he was painting the ceiling."

Europe has gone through an infatuation with Chicago House as well as Chicago Blues, but you never know where the seeds thrown about will land or what kind of creation will sprout. Case in point: South Africa. House Music is undergoing a renaissance in a place all but forgotten by American artists and audiences. It doesn't sound exactly like something that fell off the Cajual or Strictly Rhythm delivery truck - just like no one would confuse a Rolling Stones record with Muddy Waters - but this is natural as South African producers and DJs have added their own cultural influences and vibes. And some of this is, in the words of Dr. Bob Jones, so soulful it hurts...

Today's cutting edge American producers, however, are starting to notice. Here's a short clip of Dennis Ferrer's remix of Zonke's track "Ekhaya" on Kalawa Jazmee Records:

The music press in Europe and the United States has been slow to acknowledge South Africa's new generation of House artists, though a few (such as Black Coffee) are starting to break through. The local press however is full of interesting stories (ironically enough, many emerging South African producers and DJs began working in House Music after starting out in Hip-Hop and R&B, which is a reversal of how it's evolved in the United States). A story posted today in The South African, an expatriate paper for South Africans living abroad, features a short profile of DJ Qness:

Check out DJ Qness' hot new track "Uzongilinda" featuring vocalist Malehloka at his myspace page here.