>hmmm... this sounds a bit strange to me, did this survey offer a choice of >candidates or leave it open to the readers? Last time I glanced at this zine >it was like a print version of JJJ (radio) and, correct me if I'm wrong >here, they wouldn't know Jeff Mills from a bar of soap. Perhaps a few Juice >employees are in the know ;) Perhaps I'm a cynical bastard. It is great to >have his name out there in the media anyway.
I am wary about lists myself. In some respects it's a ridiculous scenario, a lot of things are in life, lists are never definitive, most of us accept that on some level, but the magazine wanted to provoke discussion and recognised the entertainment value of such a feature and that is not such a bad thing in itself. It turned out really well. Yes, Juice were possibly surprised with the outcome. However, the dance ed (who I actually know) there does indeed know who Mills is; he's seen him DJ. If you look at the commentary they admit it wasn't scientific, a Price Waterhouse type undertaking would be beyond the resources of most Australian publications, and it was voted by people on the Australian mailing lists and industry and data collected at festivals. There were no nominations, people put forward their own names, which maybe accounts for leftfielders like Tom Middleton and Ransom (uncompromising Melbourne DJ who came up through the hip-hop scene with the likes of Voiteck and is today an ambassador for all things electic) making it in there. The point is it was Jeff Mills who came on top, and to me, that's awesome. It wasn't insert major label big beat/trance guy here. I talk to UK industry types all the time who imagine Australians are blindly following the UK media, which is notoriously iconolastic, building people up and knocking them down, and has a bias towards its own and those who are deemed 'flavour of the month', but this proves that this isn't the case. These same types dismiss techno as 'over', now they are saying it's set for a 'comeback', because trance has had its day, but then again maybe not as techno is too 'underground' and doesn't give kids those breakdowns they need for their designer drug trips. I honestly don't think Mills' influence on techno can be overstated; no Mills, no Sims, no Umek, whoever. Everyone from Hawtin to Garnier recognises his impact - he commands incredible respect from his peers. And in Melbourne at least you can hear his influence everywhere, from Will E Tell's dramatic techno sets to Voiteck's uncompromising underground Truck Muzik to Natural One's and Boogs' more cerebral selections. Note: by saying all this I am not saying that others, especially from Detroit, haven't had equal influence. I just think it's cool when an originator like Mills gets his dues as opposed to someone who has nothing more than vacuous hype behind them. My 2 cents - with interest. :) C
