now that we gave you the spotlight, and our precious time, we hereby give you the gold medal that you always wanted, and move on.........end of story. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <313@hyperreal.org> Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 3:01 PM Subject: [313] Re: (313) Let's Talk Techno (Responses, Act I)
Wow! 40+ responses. That made my day. To any artists out there, I don't mean disrespect, only stating my personal ideas about my favorite records. Don't mean to offend. I'm on the clock, here are my defenses: Re: Herbie Hancock, Bob Marley, Parliament, etc. Jazz, reggae, soul. This is a specifically electronic list. Great artists, but in totally different genres. And, BTW, I think King Tubby has a lot more in common with modern electronics then Bob Marley, and not to start yet another debate, but I have gotten more from Yabby You's 2CD retrospective than every other reggae/dub record I've heard in my life put together (Congos, Burning Spear, Horace Andy, etc.) That might be my favorite record. Re: Juan Atkins I love Juan Atkins. I don't want to seem like I'm disrespecting Juan Atkins, and I'm probably the only person in the 313 world who thinks this, but I never cared for his music. He was a great influence on people to _MAKE_ electronic music: I don't think he, musically, had any influence on Derrick May, who is the man all techno producers probably concede started their careers. Derrick might not agree with me, but I hear no trace of Juan Atkins on "Strings of Life" or anything thereafter: Derrick was just so far ahead of the game. For me, Atkins' Model 500 material sounds like the cover art to "Classics" looks. He doesn't have (for me) the emotional impact of his prominent predecessors (Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, even Yellow Magic Orchestra), contemporaries (Afrika Bambaata), or "followers" (May, Craig, Banks, et al.) And Juan's best record, I think, is "The Infiniti Collection", but when you judge that record against what UR, Carl, Mark and Tom, B12, the Orb, et al. I don't think it is as strong. However, if this were a top 100 list, both Infiniti CD's would be on it, which means Juan is still in the top 1% of producers, but I don't think any of his CD's belong in my top 50. Juan has been a great mentor, a great ambassador, and most other things for techno, and deserves a great deal of admiration and praise for those accomplishments, but I think his music is not on the level of the artists I mentioned. Just my thoughts, I encourage everyone who hasn't heard Juan Atkins to buy his discs and make your own assessment: if you haven't heard him, you are missing out on a very important piece in the techno puzzle, and I don't mean to question his historical importance nor the fact that he would/will be pre-requisite listening in any Techno 101 class. As my music teacher once said, "it doesn't matter if _you_ like it." So check Juan out. Black Dog: Bytes I used to love this album. I still think many of the hooks are brilliant. However, I think every track on the album has the same structure: open with a great hook, go into a (to my ears) lukewarm middle section, end with the hook briefly again. Listening to this album recently, all I can hear are those middle sections, and it's gotten to the point where I can't even listen to this anymore. Again, this is as important to be familiar with as Juan Atkins' material (Ken, Ed, Andy don't be mad at me), but I don't think it stands the test of repeated listening. I could be wrong. If you're a DJ, you need this record, because the hooks work phenomenally in sets. All other 313 fans will probably still need to own this album. Me? I'm jaded. I don't like this record anymore. Claude Young: DJ Kicks, Mills picks, and the high % of DJ records My feeling remains that techno is a DJ format, especially hard techno and tracks that aren't gifted with much more than a slightly catchy hook. A good DJ can make a set out of mostly good, not stellar tracks I'd never buy otherwise into something brilliant (in fact, almost all the DJ albums I have do this.) In fact, DJ mix albums are usually much more interesting because, let's face it, techno is repetetive, and if the groove isn't insanely good, who wants 5:00 of it? (KDJ is the only modern producer whose full tracks (his good ones, that is) don't seem long at 9:00, but in fact, not long enough (I listened to that Misled 12" like forty times the first day I got it.)) This is my problem, for example, with most of the Mills CD's. As a DJ, Jeff knows that concision (if that's not a word, it should be) is the key, and he displays this unbelievably well on "Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo" which is one of the greatest records ever in techno (would make my top 5.) Most of the other DJ mix discs do a similar thing. The reason I don't include the other Mills discs is because: 1) I think "Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo" sums up his material (and the rest of the hard techno scene) far better and 2) I think choosing not to cut down the tracks to approx. 2:30 or less in length on all his other discs hurts home listening. As for Claude's (isn't it "1100") "DJF 1100" I saw a tracklisting on Sony's site, it looks pretty good, I'll try to get a hold of it. I still think his "DJ Kicks" volume will likely belong on the list, that is a great disc, although 20 tracks is a bit few in my estimation (I think 31 on "DJF 1100" seems like a much better number.) Richie Hawtin: I think I may have bought every Richie Hawtin CD over the years, and I never understood why people liked his music. People have tried to explain it to me, and I just don't get it. I'll keep buying and trying, and maybe this is just how everyone has a good artist they just don't care for for whatever reason, but I never cared for Hawtin's material. People of Earth: according to seemingly everyone else, I am wrong. Buy Richie's albums. Make your own assessments. Same with everyone else I didn't include who is well respected. There's a reason they're respected, and listening to their music is the key to making your own mind up. Photek: If there was a CD that compiled the six 12"s on the Photek label, it would be on here. My feelings on the "Form & Function" release are basically the same as John Bush's insightful review of this on allmusic. As for other drum 'n' bass, the one disc I keep thinking I might include is Ed Rush & Nico's No U-Turn retrospective. That's some cool stuff. UR: Revolution For Change: I think a couple people who I have ever talked to about this CD has said something to the effect that 50% of the tracks simply aren't as powerful as the rest. I think that's true, but I think tracks like "Riot", "Punisher", "Sonic Destroyer", "Eye of the Storm" and "Code of Honor" make this disc absolutely essential: those tracks are as important as "Strings of Life", "Kao-Tic Harmony", "Icon", the Carl Craig mid-period material, etc. etc. I'd really like to see a UR 2CD retrospective with their best 20 or so tracks though And yes, techno is a 12" format. If I had to list the best 12"s, that would take a lot longer, and feature a lot of records a lot of people out there will probably never find or hear. On that note of "never hearing these records", is there anyone on planet Earth who is willing to sell me KDJ1, KDJ2, or KDJ9? For crying out loud, I found the "Twoism" 12", all the BDP EP's, all the B12, Likemind, A.R.T., "Mbuki Mvuki", etc. years ago and I have never, ever seen those three EP's anywhere. Please, someone help me. I'm sure I forgot a couple responses. Oh well. Thanks everyone for starting a discussion! Matt np: Global Communication - 12:18 (this track is so good.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]