>> This is off tangent but.... > >But maybe part of that stigma comes from how ubiquitous UK music/dance >mags are worldwide. Q, Mixmag and the like can be found in all corners of >the world. Maybe they don't (or shouldn't) set the standards for music >journalism, but they do such a good job w/distribution it can give people >that impression. Which is equally bad, IMO.
I agree, it does and UK writers command greater credibility than others in Australia as they are considered more knowledgeable - it¹s a cultural cringe thing we have. With a UK accent and a visa, you're made (though the money is still bad!). I just ask people to be relativistic and look at the wider picture, that's all. The main problem in Australia is the spectre of amateurism. To make an income out of writing you have to really take on a lot of work and if you do that you can't sustain quality. Ideally I would like to have time to revise articles and spend more time tweaking drafts and plotting the angle but you can't. There are no sub-editors in street press either and that is the hardest part, creating that distance whereby you can proof your own work in a short amount of time. The thing is the Australian street press covers a wider range of artists generally - like the Space DJz have had several features here but never a feature in a UK magazine, or so they told me in Nov/Dec. A lot of local acts here still feel they get a bad go and sometimes they do but on the whole it's more fluid. My point: media culture varies from country to country so dismissing all writers/magazines is kinda unfair. >Writers who actually do the stories and are committed to things good and >pure is one thing, but the British dance music press/editors strive to >play Popularity Contest with what they choose to go into magazines. Just >look at how Musik & Jockey Slut devolved over the past 2-3 years. It's >all about clubbing, Ibiza, and progressive trance now, and it's really >sad. I know, I get them all for work. I read Mixmag (aka the Judge Jules fanzine) in 1/2 hour max, maybe 15 minutes. It has no substance. In Australia these cycles are less pronounced, in fact I don't think we have them, Australians are more loyal overall. Interestingly, several big names in the UK won't talk to Muzik ever again - including Paul Oakenfold who has a problem with the gossip element. He says he knows about five others who are boycotting it and I assume that they are British. That is an odd situation I think you will agree - when the UK DJs who would appear to be the press darlings boycott it! >Even though I admire DJ magazine's effort to bring UK techno back into the >spotlight, DJ Mag did a special on the Australian dance scene and actually got people's genders wrong. You would think they would ask Australian writers to contribute but, no. We had a laugh reading it. Beware: any special on Australian dance music in a UK magazine that makes out that Sydney is the club capital is spurious. >The most recent article is the 2nd September issue of DJ Magazine (I >think). I don't think DJ is telling the whole story but when I get the magazine I will be able to comment on this. I assume the writer comes from the same background as the guys he is interviewing so he is not gonna draw out the socio-cultural politics/dynamics of it. I don't think those British DJs can deny that UR/Mills/Hood wasn't a salient influence, Reich-ian/industrial roots aside. Maybe they can say that the likes of KMS and Transmat weren't a strong influence on their harder sound but they can't deny the minimal sides of Detroit left an impact on them. I think there is a certain amount of revisionism going on, they are downplaying that influence, consciously or subconsciously. It's like how many kids now say they grew up loving Kraftwerk. Well I'm an 80s kid and back then very, very few kids were into them. Only The Model charted here. What has happened is these Kraftwerk kids have discovered the music further down the track as they have read their heroes citing them. It's become chic to cite Kraftwerk. These same kids were probably into Def Leppard - I think Alan Oldham joked about this a while back. I find that many British DJs say, yes Detroit was an influence but not now, the music is international now, etc, etc and that is a very UK thing to do. There is a bio on Ruskin on the Tresor site in which his discovery of Detroit techno is mentioned and most techno DJs¹ bios make some reference to it. Ho's line is very different - he openly acknowledges the likes of Mills as influences, but not Detroit as such. He sees techno as having its origins in tribal rhythms, so his understanding of it is inherently different. I actually respect where Ho is coming from. At any rate, with the success of Jaguar suddenly everyone is giving Detroit props again - even Oakenfold who tried to license Jaguar for Perfecto. >And maybe Laurent Garnier & DJ Q draw their influences from >elsewhere too. But what all this is not is an anti-Detroit >sentiment. It's more like people assuming that techno automatically comes >from Detroit in one way or another, and other influences just doesn't >matter as much. "Anti-Detroit" is too stronger word for what I am implying. I should imagine Laurent identifies closely with the Detroit tradition and he is much more reverential of it than the aforementioned UK posse - if you ever get a chance, ask him. He's the same generation as most of the Second Wave Detroit, mid-30s. He loves Chicago, Detroit and the New York Nu Groove sound and did a tribute to all that on his latest album, which is ace, incidentally. DJ Q identifies more with the housier sounds but I think he has an affinity with Chicago and Detroit as Glasgow has experienced a similar post-industrial decline. Anyway I will try and get this magazine and then I will give my views on it. Sorry for being so opionated on all this but it's in my star sign OK, I am allowed to be bossy. :)
