Detroit techno

Detroit techno
Stylistic origins	Electro, Chicago house, House music, Synthpop
Cultural origins	Mid-1980s, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Typical instruments	Analog synthesizer, Drum machine, Synthesizer
Derivative forms	Techno
(complete list)
Fusion genres
Minimal techno - ghettotech - acid house
Other topics
Electronic music

Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Detroit has been cited as the birthplace of techno. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson. A distinguishing trait of Detroit techno is the use of analog synthesizers and early drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-909, or, in later releases, the use of digital emulation to create the characteristic sounds of those machines.

History

Main article: Techno

Detroit techno music was originally thought of as a subset to Chicago's early style of house. Many of the early techno tracks had futuristic or robotic themes, although a notable exception to this trend was a single by Derrick May under his pseudonym Rhythim Is Rhythim, called "Strings of Life" (1987). This vibrant dancefloor anthem was filled with rich synthetic string arrangements and took the underground music scene by storm in May 1987. It "hit Britain in an especially big way during the country's 1987-1988 house explosion." It became May's best known track, which, according to Frankie Knuckles, "just exploded. It was like something you can't imagine, the kind of power and energy people got off that record when it was first heard. Mike Dunn says he has no idea how people can accept a record that doesn't have a bassline." With subtle differences between the genres, clubs in both cities included Detroit techno and Chicago house tracks in their playlists without objection from patrons (or much notice by non-audiophiles).

The Belleville Three

The three individuals most closely associated with the birth of Detroit techno as a genre are Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, also known as the "Belleville Three". The three, who were high school friends from Belleville, Michigan, created electronic music tracks in their basement(s). Eventually, they were in demand at local dance clubs, thanks in part to Detroit radio personality The Electrifying Mojo. Ironically, Derrick May once described Detroit techno music as being a "complete mistake...like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator, with only a sequencer to keep them company."

Origins

Kevin Saunderson was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of nine he moved to Michigan, where he attended Belleville High School in Belleville, a town some 30 miles from Detroit. In school he befriended Derrick May and Juan Atkins, both of whom had been born in Detroit but later moved to suburban Belleville.

Geography

The location of Belleville was key to the formation of the Belleville Three as musicians. Because the town was still “pretty racial[ly prejudiced] at the time,” according to Saunderson, “we three kind of gelled right away.” The suburban setting also afforded a different setting in which to experience the music. “We perceived the music differently than you would if you encountered it in dance clubs. We'd sit back with the lights off and listen to records by Bootsy and Yellow Magic Orchestra. We never took it as just entertainment, we took it as a serious philosophy,” recalls May.

Belleville was located near several automobile factories, which provided well-paying jobs to a racially integrated workforce. “Everybody was equal,” Atkins explained in an interview. “So what happened is that you’ve got this environment with kids that come up somewhat snobby, ‘cos hey, their parents are making money working at Ford or GM or Chrysler, been elevated to a foreman, maybe even a white-collar job.” European acts like Kraftwerk were popular among middle-class black youth.

The segratory stigma attaching to Eight Mile Road was comparable to that dividing lines around Watts in Los Angeles, The Bronx in New York City, or Chicago's South Side. Although the Belleville Three lived outside the city limits, their influence in loft apartment parties, after hours and high school clubs and late night radio united listeners of progressive dance music from above and below Eight Mile Road. Even Techno-friendly regular hours clubs like The Shelter, The Music Institute and The Majestic were incubators Techno's progress from basements and late night radio onto the dancefloors of the world.

Most of the early party-goers were made up of middle-class black youths. However, as Detroit experienced heavy economic downfall, many of the middle-class white families fled to the suburbs in what is called the "white flight" of the early 70s while middle-class black families were displaced by the degentrification of once securely middle-class black districts.

Detroit Techno as a genre created a new-found, integrated club scene in Detroit that had not been felt in a general sense after the Motown label moved to Los Angeles. Television programs like TV62 - WGPR's "The Scene" - featured a racially and ethnically very mixed selection of dancers every weekday after school, but the playlist was typically jammed with the R&B and Funk tracks of the day, like Prince or the Gap Band. Breakouts like Juan Atkins's Technicolor, under his Channel One moniker, eventually found their way onto The Scene, and helped to validate the burgeoning local Techno underground with the urban high school set, college radio programmers and DJs from Chicago to London and beyond. In addition, the advent of a huge circuit of local parties in Detroit spawned competition between a number of DJs, with a week's preparation for a party being common.

The club scene was as much in transition as the city they were in. The widespread popularity of techno across socio-economic lines led to a mixing between West Side and elite high school youths with ghetto and gangster "jits" (abbreviation for "jitterbug"). Unfortunately, the economic problems of Detroit and the prevalent social apathy and desolation led to a proliferation of gun violence within clubs and by 1986, the techno club scenes were wrought with gun shootings, fights, and acts of violence further compounding the sociological and economic recovery of Detroit.

This wave of violence, economic collapse, and socio-communal atrophy extensively affected the Detroit techno themes. Still influenced by the same Euro sounds, Juan Atkins and Rick Davis formed Cybotron producing Detroit hits like Alleys of Your Mind, Techno City, Cosmic Cars, and Clear before signing onto the Fantasy label. However, Cybotron's dominant mood of tech-noir and desolation played into describing the city's decline. "But for all their futuristic mise-en-scene, the vision underlying Cybotron songs was Detroit-specific... from industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland, from US capital of auto manufacturing to US capital of homicide."

Influences

The three teenage friends bonded while listening to an eclectic mix of music: Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Bootsy, Parliament, Prince, and The B-52's. Juan Atkins was inspired to buy a synthesizer after hearing Parliament. Atkins was also the first in the group to take up turntablism, teaching May and Saunderson how to DJ.

Early careers

Under the name Deep Space Soundworks, Atkins and May began to DJ on Detroit’s party circuit. By 1981, Mojo was playing the record mixes recorded by the Belleville Three, who were also branching out to work with other musicians. The trio traveled to Chicago to investigate the house music scene there, particularly the legendary Chicago DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles. House was a natural progression from disco music, so that the trio began to formulate the synthesis of this dance music with the mechanical sounds of groups like Kraftwerk, in a way that reflected post-industrialist Detroit. An obsession with the future and its machines is reflected in much of their music, because, according to Atkins, Detroit is the most advanced in the transition away from industrialism.

Foundations of Detroit techno

While attending Washtenaw Community College, Atkins met Rick Davis and formed Cybotron with him. Their first single “Alleys of Your Mind”—recorded on their Deep Space label in 1981—sold 15,000 copies, and the success of two follow-up singles, “Cosmic Cars” and “Clear,” led the California-based label Fantasy to sign the duo and release their album, Clear. After Cybotron split due to creative differences, Atkins began recording as Model 500 on his own label, Metroplex, in 1985. His landmark single, “No UFOs,” soon arrived. Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Blake Baxter also recorded on Metroplex.

Collaboration

Although the Detroit musicians—the Belleville Three and other early pioneers like Eddie Fowlkes, and James Pennington—were a close-knit group who shared equipment and studio space, and who helped each other with projects, friction developed. Each member of the Belleville Three branched off on his own record label. May's Transmat began as a sublabel imprint of Metroplex. Saunderson founded KMS based on his own initials. They set up shop in close proximity to one another, in Detroit’s Eastern Market district.

Nicknames

All of the Belleville Three have worked under many different names and titles. Derrick May saw great success under the name Rhythim is Rhythim, his moniker when he released his landmark “Strings of Life.” Kevin Saunderson’s most commercially recognized projects was Inner City with vocalist Paris Grey, debuting with the hit single "Big Fun" (1988). Juan Atkins has been lauded as the "Godfather of Techno" while Derrick May is thought of as the "Innovator" and Kevin Saunderson is often referred to as the "Elevator"

The Music Institute

Inspired by Chicago's house clubs, Chez Damier, Alton Miller et George Baker started a club of their own in downtown Detroit, named The Music Institute. The club helped unite a previously scattered scene into an underground "family," where May, Atkins, and Saunderson DJed with fellow pioneers like Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes and Blake Baxter. It allowed for collaboration, and helped inspire what would become the second wave of Detroit-area techno, which included artists whom the Belleville Three had influenced and mentored.

Success abroad

In 1988, due to the immense popularity of American electronic music in Great Britain, dance music entrepreneur Neil Rushton approached the Belleville Three to license their work for release in the UK. To define the Detroit sound as being distinct from Chicago house, Rushton and the Belleville Three chose the word "techno" for their tracks, a term that Atkins had been using since his Cybotron days ("Techno City" was an early single). However, the trio from Belleville had some reservations about the culture that surrounded the drug-filled techno subculture abroad. Derrick May in particular continues to advocate that drugs are not necessary to participate in good music.

Recent work

Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May remain active in the music scene today. In 2000, the first annual Detroit Electronic Music Festival was held, and in 2004 May assumed control of the festival, renamed Movement. He invested his own funds into the festival, and "got severely wounded financially." Kevin Saunderson helmed the festival, renamed FUSE IN, the following year. Saunderson, May, and Craig all performed but did not produce the festival in 2006, when it was again called Movement. Saunderson returned to perform at the 2007 Movement as well.
The Belleville Three continue to tour internationally. All three maintain popular MySpace pages promoting their music and performances. Derrick May says that his mission continues to be "to save the world from bad music."

The New Dance Sound of Detroit

The explosion of interest in electronic dance music during the late 1980s provided a context for the development of techno as an identifiable genre. The mid-1988 UK release of Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit, an album compiled by ex-Northern Soul DJ and Kool Kat Records boss Neil Rushton (at the time an A&R scout for Virgin's "10 Records" imprint) and Derrick May, was an important milestone and marked the introduction of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music. Although the compilation put techno into the lexicon of music journalism, the music was, for a time, sometimes characterized as Detroit's high-tech interpretation of Chicago house rather than a relatively pure genre unto itself. In fact, the compilation's working title had been The House Sound of Detroit until the addition of Atkins' song "Techno Music" prompted reconsideration. Rushton was later quoted as saying he, Atkins, May, and Saunderson came up with the compilation's final name together, and that the Belleville Three voted down calling the music some kind of regional brand of house; they instead favored a term they were already using, techno.

Second wave

The first wave of Detroit techno had peaked in 1988-89, with the popularity of artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Blake Baxter, and Chez Damier, and clubs like Majestic Theater, The Shelter, and the Music Institute. At the same time, the European rave scene embraced the Detroit sound, thanks to Kool Kat Records' release of a number of Detroit records. May's Strings of Life achieved "anthemic" status in 1989, several years after its recording.

Once Detroit Techno became a full-fledged musical genre, a second generation of regional artists developed into techno icons themselves; Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman), Carl Craig, and Octave One to name just a few. Mills began his career as "The Wizard" on Mojo's nightly broadcast, showcasing his turntablist skills with quick cuts of the latest underground tracks and unreleased music from local labels. What began as a Europhile fantasy of elegance and refinement, ironically, by the early 90s, British and European techno transformed into a "vulgar uproar for E'd-up mobs: anthemic, cheesily sentimental, unabashedly drug-crazed.", as British journalist Simon Reynolds puts it. Detroit embraced this maximalism and created its own variant of acid house and techno. The result was a harsh Detroit hardcore full of riffs and industrial bleakness. Two major labels of this sound were Underground Resistance and +8, both of which mixed 80s electro, UK synth-pop and industrial paralleling the brutalism of rave music of Europe.

What distinguishes Detroit Techno from its European variants is the way it more directly works the interface of funk and futurism...but the desire to play up the genre's futuristic side often means the second half of the equation gets dropped.

— Mike Shallcross, "From Detroit To Deep Space". The Wire. No. 161. July 1997. p. 21.

Underground Resistance's music embodied a kind of abstract militancy by presenting themselves as a paramilitary group fighting against commercial mainstream entertainment industry who they called "the programmers" in their tracks such as Predator, Elimination, Riot or Death Star. Similarly, the label +8 was formed by Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva which evolved from industrial hardcore to a minimalist progressive techno sound. As friendly rivals to Underground Resistance, +8 pushed up the speed of their songs faster and fiercer in tracks like Vortex. However, it was the drug-fueled dynamic of Ecstacy and amphetamine abuse that drove Detroit's hardcore techno scene to the extremes of "brain-dead brutalism". What had started as a value system of elegance over energy, restraint over abandon shared by "purists" of traditional Detroit techno evolved through mutation into a mind-spinning, hardcore mix of trance, jungle, and bleep-and-bass.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Detroit Techno producers experimented with extended aural soundscapes featuring sparse, ambient underscores punctuated with sporadic, cyclical periods of percussion. Extended length vinyl projects like those under Hawtin's Plastikman façade are particularly clear examples of this period. Atkins Sonic Sunset CD in 1994 also delivered this new tradition of Detroit techno. This new variant also included new connections to African percussions. The racial politics of Detroit Techno gave rise to a new form of African-American expression, "the link to African drumming and its emphasis on polyrhythms can't be ignored." One such example by a white artist, Richie Hawtin, is "Afrika" which produced a connection between African drums and percussion with Techno minimalistic programming.

On Memorial Day weekend of 2000, electronic music fans from around the globe made a pilgrimage to Hart Plaza on the banks of the Detroit River and experienced the first Detroit Electronic Music Festival. In 2003, the festival management changed the name to Movement, then Fuse-In (2005), and most recently, Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival (2007). The festival is a showcase for DJs and performers across all genres of electronic music.

Notable Detroit area producers

3

Notable Detroit area record labels

• 430 West Records
• Fragile
• Metroplex
• Planet E Communications

• Plus 8
• Transmat
• Underground Resistance
• Detroit Techno Militia

Other notable Detroit techno styled producers and acts

• Dave Angel
• Aril Brikha
• Surgeon (musician)
• XDB
• Sharif Rashad

See also

• Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF)
• Electrofunk
• List of electronic music genres
• Music of Detroit, Michigan

Bibliography

• Brewster B. & Broughton F., Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, Avalon Travel Publishing, 2006, (ISBN 978-0802136886).
• Reynolds, S., Energy Flash: a Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, Pan Macmillan, 1998 (ISBN 978-0330350563).
• Reynolds, S., Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture, Routledge, New York 1999 (ISBN 978-0415923736).