"Pouvrenoir": You have your opinion. But there is plenty in what you say that should be challenged. Oakenfold may "speak" to more people with his music, but then by that criteria we all ought to drop all of this and just talk about N Sync, Brittney and U2, because they talk to the most people of all.
Juan Atkins doesn't have to "pull the race card." You say that like it's some kind of trick or excuse. How about considering that it represents *reality*. It's certainly not going to do his career much good with the industry and the public to have his picture on the cover of XLR8R with that being the main theme. Your position seems to be that if the man's observations about two decades of personal experience makes bystanders uncomfortable, then there is something wrong with that. The point that Juan makes that speaks the loudest to me, anyway, is that despite all the changes in our society, the structure of the music industry and how it promotes the attitude of racial separation is *still with us* -- 40 years after Miles Davis was talking about exactly the same thing. Take a look in a record chain store the next time you're there. How many of them relegate "urban contemporary" (i.e., song-oriented styles by African American artists) to a separate section from "rock". And yet much of the top-selling "rock" has much the same instrumentation, lyrical style and so on. As for there not being a racial divide in electronic music, as if it's different than the music business in general, that may be the key issue here. And my observation is, it's more true now than it was a decade ago. The audience, the labels, the promotion, the events are all highly segregated now in electronic music. There are subgenres where this is less the case, like Detroit techno itself. As for UR, they are certainly NOT "anti anything not black." Only those who are not paying attention would believe that. I also don't see UR trying to "monopolize the spotlight" -- quite the opposite, in fact. I was very pleased to see them come in as sponsors of the Porter St. weekly after a long period where they have not been very visible in the Detroit scene. Finally, as for DEMF being a "promo package" for Planet E, KMS and Metroplex, I completely disagree. If you look at the two years of DEMF, there are some who have been left out that should be included (AO and Rob Hood, to begin with, and I'd also like to see Billeebob who I have unfortunately never seen play, and people like Dwayne Jensen and Reggie Dokes and the others who have been around for a long time doing a good job on the decks, as well as some of the lesser known DJs from the UR crew -- and there are still some 313 list members who need their time in the spotlight!). But the one thing that stands out is the breadth and depth of the artist lineup that Carl Craig put together. It really has been the finest of Detroit. And I'm not wrong about this, and I am not out of touch with the Detroit scene. phred --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
