I'm sorry, I was going to keep quiet about this but I'm simply flabbergasted!!
I've been away for the past week on a short holiday and, deliberately, not been near a computer to check my mailbox. I left the discussions with everyone raving about the overall success of the DEMF as well as offering constructive insights as to how improvements could be made and how certain performances were "better" than others in some very valid opinions. Lots of excitement and a general buzz around the D and where we're all heading with it. (Big cheers to Bill VanLoo for a particularly excellent report!) I return today to a load of...shite (frankly) about racism, trance, gabber/hardcore and the "death of Detroit"?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I have now been on this list for quite a while, but only speak up when I'm really moved to say something...this is now: Racism - never heard such shite in my life. When I'm in a record shop I'm focusing on the sound of the record, the music, the funk. I often have no idea who has made the record, where they come from or what they look like - it makes absolutely no difference! Yes, I agree that the most influential techno (and house) has come from black artists, but who gives a fuck? Let's just remember a certain techno producer's definition of techno as "like Kraftwerk and George Clinton stuck in an elevator...", that says it all for me...integration, acceptance, innovation - NO BARRIERS. Gabber/Hardcore - Detroit music is not just about clubland. Techno has always had a wider definition than other forms of "dance music" in my opinion. Yes, it has its basis and general market on the dancefloor, but one of the reasons I am so passionate about techno is that it is transcends that environment...think Galaxy to Galaxy, Icon, just about all of Songs of Food and Revolutionary Art. Unlike all this stupidly hard and fast hardcoresque stuff, you don't need to be pumped full of amphetamine (or worse) or any other drug to get it. Music affects a person on many levels and dancing is a spontaneous expression of all those emotions. If the "music" is only intended as a pulsating, hard as fuck, agressive kick-drum, then that's all the emotion you'll get. Mr Dance Extasy (ha ha), I really am not in the business of dissing people and consider myself open minded about ALL forms of music, but you are simply a sad, drugged-up little boy and have no place to comment on music as you evidently don't understand it, any of it. Trance - seems that ship is now sinking anyway. Trance is just crap pop music (in my opinion), now in the hands of the corporates and trundled out to club ponses who go to these "super-clubs" to be seen and admired with the music as some insignificant factor in the precedings. No soul, no funk, just one blue print track that everyone clones to their own String-pad preset (no. 1 usually) on the latest Korg trance machine, as they've only owned for 1 week, after seeing Paul Van Dyk miming with one on Top of the Pops. Death of Detroit music - Stagnant for the past 9 years, I'm not even going to merit that kind of blanket ignorance with a response...you all know. As for our friend that doesn't seem to know the difference between trance and techno; stop whinging, open your ears, shut your mouth and you might learn. The thing that's so compelling about real techno, I think, is that you can't define it. There are no rules, just innovation and a relentless, creative search for new ideas. It seems to me that techno has taken influences from all overthe world and styles right across the musical spectrum, from jazz to electro-acoustic to disco to classical/romantic to blues to funk and into space. That's progressive, not a so-called "narrow-mindedness" just because we won't accept trance or whatever other lifeless musical form back into the equation. Here's hoping this is the end of the madness, alas I fear not. Peace and total repect to those that know, don't give it up. Niall. ))\ )) o ___ )) )) (( \(( (( ((_(, (( ((...
