I never quite get the amount of extreme mixed opinion that arises whenever the discussion turns towards Richie Hawtin. Admitedly I haven't heard him play for years and don't confess to be too up on all his current material, but for me back in my clubbing heyday in the early-mid nineties he is one of the guys that I look back on a lot more favourably than most. Tracks like 'Technarchy', 'Technotropic', 'Trac-x' and the early FUSE and Plastikman stuff all pushed the boundaries of electronic dance music, the first time any one of those tracks dropped, nothing quite like them had been heard before. His DJ sets from these eras were never overly innovative, but for me he was definatly among my top 5 DJs ever for pure rock the crowd value, plus he was the first DJ I ever heard to really work the EQs in his sets. Though I got kinda bored with his Decks and FX mix CD after a while, it was still technically outstanding and I feel that the whole deal with Richie is that he has always tried to push the envelope in everything he does, be it in his music, using Final Scratch or in the painstaking re-editing on his latest mix album. And whilst I can't help feeling that it may be an unpopular view on this list I look back on many of his early works and do hold them up with much of Juan or Derrick's stuff.
As I said I'm relitivly oblivious to much of his Concept and Minus stuff and from what I can gather it seems like these are largley DJ tools, but even still, they have been released with original concepts and all I can say is fair play to the guy and anyone that thinks his music lacks innovation now needs to listen to his early early nineties stuff and get the full picture. I dropped 'Technotropic' at the 313 party the other week and so wanted to drop 'Technarchy', both those tunes will always rock a crowd. My 2 Pence worth [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
