Best Music Promoter

Will Linn

Blasthaus, www.blasthaus.com

In this entertainment-saturated world, in which you have 500 choices for your amusement dollar every day, it helps to have someone to guide you. Someone who will be a consistent source of quality; someone who will work hard to bring the known and the unknown quantities right to your doorstep. Someone like Blasthaus' Will Linn. For the past few years, Linn has been promoting electronic music events through the Blasthaus name (even running a short-lived club under that title in 2000). Of late, he's been attracting more and more important acts in the experimental dance-music scene, offering the absolute best in German ambient techno, U.K. grime (rap for Brits), and American microhouse, hosting shows at venues around town and at the Rx Gallery, which he co-founded with Monika Bernstein. Whether he's bringing big names like Fatboy Slim and Matthew Herbert stateside or uncovering young upstarts like M.I.A. and Dizzee Rascal, Linn has a nose for what's cool -- and what discerning dance fans need to check out.