That's a very good analysis. One thing that springs to mind, for me, is that, during the mid and late 1980s, there was another city apart from Detroit where people were trying to develop a sound called "techno":
'We have heard techno attempted, and yet sadly you have failed you should stick to vice, miami - leave the techno to LA!' That's from a DJ Unknown & DJ Slip track on Techno Kut records in 1988 - Techno Kut's sound was very heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and Cybotron. However, it wore those influences on its sleeve in a far more overt way than the music that ended up being known as Detroit techno, sounding pretty much like early 1980s electro and often basing whole tracks around flagrant Kraftwerk samples. Sometimes I wonder if, if the Techno Kut people had ended up developing a more unique and distinct sound, the terms we use for music today would be totally different? It would be pretty strange to have LA as the epicentre of "techno", and for artists like UR or Jeff Mills being spoken of as "house" producers. And was the actual *direction* of the music affected in any way by the fact it was called "techno"? If people had always just thought of it as "Detroit house", would it have still developed into what it is today? Brendan > -----Original Message----- > From: marc christensen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 24 October 2003 17:14 > To: Lester Kenyatta Spence; Dr. Nutcracker > Cc: 313@hyperreal.org > Subject: Re: Re: (313) 'Techno' Music > > > The canonical history holds that it was indeed out of the marketing > of the Ten Records Techno comp that the term "techno" first came to > be used to describe the 313 sound and differentiate it more > concretely from the sounds of Chicago's scene. But there's more than > one example of May in particular mentioning that he doesn't like > techno as a term. "Techno" was clearly Juan's afterthought, and it > suited Rushton and the marketing campaign just fine... >
