Hey Ken,
a. it was a joke, I happen to be a blue-eyed devil myself.
b. that message was sent offlist, it is rude to post private mail.
Sorry, I didn't notice that and thought I hit "reply" instead of "reply to
all" so I worte 313 in. My bad.
c. Race does have a lot to do with it. White folks who were raised on
pop music do not want to hear soulful dance music because it is too much
of a stretch from the music they normally listen to. Brothers are not
going to the trance parties, it is white kids. Trance music is pop with
a kick drum, it is white, dumb, and musically unadventurous people that
love it. And don't tell me that Humpty does not draw a very dumb and
unfunky white crowd, I know you know better. People go to motor to drink
and hit on chicks, they are not there for the music,
That's kinbd of an over-generalization. I know a lot of people who *only* go
there if there's someone playing that they want to hear.
if you analyze the
crowd and think about what you are seeing, you will come to the same
conclusion.
these days many black people do not support the stuff because it is not
perceived as black enough, or soulful enough. D-wynn does not even play
good records on saturdays, he plays for a motor crowd, which is dumb and
white.
He played some pretty good tracks last Sat., man.
It isn't a pleasant thing to say, but it is the truth. Another
thing, and this is going to get me in huge trouble, but who even wants
to go to motor anymore? Honestly, everyone I know is bored to death of
the place, and the only reason anybody still goes is because there are
no real alternatives.
That's 100% true and I don't think many people would disagree with you.
As for why Detroit doesn't support its best and brightest, I can think
of a number of reasons. For one, intelligent techno people are getting
old, even us newschool youngsters who were into it in the mid-90's are
getting older. We have jobs, some of us have kids, and we all have
responsibilities. Also, most of us who have been around long enough to
know the difference between Humpty and Dwynn are starting to get bored
with the whole idea. How many years to you have to hang out at the club
before you start to get the idea? Third, times are changing, people are
not going out like they used to, it is 1982 again, just look through a
new issue of Vogue.
music is changing, it isn't 84 anymore. The crowds in detroit are
totally segregated, commercial radio is totally segregated, unless you
are Eminem or racially anonymous (godfather) you aint getting played on
WJLB. 96.3 or 89x wont play you unless you are white, or you music is
completely and utterly white(re hootie) radio is putting people into
their particular racial boxes, and they are not listening outside of
those boxes. Black people go to the cabaret, and white people go to
raves.
This is hitting anybody who is playing music that does not fit into one
of those boxes really hard. Techno isn't purist black music, there is a
ton of white influence in Detroit Techno, it is Kraftwerk and Parliament
in an elevator. It is too black for the white people who do not want to
stretch, and too white for black people who want to hear "black" music
at the club.
I thought music was music. Didn't know you can color sound.
The crowd that did support it is getting old, like it our
not, our scene is aging, and young kids are not taking up our slack.
I say it is just as well. How many more 909 records do we really need?
Derrick May was right, this dance music does not have the charisma to
last. If you think things are bad now, wait another 5 years. it has been
beaten to death, and it isn't special anymore. oh wow, another 12" dance
record, and the reverb algorithms that is in fashion this season are so
much better than the reverbs they were using last year. Wow, instead of
using 909 closed hats, they are using acoustic hats to play the exact
same shuffled 909 rhythm. How many dance records are actually techno?
aren't you sick of knowing that the break will come every 8 bars, and
that there will probably be a breakdown every 64 bars...? There are all
these rules for making a proper techno record, and it is just so tired
and boring.
Wow you're jaded.
I know that I sound like a bitter and jaded old-young man, I accept and
acknowledge it. The reason I am such a jerk about it is because I do
care about music, and I take the things that people like derrick may
said about techno back in the day seriously. People are just rehashing
the same f***ing record over and over for money or status. all these
records that are coming put now are raping and s***ting on something
that was once special and pure. Where is the real innovation, people
make the same track over and over, they just process it a little
different, put some different drum sounds on it, and they are lauded as
geniuses.
The reason people are not coming to the club anymore is because detroit
is not making music that is so vibrant and irresistible that people feel
they need to be at our gigs.
Detroit needs to go back to Deep Space and bring something back that is
so out there that people will go nuts for it. Who cares if there is
another slammin dance cut, there have been a million slammin cuts, it is
time for a new Detroit sound. We need to make a new style that has its
roots in techno-soul, but is reaching further out. It is time for
Detroit to create another futuristic musical language, cause the old one
has been jacked by the rest of the world and trampled to death.
And all in 10 years or less, huh.
How many
genres have sprung from Techno, how many have come from Detroit since
then?
I am not hating on any Detroit producers, I just think that we need to
take more risks and use a bit of imagination to make weird records that
do not strictly conform to the rule book that Detroit wrote a decade
ago. I know there is the talent and ability in this city to blow the
world away, people just need to have the courage to go out there and
make records that are not going to conform to people's expectations of
Detroit or what "proper DJ techno" is in general.
Take care,
mt
Hugh G. Blaze wrote:
>
> No I think racist epithets are inappropriate. And I don't think it has
> anything to do with race. The question was: why has Detroit turned a
deaf
> ear to its best homeboys again and again. (DEMF excluded).
>
> >
> >I think a better subject header for this post would be why to these
> >cracker ass honkies ignore the soul. ;)
> >
> >mt
> >
> >Hugh G. Blaze wrote:
> > >
> > > Okay so Friday night, Motor Lounge, Richard Humpty Vision played and
> >there
> > > was reportedly a capicity crowd.
> > > Saturday night D Wynn played and there's was like 300 people, tops.
> > > What's going on?
> > > Am I still in Detroit?
> > >
>
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