my thing with the ghetto is its involvement in the creation of the music. detroit techno is a movement, and the economical social climate of detroit is one huge influence. when i'm hearing detroit techno, it sounds like it does because of its environment. its reflecting the city, not the suburbs. maybe its reflecting the city in comparison to the suburbs. perhaps bringing to mind the movement of the city to the suburbs, strip malls, plastic drive through cities, rows of houses that look the same. i hold that detroit techno is a movement involved with the city as much as motown, or john sinclair's blending of white jazz black jazz white poetry black poetry. any movement such as this has a driving force behind it. creation of a musical movement doesn't spontaneously happen. thats why i refer to the ghetto.
the financial status of kids in the ghetto is something i see as relational to the music, only because it reflects the city. the financial status of kids in the suburbs does not reflect to me any significant expressional intentions in the music. the kids in the suburbs that are getting involved in the music, making it or just simply enjoying it, i'm not denying that its great. but i think the music of detroit displaced from its environment does lose some of its expression, the intention its creation thrives off of, especially for those who aren't familiar in the least with the city. possibly like hip hop, we're not dealing specifically with a genre of musical style but a system of ideology and reflection that creates a music style, a culture. it seems that way in any significant movement in music or the arts in general. expression is brought forth under clouds of everything in society. so i'm not denying that kids in the suburbs of detroit or even the suburbs of stockholm don't or can't create detroit techno. i'm saying that the sound isn't everything and if they are just trying to replicate the sound they have entirely different intentions than what forms detroit techno. in this way the ghetto, a term i use to refer not to any set places in the city but the atmosphere of the city in general, plays a huge role in the development of detroit techno. i'm not being elitist about detroit. i have never lived in detroit. i grew up in flint and now i go to school and live in ann arbor. i just question the notion that detroit techno is just a sound and i look for things that could be one of the various driving forces behind its creation. i don't think that people just pressing vinyl instead of cds are elitist. in my opinion, not catering to the crowd that views the music apart from its intended state is one of the best things people in detroit techno can do. i don't think its a leisure movement for commercializing or advertisement. that creates those cheesy classical compilations where Beethoven's 9th is cropped to 20 minutes, losing any intended expression while tending a crowd of sheep that take their music in small doses while never reflecting on the artists intentions. i don't want people who experience detroit techno to be like the uneducated individuals in art galleries saying "it means whatever you think it means." expression has intention. and i think the intention is tied in to the cultural climate, the ghetto in a broad sense of the word, of detroit. oh. this is a long post.....i'll end it. anyway, a great book that discusses musical intention and expression in pretty good detail is stravinsky's 'poetics of music'. sure, he's dead. and he lived before anything like detroit techno was even conceptualized, but he isn't talking just about so called classical music. he talks about anything we can call music. a very good read for anyone who wants to think a little more about music. cheers. -- Joshua Hill - [EMAIL PROTECTED] icq: 3045997 / aolim: mandlebrot314 www.ai-studio.com/josh - homepage www.hillhaus.com - detroit cyberia www.ai-studio.com - curator -- ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <313@hyperreal.org> Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 7:36 PM Subject: Re: [313] Richie Hawtin is the future of Detroit Techno. > In a message dated 17/07/00 22:58:47 GMT Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > with that said, i have to respect the so called purists who are only > > pressing vinyl, no massive cd output. > > > > detroit techno is a movement. not a leisure activity. its cool that kids in > > the bourgeoisie suburbs are getting opened up to it, either by parties or > > cds. but just because those kids are being opened up to hawtin that doesn't > > mean he is the future of detroit techno. he is simply the most accessible. > > This is probably a REAL touchy subject, but I just had to comment... > > The way I see things, its the kids in the suburbs who are more likely to buy > the records, as they are the ones who have parents that can afford to buy > them decks for their 16th birthday and give them a 50$ a week allowance that > can be spent on records or that sort of thing. Of course kids in the ghetto > probably don't listen to CD's either, its more likely they listen to 6th > generation taped copies of CD's. > > Basically, I doubt there are many kids in the ghetto that are actually making > this music happen, they can't afford to. If you are struggling to keep food > on the table how are you gonna afford a pair of Technics and loads of records > at around 10$ a single (which is about how much they go for in the UK, > although I don't know about the US). I don't live in a ghetto, and I would > not even consider myself truly poor, but the luxury of owning a set of decks > and being able to travel around the country to various record shops to pick > up all my favourite tunes and latest releases is just a far off dream to me. > > The whole vinyl/purist thing is a bit (although unintentionally I am sure) > elitist. Vinyl is expensive and hard to find, and for alot of us, its just > not a realistic possibility. Because of that, I really appreciate the > artists that have enough understanding of the situation to make their music > accessible to all (ie: CD releases). If something is so good, why be so > secretive about it, and try to hide it away? By making it limited edition > vinyl, all that happens is it becomes even more expensive and harder to find > than it would be, and therefore even harder to obtain for all the ghetto > kids. Its only the bourgeoisie suburb kids who can afford to track down alot > of these tunes and then buy a couple of copies. > > This is not in direct reference to Hawtin, I wouldent say he is the future of > Detroit, but rather anyone and everyone in a position similar to his. > > Aaron >
