>>>>> "cw" == Cyclone Wehner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
cw> What issue is this? I find that a lot too - and here too
cw> among some quarters there is always some new name the techno
cw> heads are championing, usually white and British - but you
cw> will always find that Black producers like Dave Angel and Carl
cw> Cox identify far closer with it, which I think says
cw> something. It could be a English thing - the likes of Laurent
cw> Garnier and DJ Q are less inclined to see Detroit as something
cw> that they have to rebel against or whatever.
To toss another spurious dichotomy into the ring, I think at least
part of this boils down to where producers / DJs fall on the spectrum
between "disco" and "avant-garde". Do you want to move booties or do
you want to make people scratch their chins? The artists I've been
enjoying the most recently tend to fall squarely in the middle and be
very good at splitting the distance between the two.
People who want to "make a statement", who want to be part of the
avant-garde, generally have something to prove. They're also more
inclined to believe that their ideas are uniquely their own (whether
that's true or not is an exercise best left to each individual
listener). Other artists are more into being part of a community, and
they're more likely to see their ideas as growing out of the community
that produced them.
Considering that all of us drift to both of these poles at different
times in our lives, it gets to be very difficult to ascertain motives
at any particular time. Read interviews with Derrick May and Jeff
Mills (two of the more prickly / cerebral Detroit figures) over the
years and it becomes evident that they aren't always consistent about
whether they're innovators or part of a cultural continuum. Surgeon's
claimed different things at different times as well.
>> As I remember a few years ago in interview, Surgeon mention
>> something darker and harder detriot music definitely influence
>> him anyway I like what all of them are doing, much respect
cw> Yeah, I remember that too. It's funny. That's why you've gotta
cw> respect the likes of Ho and DJ Hell who give it up to the
cw> likes of Mills.
I find it next to impossible to talk about techno without the
conversation eventually returning to Detroit, and I'm suspicious of
anyone who claims to have any sort of wide-ranging expertise in techno
who _doesn't_ prominently bring Detroit into the discussion on a
frequent basis -- producers moreso than the rest of us. The more I
listen to the old Detroit techno (and there's still so much more of it
to find!), the more inescapable its influence seems to be.
Forrest
. . . the self-reflecting image of a narcotized mind . . .
ozymandias G desiderata [EMAIL PROTECTED] desperate, deathless
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