Haye! Western society has allways perceived things to be in compartiments, with nothing in between. That is the only way western culture can deal with knowledge. Either something is white, black, blue, orange, house, techno, jungle and what is not one thing or other is allways destined to fall on the bag of "weird stuff", "minority", or "experimentation". The "avant-garde" (ha!) of white techno artists mostly took out a great deal of the good ingredients that made techno what it was, just like when Jungle was striped down from its ragga vocals, softened the beats and thrown a sax in so they could call it "jazzier" - smart way to call it "inteligent" 'n' shit... Oh, yeah, and renamed to Drum&Bass (whatever that is). Plain and simple whitening of jungle, if you ask me. And now? Now jungle plays at tv commercials and even art galleries cause "it's groundbreaking" (not implying that you like it). The innovators? Forgotten! *They* were the avant-garde. The succedaneous? Just capitalizing, now. Did I heard this story befone on Techno? It's incredible that black innovators can't be perceived as artists and visionaries. Like Derrick May says, a black man can be an entertainer, but not an artist. Since the beginning, Banks, Derrick, Pennington, Fowlkes and all the innovators have been pursuing the goal of trying to create pieces that show what is more complex in human feeling and expression. And you know what? They did! And they still do it. Just because some guy in northen europe is doing some stuff that may be plain weird-sounding but he's decorated a couple of paragraphs of a Rimbaud book and cites it as a base for his works, don't anybody come here and tell me that the stupid quote is gonna make the music sound better. And if your answer's yes, well then, good chin-stroking for you, I'll just keep the music, thanks. Don't get me wrong, I like Vogel's work, but the avant-garde of techno is where it has always been, and for what I know it's going to stay there for quite some time... Respect to the innovators. Don't spit on the plate you've just eaten.
Lay - having discutions on this topic on a twice-a-day basis lately "Unconditional Empowerment" http://barkingcat.org/counterforce P.S.: Where did all those people that spend half their lives calling Mills an innovator go all of a sudden?
