Comments on mnml ssgs: We were NEVER mnml, December 2008

the problem is not who's mixing what, which format...

2008-12-13T11:58:00.000+11:00

the problem is not who's mixing what, which format he'll use.The problem is simply the extinction of the vinyl and vinyl has no serious rivals outthere.Serious djs who prefer using traktor for example must buy the vinyl first and then digitalize it.I have no respect for these djs who buy their stuff from beatport.I' m a bedromm dj, I am poor but I buy 9 to 10 EPS per month.it costs me a lot of money but it's my pleasure.
We arrive at a time where buying vinyl is an act of resistance.

Fuck beatport if you 're a music lover, buy vinyl.

About Rapidshare, I use it a lot but I allways buy the stuff I like in vinyl and erase the rest of it.Rapidshare is a great tool for selecting what you 're gonna buy .It's a shame people can't moderate themselves with excessive downloading.

Digital formats have no soul, no smell, no depth.Shame to djs who buy their tracks on beatport.

"How nice would it be to get up in the morning, fr...

2008-12-11T06:49:00.000+11:00

"
How nice would it be to get up in the morning, fresh as a daisy, and go somewhere outdoors in a park and listen to a morning set, given for free, through a sparkling sound system. You could even take your kids.

Or imagine, on Sunday morning, going to a church where the only dogma was 4/4?

Or imagine going to a gig on a Wednesday evening that started promptly at nine and only ran for three hours (like going to the cinema)?"

these kinds of things all exist in NYC based around the deep house/disco scene. this is nothing new, but it is from a culture that is wildly different from the "rave" culture that house and techno get associated with most of the time. i feel i must point out that it's also a vinyl culture ;)

@ James: I think you're right – for most people, h...

2008-12-10T08:22:00.000+11:00

@ James: I think you're right – for most people, house/techno = dance music.

As for the lame/tame thing: it doesn't have to be a religious/monastic/ascetic setting, but it could be really different. I think it's hard for us to see the extent to which 'things could be otherwise', and most of what we accept as normal is just habit, tradition, repeat repeat.

There was an interview with RV a while back, on XLR8R

http://www.xlr8r.com/features/2007/10/ricardo-villalobos-sacred-art

This is the bit:

As we talked about all of this I remember seeing in your bio that you wrote about the club of the future and a lot of what we talked about tied into that, so I guess what I find interesting is the club of the future has a lot to do with the past. With stripping away things almost that we have been talking about have become a problem, internet, digital compression, and what not.

Well, yes, exactly.

Tell me a little bit more about where you would like the future to go.

First of all, we are dealing since the acts the American government was doing five, um, six years ago. This is coming like a wave to Europe also. You know how like that smoking campaign is coming to Europe also, it happens to be in everywhere. It will come to Germany also, and it will come to Berlin. And all these restrictions will one day come to Berlin also. That means that the clubs cannot be open forever. That there are restrictions, police control everywhere. That the police is coming because of only a repetitive beat, whatever. And these are all like European rules, and I think we have to defend ourselves, not in an offensive way of trying to do crazy parties in hidden places. I think the more intelligent way is to find a club, which is open Tuesday afternoon from 3 to 7, for example. And also on Wednesday, and also on Thursday. And in this club, there is the best sounding music, under 100 decibels, so no policeman can say something. So no neighbor can say something. There is no drug policy because it is during the day. Perhaps someone’s smoking in the corner. But outside, it’s an open place with a lot of air. And it’s a bright place, and the sound is absolutely incredible and kicking. And the definition at the end, the definition of what we are doing all the time is because of the music. It is because of the sound. So to do things like this is a form of doing a future club in an intelligent way. You know, to create different times of partying to find the gaps where the police and the politicians cannot really restrict us in a way. I think this is what we have to do, and we need to create places where the sound is incredible. And where it is not necessary to put it very loud. Where the sound is so good it is not necessary to put it loud. You know this is a very big difference.

So that is always a goal of yours, that you want your sounds to be so they sound great on large systems, but you want them to be so impeccable and in extreme detail that as long as the sound is good it does not need extreme volume.

Exactly. And there is a French friend of mine who is working for the American brand, Meyer Sound in South America, and he is working on developing a ring where it is a dancing ring. It is a ring–big or small–of speakers and you can be inside the ring. And inside the ring there is sound. And then outside the ring there is no sound because the little speakers in the back, which are deleting with the opposite phase, the sound coming out of the ring. So this is the club of the future. To really to get the best technology, the best lawyers, the best writers, the best DJs, the best sound people together and to go on making parties. And go on celebrating the little therapies we need on the weekend. But not just on the weekend. You know, whenever! Whenever going into a club anymore, you go in and have a drink and it’s not loud anymore, and you go home after three to four hours again.

So to a lot of people describe clubs and studios almost like caves, but you look at it more of like a cocoon or a sort.

No, like an open place. More like an open place.

I guess I say cocoon in a sense that it is nurturing, as opposed to an isolated solitary experience.

Yes, exactly. More like a cocoon, perhaps.

Your last question is the one that I've been askin...

2008-12-10T05:15:00.000+11:00

Your last question is the one that I've been asking myself a lot ever since I thought to write that. Funny that Raster Noton is your newest feature, because I guess I feel like there's a functional divide between Alva Noto and, for argument's sake, Marcel Dettman. To my ears, both AN and MD do many of the same things with texture + space in their music, but I would classify the latter as something distinct (i.e. functional) from the latter, which isn't to take anything away from either artists' work.

(And might the above have something to do with the overall, “Platonic” aesthetic of the tools – mind, heart, and machinery – involved in their processes?)

All of this is to say that for as lame, tame, and boring as hearing MD in a monastic, quasi-religious setting would be, to me, hearing AN in the same setting sounds like a great idea. For me it’s just a separation of function from form. MD’s music (and here is where I realize I could just as easily substitute UR or even RV for MD) falls under the nebulous umbrella term “techno” that is, as they say, jacking, functional. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – the 4/4, and permutations thereof, has been making humans want to move their bodies for as long as the 4/4 has been around. Where we differ on this point is that I do believe in the value of the equation Techno = Dance, even if that’s not how we necessarily spend our time listening to the music.

I agree that nightclubs may not be the ideal place for techno and house music, but again, that has more to do with the peripherals than with the music itself. Techno = Dance, and therefore the ideal setting should be a place of physical communion of some sort, but ideally I think we’d all like that setting to be stripped of some of the sweaty, leering expectations thrust onto it by the peripheral need for revenue.

@ James K:No, you don't come off as a dick at all....

2008-12-09T18:50:00.000+11:00

@ James K:

No, you don't come off as a dick at all.

My concern is with the necessary and necessarily-positive equation and placement of:

(groove-based electronic music, here as 'house/techno')

house/techno = dance music

and

nightclubs = proper and legitimate place in which house/techno should occur

I take issue with this because, well, I don't think that nightclubs are either the best or only place for house/techno

and

I don't even think that house/techno are necessarily (or even optimally) dance music.

I'm aware that mine is a minor position that a lot of people might think weird, but I don't think it's illegitimate, and I don't think I'm Robinson Crusoe.

(NB you're right about the relative popularity of various kinds of dance music, and, to be honest, I think this is actually a reflection of what most people think is fun to dance to.)

As for the lame/tame/boring thang, well... why?

@ James:

2008-12-09T18:39:00.000+11:00

@ James:

Techno church, 100% performance, and music theatre...

2008-12-09T05:26:00.000+11:00

Techno church, 100% performance, and music theatre all sound incredibly lame, tame, and boring to me, and I am someone who has many of the same reservations about clubbing that you do, PC. Parties in residences and non profit spaces here in Chicago have proven time and again to be the best experiences for me both as an attendee and as a dj. This despite the "focus on music" quotient remaining just about the same as in a club, if only a few tics higher. It sounds like the commercialization of the context bothers you the most, and while that definitely sucks, it's also a bit of an easy target and can be avoided.

From what I can tell, the situation in America is similar to that in Australia. The majority of club music (played at the biggest clubs with the highest focus on commercialization over music) is modern rap and/or top40; next on the tier is electro/progressive/"fidget" house; way down there at the bottom rung is techno played by the likes of Dan Bell or Jeff Mills.

(And let's not even mention the "dance parties" thrown by indie rockers.)

Anyway, that bottom rung in America/Chicago means that someone with a head/heart for techno can't even be assured that there will be a legitimate techno night at a club on any given week, even a smaller club. To plan on attending a techno party (i.e. non-commercial, outside of a club setting) on a given week is even more difficult.

I don't really know how to tie this up nicely but I think your problem with commercialization is understandable but - if I may be so bold - a bit trite for the following reasons:

- if techno were as saturated in our corners of the world as the other club musics, i.e. rap, electro, and given the way they are presented (without what i understand to be a certain sophistication and modesty found in berlin, for example), we'd all be looking for something else to do.
- dirty capitalism can be found in just about every facet of life, and it can be almost just as easily avoided.

I fully understand that 1. I may be completely missing your point and 2. I may be coming off like a bit of a dick, so my apologies in advance if either of those things are true.

@ last anonymous:Groove is good for dancing, and m...

2008-12-06T21:44:00.000+11:00

@ last anonymous:

Groove is good for dancing, and much groove-based electronic music is intended as functionalist music for dancing, true enough.

But I don't think electronic music is about dancing, and I wonder/think:

1) shouldn't music have some kind of value autonomous to its 'function'? Recall the 303 was a creative appropriation: far be it from us to insist on what 'proper use' is.

2) I mostly listen to house/techno outside the clubbing context, and I actually often find this more enjoyable and less problematic. Nor do I feel I'm 'missing out'. I see no lack there.

Here's an exerpt from a column I wrote three years ago on this tip:

"I love my Sennheisers, because I can control and isolate-out all the elements of 20th century style clubbing that are giving me, in my emerging middle-aged sag-titted curmudgeonry, the howling fantods. I exclude all the shits that clubbing give me, and maybe that’s you too, if you’re the prick who spilled their Agwa on my jeans, the cloakroom biyatch that sneered at my smile, or the King Cnut who just wouldn’t let me in, because my snoobs aren’t big enough, and the nipples don’t produce milk (at least not for you). At a Senny’s gig, you choose peaktime, chilltime and hometime, and there are no taxis, turnoffs, comedowns or brownouts. Life and wife-swapping, pill-popping, club-hopping and even be-bopping – you can keep it. Senny’s mobile discotheque is so exclusive, they only let me in. This week, I’m giving cans for Christmas, and so should you. Mine are to the Salvos (hey, they ‘do do’ good, fundamentalism aside), but yours, if you really care about clubbing – sound quality, vibe, location location location – should be to your self. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. No guest lists, no exceptions."

2) neither clubs nor dancing nor ecstasy nor hedonism exhaust the 'proper contexts' for electronic music, groove-based or otherwise. Electronic music is a mixed tradition (in many senses of the word) and has links with and roots to many kinds of exploratory and experimental music AND social relations.

I think we forget how much the 90s networks that emerged were built out of social scenes that were as much about repossessing derelict spaces and posing the possibility of new kinds of socialities as they were about getting wasted.... not that getting wasted is necessarily a waste. It too can be productive and has been expansive and helpful for a lot of people, myself included.

But I think there has been an almost total repossession of the rave and experimental contexts by clubbing –though this is always in ebb and flow. But consider the number of illegal, nonlegal, ad-hoc spaces that were made back in the day. What happened? Or, to ask the question differently, what happened to chill out rooms? And most clubs, even the famous ones (read Teleost's posts on the hell that is Fabric on a Saturday night) can really try your patience.

How nice would it be to get up in the morning, fresh as a daisy, and go somewhere outdoors in a park and listen to a morning set, given for free, through a sparkling sound system. You could even take your kids.

Or imagine, on Sunday morning, going to a church where the only dogma was 4/4?

Or imagine going to a gig on a Wednesday evening that started promptly at nine and only ran for three hours (like going to the cinema)?

Or imagine private dancing booths, like karaoke booths, where you could go with your friends and records?

More than anything, it has to be remembered that clubs are NOT music venues: they are mostly about hedonism, enjoyment, sex, drugs. The music, for most people, is secondary, or even tertiary. How much of Berghain, to take one example, exists by dint of the anonymous desire of people for each other's bodies?

You can contrast this with the pure/unified function of a movie theatre: you go there for the performance, it is for the performance, and it is a pretty close fit. With clubbing it is much more ambiguous and ambivalent.

The miracle of groove-based electronic music is that it has managed to be so creative and inventive while nesting in a context which is, at best, only partially there 'for the music'.

@ minimill.well put.

2008-12-06T11:22:00.000+11:00

@ minimill.
well put.

didn't read all the comments, but had a few commen...

2008-12-06T02:02:00.000+11:00

didn't read all the comments, but had a few comments....

i guess that's the end of that argument, eh?

then again, i'm still for a third party giving the proof, or at least someone ponying up with the source of the rumour.

I am certainly not speaking about Kompakt in particular, but I and many of my peers have had shady experiences with distros and their dealings with our labels. as is common knowledge, many have closed over the past few years, and some had even ordered more records to sell off just days before announcing the closing of the operations to their labels. this is shady as fuck business practice imo, so I would never trust any sort of "statement" from a distro directly.

Again, not geared at Kompakt, just a general observation from my own experiences which admittedly are probably biased. and with that said, I certainly hope they are still alive and well as they are one of the bests!

Second point is kudos to the authors of this blog from not backing down either and providing empirical evidence based on other interviews to support their claim of what which is essentially, as they claimed, an op ed piece. sound journalism at work :)

"Who said anything about 'dance music'?And in what...

2008-12-06T01:15:00.000+11:00

"Who said anything about 'dance music'?And in what sense does it work best? Does it work best for electronica? For ambient? For drone?"

The majority of the "groove-based electronic music" covered on this blog is clearly made for clubs, and to suggest that it "needs" another context in order to survive begs the obvious question "why"? Which you haven't addressed.

I'm not trying to "shut down discussion and thought" but to engage with your vague and doom-laden post. Saying "this isn't working and we need to find another way" begs several obvious questions which you don't address, making your words seem empty and pompous. I'm not even sure what kind of debate you were *hoping* to generate here.

As for looking at the bigger picture, why don't you try it yourself? Yes a few labels are shutting down at the moment, but beyond a few famous success stories, has underground electronic music ever been a reliable source of income?

From where I'm standing there are loads of signs of thriving creativity in electronic music. And yet you have this handful of bloggers making out like it's all over, and all it seems so destructive, because if you're going to critique a whole scene, why not at least be clear about how you'd like to see it change?

i dont understand how its not obvious that vinyl i...

2008-12-06T01:13:00.000+11:00

i dont understand how its not obvious that vinyl is crucial to our culture.

this is not due to the format itself and which is better to dj with (though vinyl is superior) but has to do with the act of getting the vinyl. when i go to a record store i see records picked by the staff there, i talk to the staff, and we spend some time discussing the music. not the latest dj gear or whats big in the clubs, but the music itself.

what do i get when i log on to beatport? a thing telling me that deadmau5 has a new track out?

there is no way to deny how influential record stores themselves are to djs and producers, and how that link provides an open forum for discussion about the music. or, for that matter, how stores like hardwax are influential to the entire scene.

i'm not one to say that techno is done, because i think there are always fantastic innovations and if i push aside the bullshit i can always find new records that i love. but, as PC said, its getting less and less about the music, which is why we all should be here in the first place. this isnt just mindless music to dance to while off your head on pills; if it were, blogs like this one wouldnt exist.

beatport is a good tool, but it makes it all almost strictly about whats going into your ableton session, not about whats going onto your turntable for you to sit there and listen to.

^Nicely put, a strong and informative op-ed piece ...

2008-12-05T17:17:00.000+11:00

^
Nicely put, a strong and informative op-ed piece should incite further discussion from a myriad of different perspectives and contexts and not just present conclusions(research papers). So for the posts with "like what?" as a response are in effect asking the author to think for them!

I adore vinyls though to over-romanticise the quality of vinyls is to veer into a sort of self-defeating mythology about the "power of vinyls" and to uncritically defend at the end a
consumer choice.

And culture should be present before the cash register, not after, am I more cultured becuase i just purchased vinyls?

"A context for dance music beyond raves? Why do yo...

2008-12-05T15:55:00.000+11:00

"A context for dance music beyond raves? Why do you think this is needed? Surely this is still the context in which it works best?"

Who said anything about 'dance music'?

And in what sense does it work best? Does it work best for electronica? For ambient? For drone?

"I'm sick of these miserable op-ed pieces about a perceived 'slump' in dance music, everyone I know seems to have had a lot of great experiences with going out and listening to dance music at home this year. Yr post reads more like one more person whingeing than anything constructive."

I'm sick of anonymous posters engaging in unconstructive whingeing about op-ed pieces like this that are trying to shut down a piece intended to generate discussion and thought.

The little that was constructive about your comment seems to say, 'well me and my friends had a great time out raving, so what could possibly be the matter' – look outside your context. Try to see the bigger picture.

What's so bad and threatening about thinking and questioning?

As for pipecock: you work in a record store. It's not surprising you've sold a few records this year.

As for the culture thing: electronic music is inextricably tied to vinyl for YOU, because you are already committed to vinyl. You are simply defending the consumer choice you've made. If you didn't fetishise it, it wouldn't matter to you, as it doesn't to increasing numbers of people who don't care one way or the other.

Asking someone to not over intellectualise an obse...

2008-12-05T14:20:00.000+11:00

Asking someone to not over intellectualise an observation is akin to asking someone to not think deeply and totally about a contemporary urban art which in most cases is spawned from a passion for music.

I totally agree with the analytical approach that music is serious business. If one is comfortable absorbing urban art or non-commercial art uncritically and without deep thought processes then I guess that’s what psy-trance is for.

Being from Melbourne I have to admit that a lot of the times my choice of format is dictated to me by the shipping costs, the virtually worthless Australian currency and the waiting period, I could easily blame late capitalism for making me impulsive ad impatient though that would be only semi-accurate, its more a case of really not wanting to sound one step behind most other DJ’s.

Having said that, I think it’s a premature call to signal the death of vinyls, really what we have is a very noticeable birth of the digital format which doesn’t mean that they are mutually exclusive and one will have to give way to the other. It can mean that we now use both, digital in WAV and vinyls together when spinning. And plus im realising some dope tracks just don’t get released in digital formats.

Babicz and Luciano baby!

"the thing is, it's not about format. it's about c...

2008-12-05T11:04:00.000+11:00

"the thing is, it's not about format. it's about culture. dance culture and vinyl culture are inseparably linked at this point"

It should be all about the music, not about a piece of fucking plastic! All I see here is a bunch of old whiners attached to a dying format that does not make sense in current times. Ok I believe the above statement is not going to be very popular here.

oh and least we not forget about reel to reel, min...

2008-12-05T10:41:00.000+11:00

oh and least we not forget about reel to reel, mini disk, DAT and probably a few others. not that i ever owned one or have seen anyone use these as viable formats for DJing. vinyl lives!
...
for now.

the distro thing sucks. especially being in the US...

2008-12-05T10:36:00.000+11:00

the distro thing sucks. especially being in the US and my local record stores are a bit behind the times. order on line right? well that's one way to make an already expensive hobby/passion more expensive. is the answer digital? no. it's an avenue. vinyl as a format has outlasted everything else. the a-track, the tape, the cd. if it's dead than it's been dying a slow death for decades. for now i'm content playing vinyl exclusively and i don't expect that will change for a while. this is a culture and some of "us" are raping it only to see the things we love come crashing down in bankruptcy. can i afford to support it? yes. can you?

"this is NOT a format war post."the thing is, it's...

2008-12-05T05:12:00.000+11:00

"this is NOT a format war post."

the thing is, it's not about format. it's about culture. dance culture and vinyl culture are inseparably linked at this point. trying to change that is not going to happen. there will be new avenues and opportunities for people who maintain that tradition. i believe we are just a few years away from a popular swing back towards vinyl as a reaction to displeasure with digital styles. i know in the mostly hiphop related record shop i work in i have seen a pretty significant number of people coming in recently specifically to buy vinyl because theyre starting to deejay and they dont want to use computers or CDs.

i think that the formats will split just like subgenres of house and techno have split off. the thing i think people will find frustrating is that the is no end to digital file manipulation. with records, there is an end to work towards because the tools dont change. digital "deejaying" is not like that and it will end up not unlike the genres of music that base themselves around sounding "new": theyll burn people out.

"What is to be invented is an extra-technological ...

2008-12-05T02:21:00.000+11:00

"What is to be invented is an extra-technological context for electronic music, one that is beyond the drug muppetry of corporate raving and amphetamine nightlife."

A context for dance music beyond raves? Why do you think this is needed? Surely this is still the context in which it works best?

I'm sick of these miserable op-ed pieces about a perceived 'slump' in dance music, everyone I know seems to have had a lot of great experiences with going out and listening to dance music at home this year. Yr post reads more like one more person whingeing than anything constructive.

As for illegal downloading, I can't speak for anyone else, but I've bought more music this year than I have in a long time (and very little of that was on vinyl fwiw) and have all but given up on slsk etc...

A quick fold in for the latecomers:http://www.resi...

2008-12-04T22:24:00.000+11:00

A quick fold in for the latecomers:

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=9972

(Neuton down)

NB: this is NOT a format war post. We have had this discussion. Many times. And you don't get very far. Because people have already made up their mind.

I am well aware, for example, that people who are committed to vinyl like vinyl and/because they're committed to it.

You rarely get a disinterested party spruiking for any given format.

In future, could all people who want to express an opinion about the sacrality of a given format please declare their habit beforehand?

This is an invitation to think beyond the traditional contexts and strictures. Of course, a post cannot 'invent a context', but if a conversation cannot talk beyond itself, then it becomes insular, then boring, then irrelevant.

It really pisses me off (and is telling) that not a single person refuted me on the rapidshare point. If I sense some animus, is this because there is some complicity?

I liked Koze's quote (from the RA thing today):

"I think it is fairly easy to rock the house, but so hard to look out of the window."

1. I believe that vinyl pressing factories are act...

2008-12-04T19:54:00.000+11:00

1. I believe that vinyl pressing factories are actually in rude health as there has been an increase in re-issues of non-dance records by collectors.
2. MP3 DJing usually sounds awful. The compression on the majority of tracks makes it sound like you are amplifying your ipod over a loudspeaker. It is always strikingly noticeable when you change from vinyl to MP3 during a party as people will start shuffling about and then go for a drink.
I grew up during an age of audio purists who would obsess over the quality of speakers and amps. If you are listening to something on headphones on the bus then OK have an MP3. If you are in a club or rave with some beatport guff then you are taking the piss.

@ Kompakt: Jon, this is just an unsubstantiated ru...

2008-12-04T09:40:00.000+11:00

@ Kompakt: Jon, this is just an unsubstantiated rumour that I've heard. A typical 'internet rumour' – with no more veracity than that. And let's be specific, it was a rumour about Kompakt mp3.

Anecdotally, it also might be why formerly reclusive W. Voigt is now doing gas shows everywhere and reissuing his back catalogue, although I don't dispute that the main (and very worthy) motivation is to introduce a new generation to his amazing work.

But/and it does also chime in with what M. Mayer told me last time I interviewed him earlier this year (in March), when he said, and I quote:

"Kompakt was stable for a while, even after digital became popular. Then we did notice a decline of vinyl sales. And now they’re down 30% in the past year – and not just Kompakt, but all the labels we distribute. And the sad thing is that this isn’t being made up for in digital sales. People are sharing music, music for free – and it’s totally sanctioned by the music press in Germany. Nobody wants to be the bad guy in this, and you don’t want to lose the support of the bloggers. It’s really complex and frustrating, but I really fear that the music scene as we know it, which is a result of structures and associations built in the 90s, with its huge diversity – we’re going to lose it. It’s just not going to survive, ‘cos it’s not economically viable. And no-one’s safe, no-one knows what’s going to happen."

Secondly, @ James and others, this is intended as an op ed piece, with questions and ideas to ponder. I want to ask, not because I know, but because I wonder.

Finally, on 'the death of vinyl', well, really it's the death of vinyl as a DJ format. Five years ago, most of the best tracks were ONLY available on vinyl. If you wanted to be up to date, you had to participate in that economy. Now, dedicated vinyl users like myself are having to mail order records (because there are no specialist record stores in Melbourne where I can go and enjoy digging) at prices that are increasing (because of the financial crisis).

Vinyl will doubtless continue, but as a fetish/collectors market. To that extent, it won't 'die' the death of maligned formats like cassette. It will die a partial but decisive death that is intimately tied to the notion of what DJing is. DJing in five years (and perhaps even now) won't be about 'spinning'. This is a good and bad thing.

There are so many new, interesting possibilities – why can't we focus on them, rather than defending what we already know we know we think are we do, blah blah.....?

couldn't agree more with that last post.

2008-12-04T09:39:00.000+11:00

couldn't agree more with that last post.

I'm so sick of all this apocalyptic nonsense. Just...

2008-12-04T09:06:00.000+11:00

I'm so sick of all this apocalyptic nonsense. Just because house and techno are relatively new genres doesn't mean they'll disappear as quickly as they originated.

New formats, the death of vinyl, Ableton, more accessibility for 'producers' with no talent, Soulseek, torrents, the fucking credit crunch?? Am I supposed to believe that people who put their heart and soul into this music are just gonna bend over, give up and do something else? I don't believe it for a second.

And let's not start talking about economics, because DJs make much more from playing in clubs week in, week out than they do from their vinyl/mp3 releases, and as far as I can tell, clubs are as busy as they've ever been. As long as people like the music there will never be a problem within the scene. I realize that labels have been supplying the music and organizing most of the nights for years now, but much like the rest of the music industry (perhaps even more so), they need to start looking at new ways of generating profits, because I think we can all agree that, as much as I hate to admit it, vinyl will no longer be a profit generating product in a few years.

Also, if we're going to talk about sound and production quality, before every club had Funktion 1 sound, could you really hear the difference when the music was played in its natural setting, the club? The speakers were awful in most clubs and we should consider ourselves lucky to have such good sound these days. 95% of the people listening to this music don't spend time reading techno blogs and can't even tell the difference between analogue and digital sound. Although I don't feel we should be setting the standard according to those people, I still think that we're going a bit overboard with this whole issue.

All I ever read on here is that techno is supposed to futuristic and forward-thinking (which I think it is), yet it seems like you're all shit scared that it's just gonna dissipate in front of your eyes. I say, have some faith in the music.

I play both vinyl and MP3s, and as much as I prefer vinyl, I like the fact that I've been able to expand my music collection significantly. I'm a big supporter of vinyl but I can now play tunes I would never have been able to get on vinyl, and if 95% of the people won't be able to tell the difference, I'll take that chance. Let's not forget that 5,000 years ago people were beating drums in the African plains, and the experience was just as good, if not better.

If techno is as futuristic as we all believe it to be, then why not get with the times? I think we all know that by the time Ricardo, Sven, Richie and even Marcel Detmann, Ben Klock and co. hang up their hats, we'll still be in this, vinyl or not, and if this blog will still be around we'll be laughing at the fact we used to have these conversations.