My esteemed elder statesman Technotourist colleague Fred Heutte wrote:
> In today's Freep, Dan Sicko and Carl Craig himself both raise the issue
> implicitly of whether the festival lineup really should be more focused
> on "Detroit" or "Electronic," in the sense of encompassing the widest
> variety of cutting-edge high quality electronic music.
"Mommy mommy Dan nicked my idea!"
:)
(j/k)
> I'm not saying there shouldn't be different views of how good the
> lineup is. I don't agree with Carol Marvin that it's the "best ever,"
> because each year has been so far above the minimum I would be satisfied
> with to spend a bunch of dollars flying 4000 miles round trip and dropping
> a bunch of dollars into hotels and cab fares.
I think it's interesting to view the lineup from a wider perspective -
thus my "this will get people's attention" Subject: line. :)
I'm getting the impression, based on festival lineups, that things are
changing out there in the Techno and related worlds ... and not for the
better.
Last night, Audiotistic happened in Los Angeles. Over the years, it's had a
reputation for being a premiere large-scale Techno event (OK, OK, a big rave)
with an outstanding roster of out-of-town talent. It was always pure Techno
oriented in the past - with Techno/Trance/House/Drum'n'Bass areas.
This year, the flyer for Audiotistic proudly trumpeted these headliners:
Outkast
The Roots
Mos Def
Talib Kweli
Blackalicious
And they bill themselves as "The Future Sound Festival". WTF?
Then there's Coachella. 2 1/2 years ago, the Coachella bill was mostly
great, and truly a breakthrough moment for Electronic music in the States,
festival-wise. I saw so many good performances there - mu-Ziq, Richie,
Autechre, Art Of Noise, Juan, Derrick, Luke Vibert, and so on ...
This year, almost all evidence of DJ culture and live Electronic music
has vanished ... once you get past the Big Names (Chems, Sasha & Digweed,
Groove Armada, Pete Tong, The Prodigy, Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto) there's
hardly any evidence of the adventurousness of the late '99 bill - the
only other people I noticed of interest (Electronic-wise) were Kosheen,
Princess Superstar, DJ Dan, Bad Boy Bill, Zero 7, Sound Tribe Sector 9 and
(last but not least) Herbert. The bill is pretty weak compared to '99's.
If the advance program for Sonar is to be believed, this will be the
weakest Sonar of all the ones I have attended, if I go to it.
So, already, 2 of California's most major music festivals have decided that
they need Hip-Hop and Rock as their main attractants to make their festivals
work, and the Electronic music has been relegated to a side-show role.
And Sonar, perhaps the premiere Electronic music festival there is, kept
growing and growing (to the point where the nighttime activities got
moved to a huge cavernous exhibit hall, totally destroying the beautiful
vibe one had down right on the beach at the Pavella de la mar Bella), and
now, suddenly, a year later, the weakest bill in years is served up.
(N.B.: Yes, I realize all of this is "IMHO - YMMV")
Now we have the DEMF lineup looking like it's weaker than DEMF 1 and DEMF 2.
Given the backdrop of other festivals, I wonder if this is an indicator of
the times we're in? (Head-scratchers: If you were Aphex or Kraftwerk, why
would you turn down the chance to perform in front of over a hundred thousand
rabid Techno fanatics?)
Last year, the sight of the crowd at the DEMF - seeing hundreds of thousands
of people out to see *my music*, ON MY OWN HOME SOIL - had me in tears. (I
mean, let's face it, that many people in a place like, say, Holland, wouldn't
be quite so amazing - Techno and House are so well-integrated into the
popular culture over there.)
But now it's a year later and it seems like the stakes are higher ... the
lineups for these other Techno-oriented festivals seem to be getting
weaker ... which means that now, more than ever, having a strong DEMF
somehow seems even more important, against that backdrop. To me, Techno
has always been truly "The Music Of The Future" - and I hate to see the
Future become something that starts to resemble the Past, which these
Audiotistic and Coachella lineups do.
Is Electronic music dying? Of course not - but I'm worried that this "trend"
(if one can call it that) leads down the same path to Jazz - pushed to the
side, kept out of the limelight, only supported by the (small) subculture.
Whereas I'd hoped it would be blossoming, to take its proper place in the
popular culture (certainly here in America) as This Generation's Music.
But then, that's just the thoughts of an old Punk idealist. :)
- Greg
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