>One of my original points was if anybody had heard the Mr.C 100% mix and I >was hoping that someone has. Does anybody have an opinion about his take on >Detroit techno?
>Fred > >PS I realize that I have opened a nasty can of worms here and to all of you >involved or trying to evade the threads, I'm really sorry. I just thought it >was relavent to the subject of Detroit techno (I was thinking about labels >like Black Nation, and their way of approaching the subject, at the time I >wrote). Actually, yes, this excellent release has come up a few times over recent months. Linda G first championed it - she was given an advance copy by Mr C himself. I agree with many of your earlier (very succinct) points but I really have to take issue with your calling Mr C a "racist" on the basis of that article in Muzik (May 2000). I myself read that feature when it came out and went back to re-read it in light of your comments. I have to be straight up: I don't like Muzik. This magazine doesn't exactly command respect in underground circles and it has a history of misrepresenting artists. I think you have to take a couple of things into account with that piece. The journalist was interviewing Mr C in San Francisco and clearly wanted to use that as his angle - ie 'Mr C takes on America.' Hence the title "Blond Ambition." The questions follow that line. What doesn't come across is that Mr C is a cockney kinda lad and has a very geezer-like swagger. He told me that the 'C' stands for 'c**t' - I think that says it all. He is the kinda guy who could easily get misquoted in an interview. Mr C has long supported American house and techno in the UK - he is very passionate about them. He is down with Layo and Bushwacka and they're all into that tech-house sound (Detroit techno meets Chicago house). When Mr C came to Melbourne recently he played a fair bit of 313-friendly stuff - including, from memory, some KMS and DJ Rolando's Knights Of The Jaguar. The Shamen were remixed by Kevin Saunderson and Richie Hawtin back in the day. Mr C released Stacey Pullen aka Kosmic Messenger's early stuff on Plink Plonk and has had many of Detroit's finest DJ at his club Subterrain at The End, one of few quality outlets for this music in the UK today, I would imagine. All of the tracks - from Gene Farris, Derrick Carter, Dave Angel and Stacey - on that CD are exclusives to Mr C and Layo's End Recordings; Mr C commissioned them specifically; all have played at his club. I would think that these intelligent, sagacious and talented brothers would stay away from Mr C if they really thought he were a punk. Maybe Mr C's comments in Muzik were insensitive and brash in that he didn't directly give props to the US progenitors of this sound (or were they edited out?) but the most you could really accuse him of in the circumstances is pratdom - I have to say he is a nice prat. Is he an opportunist? I don't know. I give him the benefit of the doubt since he has been behind this music for a long time - since his pre-Shamen days in fact - and it would have been easier for him to jump on the commercial music (trance) bandwagon. He poured his royalties from The Shamen into a credible label, Plink Plonk, and a good club, The End. I think the gist of his comments are that he wants to take on Sasha and Digweed and the UK trancers and represent quality underground music in the US, not necessarily exclude its progenitors, though, that said, he could unwittingly do just that since the US music press is more likely to take notice of a white British guy than an African-American doing something in the sphere of electronic dance music (cf: Basement Jaxx, who, it should be added, never fail to give props to the US precedents). I believe Stacey Pullen more than anyone (and maybe Derrick Carter and Gene Farris) pioneered/popularised the "tech-house" sound and he should get his props but I doubt if Stacey would want his music to be labelled that now, or become caught up in that scene; the vibe I get from him is that he wants to transcend "techno" to be recognised as a musician/artist, per se. The name "tech-house", not necessarily the music, came from the UK, and I think Mr C would agree with that if asked directly. The likes of Terry Francis, Pure Science et al put their Brit stamp on a US sound, which they genuinely love. Mr C is only really saying that he and his posse got behind the sound and the scene - and I think we'd all agree that, while the music has its origins in the US, there isn't a huge tech-house scene there as yet. I can only speak on the basis on my exchange with the guy and from what I know. Here are some extracts from the Muzik interview for those who haven't read it, so at least you all can make up your own mind: Musik: What exactly do you think you're doing over here? Mr C: "Ha ha! Conquering America! Sasha and Digweed have torn the whole country to pieces with trance. But America's still really narrow-minded and when it comes to clubs it's gay and it's house. It's been stuck like this for 15 years and now club people are up for something new." So what's the plan? "Well, America likes stuff with an urban edge and the househeads are looking for something new. Tech-house has become a buzzword out here." What's wrong with England? "We're already massive in England! I'm playing the best clubs, doing my show on Kiss every Saturday and although 70% of my work is in Europe, it's time to concentrate on the States." It's been 13 years since you first mounted the wheels of steel. Is this finally your big break? "The people who set up the scene in the mid-Eighties - "Evil" Eddie Richards, Kid Bachelor, Colin Faver and myself - we always went for that house and techno hybrid, but we were always a little too far ahead. Now it's finally happening." What happened? "When a lot of the big orbital raves went on in 1989 our scene got hijacked. Before that everything was house, techno, electro - sort of anything goes. Then with rave, it was just who had the biggest bass sounds and the noisiest noises and that killed the acid house scene. 13 years later it's time for us to hijack it back and that's what's going on in the UK. Trance is getting boring, speed garage and drum & bass aren't gonna progress much further. It's our turn. Time for the underground to take hold again." Where are its roots then? "RIP at Clink Street and The Dungeon were the start of tech-house in the Eighties! It wasn't until we put a name to it that people took notice! It was a very loose genre. I mean, there's actually no such thing as tech-house, but everyone jumped on it once we came up with a stupid name. When this does blow up it'll have a lot of longevity... it's already been going for 15 years!" Who else is crossing the Atlantic? "Eddie Richards is massive over here, Terry Francis, Richard Grey, Asad Rivzi, Layo and Bushwacka! - all open-minded DJs crossing the spectrum from deep house, house, acid house, electro, breakbeat and acid techno."
