Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Back to Detroit (part 4 of a 3 part series)

Continuing on with our debate over Detroit - music/myth/origin - we now have a 4th part to our 3 part series. Cliff Thomas from the Submerge crew has provided us with a view from Detroit. Thanks to Cliff - and everyone in the comments sections - for contributing. To cap things off, later in the week the next ssg mx will be from a Detroit artist, Luke Hess. Anyway, now over to Cliff:

I don’t claim to be the “be all, end all” authority on everything Detroit Techno. In fact I wasn’t listening to it at the very beginning that much. But I do come from the Detroit area and I am an artist for Submerge Recordings and Wallshaker Music so I have access to a different perspective on the subject than most. I’m a member on some forums that tend to discuss this subject on a regular basis. On discogs forums my screen name is “sgt” where I run a forum on Detroit Techno called “It’s That Detroit Shit……”, on mnml.nl I tend to hang around the production forum mostly under the name “Torque” and in the techno world I produce music under the alias “The Plan” and “Thought Criminal”.

There are a few points that I’ve seen people try to make in this type of discussion that I take issue with. One of them being “Techno was created at the same time all over the place, so why does Detroit get all the credit?...” and “Techno would have happened somewhere else if it didn’t happen in Detroit”. Of course there are even more silly things than that I have heard stated but I’m going to save you an even longer read by just ranting on these two statements alone and I should be able to answer them both together. So let’s get started…..

People in Detroit in the beginning never had any interest in what the hell the music they made was called. It’s the press that took a statement by Juan Atkins back in the day to the effect “This is Techno Music” when he was asked to describe the music he was making and ran with it. I think for some reason people think techno just popped up in Detroit the same way it came to their city, with big parties and allot of hype. Back then there was no hype, it was just music. People like the Electrifying Mojo picked up on some of the local electronic stuff and thought it was funky so he played it on his radio show in Detroit which it seemed just about everybody listened to it and before long people wanted to hear it at the club and dance to it. Some people like to look exclusively at what was happening at legendary hangouts like Derrick May’s Music Institute where allot of great advances were made in the music. People tend to forget about the more humble places it was gaining ground like in the Cabaret parties in the neighborhoods all over Detroit where dj’s like Jeff Mills got their start. These places were allot more rowdy and dirty and were held in the lower class neighborhoods in Detroit. Not everybody that was involved was from Bellville and not everybody was middle class and absolutely nobody gave a crap what the music was called. These were places you would hear “Rock Lobster” from the b52’s played next to music by Juan Atkins, Kraftwerk, Parlaiment Funkadelic and house music from Chicago. Everybody would hang out, get drunk, jit and get into fights all in the name of having a proper night out in the D and maybe having a moment away from the hell that was going down on the streets and the people they knew that were not going to survive the Crack epidemic at the time. To them it was all just funky music they could dance to and it was a form of escape. In other places that had money they would probably have picked the better equipment at the time. The music from here was created mainly on the cheap stuff which had allot to do with the sound. This music could not have come from any other place but Detroit and it has nothing to do with any kind of myth. It was not handed down as a grand ideal to anybody on a silver platter from the Gods, it was just an expression of Detroit culture.

Growing up in this area was not like growing up in Berlin, Paris, Chicago, New York or London. Detroit is completely unique in many areas. Detroit first off is one of the most racist areas in the US. Just like Berlin had the Berlin Wall Detroit has 8 Mile Road which granted isn’t exactly the same but it seems to hold the same function. On the other side of 8 Mile is are the shiny white neighborhoods and all the money of the white community that abandoned the city after the ’67 riots and the black community has had it made clear to them over the years that if they cross 8 mile they’re going to have trouble from the police. This division runs deep in Detroit and the mentality seems to have affected everybody, both sides view the other with suspicion. In a way it seems like a racial version of a cold war that has never stopped. This is somewhat ironic because besides the condition in the neighborhoods we have all experienced the same culture. Almost everybody comes from a family that is tied into employment with the big 3 car companies, whether it be for the big 3 themselves or for many of the smaller factories in the area that make parts for them or the businesses that cater to all the auto workers. Everybody listened to the same radio stations, everybody follows the Lions, Tigers, Pistons or Red Wings. Everybody’s laughed at the same goofy ass commercials from Mel Farr (Superstar), Howards Jewelers where a guy in beard dresses as a woman and tries to tell you about his latest sale on jewelry or the Wonderland Music commercials where this dude would just be smashing drum sets and guitars while claiming he’s slashing prices. Everybody woke up on Saturday morning ate smurfberry cereal (which made your shit turn blue BTW) watched cartoons and kept sitting in front of the tv to watch Sir Graves Ghastly sit up in his coffin and introduce the next horrible B rated horror flick he’s going to play like “Night of the Lepus” (Which gave me nightmares when I was a kid because we had pet rabbits at the time) and other movies about science gone array like “The man with two heads” etc…. and the “creature feature” which was where they played Godzilla movies to death. Our culture here seems to be fascinated by strangeness and failed science experiments. Maybe because in a way everybody feels like Detroit itself was a failed experiment in a way.





With all this stuff being thrown at you as a kid all you could do is bury yourself in comic books and fantasy material while your parents were working their 14 hour shifts at GM. This is why I think music acts like Parliament Funkadelic and Kraftwerk caught on here because they took you to another place and let you escape the thought of your entire society going to shit around you. Escapism is what drove the sound and concept of Detroit Techno and still does. Nobody was thinking of what people would do on the dancefloor, they were thinking of what would happen when all those robots that took our parents jobs at the Ford River Rouge car factory would do when they revolted against their makers. This is why I think that Techno could not have happened any other place but here. Revolution runs deep in Detroit and it goes back to the days where people were getting shot trying to form auto workers unions. Later we had the black community revolt with the ’67 riots. Detroit Techno is the product of another revolt against all of our local society at once by people that refused to accept what they saw as the truth so what they did is try to create another world that they could escape to. Of course later it turned out that people here weren’t the only ones who felt that way and the music caught on. It’s the press that felt the need to tack on a genre name to it so they could package it and sell it.

The problem lately seems to be that people are having a hard time looking past the name to hear the music. If that refers to you, it’s your fault, not Detroit. Apparently those are the kind of people that need the “Myth”. To the people here it is not a “myth”, it’s just music and a way to get away for a minute. It just so happens that the people that do make this music here have allot more time to sit back and become very adept at putting what they think into musical terms than most. It’s probably because there isn’t shit else to do but make music. I’m sick of hearing people bitch and moan about Detroit getting all the credit, well they should god damnit, everybody else got all the money. How many Techno legends in Europe drive around in beat up pickup trucks? I’m guessing not a whole lot. Yeah some Detroit artist get payed pretty good to go play at some clubs overseas off of the music they made, so what, all the club owners and record labels over there have made a shitload more off of it then they could ever dream of and when they come back to Detroit the average joe on the street has no idea what the hell techno is. What more do people want? The music never stopped coming from here, people never ran out of ideas and there are plenty of new artists to listen to. Maybe not as many new artists as Berlin or some shit but god damn, this city only has about 800,000 people or something and if you look at history in electronic music Detroit has a pretty good batting average when it comes to hot tracks. Contrary to popular belief artists in Detroit don’t have much of a superiority complex. Yeah they might fly over for a night and rock the club but all of them know that feeling when they get back on the plane of dread when they know they have to come back to Detroit and be just another dude back in the hood. You won’t find many elaborate studios here. Most of them just have one or two pieces of equipment in their moms’ basement they can afford. I say if Detroit can’t have the cash at least give them the credit. Most of them would gladly trade you for the cash if they could. So if you’re an artist and you’re mad about all the credit coming to Detroit you should just come and live here for a while and see how long you last. I know a legend or two from some other places that tried that and didn’t last much longer than a year. Respect came with a price.

Being from the Detroit area hasn’t done me allot of favors monetarily. I don’t make enough to quit my day job. What it has done is give me the opportunity to become involved with some other very good artists and learn allot which is awesome in itself. These people have earned the respect they get and even though it would probably work in my favor to downplay what they did so maybe I wouldn’t have to exist in their shadow being from here I’m not about to make the claim that what they did didn’t matter hugely. Genres that are more popular right now like trance and minimal owe their lineage to what was done by Detroit artists and they are still affected by what is being done here now as we speak. Detroit isn’t done making music and if you think it’s over it’s only because you chose to look away for a minute, there is allot more to be said by new and old artists here alike. Sub-genre names aren’t real and if you rely on them to tell you what’s cool then you need to get a life because it’s all just Techno. Ignore the hype and keep your ears open. Techno is music about the future so when it was made should be of no consequence. If you like Techno most likely at one point or another you’re going to come across Detroit stuff because Detroit has made a whole lot of it. Just forget the bullshit and enjoy the music…….

24 comments:

  1. I like the Pt IV, because/despite the contradictory positions, ie:

    'It's all just music'

    'People in the 80s didn't know/care it was techno, that was retrospective.'

    'Recent genres owe their lineage to Detroit'

    'Detroit deserves respect (at least) 'cos no-one ever made any money.'

    ... thing is, I get the impression that techno isn't that big in Detroit (please correct me if I'm wrong). I don't know though, but I imagine that hip-hop is bigger, like J Dilla and Eminem, to give two privileged examples...

    ....lots of food for thought, very interesting!

    Perhaps now's the time to introduce the tracklisting of CC and LG's 'Kings of Techno comps', and to re-focus on what some contemporary artists like Luke Hess, Omar S and others are doing NOW.

    Of course this isn't definitive either, but just another pair of perspectives:
    1 The Detroit Perspective (78:22)
    Compiled By - Laurent Garnier
    1-01 Yusef Lateef The Plum Blossom
    Composed By - Yusef Lateef
    1-02 Dabrye Game Over
    Featuring - Jay Dee , Phat Kat
    Producer, Written-By - James Yancey , Ronald Watts , Taod Bryan Mullinix*
    1-03 Jay Dee Beej-N-Dem Pt. 2
    Producer - James Yancey
    Written-By - Jay Dee
    1-04 Aretha Franklin Rock Steady
    Producer - Arif Mardin , Jerry Wexler , Tom Dowd
    Written-By - Aretha Franklin
    1-05 Arpanet NTT DoCoMo
    Written-By - Arpanet
    1-06 BFC Galaxy
    Producer, Mixed By - Carl Craig
    1-07 Instinct (2) Just A Feeling
    Producer, Written-By - B. Nell , J. Smith*
    1-08 Carl Craig No More Words
    Producer, Written-By - Carl Craig
    1-09 MK* Burning
    Written-By - Alana Simon* , Marc Kinchen
    1-10 Hamilton Bohannon Me And The Gang
    Producer, Written-By - Hamilton Bohannon
    1-11 D.I.E. (Detroit In Effect)* Get Up
    Performer - Maaco* , P-Dog
    Producer, Written-By - Odell Perry , Tameko. J. Williams
    1-12 ADULT. Don't Talk (Redux)
    Written-By - Adam LeeMiller* , Nicola Kuperus
    1-13 Stooges, The No Fun
    Producer - John Cale
    Written-By - Stooges, The
    1-14 Jeff Mills Utopia
    Written-By - Jeff Mills
    1-15 Funkadelic Bettino's Bounce
    Written-By - Fratangelo*
    1-16 Alice Coltrane Journey In Satchidananda
    Featuring - Pharoah Sanders
    Producer - Ed Michel
    Producer, Composed By - Alice Coltrane
    1-17 Underground Resistance Amazon (Live)
    Written-By - J. Mills* , M. Banks*
    2 The European Perspective
    Compiled By - Carl Craig
    2-01 Intro (2:01)
    2-02 Art Of Noise* Beat Box (4:38)
    Producer, Written-By - Art Of Noise, The
    2-03 Capricorn (3) I Need Love (Instrumental) (3:49)
    Written-By - C. Simonetti*
    2-04 Nitzer Ebb Join In The Chant (3:26)
    Composed By - Harris* , McCarthy*
    2-05 Martin Circus Disco Circus (5:03)
    Written-By - Alain Pewzner , Gérard Blanc
    2-06 Kano It's A War (6:19)
    Producer - Claudio Donato
    Written-By - Luciano Ninzatti , Stefano Pulga
    2-07 Yellow Magic Orchestra Computer Games (4:08)
    Producer - Harry Hosono*
    Written-By - Yellow Magic Orchestra
    2-08 Yello No More Words (2:24)
    Producer - Ursli Weber , Yello
    Written-By - Boris Blank
    2-09 Liaisons Dangereuses Peut Être Pas (3:48)
    Producer, Composed By - Beate Bartel , Chris Haas*
    Written-By - Krishna Goineau
    2-10 Alexander Robotnick Dance Boy Dance (2:55)
    Producer - Arlo Bigazzi , Giampiero Bigazzi
    Producer, Written-By - Maurizio Dami
    2-11 Choice Acid Eiffel (4:38)
    Producer, Written-By - Laurent Garnier , Shazz
    2-12 Black Dog, The Virtual (3:42)
    Producer [Credited To], Written-by [Credited To] - Turner* , Handley* , Downie*
    Producer, Written-By - Black Dog, The
    2-13 Flying Lizards, The Flesh And Steel (8:05)
    Producer - David Cunningham
    Written-By - Flying Lizards, The
    2-14 Balil Nort Route (5:31)
    Producer, Written-By - Andrew Turner* , Ed Handley
    2-15 Visage Frequency 7 (5:00)
    Producer - Visage
    Written-By - Barry Anthony Adamson* , William Currie* , Dave Formula , John McGeoch , Rusty Egan , Steve Strange
    Written-By, Producer - Midge Ure
    2-16 Severed Heads The Ant Can See Legs (5:42)
    Written-By - Ellard*

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  2. Good post. I think in Europe we are as ignorant about Detroit as the The Detroiters are about people in Europe making money off Techno (i.e. practically no-one) ;)

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  3. Yeah right... as a sometime citizen of Detroit once said:

    "It's over/nobody listens to techno"

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  4. Great post, fully agree with it. Goes back to my previous post about getting obsessed about the techno label. Who cares, the music is the important thing.

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  5. thanks for this cliff. great to see input on this from someone who is representing the Detroit perspective and can speak to the cultural markers that have influenced Detroit artists to produce.

    so from what I'm hearing the 'myth' is perpetuated mainly by outsiders and not Detroit artist?

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  6. Detroit artists are probably tired to death of the Myth...

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  7. this has been the best part out of the 4 so far. it has addressed and answered most of the questions that have been brought up thus far. the only thing i don't like about this part is the idea that detroit artists have not made any money off techno. that is a load of shit if i ever heard it! they have made PLENTY of money off techno. how else do you explain derrick may and his brand spankin' new blue BMW or the fact that even when they are not booked to play they are jet setting and traveling all over the world or the fact that they wear nothing but the finest clothes... only people with money live that kind of lifestyle. and they all got that money from techno. maybe at first they didn't make money but after they sold their souls to the UK and EU they made bucket loads of it! that was 1 of the major reasons they went to the UK and EU in the first place. because they weren't making any money at home and the UK and EU were offering them insain amounts of money for their records and to play.

    most dj's in general make more money then they have a right to make! there is no way you can tell me that a dj has not made money off techno. they all have enough money to support themselfs and their families plus some and they all have enough money to live the rock star lifes that they do. none of them have day jobs outside of the music industry (except jeff miles who owns a clothing store in wicker park, chicago) so they are not getting their income from anywhere else outside of techno.

    most of the smaller name dj's and producers don't make much money but ALL the bigger names make plenty! so cry me a river about them not making any money cause as far as detroit goes, all that is is a feel sorry for me i'm black and broke sobb story that has no truth to it whatsoever! if those guys live in run down ghetto naughbor hoods it's because they CHOOSE to live there not because they HAVE to live there.

    other then that i thought your write up was great! :-)

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  8. good job anonymous, proving you don't know shit without any one else having to reply to point it out. Impressive.

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  9. not quite sure what you mean by that pipecock but it's nothing but fact. how else do you think may can afford his new car (and yes, he has more then one of them) and to support his family? and how do you think he can afford to wear the highly expencive clothes he does?? you think he just sits on his ass all day and does nothing and money just magicly appares in his bank account?? he doesn't have any other job to supplement his income so where do you think he gets his money?? i'll tell you... he gets it from his productions and from playing gigs all over the world. if that is not getting money from techno then i don't know what is... the same holds true for ALL the major detroit dj's as well as most major dj's throughout the world.

    if you think what i say is bullshit then that just makes it obvious you know less about the scene then you pretend to know.

    when a dj makes 5 or 6 or 10 thousand dollers or even 1 or 2 thousand like most of the major dj's do, there is no way ANYONE can ligitimently say they don't make money from techno... if you think otherwise then you are a bigger idiot then i thought...

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  10. Great post. like some others, I think you are a bit misguided in thinking loads of European producers are rolling in it. On the other hand the poster above is wrong, a small handful of Detroit heads are able to make a full time job from touring and making music, but I suspect very few.

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  11. "good job anonymous, proving you don't know shit without any one else having to reply to point it out. Impressive."

    Hey Pipecock, play friendly, please. Respect, peoploids, respect.

    I get the impression that a lot of techno artists from Detroit haven't made that much – I imagine that some of the biggies have though, esp. Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen, Kevin Saunderson, and poor old Juan Atkins... For every one of those dudes though, I'm sure there's ten that aren't making cash.

    And hey, I know it's nice to make money, but if you're making music for money, you're really, really misguided. Get into finance, or plumbing, or shifting gear or something... or at the very least, sell something that ain't a simulacra... or get into distribution and marketing.

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  12. "I get the impression that a lot of techno artists from Detroit haven't made that much – I imagine that some of the biggies have though, esp. Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen, Kevin Saunderson, and poor old Juan Atkins... For every one of those dudes though, I'm sure there's ten that aren't making cash"

    if certin people had read what i said in my first post THIS ^^^ is EXACTLY what i said. MOST OF THE MAJOR DETROIT DJ'S made money ie... derrick may, juan atkins, jeff miles keven saunderson etc... if they had continnued to read they would have seen i ALSO said that most of the lesser known dj's didn't make much. apparently they didn't continuue to read what i said though.

    it is the same throughout the music industry no matter what genre of music one is talking about. MOST major DJ's, no matter were in the world they are from have made A LOT of money from techno (or better to say electronic music as i DID say no matter what genre you speak of)ie... richie hawtin, dave clarke, speedy j, surgon, robert hood, sasha, digweed, paul van dyke, paul oakenfold, etc... they (and meny more) have ALL made more money then they deserve to make for playing 2 or 3 or 4 hours in a club somewhere!

    again, the lesser named dj's don't make as much as they should and the bigger names make more then they should. that is one of the major problems in the scene today and it's been a problem for a long time. the big guys bottle neck the top and don't let any of the little guys up there. thus the little guys don't get the money or exposure they need to make it in the scene while the big guys eat all the food and get all the money. thus all the big guy DEF. make money off techno and to say otherwise is to show that you don't know the pecking order or exonomics of the scene very well...

    ok, i'm done witht this. there are only so meny times one can try to explain something to someone...

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  13. @ anonymous: I wasn't responding to (who are) you (anyway), I was responding to the most recent comment, re-capping your argument (in your favour?!), then adding a new point. Which *you* might have noticed, if you'd had read what *I* was saying... ...why is it always the anonymii who are the biggest rudeboxes... it's like coming home to find a poo on your welcome mat...

    ...at this rate, the SSG crew are going to have to close comments to registered IDs...

    ...NB it's not like 'the big guys' are blocking 'the little guys', it's more that people respond massively to known names. Look at the disproportionate response to R Hawtin's recent (and very bland) podcast... HUNDREDS of comments (462 at last count), all of them gushing with boosty praise. Dozzy's *much* better set gets 102...

    ...so let's just say I'm a promoter with my own money riding on a tour/gig... who am I going to promote?

    Every week, the local DJs in Melbourne play, and nobody much notices or cares. Ransom regularly burns the floor wherever he plays, but would you promote a big gig with Ransom in Melbourne? Of course not... well, not until he's been to NYC and become famous... then he can come back as a name and we can all talk about how much we used to dig him 'back in the day. NB check his recent Beatsinspace podcast for evidence of his brilliance.

    ...BUT... what's the barrier to 'the little guys' getting big? If you produce good records, you will be noticed. If lots of people like your records, you will become popular.

    If you/your records aren't popular and/or don't get any regard from audiences, then, well, maybe you're just a legend in your own lunchbox.
    Is 'underground' just another word for 'unpopular' when you can download ANY track from ANYONE in a matter of minutes? It's not like you have to suck yards and yards of cock in order to get a record contract in order to get your tunes distributed anymore. I dunno, I just don't see this barrier to the success of talented dance music artists. Maybe you're underground, maybe you're just unpopular.

    DJing is another matter altogether, I'd agree, but this is why most people who want to DJ produce these days... or move to NYC or Berlin, print t-shirts, and be ubercoolische...

    ...& back to my last post/point, WHY MAKE MUSIC? Are you doing it to make money or be popular? For the former, try finance or plumbing. For the latter, try youtube.

    You should make music for your passion, and you should distribute your music to share that passion. If that makes you rich and popular, good for you... and hey, if you're passionate AND talented AND hard-working, this is more likely to happen.

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  14. is everyone able to comment? i've had a report maybe the comments arent working properly. if so, please send us an email: mnmlssg@gmail.com

    we are going to keep it free for people to post anonymously, but we'd prefer it if you did identify yourself, as i've lost track of how many different anonymous voices there are. and if you are going to comment, please make it (vaguely) constructive. the whole point of this is for it to be a discussion. if you think we are completely wrong or misguided, at least tell us why...

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  15. Ok....i'd like to address the money thing. I never said Derrick May doesn't make money or Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills etc.... Of course they do but you know what those guys completely earned what they have. The way people talk about Detroit artists sometimes is like they just rolled out of bed one day and realised "Hey, you know what? I'm from Detroit, time to get paid!" and then they roll down to whatever label and magicly sell 25,000 copies of a record in a week. It don't work like that. Before all these guys made much of shit they got screwed by everybody for years. Nobody knew how to even sell a record, mix a record down, none of that shit. They had to start from maybe one or two pieces of equipment and an idea. Techno didn't magically just occur in Detroit out of thin air, it took allot of work. I just can't figure out what the problem would be with somebody making money off their own labor. You know what....If any of us had been making this music since the 80's we would have figured out how to hustle our way into some cash too. That being said, there are some people here that have been doing this stuff just as long and are having trouble just getting by. They might have professional respect from some, but they don't have much else. Mad Mike for example may make some money but he ends up putting most of it back into investing in the future of music here and helping some of these other artists out. You won't find him driving anything resembling a nice car. You won't find him going to a fancy resteraunt, he usually ends up at The Clock sometimes with me ordering the nasty ass spaghetti that looks like it was served out of the mess hall on M.A.S.H. and you wouldn't find him wearing many nice clothes either. The people that some of you say are jet setters from Detroit i could count on one hand. Some of them might make $1000 a show but maybe only get booked once or twice a month and that won't buy a nice house or feed your kids. Not to mention that the money made off of records now for everybody in the industry is next to nothing. In this country there is no free health care, no government money to start your record label with, no public transportation, not enough police to make you feel safe, there is jack shit here. If you came out of here and made some money you should be applauded because in order to do it you had to put everything you had into it with no safety net. It might not be pretty but it makes spectacular inspiration and subject to write music about. You also don't have anything here resembling positive reinforcement for your music. Your feedback is usually "That's not finished" or "That's wack" or a shrug of the shoulders and heads bobbing (Which is as positive as you will usually get). That's probably why it sounds the way it does.

    Another thing i would like to point out is that there are plenty of new artists in Detroit. You can't just post up a tracklisting from the Kings of techno comp and say to compare this with what Luke Hess and Omar S are doing now. I love the music of both those guys and they're good people but if their two styles alone are as far as you dive into new music from Detroit you are missing out on a TON of stuff. There are plenty of new artists here that are making shit happen as well as allot of new material from those that aren't exactly new. Don't forget about new material from artists like ICAN, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance, Aaron Carl, B. Calloway, Suburban Knight, Chaos, Mr. De', Brian Kage and the beretta camp, Detroit Techno Militia, Shake, Dj Skurge, Dj Dex, Aquanaughts, The Plan (like how i snuck that one in there :), Robert Hood, Dj Bone, Theo Parrish etc..... None of these artists sounds like the other and they all are pushing new sounds. Out of all the fake made up genres of techno the one they like to call "Detroit Techno" is far more varied than any other. Take a look, you might actually like allot of it and didn't even know it.

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  16. Hey Torque, thanks for IDing yourself. I think what you're saying is totally valid – there's nothing wrong with making money out of music, but (of course) you shouldn't make music to make money.

    As for other contemporary Detroit techno artists, please feel free to post some links up to any mixes you might feel are really outstanding. I think everybody would like to hear more AND know more.

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  17. " if those guys live in run down ghetto naughbor hoods it's because they CHOOSE to live there not because they HAVE to live there."

    WHOEVER WROTE THIS - I got a idea. Come to Detroit and .. you'll quickly get your ass jacked straight to hell. Suck a dick.

    This last article was good.. But this whole series was pretty much an epic fail.

    There's are tons of artist here still killing... with not that much recognition. It's tough here, you have no idea.. and without this city, techno wouldn't be SHIT. Any idiot should be able to recognize that.

    Basically, however, If you don't live in Detroit, you don't know shit, so keep your mouth shut.

    Sweet dreams.

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  18. - "... it was just an expression of Detroit culture."
    - "Detroit is completely unique in many areas."
    - "Our culture here seems to be fascinated by strangeness and failed science experiments."
    - "Escapism is what drove the sound and concept of Detroit Techno and still does."
    - "Revolution runs deep in Detroit"


    - Any expression in the say sixty years before the post-geographical culture era of today (internet etc) is local in a very basic way, unless it has been 'broadcasted' by Anglo-American media, mostly by war or post-war occupation (Berlin!).

    - And so every place has it's own unique features be they qualities or faults.

    - While a certain particular view on heroics and superhero adoration is very American, a fascination with Science and it's darker sides is not bound to Detroit in particular. Countless European cultural examples can be given.

    - Escapism is what drives a lot of people do go binge drinking, raving, shopping, creating and buying art, etc. Why should this be unique to one geographical location? 4/4, motorik, the Berlin School, Kraut Rock, all of these existed before and outside of Detroit years before anything Techno was created there. Again, most of these concepts where even created out of a frustration of the Anglo-American cultural oppression.

    - Revolution runs deep in History, and I'm very sorry, but ours (European) is a bit longer then yours.

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  19. @ anon: "This last article was good.. But this whole series was pretty much an epic fail...

    ...Basically, however, If you don't live in Detroit, you don't know shit, so keep your mouth shut."

    Anon – whoever you are – you say it's a fail, well, we've had a range of attempts at communication and understanding, some more interesting than others, most far more constructive than yours.

    As far as your comment goes, I can't see what you yourself have added other than an illustration of those parts of the debate that did fail, because of anonymity, negativity, "YELLING", abuse, self-congratulation, and an unwillingness to see outside your own narrow worldview.

    Why should we shut our mouths?

    Why should we go 'suck a dick'?

    Are you just being abusive, are you trying to silence us, or do you want to say something?

    Why are you so pissed off?

    You demand a voice (a loud one), but would deny it to others. You demand respect, but hurl abuse.

    ... what interests me here is how the process of bipolarisation in debate works. We start off saying things to each other (or across each other), but sooner or later there's this process of entrenchment. Everybody picks their team, digs in, and starts lobbing scat packets at their perceived enemy.

    It makes things simpler, doesn't it? Better than dealing with all that complexity and ambivalence, isn't it...?

    & @ simonhold: "Revolution runs deep in History, and I'm very sorry, but ours (European) is a bit longer then yours."

    Gosh, are we comparing willies now or something?

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  20. Only if you feel it's relevant to the detroit myth discussion. shall we use inches or centimeters?

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  21. The truth is laid down in WAX and nothing can change that. Do your homework homeboy.

    Shit like this is bad for Detroit. We got enough trouble here as it is. Please stop with this garbage.

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  22. I'm only listening to opinions about the history of Detroit underground music by people who namecheck Mel Farr (Superstar) from now on.

    Full Respect for part 4!

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  23. MEL FAR TO THE RESCUE

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  24. great.
    but listen here and lern: http://cardiomix.blogspot.com/2008/06/joost-de-lijser-19-years-of-dj-sets.html

    ReplyDelete

Say something constructive, bitte. Or if you're gonna take a swipe, at least sharpen your nails.

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