I agree 99% with everything you said,,:) The only thing that I beg to differ with is that there's no one to blame.
I believe the gluten of those easily produced copy-cat records were the cause. I too enjoyed techstep when it first came out, But I also remember that, once upon a time, it used to be the smallest selection in the records stores. The sub-genre used to only included the top notch producers in d-n-b. With the ease of sample based sequencer software and hordes of "TECHSTEP" samples being available, every below average djing crew in America started releasing records. Then the upper-class but angry youth of EDM finally had a music they can relate to, something they can be aggressive to, something they can bob their head and flaunt their masculinity to, Something they can finally flaunt there hip-hop posing to. And most importantly something they themselves can go home and produce without having to think too much. With all of that, we get the epidemic of the all night long tech-step parties. I stopped listening to dnb and thought artist like 4 hero and Photek with their more minimal style of production were a closer tie to Detroit techno. Besides both of those artist state D-town as an influence. But Then 4 hero evolved and started doing more abstract jazz and R&B and Photek, for whatever reason, gave up the fight and started producing the very same tech-step that he spoke out against in the late 90's. Go figure. Ja'Maul Redmond 1100 S. Tryon St. Suite 300, Charlotte, NC 28203 t: 704.343.9900 f:704.343.9999 www.perkinswill.com Perkins+Will. Ideas + buildings that honor the broader goals of society -----Original Message----- From: Fred Heutte [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 10:41 PM To: 313@hyperreal.org Subject: Re: (313) Techno influence on d&b One of the strange miracles of dance music is how "Just Want Another Chance" spawned an entire dead-end genre, techstep. Don't mean to ignite any flamewars with techstep fans here, but as brilliant and prefigurative as those early Reese records are, one bassline snippet only goes so far. I really enjoyed techstep when it got started, it added nice flavor to a set, but when you started hearing hour after hour of nothing- but from the crew-of-the-moment DJs, it wore out quickly. I feel kind of bad about saying that because the "Another Chance" bassline really is cool, but the dominance of techstep in 1998-99 cut off the air supply of a lot of other related genres, and I pretty much stopped playing any of it despite DJing jungle/d&b since early 1994 when "Original Nuttah" and Omni Trio finally hit the west coast. There's noone to blame for it, really, certainly not Ed Rush, Optical, Nico and the other originators of this, who had a lot of really creative stuff at the beginning and not surprisingly mined the sound for all it was worth. But then there were a thousand imitators It's just one of those trends that smothered itself. -- fh
