It’s been nearly three years since HouseAddict.com was seriously active.  My gateway to the underground house music scene in Toronto, HouseAddict.com’s forums were a vicarious playground to what many Torontians enjoyed first hand every weekend.  There I lived in my tiny bungalo, surrounded by sod farms (google it) and horse ranches–country tunes belting out of the common Keswickian abode (yeah, I lived in Keswick), reading about places like The Guvernment, Footwork and the almighty Comfort Zone.

I started to participate in the forums a little, downloading the mixes that personas like irGO, Korhan and IllestOfAnnanas posted.  Later I learned that these were not just bedroom disc jockies playing around, but “actual” DJs active in the Toronto house music scene.

I remember one of my first ventures down south to Toronto clearly.  I saw a jpg in the HouseAddict.com event calendar for Roger Sanchez  (whose track “Turn On The Music” I was in love with), performing at This Is London.  The opener would be this dude named Nathan Barato.  Never heard of him.  I eagerly posted my attendance to the event on the thread.  I later saw several HouseAddict members congratulate IllestOfAnnanas on his gig, where he responded how psyched he was for the event.  The lightbulb went off and I realized that IllestOfAnnanas WAS Nathan Barato.  Bright of me, eh? I picked up his promo CD, Varao, from him at This Is London that night.  Since that day, Barato has easily become one of my favourite house DJs in the Toronto scene.  Oh yeah, Sanchez was good too. Heh.

Let me tell you that to us up here in the north, not steeped in the underground culture, the DJs, headliners, openers and all, had rock star status.  Their promo sets were the stuff of legends, being played late into the Keswickian night by a growing group of us in love with this newly discovered stuff called house music.

HouseAddict.com became my home and my digital connection to something amazing. The DJs posted alongside the fans.  The conversation was riveting, music-oriented, respectful and extremely insightful.  What an amazing compendium to have along side the actual Toronto underground house music scene.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end.  HouseAddict.com’s visits dropped and the traffic thinned out.  Maybe some key members grew out of partying.  Maybe the moderators weren’t the best at times.  Or maybe the shutting down of the download thread, containing thousands of megabytes of sweet house beats (dutifully maintained by DigitALL) was the final nail in the traffic coffin.  Who knows.  It really blew to see it go.

But here’s the important thing.  It was missed by so many for so long, that we had to bring it back.

We’ve gone minimal this time.  There’s no download list (who needs it, with things like SoundCloud these days?), there’s no forum (we don’t want the kids bitching and moaning on our site) and there’s definitely no drama or fluff.

So what’s HouseAddict bringing? – you might ask, with anticipation dancing upon your meagre mind?  Oh my friend, if you love house music as much as we do, you’re going to love the new HouseAddict.com.

We’re brining quality articles and posts with full commenting abilities – let’s get some REAL discussion going here.  Forget the forum posts about the latest Maury Povich show.  This is about HOUSE MUSIC.  Got something to share?  Comment on the articles, submit your own, do it now!  This shit is dope and we want to talk about it.

We’ll post some wicked links to sets you just GOTTA hear.

We’re bringing wicked bookings to Toronto PICKED by you guys!  That’s right.  HouseAddict.com has already started booking some top notch, banging sounds in Toronto and we’re targeting 2011 hardcore.  Instead of bringing “headliners” to town and then getting every promoter on the block to spam you via facebook until you’re ready to smash your monitor over Mark Zuckerberg’s head, we’re going to poll all HouseAddict.com members about who THEY want to hear – and then bring them to town!  That tactic is so brilliant, I wish I had thought of it.

We’re going to post lots of pictures of sexy naked chicks wrapped in audio equipment to make it relevant and intriguing!  Ok.  Not really.  Well, maybe sometimes.

So I bid you a warm welcome to the new HouseAddict.com.  There, you’re not a guest anymore, you are part of the family.  So get yourself a drink, put some sick beats on and let’s talk about house music.

Some Canadian tunage for y’all:

[soundcloud params=”auto_play=false&show_comments=false”]http://soundcloud.com/mark-oliver-music/mark-oliver-guest-mix-that-appeared-on-glenn-morrisons-sequence-radio-podcast-dec-2010[/soundcloud]

[soundcloud params=”auto_play=false&show_comments=false”]http://soundcloud.com/fresque/fresque-live-cz-nyd-2011[/soundcloud]

[soundcloud params=”auto_play=false&show_comments=false”]http://soundcloud.com/ovi_m/ovi-m-comfort-zone-nyd-2011[/soundcloud]

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