"Welcome to Detroit, it's not as bad as you'd like to think." I'm just glad I wasn't working at the festival this year. The feelings of many who did are summarized here:
http://www.chromedecay.org/rob/ But as an attendee, I thought this year's was something of an improvement in several respects, although not really because of the (un)management. First off, despite little advance publicity, a lineup a lot shorter on the "big brand names," and a lot of grumbling among us jaded vets, attendance was probably 80% of what it's been, which is actually an improvement. I saw much fewer [EMAIL PROTECTED] k1d# and a more balanced audience mix generally. People show up to this thing because they like it, not because of the big names at the top of the bill -- and in that regard, the (un)management has worked in favor of a better festival. One of those contradictory things . . . The smaller crowd made it much more pleasant, even in the evening when things were just chaotically overcrowded the last couple of years. I found the music more consistently good as well (with the exception of KMS, who unfortunately fell back on Anthem City rather than Techno City for his selections). Derrick P, TP & Mo-reese, Brett Dancer, Electrofunk and Rolando played really well (starting with *Sylvester*!!), and I could forgive FK's excursion into Anthemland because he played Wavejumper. I totally enjoyed Duplex who put in a fine effort despite equipment problems. Kenny Larkin played a typically erratic but generally very energetic set, and Mike Huckaby's set might have been my favorite for at least the last five years -- he reminded me again why acid house (the non-cheesy kind anyway) is some of the best dance music of all time. I also should mention that both Kenny and Ro played "Disco's Revenge," which as you might recall is something of a favorite of mine :) The big props go to Fat Freddy's Drop, a band I'd never heard of before they played a jaw-droppingly awesome live set at the Hi-tech stage. Settling down the main stage programming really helped this festival overall. The inexplicable gaps and peculiar lineups of previous years were supplanted with more continuous and reasonable performances during the daytime. The definite downer of the weekend was watching Derrick May rolling around on a cart with two guys riding shotgun and holding trash cans dressed up as donation barrels. This rather pathetic exercise in "doing something" simply closes the case on the idea that it's time to find someone else to actually run the show. I was fully prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt after last year, but a year is a year and -- granting full slack for the immense effort it takes to pull something off like this festival -- it's time for a new arrangement. I went to a lot of night parties this year, starting Thursday evening and going straight through to Monday night. As usual, not that much impressive as far as crowd energy, but some of the music was quite good -- Matt Dear at the Temple, Amp Fiddler's band with Bill Beaver on the mike at Centre St., Glenn Underground at Camillian, Pope and Oji in Greektown, Twonz at the Works (who I finally saw after all these years, making up for not getting in to Agave to see Claude Young and Shawn Rudiman). Actually I didn't stray far from the main path this year, come to think of it, although I do wonder what happened at that Dust Traxx/3Jane/NY thing on East Grand Blvd. And this is the year I never actually went into Foran's, quite a change from the past. The scene there has evolved off the techno/festival track, which I sort of understand. I seem to have missed a lot of good things both at the festival and the afterparties -- more than seemed the case in previous years. That's also a good sign; there's a lot of ferment and good new performers bubbling up right now. The UR party stands out entirely. Now admittedly I'm biased on this since I know them well and went out flyering with Buzz Goree a couple of nights. Buzz and a couple of his friends put on the show (that's "Mixworks"), and he really worked hard at making it happen, including a last-minute expedition to replace a non-working projector (those who saw the video know why this was important!). This resulted in a full house, the event raised over $3000 for the youth center, and we were treated to a truly historic show -- the real UR band playing the music live at home in a community center in the Cass Corridor where it all came from. Timeline brought out a simply overwhelming show, starting from techno and going back to soul. This is way different than previous UR-related live efforts -- the amount of preparation was clearly substantial, and they played great all the way through. Probably the only electronic music live set I've seen that matches this was Orbital in 1993, and as wonderful as P&P were, they were not even close to this intense. By the way, yes, there is a soundboard tape of the show, but that's all that can be said for now. The mystery track (with the galloping video backdrop) was "Moor Horseman on Bolarus 5," by the way. You can hear a 30-second sample at: http://www.tigersushi.com/site/frameset.jsp?page=Rcd.jsp&RcdId=590&FmtId=3 Finally, a big thumbs-up to the new crib in town, the Hilton Garden Inn... it's between the Atheneum and the Ponch in price, and twice the value. Couldn't have asked for a better location, and it was reasonably quiet. The Hilton is in Harmonie Park, steps away from Spectacles, Centre St., the Camillian, Greektown, and the Cary building on Gratiot and Broadway where I was at a pretty cool little gallery party with Benji B, Ayro and John Arnold playing on Sunday night. Plus just three blocks from Comerica Park where I also took in two ballgames this weekend. Of course, the Tigers managed to slide under both times (gotta get a new catcher, just to start with!), but it was a lot of fun and the fireworks were actually good. It was great seeing everyone again (including a completely unexpected meet-up with Steve Lammers!), hope things get straightened out on festival production -- if the Memorial Day weekend ever opens up and goes to another event, we'll never get it back. see you in the future phred
