well, we had a blast in Detroit this past weekend. And left the city with
a new found inspiration for the music that we both love. While I was
still on my way to Detroit, j had this to say of what I missed:
magda - great mixing of great tracks from dbx, morgan geist, metro area
[those chords and bassline sounded so deep on the motor stage, with the hazy
day and detroit river flowing by, ren cen in the bkgnd] great stuff, really
entertaining to watch someone so obviously feelin it too..
5pm rolls around and I finally arrive at Detroit's Metro airport to a
surreal overcast sky and landscape which sent shivers up my spine as I
look out the window of the plane. J and his friends pick me up from the
airport and we drive straight to the festival. When we get there, we
immediately hear deepness walking from Cobo roof parking to the hart
plaza.
JT: tikiman w/"chain reaction" & scion in the ponchartrain lobby [w/royal
red carpet and grand piano decadence, what a image], and then their
performance on sat...amazing to have that stuff floating out in the open air,
in that setting....perfect.
M: This was just amazing...to hear 3 and half hours of Basic Channel at
the beginning of the festival. Yes, the rumors were true! Rhythm and Sound
was there...
What we caught of theo's set was great...super deep and great house
music.
JT: kenny larkin - loved the new stuff [2 or 3 songs] he played before
switching to dj mode
M: kenny had a few problems with his PA and the crowd wasn't into the deep
stuff unfortunately...am I the only one who loves to clear a floor with
deep music?
while we were bobbing our heads to kenny's deck prowess, we are informed
by one of our cohorts that SCAN 7 is playing at the underground stage. The
60 seconds we heard was mindblowing. 3 men dressed in black, with
sunglasses, winter caps, and bandanas ala UR! Still kickin' ourselves in
the ass for missing this 45 minute set of shit we'll probably never see
again.
and also caught a little of Simon Hartley's (Wild Planet) PA...beautiful
deep techno while bouncing back and forth during Stacey Pullen djing on
the main stage.
after the first night was over we gather up our entourage and head to Dan
Bell's casa for the 7th city party...nice and cozy party atmosphere with
smiles and plenty of familiar faces...great to talk to Dan, Titonton, Todd
"soldering iron" Sines, Shake, Masa, Kate Catanese, the Meier bros., ken
and karl and John Tejada who played the most sick deep unreal stuff
followed by Jeff Samuel (look out for this guy...new release to follow on
Dan Bell's new offshoot Blip) who played amazing stuff before we were all
done with our beer and our ride had to leave sadly. sleepy time in Ann
Arbor.
Sunday:
wake up real late and head out to D. walk in to hear the tail end of
Aril Brikha's PA with time:space blasting Groove La' Chord on the main
stage...and then proceed to the undergound stage to hear ADULT.
JT: ADULT - twice as good as in february at detroit contemporary when i
first saw them...evil, dry, funky, intense nicola's vocals were better than
ever...perfect eq/sound [except for 1st song], great crowd
M: 1st time to see ADULT and they were definately one of my favorites
during the whole festival. Hearing the New Phonies EP loud was intense and
the moroder-esque arpeggiations were stupid! Adam and nicola very tight &
raw together as the husband wife duo. And while we stay for the whole
ADULT set we miss Dan Bell's PA on the main stage...damn!!!
JT: dj assault & godfather -- great tracks, love seein the girls who can
dance [and know all the lyrics] gettin down...the girl who repeatedly
humped and freaked and raped the gate/fence was a trip..dj assault was
tighter than any mix cd i have by him, unbelievable..ghettotech is
a-ok with me
M: hearin' the electro classics played cut up and doubled. "clear" got
tore up and even heard a little newcleus.
walked over to Motor to hear a little of Buzz Goree's set...it was awesome
to hear him play alexander robotnick's Problems d'amour while watching 2
elderly women get down to it.
Fannon Flowers - hard but deep, and really impressed us a lot more than
Richie Hawtin's set that closed out the festival which was not deep
enough for either of us...cool to hear vapourspace, vainquer, and 69
played on that main stage...though all you could hear was 909...someone at
the mixing desk needs some practice.
Monday:
Urban Tribe (sherard ingram) - who did the brilliant album on Mo Wax
with carl, ken and shake. great great music, huge props for playing
so many drexciya/doppler/jap telecom tracks...also the best part of
it all was seein 'drexciya' lookin' on from a dark out of the way corner
smokin' a cigarette. the drexciyans were standing right next to you and
you probably didn't even know it...
another funny sight for the eyes was also during sherard's set...kdj
(who had a nice set of soul and disco on the main stage the day
before) clownin' with a camera takin' pics and goin' off to his buddy
sherard's set, cornrolls n' all :)
also turning in great performances were Dale Lawrence, KMS, hearin' mike
huckaby play danny wang's "like some dream...", DJ BONE playing M4 and
aril brikha's groove la' chord in a super long extendamix, Derrick of
course with Sundiata OM! Any Prescription fans out there who remember
sundiata!?? also Rolando, Shake who played the first Frictional release
for the crowd, minx, and K-1 keith tucker with RX-7 which included an AUX
88 reunion with tom tom and BJ. best part was hearing a cover of
cybotron's cosmic raindance.
and 2 in particular who surprised a lot of people:
vitreous flux & dykehouse - unknowns [and friends] who happened to do some
of the best, most original stuff at the festival.
It was nice to meet up with lots of the old list members whose emails we
have read for more than a few years: dan sicko, hans & klaas &
their friend pieter (the dutch techno tourists), bill vanloo (sorry we
missed your set, we will be listenin' to the archives) ed luna,
yusef (great seein' ya there man after 2 years of bein' MIA), and kathleen
harris. also, great to meet and hangout with mike, jon & charlie, jan,
rob, scott & dan, troy, and rick and stephanie.
It was a great thing to witness and hopefully the successive music
festivals will continue to be as incredible as the first one was.
peace - jt + minto
