hey I am a newbe to this list, although one of my detriot reviews appeared last year on this list. I live in the 415/510, but have been into music from the D since the first dance record that I bought 12 years ago. tom
It is like this ritual in my life, going to detroit dancing too much, drinking too much, getting too much sun, being up too late, napping whenever possible. I start looking forward to it in august. The highlights for me this year were mainly away from the festival. Friday night dan bell, claude young djing (he is really that good, as good as mills, even with the sound system sounding as sick/gnarly as it did), claude young doing an inpromptu live jam with shawn rudiman then to a late night after after hours for gratuitous tweaking teenagers and minimal funk. Then saturday to the festival, dj 3000 rocked the floor from submerge. Scared of roving meatheads and always getting stupid comments from semi-retarded white people, sorry the jock midwesterners make it seem like the gene pool for a lot of these people has become too small. Personal vow, do not stay at the festival till the very end. Saturday night, cheap ass 5 dollar jam with mike ranson, excellent techdubminimal dj and dj dez from electrofunk. At a bar that used to be a speak easy on a street with 5 new bars/nightclubs that were not there last year. Gentrification anyone. Sunday, ah the beauty of the festival, tweaky raver kids juxtaposed next to african american families. Significant ear damage in the underground stage, is bass supposed to make my organs feel like that? Orlando Vorn tore it up hiphop style technobass mixing. Barbara Preisinger (scape rec.) was a let down gliche can suck. Other systems holding down the house, funk, and sort of boring whatever hiphopjazz. But I did discover a web of smaller systems playing great music that clensed my soul, breakcore, dnb, hiphopelectrofunk, gothexperimental, and other stuff were being jacked on 7 or so mid sized rigs. The breakcore made my f*cking day. Sunday night Dan Bell for two hours at the lamest techno party that I have been to (since the last one in sanfrancisco) in a long time. No disrespect to techno, but honey you get repetative and redundant and boring when you don't get all mixed up with divergent sounds. But dan bell was great to hear lay down the foundation of tracked out funk. started getting sick, how do people smoke so many cigs in unventalated spaces? Midwest dude at hotel, "got any pills man?', my response, "I am turning 33 this year the only pills I take are tylenol and ibuprofin." The truth of getting older. Monday day, Electrofunk live, live booty tech f*ck yeah. Hart plaza is so cool, there is a giant labor sculpture. It has lots of great quotes around it including some by emma goldman, mother jones, joe hill, and all sorts of uplifting good stuff. It is one of my personal highlights from being at the festival. Seeing all that there, as part of a city's heritage, part of all our heritage. Things like that are hard to find on city owned spaces. All this stuff that happened up to monday was sort of like foreplay for me. I was mainly really excited about the Underground Resistance party. It was highlighted by the first UR band live set in the states in 10+ years. It was also a benefit for a new community space that both houses an info shop/punk vibe and a strong feeling of being linked to the african american community. The benefit was to put a roof and establish a multi media teaching/users lab. It was really a great vibe at that party, Michigan IMC was there. It made me feel the connection that a bunch of us seem to have in what we put energy into. Good stuff. The UR live set was amazing, there were 5-7 people playing including mike banks. It covered their past releases and current work, musically it went from Acid to techno to house to jazz to gospel (minus vocals) to funk to hiphop. But it really linked it all up, with an incredible sense of place and of history of music and what it really means to us. If the chains of life hold me down, music can still set me free. I love it when you see a show and there is so much love and respect between the audience and the performers, it creates a majickal space where things can really open up. It was a good party but I was done, flip me over, but I did get to browse their info shop at 5am, very cool stuff. Before leaving detroit, we went to the Cass Coop Food Market, and it was very disturbing. They are on the verge of disappearing forever. There are 2 maybe three grocery stores in detroit. This is the only one that carries organic whole foods, and it has been active in the community for nearly 30 years. It could be gone and then what, people in detriot will have to shop in the suburbs for food. It is sad to see. Detroit is changing, it is not the city that it was a mere four years ago, and from what people tell me it looks almost completely different from what it was 10 years ago. Weird gentrification has started, lofts, clubs names oslo, corpfortresses (er. office parks), creeping redevelopment, Casinos, but it is still good to see some money slipping back into the city. It doesn't seem like it is trickling down, on the people that I know that live there. But hopefully some of the local artists will get more due in their hometown. >From living in a city that gentriified and had alot of young people with dosh, learn from my dj mistakes buy progressive or jazzy house records and wear liesure suits. Rents are still cheap for all you aspiring casino hounds, 4 bedroom flats as cheap as 85$ a month. There are brilliant people there, and a lot of friendly people who aren't pretenious. cheers detroit, thanks for the good times. I am never staying at the shorecrest again. tom
