Zemixx: 999 weeks in Joachim Garraud's saucer

Article based on the full text of the book "I Love My DJ Life" by Joachim Garraud (available for purchase on the official store), supplemented by web sources; sources are linked throughout the text.

“Thank you to everyone who followed these episodes and allowed me to exist as an artist!” — Joachim Garraud

For twenty years, every week, a sixty-minute mix descended from the sky like a signal from elsewhere. It was called Zemixx, it brought together an entire community of "Space Invaders," it introduced an entire generation to electronic music — and it concluded at episode 999, celebrated on January 25, 2025, with Joachim Garraud preferring to stop at 999 rather than reach the 1000th episode. A look back at a unique media object, recounted from the inside in the memoir "I Love My DJ Life" (528 pages, 590 QR codes, "Geek Zone" online updated monthly with archives).

2005: the birth of the first French music podcast

Zemixx first existed as a weekly mix on Radio FG at the beginning of 2005. Its name was suggested to Joachim Garraud by Eric André, alias DJ Buzz; the final "2X" is a tribute to Maxximum, the legendary 90s techno radio station where Garraud had cut his teeth. On June 28, 2005, Apple integrated podcasts into iTunes 4.9; less than thirty days later, on July 23, 2005, Renaud Guérin uploaded the "Zemixx" podcast version. Garraud became the first French musical reference available on iTunes France, and the program immediately settled into the number one spot in the rankings, ahead of RTL, France Inter, and all professional media — a hegemony that would last 18 months.

The phenomenon was so unprecedented that TF1's 8 p.m. news, presented by Claire Chazal, devoted a report to it in 2006: journalists did not understand how a simple DJ could dominate French podcasts (Radio FG, Prysm Radio). Fans subscribed en masse via iTunes and its Music Store, as evidenced by the blogs of the era (Skyrock, 2005-2006, official forum).

The innovation did not stop at sound. Apple recommended attaching cover art to the episodes; since Garraud mostly broadcast bootlegs, remixes, and white labels without official visuals, he turned the constraint around: Zemixx "covers" became photos of fans wearing Space Invaders T-shirts. The call "Send your photo!" received up to 500 snapshots per week, and more than 30,000 photos in total over the program's history — a form of social network ahead of its time, fifteen years before Instagram.

The saucer: a community, a forum, an infernal selection

The joachimgarraud.com forum orbited the podcast, serving as a true HQ for enthusiasts: they exchanged plug-ins, production advice, and bootlegs there. Artists who are famous today met there — Arno Cost and Norman Doray, Arias, Tristan Garner, Klosman, Mosimann, Sébastien Drums… For many, "being playlisted in a Zemixx episode represented, for us young producers, a true seal of quality," summarizes Sébastien Drums.

Behind the scenes, the musical sorting was a war machine: as the podcast grew, Garraud received up to 200 new releases per day — meaning 1,000 to 1,500 tracks per week, promos, remixes, mashups, bootlegs. He managed this flow alone from 2005; from 2010 on, Franck Dubasque would pre-listen and reduce it to about thirty tracks, from which Garraud extracted the final mix — each episode contained at least two or three unreleased tracks that had never been aired. The jingles, recorded with voice actors Patrick Kuban and Aurore Leblanc, recycled excerpts from French dubs of old American science-fiction films, a nod to the legendary NRJ Club show: "Please wipe your feet before boarding the Zemixx saucer!"

Legendary anecdote: on September 25, 2005, for his birthday (the 27th) and the milestone of 1,000 forum subscribers, Garraud organized a secret party (access via a 40-question quiz, address sent by text message the same day, phones left at the cloakroom). Eight DJs shared the decks for 200 people: DJ Ralph, Antonin, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, Steve Angello, Eric Prydz, David Guetta… and Joachim. The future Swedish House Mafia at a private party of 200 people: twenty years later, witnesses still say "I was there!" without being believed.

The big milestones: every hundred, its anniversary

Every hundred episodes was celebrated with a unique event (Radio FG, Prysm Radio):

Episode 999 itself felt like a controlled disaster movie: the flooding Seine almost prevented any navigation that day, rain threatened the party, and Garraud had been wavering for more than a year and a half between continuing toward the 1000th episode or "mastering the ending." He chose the end: "the fragmentation of the Zemixx audience was a signal." The photos from the evening were intended to be compiled in an album sold for the benefit of the Association for Research on Kidney Cancer, in memory of Fred Rister. The final episode, "the last Zemixx," was published on February 13, 2025, on platforms (Apple Podcasts, 1001tracklists).

The artists: who took off thanks to Zemixx

Zemixx served as a launchpad for an entire generation. According to Radio FG, the program broadcast artists for the first time in France who went on to become global stars: Steve Angello, Eric Prydz, Axwell, and Sebastian Ingrosso — the Swedish House Mafia, whose name was reportedly coined by Joachim Garraud himself in 2005 —, but also Arno Cost, Norman Doray, David Guetta, Laidback Luke, Avicii, Chuckie, Alesso, and more recently Skrillex, Steve Aoki, Corvad, or Fred again..

In the book, the testimonies converge: Tristan Garner and Norman Doray describe Zemixx as the soundtrack of their beginnings; Mosimann listened to it between rehearsals for Star Academy 2008; Feder drew "powerful transitions, exclusives you couldn't hear anywhere else" from it; Lost Frequencies, as a teenager, learned production by watching Garraud's video podcasts and his live keytar version of "Café del Mar"; Sébastien Benett (future iTunes number 1) retains the memory of the daily ranking against "the true institution" that was Zemixx. Guests at the big parties: DJ Sender (Ukraine), Dabruck & Klein (Germany), Dada Life (Sweden), Tujamo (Germany), Lost Frequencies (Belgium), Vitalic (France), and Laidback Luke (Netherlands) all marked the podcast's milestones.

The 999 episodes in statistics

The complete list of the 999 episodes is reproduced in the book ("999 Zemixx, 999 non-stop weeks"). Its titles tell twenty years of history — here is what they say.

The program in figures:

• 999 non-stop weekly episodes: "twenty years of a weekly program," according to the book (999 weeks ≈ 19 years of uploads)

• 60 minutes of mix per episode: nearly 1,000 hours of music in total, or more than 41 days of non-stop listening

• 1,000 to 1,500 tracks received per week (up to 200 per day), reduced to about thirty pre-selected ones, then 2 to 3 exclusives per episode

• 30,000 fan photos received (up to 500 per week) to illustrate the episodes

• 18 consecutive months at the top of the iTunes France ranking

• Episode 100 lasted 4 hours live; 999 was a ten-hour live set (the party ran from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.)

The map of the cosmos in the titles (occurrences counted on the complete list of titles):

• The phrase "we love..." (we love ufo, we love techno, we love robots, we love humans…) appears 22 times: a community manifesto in itself.

• "I love my dj life" was an episode title three times (no. 304, 331, and 569) — the book's future title was already in orbit.

• Episodes 1 to 50, with the exception of no. 41 ("special summer sunshine," the first official title), never had a title.

• Some titles chronicle the eras: "this ipod is mine" (no. 96), "750-stay home" during lockdown (May 2020, according to the weekly calendar), "720-ich weine blut-hommage fred riester" in tribute to Fred Rister, "801-daft punk tribute," nos. 291 to 293 and 295 which count down toward the 300th episode, or the mysterious "152-0 950 728 880" — a ten-digit number as a title.

• The lot is multilingual: titles in French ("le chant des étoiles," no. 97; "passage en force," no. 934), in German ("gute reise," "alles muss raus," "heute nacht"), in Spanish ("hace mucho calor en el platillo"), up to the quadrilingual "489-bienvenue willkommen welcome bienvenido."

• Curiosities from the list printed in the book: numbers 163 and 949 do not appear, 738 appears twice (typo "all around / all arround"), episode 300 was split into 4 parts, and a 499b "souviens toi en live" is inserted as a bonus.

Epilogue: the chosen end, and what comes next

Announced on October 9, 2024 (“The end for Zemixx, the oldest French podcast”; ticket sales opened October 10 at 10:10 a.m.), the final episode brought together on the riverboat DJs who arrived “with a USB stick in their pocket containing a few tracks,” with half the guests being DJs themselves — “the rest will be pure magic,” Garraud promised (Radio FG, Prysm Radio, Guettapen). “It is an honor to have been able to support this generation of artists and to have shared this adventure with so many passionate people,” he summarizes.

The adventure doesn't quite end: the episodes remain available for replay on platforms (Apple Podcasts, podCloud, episode 1 visible on YouTube), and the flying saucer has landed on the “Zemixx Arcade” page of the official website, now displayed as “Zemixx Radio” (joachimgarraud.com). As for the book “I Love My DJ Life,” born from the initial project of a simple photo album for Zemixx 999, it has become the complete archive of this history (Le Petit Journal).

In both iTunes chart archives and forums, listener reviews summarize two decades of loyalty: “Zemixx for such a long time, I never get tired of it”; “I’ve followed Zemixx since the very first one, and being close to the 800th is just huge” (iTunes listener reviews via chartoo). 999 weeks later, the final bell has rung — but as was said in no. 549, “no, a star never dies.”

Sources

Main source

• “I Love My DJ Life,” Joachim Garraud (Square Rivoli Publishing, 3rd edition, 2026) — available for purchase on the official shop.joachimgarraud.com store. Main source for the article: anecdotes, testimonials, complete list of the 999 episodes, production figures. The book: 528 pages, 590 QR codes, online Geek Zone.

Press and media

• Radio FG — Final bow for ZEMIXX (October 9, 2024)

• Radio FG — Zemixx 999 at River's King (January 25, 2025)

• Radio FG — Joachim Garraud celebrates Zemixx no. 600 (April 12, 2017)

• Radio FG — Joachim Garraud celebrates the 900th edition of Zemixx (March 2, 2023)

• Prysm Radio — The ZeMixx show will not reach 1,000 episodes

• Guettapen — ZEMIXX, the famous Joachim Garraud podcast, takes its final bow

• Le Petit Journal — Joachim Garraud, the UFO of the electro scene

Platforms and archives

• Apple Podcasts — ZeMIXX by Joachim Garraud (all 999 episodes, 4.9/5 rating)

• podCloud — ZeMIXX

• Mixcloud — Zemixx 800 “15 Years”

• Dailymotion — Zemixx 800 Happy Birthday @ FG

• YouTube — Zemixx #01

• 1001tracklists — ZeMIXX 999 (The Last), River's King, Paris, January 25, 2025

• joachimgarraud.com — Zemixx Arcade / Zemixx Radio

• Shotgun — Zemixx 999, Paris (ticketing)

• TikTok Joachim Garraud — Zemixx 999 announcement (flagship, 4th arrondissement, 8 p.m.–6 a.m.)

Period archives (2005–2006)

• Skyrock — fan blog “.::ZeMixx::.” (discovery of the podcast, December 2005)

• Official Joachim Garraud Forum — FAQ “How to listen to the ZEMIXX Podcast and SEE the Photos?” (December 2005)

• chartoo — iTunes France listener reviews

• Agence WATO — Zemixx 600 teaser (2017)