i edited this down from a large review to make it strictly music
relevant. this was my first time in detroit, and it was fantastic.
friday night: todd sines and aril brikha preparty
we arrived at the pub just in time to miss
todd sines' set. big fun. finally aril brikha
came on, and he killed it. he played mostly new tracks along with
a couple favorites from the "deeparture in time" LP. when he was
done, i thanked him for being the man and we jetted to go get some
sleep.
saturday: the festival
we rolled over to the main stage
for double helix's set, which ended up being quite nice and
smooth. the first part of ayro's live set involved him making a
rather complex
funky drum beat and synth line just using an mpc and a couple
keyboards. he freestyled a couple tracks worth of really nice
jazzy broken beat before bringing out his vocalist/girlfriend to
perform tracks from his forthcoming album. the songs sounded nice,
but lacked the spontanaety of the awesome first part, which was
without question the most impressive live PA ive ever seen. the
reese project played next, and they rocked out some generally deep
sounding house music with vocals, though they seemed to be having
some problems. buzz goree comes on and crushes some awesome detroit
techno. following him was rolando, who absolutely tore it up. he
played tons of classic techno tracks like "strings of life" and
"night drive". we had to leave his set early though so we could
wander over to the high tech soul stage for amp fiddler's live
set. he played with a full band and just rocked
out on a nord lead 2 and a nord electro which makes all the
rhodes/organ/electromechanical keyboard sounds that a funk player
would need. the experience he had playing with people like prince
and p-funk showed up in his stage show and his dress which
included an afro, 70's style wraparound shades, and an african
outfit. he danced around and sang and played keys on a bunch of
tracks that i recognized like "eye to eye" and "superficial" from
his basementality EP as well as some parliament covers. the
highlight was without a doubt his performance of "im doing fine"
which he recorded with kenny dixon jr as amp dog knight for the
first mahogani record. after that fantastic set we rolled over
to the music institute stage for some ron trent, who was
absolutely killing it with some deep ass disco and house music.
saturday night: rob hood and suburban knight afterparty
suburban knight was rocking the final scratch,
playing chill melodic detroit techno tunes that should have been
played at 33 pitched up at 45. it sounded really odd, especially
when he played tunes i knew like some aril brikha and more
strings of life. at first i didnt like it, but after a while i
actually got pretty into it. he started mixing in some jungle
sounding stuff with the sped up and techno and that really had a
dope effect. after him was some guy i dont know also playing off
final scratch. he dropped some laurent garnier as well as some
other deep detroit tunes played at their proper speed. rob hood
started off banging it out with some really quick hard techno. im
not the biggest fan of the
harder styles, but ive always liked his hard mixes as well as his
harder productions so i was really looking forward to an ill set
from him. 35 minutes into his set, just as everyone was starting
to get into it, he pulled off his record and quickly packed his
sh*t up. someone got on the mic and said "the police will be
arriving very shortly, we advise everyone to leave the building
immediately." everyone got out so we did too, running into a very
irritated looking rob hood on our way out.
sunday: more festival
we made it down to the high tech
soul stage before dabrye's set to find all the rest of our crew
already chilling waiting for his live set. what appeared to be an
old ass computer sat alongside an old synth and a sampled for what
ended up being a very awesome live PA. lots of fat hiphop-esque
beats with nice atmosphere and huge raw basslines. dwele came on
after dabrye and
he and his band played a really nice set of slow soul music. he
was a really nice guy who was very happy to be playing, and it
showed. their sampler had some glitches so they just turned it off
and got funky. the music went very well with the warm sunny day.
at 4 we went over to the main stage to catch john beltran's live
set. it was very nice chilled out melodic stuff featuring ayro and
john arnold on keys and guitar as well as a percussionist.
around 5 we went over to the
high tech soul stage to get in position for the detroit experiment
set at 6. we caught the last half of vikter duplaix's deejay set.
he was rocking the classic tunes like chaka khan's "aint nobody"
and africanism's "block party" and of course the ubiquitous
"strings of life". once he was done, the detroit experiment set
up. i turned around to look up at the huge wall of people that had
assembled to
witness this once in a lifetime performance of funk techno and
soul musicians next to old jazz heads. it was an intense feeling,
and their set was every bit as intense. they played for around an
hour, and it was without question the best music ive ever heard
live. amp fiddler held down the keys while carl craig rocked the
spacey scifi synth parts. the jazz guys i didnt know, though the
old horn players were absolutely awesome. the drummer played with
herbie hancock's headhunters squad and the percussionist played
with sun ra back in the day. for the last song the athletic mic
league came out to rap over a track, and it was really good too,
featuring a white female emcee who just crushed it. we listened to
some of pole's set,
which was really boring. we went over to the music institue stage
to catch
the second half of agent x's set. he was rocking the nice smooth
detroit house. at 9 the 3 chairs came on. obviously my
hopes were quite high, and they followed through with the best
deejay set ive ever heard. theo started off playing just the best
disco and vocal house tunes, really top notch deep stuff. he
rocked the EQs like no deejay ive ever seen, and he was feeling
it, dancing around and singing along with the tracks. marcellus
pitman and rick wilhite rocked it as well, keeping the sounds
smooth as hell. then kenny dixon came on, with a bucket hat
pulled down really low and a ski mask on so you could only see
just part of his face around his eyes. then the lights went out
plunging the tent into darkness. kenny played some stuff that was
deep and slow and a little more techno oriented before playing
some more housey stuff. it was just off the chain. the crowds
reactions to these guys was perfect. hundreds and hundreds of
people going wild for the best music. lots of dancing, yelling,
chanting, clapping, etc. every stupid sappy tale youve heard about
how great house music is was true for 3 hours. about 50 people
were doing the electric slide which bradford thankfully caught on
digital video.
monday: even more festival
we hit the
underground stage early for midwest product's set. they rocked it,
mixing rock and electronics into a weird combo that was totally
awesome. they had a singer come on for their last 2 songs, both
prince covers including "when doves cry" which was just the bomb.
we headed over to the music institute tent after that for shake's
set. he crushed sh*t, dropping the craziest tracks. the crowd
response to shawn's "live alone" track off the new technoir 002
was awesome. shake probably has the best most varied selection of
any deejay ive ever seen and his mixing was solid. we caught
time:space at 5. time:space is aril brikha, ayro, and a bass
player and a percussionist. it was awesome as well, very laid back
stuff, mostly tunes from aril brikha's LP including their finale
of "otill" my favorite track from my favorite album. ayro was
rocking the fender rhodes over it, and incorporated the main
melodies from "the bells" by jeff mills and "cars" by gary neuman
into the song. it was dope. we went over to the music institute
stage for juan atkins' set at 6. it was pretty awful, there was
some technical difficulty at the beginning which meant that the
highs were too loud and there was almost no bass. juan's mixing
wasnt at its best so we rolled out to go hear norma jean bell's
set on the main stage at 7. we laid down on
the concrete seats to get some rest in anticipation of jeff mills'
set later that night. norma jean bell played some ill deep vocal
house, perfect for resting on a nice detroit evening. gary martin
played some records from 8-10 going from some harder sounding
detroit tunes to a bunch of tunes from
his technotica label. by this time everyone was getting amped for
jeff mills.we decided to go down to
the front for prime speaker space for mills' set. we hung around
for a minute and quite possibly the most entertaining thing of the
weekend happened. i was wearing my throwback 1979 pillbox pirates
hat. this kid said to me "hey, nice hat. are you from pittsburgh?"
i said to him "yeah". then he said to me "hey, do you know shawn
rudiman?" and i said "yeah its this guy right here" as shawn was
standing next to me and was watching the conversation. the guy
didnt believe me, shawn had to show him his driver's license. the
guy proceeded to gush all over shawn like he was the greatest
thing since sliced bread. i was just cracking up. shawn gave him a
copy of the new technoir record and he seemed pretty pleased. then
derrick may
came onstage to introduce jeff mills. the atmosphere at this point
was off the hook entirely. mills started off playing martin luther
king jr's "i have a dream" speech. his first tune: "jaguar".
NOTHING could have killed the feeling at that point. except some
serious technical difficulties. which happened. the mixer was
f*cked up, the bass was sounding all farty and the levels were
low. mills laid low while the sound guys fixed everything, but it
took about 15 minutes during which the excitement level died
considerably. once they got things going alright, mills played
some electro ("planet rock" i can remember hearing" and some
harder techno, though the levels still werent up very high. he
played "the bells" and the reaction due to the weak sound system
was pretty tame. finally a few records later the bass kicked in
and the volume was raised, but at that point it was impossible to
save the original hype that had been built. what followed was a
very nice set, very well rounded with few bad errors and a ton of
really "how the hell did he pull that off?" mixed. he played some
Wizard-ish tracks which he introed with some music from the wizard
of oz. his 909 programming was good the first time he rocked it,
but the second time near the end of his set he just seemed to
crank up the tempo knob which was pretty weak IMO. still his track
selection was on point, lots of old hiphop house and electro jams
kept everyone pretty happy. im only disappointed with his set
because i saw what it could have been: an epiphany. somehow things
just didnt work out that way. it didnt really detract from the
festival though, which was without question the best 3 days of
music ive ever witnessed. after mills' set, derrick may came back
on to hug mills and give a long list of thank yous. i think he did
an excellent job, and im way too excited for next year's festival.
tom
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