Article
Night Drive: A Bluffer’s Guide to Detroit Techno

By: Todd Hutlock
2006-03-07



Posted 03/07/2006 - 01:02:42 AM by pabanks46:
 Been waiting for this one! Good job. Love the graphic too.
 
Posted 03/07/2006 - 02:56:16 AM by FunkyTim:
 Nice to see an article on Detroit Techno!!! Its not mentioned nearly enough, it deserves far more press :) Hope you do a follow up article on the second generation of innovators from the scene, artists like Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, Drexciya, and a slew of others deserve some attention and good press too :)
 
Posted 03/07/2006 - 09:32:56 AM by hutlock:
 FunkyTim -- All of the artists you mentioned and more will be popping up later in the week, and an interview with Carl Craig will be posted as well. Stay tuned!
 
Posted 03/08/2006 - 12:39:14 AM by :
 Awesome to finally get a grip on the interdynamic neutralism exhibited by these three artists in terms of something approaching the metaphysical context you`ve fostered here, & by that I mean as the week goes on it`s less likely to evolve into a conclave of spectral tone-phasing and technocratic (no pun intended) industrial post-verbiage that knowing mixheads would no doubt get a little jittery over. That Saunderson`s ephemeral trance-lite should intersect May against the backdrop of such an indiscriminate bpm AND that he always keeps one eye on the ground while balancing his satellite effects inside an echo-chamber of forcefed spatialism, is something which has always kept me musing. But if I were to take a simple biographic of Atkins tendency for hi-hat aquatic dovetailing and pingpong it up alongside Saunderson`s mid-nineties` hypno-dizrhythmia then I might leave our poor Todd Hutlock scrambling for his ghostwriter. I mean Atkins did Berlin like Bowie didn`t and any crosschecking geeks out there will have figured that out before I even get to the end of my rave, but how you can talk about Saunderson being `accessible` in light of the over-hyped sheen he glosses everything with I find implacable. Let me rephrase; he cuts with the grain. I was hoping for more of an umbrella approach to this article, one with more ribs and less webbing. It`s instinctive to say that May is the Miles Davis of techno but I`d prefer something along the lines Bill Evans was the Belleville three of German deep house minimalism in his heyday, and that`s only touching the surface, to quote an embarrassingly apt cliche, for surface noise and touching are substantially instructive notions of spatialistic dizrhytmia. It all comes down to the heart of the matter - the cogwheel. If it clicks then it aint broken, ha, and where did that leave Innercity?
 
Posted 03/08/2006 - 03:31:06 AM by cosmokane31:
 this feature is a great service to music fans. so much lore, so little organization - until now.
 
Posted 03/08/2006 - 11:11:51 AM by pabanks46:
 Hey, The-Disexists, you know those weird paper things that have words (like the ones on this screen), I think they're called "books"? Anyhow, do any "books" on this topic meet with your approval? I'd be curious to read one that does(assuming its like reading on the internet, but with less |33715/\/\).
 
Posted 03/08/2006 - 09:03:19 PM by :
 Paul, it`d be like exhuming language from the dustbowl of a linguistics textbook for me to seriously proffer an opinion on the encyclopaedic cycles (& recycles) of heretics you`re likely to suffer under the weight of, per one city`s slanted music scene, but given to suchwith futurism as I am, Dan Sicko`s \"Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk\" is what you need to bury in the sponge chips of your pillow. Better not isn`t it, to snap a pair of Fendalheisser`s over your ears and write your own stinking thesis, feral dramatic maximatotic submission to Electroland dotcom and see if you can`t pull a woodwind instrument or two out of your pierced ears. That said, I`d be nuts & bolts surprised if you don`t wake up from a dream of flying over a city at night & think your looking up at the stars. Twinkle twinkle * * * * See those Paul? * * * * Four to the floor, knock on the door, kick up a storm, Platonice form. Sorry, I`m losing it...I mean to say, don`t look into things like books bro, look outer, listen even outerer & spend up large.
 
Posted 03/09/2006 - 01:00:54 AM by terrorist:
 me love techno but not when people try to fill it all out with bullshit theory, like disexist up there, like wtf are you wasting our time & your own? looks like you just cut n pasted some dry `linguistics` article from somewhere & changed the keywords to relate to this article, you havent actually added anything to the discussion or the article. for my part, id like to read an article like this one that holistically examines ambient electronica in the manner say of the orb or future sound of london and where that has led into the zeroes, if it led anywhere, because i was too busy on my 3rd indie life to follow it, i know idm evolved from that at some point but i see idm as a distinct and quite separate branch that is more rhythm based than that 90s ambient was. anyone? nonplace urbanfield and funki porcini, what happened?
 
Posted 03/10/2006 - 08:56:20 AM by henry_s:
 very nice article, and a great reminder of the awesome legacy of Detroit...(an interesting complementary article could delve into the \"beatdown\" offshoot of Detroit techno, folks like Kenny Dixon Jr, Theo Parrish, Rick Wilhite, Alton Miller, oh the list goes on)...
 
Posted 03/10/2006 - 09:37:52 AM by hutlock:
 Good call, Henry--I really debated about including at least KDJ and Theo Parrish, but I just didn\'t think it quite fit the piece. And as I said in the intro, for every artist listed here, there are five more worthy of attention. The guys you mentioned most definitely fit that category!
 
Posted 03/10/2006 - 12:46:05 PM by GavinM:
 Nothing on the ghetto-tech scene in Detroit? Seems like they are the heirs to the throne, to some extent.
 
Posted 03/10/2006 - 01:26:08 PM by henry_s:
 ah yes, all this and Ghetto-Tech, too...Todd, you\'re right about keeping the focus straight on Techno itself, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere...but thinking about these other strands of IDM (and also the Parliament/Funkadelic empire, MC5/Stooges and oh yeah, Motown), it\'s enough to make a Detroiter\'s heart burst with pride!...(the old Music Institute really ought to be turned into some sort of Electronic Music Hall of Fame, but let\'s face it, if Detroit can\'t even get it together to do up a decent Motown Museum...)
 
Posted 03/10/2006 - 03:53:13 PM by hutlock:
 Yeah, Gavin, no ghetto-tech for the same reason as above: if I was gonna start delving into the sub-genres, it was gonna be far, far too large, and I wanted to keep it focused on JUST Techno. And hey, don\'t forget about that new Slide scene too! And Henry -- your idea for the Music Institute is a GREAT one! But yeah, I don\'t think there is that kind of money floating around Detroit at the moment, ya know? But damn, if they started it up, I would send them a check in a heartbeat and drive up there every weekend!
 
Posted 03/24/2006 - 08:29:33 PM by bj_randolph:
 this article is terrific. if anyone's still checking these comments, any chance we could get one for chicago house? better yet, how 'bout baltimore club?
 
Posted 03/27/2006 - 09:56:42 AM by hutlock:
 Wow, I actually used to live in Baltimore in the early 90s, and that scene (Basement Boys, especially) does need another look, although I'm not sure I am the guy to do it. Chicago house though? MMmmmmmm, yeah.
 
Posted 07/11/2006 - 05:10:05 AM by doctor-detroit:
 This article more or less sounds like the world according to Submerge. Frankie Jucaj gets a big mention but 430 West/Octave One don't? Using your rigid geographical approach "Alleys of your Mind" can't be the first "Detroit" techno record because it was recorded in Ann Arbor,MI. And doing sh*t in Ann Arbor gets you put into the "honorary Detroit" slot - or is that just for white guys who aren't sanctioned by UR? Dan Bell lived in Detroit city limits for more years than Kevin Saunderson for example but in he goes into the "honorary Detroit" column also. And to say Theo Parrish, Kenny Dixon et al don't have place here is ridiculous. "Shari Vari" is Italian for "don't believe the hype".