a piece from a feature on Detroit's Mike Grant
from Cognition (http://techno.ca/cognition) re: the use
of "Technicolor":
1985 looked to be Grant's year in Detroit, but before things had started to fall
into place in his DJ
career, he had already made the decision to join the military. While
in
the forces, Grant DJed as
often as he could wherever he was stationed, and while in Seattle
inadvertently managed to work a
little bit of Detroit into a certain rumpshaker from the city's Sir
Mix
A Lot. "I wanted to remain
involved in the music while I was in the army, so I told Juan
(Atkins) I
was in Seattle and I knew of
some people who were playing music in the area. He sent me some
records,
one of which was
'Technicolor' [a 1996 Metroplex single from Channel One--Atkins and
Doug
Craig]," Grant
remembers. "At the time the radio station was called KFOX and Nasty
Ness
was the DJ on there,
so I went down to the station, took some Metroplex releases to Ness,
and
wanted to see if he
could get them some airplay. A few months later, all of sudden you
turn
on MTV and you see Sir
Mix A Lot with 'Baby Got Back' and listening [to the background
rhythm]
you say, 'hey, that's
"Technicolor"! I didn't really think anything of it at the time, but
eventually that record really blew up
and Juan mentioned something to me about it. He was like, 'Didn't I
give
you some records?' And I
was thinking, 'Damn, you know what? You did!' Consequently, a lawsuit
resulted." Atkins got his
deserved royalties, and Grant can laugh now at his involvement in
this
now infamous footnote in
electro history.
Lester Kenyatta Spence wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 4/12/00 11:31:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> >
> > << What's interesting to me is not so much the cultural angle.....but the
> > fact that they jumped on Ghetto Tech (which is just a more sped up version
> > of miami bass music) oh about.......14 years after the fact as far as i
> > can reckon. >>
> > Who jumped on it? Music magazines(doing their job to stay hip) that have had
> > dj's, labels, and good promoters pushing it to them and the suburban buying
> > masses of club kids(white and black)for years-- whether it is worthy of a
> > grain of salt or not. I haven't heard any musicians talkin' about it, other
> > than to dismiss it as the Brittney Spears of synthesis. Who cares anyways,
> > if
> > people are buyin' sell it- that's capitalism. Isn't it?
>
> What I find interesting is the argument that this music is NEW. There's
> an interesting racial angle in there.....it doesn't exist until large
> groups of whites listen to it. So the first article I read about the
> music deals with a white DJ who happened to go to school here at Michigan,
> then left after he blew up I think. The first article I read about house
> IN THE CHICAGO PAPERS was in 1991....over ten years at LEAST after it'd
> been created.
>
> This is not a new phenomenon, but interesting nonetheless.
>
> > Re: Bass and Booty--- apples and oranges--- very different in ways other
> > than
> > pitch. Some bass patters were actually complicated and certainly explored
> > tonal quality and lo-end frequencies ways that were never done before.
>
> Give me an example....it seems to me that BOTH grew out of Detroit
> techno....I recall TECHNICOLOR being used for the backdrop of one of 2
> Live Crew's early songs. Ghetto tech is more of a fusion between Miami
> and Techno....but this makes them different types of APPLES, rather than
> apples on the one hand and oranges on the other.
>
> > I'll take Davis and Coltrane with Evans in a smoke-filled lounge over either
> > anytime, but that's just a matter of taste.
>
> I'm the same way....but I don't know too many house heads that can roll
> with either subgenre......
>
> peace
> lks
>
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--
Cognition/Andrew Duke's In The Mix
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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1096 Queen St #123 Halifax NS Canada B3H 2R9
