Category Archives: Festivals

Sonic Rolling Ball Sculpture

My friend Rory recently got to exhibit his Sonic Rolling Ball Sculpture at the Royal Festival Hall during the Ether Festival 2010. I was quite pleased to catch it on the final day in April, having seen some of the work in progress a few weeks earlier.

A few days ago he posted a video of the sculpture in action, accompanied by a proper mix-down that really helps convert the sculpture to film. Both the sculpture itself and the film sound showcase everything he’s learned during his BA in Sound Arts and Design, for which he completed this project.

It’s a truly ambitious idea. He used many musical objects for the structure itself. It’s powered by turntable, the tracks that the balls roll down are melted vinyl. The supports of the structure are music stands and the platforms that the balls roll/bounce through are often musical instruments themselves: from triangles to tambourines to make-shift string and mallet instruments. It’s sweet! Try to find two minutes to check it out if you can. Full-screen is recommended.

BA3 Show 2010 – Rory Buckley – Sonic Rolling Ball Sculpture from Sound Arts & Design @ LCC on Vimeo.

Finally got last year’s Movement report up

Lots of pics and some video clips if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing.

…and Here’s April’s top 10:

Zero Duma – DJ Tools Volume 5: Alternative Conclusions [Ibadan]
Sam Prekop – Who’s Your New Professor [Thrill Jockey]
Orlando Voorn – Underwater [Ignitor]
Chateau Flight – Celestial Showers [Versatile]
James Duncan – Peoples Are Peoples [Real Soon]
Hieroglyphic Being – Liquid Sex EP [Spectral Sound]
Henrik Schwarz – Leave My Head Alone Brain [Sunday Music]
Dubious – Heavy Hands [Prize]
Recloose – Dust [Peacefrog]
32 Project – Rule Of Humanity [Ibadan]

Part V

It’s here! So who all is going? Remember if reading on my blog you can post comments here. This is both the lineup and my comments, and I’d love to know more about the peepz I’m asking about at the bottom:

Movement 2004 lineup

Aardvark

Alden Tyrell live

Amp Fiddler live

Barbara Preisinger

Biological Live

Camp Amp DJs

Claude Young

Cloud 9

Danny Krivit

Derek Plaslaiko

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Saunderson

Language

Legowelt

Louis Haiman

Madlib and PBW ft Jay Dee

Malik Alston Painted Pictures

Marques Wyatt

McKay

Mike Geiger

DJ Cosmo

DJ Genesis live

DJ Nova

Duplex Live

Ellen Allien

Fat Freddy’s Drop

Francois K

Garth Trinidad

Goldfinger (AML)

Greg Mudge

Groove Junkies

Heiroglyphic being

Highfish

Jeannie Hopper

Joris Voorn live

Kai Alce

Kelvin Larkin

Kenny Larkin

Mike Grant

Mike Huckaby

Novamen Live dutch

Osunlade Live

Ramon

Recloose

Red Nose Distrikt

Reel People

Remy

Rockid (DMC Champion)

Rolando

Ron Trent

Sean Deason

Shortround

Stacey Pullen

Tortured Soul Live

Wajeed

I’m really excited about this lineup. The only fault I can see is there are quite a few repeat performers, but whatever. I don’t actually consider that a fault myself, just the only one I could sorta see. Here’s some peepz I’m really excited about:

Aardvark – Hope they put him on in the day somewhere. Could really dig that

Amp Fiddler live – the best act of last year makes his triumphant return!

Claude Young – finally!!!

Danny Krivit – duh

Derek Plaslaiko – word

Madlib and PBW ft Jay Dee – OMFG hip hop gone wild!

Malik Alston Painted Pictures – should be very tasty, anyone know what the Painted Pictures thing is all about?

Mike Geiger – impeccable selection every time I’ve seen him so far

DJ Nova – [313] old timer gettin’ his due. He seriously rocked a party with TP at the first DEMF and his radio shows were the bomb

Duplex Live – anyone seen Duplex live before?

Fat Freddy’s Drop – see my other post

Francois K – duh

Joris Voorn live – I hear nothing but great things

Kai Alce – Excellent. Not many other opportunities to see him yet

Kelvin Larkin – He rocked Iowa City about 5 years ago. Expect very good things

Kenny Larkin – He rocked Liverpool recently

Mike Grant – Hope he gets a chance to rock out in the sunshine for a hometown crowd

Mike Huckaby – ditto

Osunlade Live – Holy crap has he even done this before???

Recloose – Hope he gets some monitors this time

Red Nose Distrikt – Been looking forward to seeing them (or is it ‘him’ now) for quite some time

Rolando – He rocked Plzen recently

Ron Trent – One of my top 5 favorite house DJs

Sean Deason – More [313] timers doin’ good. 🙂

Stacey Pullen – Was much more on-form when I saw him last than he has been since ’97

Tortured Soul Live – Like Kent said

So who else should I be excited about? I know very little about Ellen Alien or Legowelt except that I trust many people who rate them. Am I imagining it or did Kevin Reynolds used to work for Transmat? Has he done something else too? Is Heiroglyhic Being at all related to Del? Is Rockid the business then? All these folks ring a loud bell too, but I dunno why.

Alden Tyrell live

Biological Live

Camp Amp DJs

Louis Haiman

Marques Wyatt

DJ Cosmo

Greg Mudge

Jeannie Hopper

Novamen Live

DEMF 2003

Saturday

If you’ve actually read all of this, you must be starting to get an idea of what it felt like to finally reach this Saturday morning. I was *so* ready for this festival to start. It turned out that the Omni was further away than the Lycos mapquest thingy led me to believe (yes Jambi, you were right – I was thinking it was that brick parking lot, which is apparently connected to nothing), but it was still just a 25-30 minute walk, and the rooms were even nicer than the RenCen or Ponchartrain at ½ the price. I also got to see some more of Detroit that I wouldn’t usually get to explore. This is a vacant lot on the way, with an east-of-Woodward view of the downtown area:

When I arrived at the festival I immediately wandered to the High Tech Soul Stage, not even knowing that’s where I was at first. They flipped it over the top of the concrete mountain and placed the stage at the bottom of the bowl, rather than beside the river where the old Motor stage used to be.

To my excitement, Recloose was playing much earlier than expected. I watched him for about an hour and a half, starting out seeing Greg Earle and his friend Andy (who put these really nice pics online), then saw a constant influx of people come and go until it was time to wander over to see Ayro. Unfortunately, Recloose did not have a monitor, and it really showed. As always, his track selection was superb, but the mixing was rather impaired. However, the tracks were nice enough to keep me locked to that stage ‘til he was done, so that says something.

Ayro was not fucking around. He started out performing by himself, saying a few words, then jumping into a pounding live MPC-2000 percussion solo. This was damn-near dumbfounding. That segued seamlessly into a sequenced beat, at which point he started playing live chords on his Moog. At some point those chords fell into the sequence, and he switched to another keyboard, adding more layers, always doing something live.

Over the course of the next couple of songs he was joined by John Arnold on guitar, his girlfriend and he shared the vocal duties, there was a slew of dancers that worked their way on stage for about ½ the songs, and there was one other guy who helped with percussion duties.

Ayro is so impressive, wearing all of these hats at once – singing masterfully, running across stage to join in the drumming, playing thick keys and orchestrating it all. This was a really stunning performance, only slightly tainted by the overwhelming sub-bass that muffled the other frequencies.

By 5:00 I tried to make it over to see Niko Marks, but meeting people along the way and a gnawing hunger superceded. When Dave and I arrived at the Loco Bar & Grill we were amazed to find the entire DC contingent chewing up a long expanse of tables. There were at least 15 people there. Insane! I had fully intended to make it back in time to see Peven Everett, but opted to spend some quality time with LK and her Boston peepz back at their hotel. One thing that was absolutely non-negotiable for me was Amp Fiddler Live, so by 9:00 Dave and I were well on our way back to the High Tech Soul Stage.

Amp Fiddler was one of my two favorite shows of the festival. I’ve only got the Bassmentality 12″, his Mahogani record produced by Moodymann, and I’ve heard Love and War but don’t own it yet. I’m not sure which songs most of them were, but these songs all soothed with soul and belted with funk. These two (dark) pictures may reveal that there were four keyboards, three keyboardists, a bassist and a drummer on stage.

Amp Fiddler was singing and switching between two different keyboards. It’s hard to articulate what kind of musical dynamic three keyboardists and no guitar brings to live funk. It softens things up, while simultaneously drawing in the percussion of the keys. It’s a really amazing feel. The set was relatively short, at less than an hour, but totally fulfilling. I expect amazing things going forward.

By this point the festival had started to fill up. We headed to the Movement stage for a Kenny Larkin and Kevin Saunderson tag team, but unfortunately, my memory fades a bit at this point. However, you can witness the swarms below:

As this ended, we headed back to the hotel to meet Casey and Alexis, and let them into the room. On the way we passed a Hoopdie (sp) convention at the Speedway, one of which had this bizarre right-front wheel about three feet in the air while most of the rest of the car was relatively low. I almost grabbed a picture of it, but the dude got in his car just as I found a safe place to conceal that I was taking a picture (walking around Detroit at midnight taking pictures is fairly ill-advised). Anyway, we did the hotel crap and headed up to Portal, the old Submerge building I mentioned earlier, where Felton Howard, Rob Hood and the Suburban Knight were playing.

When we arriveds DJ Finger was playing a pretty nice GhettoTek set. Given that the last time I heard GhettoTek it was at the end of ATP, this seemed almost calm by comparison. He only played for a short time before Felton Howard came on. He started out with some house, then suddenly started to pound out the techno. It was a really tight set, and an excellent warm-up for Hood – from what I’m told, much harder than Felton Howard normally spins. This guy is definitely one of Detroit’s best kept secrets. I’m really looking forward to seeing him spin a house set sometime.

From my perspective, Hood was the most anticipated show of the festival. I knew how much my DC friends would love him, there were tons of Detroit, European and DC people all around me, and they were all there to see Hood. I knew to expect a beating, and the first 20 minutes were severe – nary a synth-line in sight, but then there was one, and then a Basic Channel track, and then a tribal techno number with a female house diva, and then he was thoroughly in-stride. I’d had about 10-20 minutes of this satisfaction when he turned down the music, a promoter appeared on stage and asked everyone to leave the building, as the cops would be there in 10 minutes. Grrr… Most dissapointing moment of the festival, but as you can see below, everyone had fun until then, and I doubt I’ll have another opportunity to see Felton Howard any time soon.

Once outside, there were a swarm of people around Hood all telling him how much his music meant to them, asking for autographs, and it wasn’t like the normal fanboy stuff. These guys seriously meant it – you could hear it in the tremble in their voices. I would be hard-pressed to think of another techno artist who is able to singularly top people’s list. He captivates people in a special way. I don’t think I will miss him again as lightly as I did in April.

After that we wandered down Grand towards the Audiomatrix party. Turned out that both parties in the building scrapped both guestlists. I really wanted to check this out, but funds were already down to less than $30 for the rest of the festival, so we hopped in a cab and called it an early (4 or 5 a.m.) night.

Sunday

I woke up around 11:30, but like an idiot I went back to bed. I woke up again around 12:30, rushed into the shower, got out of the hotel around 1:15, tried to scrounge up some food from a convenience store (now down to less than $20) and did all I could to make it to the Thinkbox Collective in time. Unfortunately I only caught the last 10 minutes. I feel like a complete ass about missing most of this. I hope they can forgive me. What I heard was really good though. Reviews of CDs forthcoming.

From there, the other David and I wandered over to the High Tech Soul Stage again for Dabrye and Dwele back-to-back. Dabrye played mostly stuff from his latest album, but also included a couple of his earlier Tadd Mullinix tracks. Nothing that different than the last time I saw him, but really enjoyable (if deafening) on that sound system.

Dwele was a treat. I still haven’t heard more than five of his songs, but everything he played was brilliant. Again, the multiple-keyboard approach worked wonders. The live band replicated all of the brilliant production on the recordings to a tee (no easy task). Beyond that there was an intense joy in this performance. Dwele seemed so unbelievably happy, and the feeling in his music seemed absolutely genuine in an almost tangible way. Add a great sense of humor and stage presence to that, and you have one helluva performance. What an amazing way to start a beautiful day!

From Dwele I wandered back over to the Movement stage for John Beltran. As we arrived Genesis was finishing what sounded like a storming set. I really hope to see her more often, because the two times so far have been excellent. John Beltran’s band took a while to set up. I started out saying hey to the Europeans, then tried to just say a quick hello to the DC peepz, which turned into a big techno reunion of sorts, Stewart Walker came to chat for a while, my Iowa City friends came by, and before I knew it, Beltran was done. Interestingly, his performers included Ayro, John Arnold and that percussion dude from Ayro’s set. This would not be the last instance of their cross-pollination. At any rate, I wound up hanging with Greg and his peepz while acquiring a press pass for us in the process. This press pass entitled us to free Bacardi and Red Bull. This would be my salvation and destruction for the rest of the festival.

After filling up on a few complimentary beverages, we braved the bursting seems of the High Tech Soul Stage, trying to find elbow room for the Detroit Experiment.

Things had fallen behind schedule by this point, and Vikter Duplaix was banging out a furious house set, with extremely tight mixing (to my surprise). Well done to Duplaix for getting his skills up to par for this performance. It was evident he was really excited about it, so I’m glad his DJ skills proved worthy of the honor. The crowd was in a real frenzy by the time he finished. When he was done, it was evident the Detroit Experiment was not ready yet, so we hauled-ass to get more drink and made it back just in time.

By this point, I had already witnessed four excellent funk-esque bands in Ayro, Amp Fiddler, Dwele and John Beltran, so it was no shock to the system when the first track they dropped was one of their jazzier tunes. They were even better than the album. The only complaint is that they only played four or five songs, but this was still a solid 45 minutes when factoring in the amount of jamming in each song. ‘Think Twice’ (which is predictably my favorite track on the album) was soooo nice. This was all I could’ve expected and more, but just not long enough. Lots of peepz in the place too:

When they brought out the MC’s everyone was loving it:

At this point the Raspberry Bacardi and Red Bull started to taste really good, and I met up with the rest of the Iowa Press for a whole bunch ‘o drinks:

At some point I wound up in the underground stage and snapped this shot of the [313] elders:

And then things descended into oblivion:

Somehow I managed to miss John Arnold Live (yet another incarnation of the incestuous bunch), and I’m fairly sure I missed Pole, Akufen, Mike Clark and Francois K, but I did catch the first and last of the 3 (5) Chairs, both of whom were excellent. This was the 5th:

I also ran into Cali and her fiancé Steve (or is it husband now???) briefly (assuming I would see them again – doh!) And finally met Minto (he doesn’t usually look this blurry):

I’m not quite sure how I got to the Tangent Gallery for Cannonball Run. I very nearly recollect it. I’m fairly certain I was in a cab with LK, and someone who was at the Cannonball party the year before (pretty sure it was her friend John), and Dave, and pretty sure I wandered over to the Ponchartrain in order to find them in order to bum the ride. Yep. That must be it.

This party was sick:

It was not as crazy as last year, but just as good, if only because I made it until Traxx this year. When we arrived Jordan Zawideh was playing – I remember enjoying it, but can’t recall what it was. The one lo-light of this party was Tamion 12″ (sorry Rob, if you’re reading this). I just checked out the audio for their latest 12″ and it didn’t sound nearly as bad as they did live. The songs went on for so long (how un-punk) and were so much more tedious than on the record. It was all I could do to sit on a couch and try to block it out. It gave LK a headache. :/ However, they were followed by Carlos Souffront, who played an amazing set as always. I don’t think he pushed it above 110 bpm, and given the dancefloor disarray following Tamion 12″, it was incredibly impressive that there wasn’t a mutiny (or rather, that the mutiny was contained). His collection of ‘80s synth mayhem is so impressive. He dropped New Order, as every other time I’ve seen him. You would be hard pressed to find anyone this side of Bernard Sumner who could play it any better.

BMG of Ectomorph was up next. He played an Ableton DJ set. I don’t know if it was sequenced in advance or not, and I really don’t care, because the track selection was so astounding it couldn’t possibly matter. He went through Chicago jack trax to acid to electro, booty, disco, synth pop and everything in between. It was a truly epic set, covering at least two and a half hours, the last hour of which featured DJ Godfather scratching over the top of it. As you can see, he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand, even when there was a sort-of DJ pow-wow behind the decks for ages before Derek came on:

Derek’s set was short – too short, but with Traxx up thereafter, I wasn’t going to complain. He was unbelievable. I’ve never seen a set like it. It’s probably in my top 5 now. He played all EBM and Acid. Chicago meets central Europe in 1986. But he didn’t just pull out an impressive selection of rare dance classics, he pummeled them, and his mixing of those tracks proved to me more than ever that DJing creates something greater than the sum of its parts. He gained so much from his interaction with the mixer.

I’ve seen very few DJ’s who muster half what he put into this set, and the output was storming.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what he did to me. Somehow at 7:30 in the morning, after 6 hours of hardcore debauchery, then 7 hours of sobriety, then cracking open a new keg around 6:30 (puctuated by my Doris-purchased kegstand), I was still dancing. The 30-40 people left in that room were sharing something so compelling that only a handful left during his two hours, and most stayed for quite a while after he was done.

This set was so thrilling that Mark, Josh, Doris and I made our way to the Corktown Tavern at 8:30 to start DJing.

By the time I threw some records down around 10:30 I was completely useless. That was some truly appalling mixing. After a trip through a loft in Greektown, Mark and I headed back to his hotel at the Athenium, where I crashed on his sofa at around noon.

Monday

Woke up at 3:00, walked back to the Omni, saw Casey and Alexis who were happy I was alive. I showered, Alexis was leaving, and we caught a ride back down to Hart Plaza on her way to the airport. Let it be known that the Bacardi and Red Bull tent is still not out of alcohol!!!

Casey and I promptly bumped into Stewart and Max from Tresor.

We had drinks. It was nice. I was not in a hurry to see anything until Dan Bell came on at 8. Basically, Traxx had satisfied me, and anything after that was icing. We eventually disentangled ourselves from social ties…

…and wandered back over to the High Tech Soul stage for Aril Brikha as Time:Space live. Once again the incest was perpetuated, with Ayro on keys, Tony Drake on bass, and that percussion dude on the bongos again, while Aril Brikha was the master controller. This was really nice stuff. Departure in Time live was sick. It was really cool to hear the instrumentalist’s take on what starts out as such a synthetic project. The conversion to live instrumentation was executed very well.

By this point full-on delirium had set in, after three hours of sleep, constant Red Bull and Bacardi abuse, etc. Everything else is a blur. I am fairly certain I went to check out Juan Atkins, and I know I was watching D Wynn (who was superb). At some point along the line, I met a cute raver woman, Laurinda, with whom I plunged into naughty, obnoxious dancefloor romance. Obviously I thoroughly enjoyed this, but I fear for what it must’ve looked like to any who witnessed it. In fact, I think I was in some sort of music/dance/kissing/wrapped-around-each-other euphoria, and having witnessed a fair amount of this as an onlooker, I know it doesn’t look good, but I can definitely sympathize with the plight of these unfortunate souls who are completely oblivious to everything but music and mashing.

When the fog started to lift, I found myself among the DC, Detroit and European contingents, all in one central area of the Movement stage, watching Mills.

All I can recall is that it was very quiet. I think I was talking with Laurinda for a lot of the performance.

Shame I can’t remember Mills, but I have seen him three times in the last year as-is.

I was supposed to be on the guest list for the Works. On that assumption, Dave and John were kind enough to sport me a cab there with them. When we arrived and found out that not only had they cancelled the guestlist, but that the cover was $25, John and Dave kindly split my cover. Thanks guys!!! A few people bought me a couple of drinks as well before the 2:00 cut-off. The music was amazing, but I also got to hang with Mark one more time, Cheryl bought some much-needed fries, and by the time Ron Trent came on, I was running back and forth between he and KDJ in the front room. It’s hard to sum this up too precisely, but it was a pretty fantastic finale – not as intense as Ron Trent’s set to close out last year, but KDJ was almost as on as at the Sound Signature party two years earlier. He even played a bunch of Chicago jack and acid. I heard a lot of that this weekend. Sometime near 5 or 6 Mark and Pete drove me back to the Omni, once again saving my broke ass. These pics (most of them taken after 4am) ought to sum up the evening relatively well, since words and memories are failing:

Tuesday

When I woke up at 11:30 I found two people in bed with Casey. Turns out it was Petey and his friend who’s name I don’t think I ever caught. She was really nice though – as she drove me to the airport through nasty traffic when she just needed to get to the doctor. The Northwest check-in process was evil, the security at O’Hare was crazy (there was a third check on the ramp to the airplane where these dudes who looked like cops were interrogating anyone who looked slightly Muslim – which on Air India was quite a few people), and I refused to deal with long-term jet lag so after arriving in London at 10am (Wednesday) on almost no sleep (dude next to me was persistently coughing, snoring and elbowing), I stayed up until 11pm. I don’t think I’ve slept like I slept Wednesday night all year.

Pre-DEMF 2003

Thursday

…As I was saying, Thursday morning started with a trip to Detroit airport so we could return the rental car. We stopped one exit early in order to get gas. When I was walking in the building to pay for it, a guy pulled in bumping some amazing techno – I thought “Welcome to Detroit”. 🙂 Casey wandered in after me, and the guy did too. Casey asked him what he was playing and he said, “that’s me”! Wow. Turns out he’s 1/3 of Audiomatrix. We all chatted for a while, and then he guest-listed us for his Movement afterparty. More on that later, but he seemed a really nice chap.

Since we were nearly in Detroit, we’d planned to check out a free brunch and symposium at the Detroit Historical Museum, home of the new Detroit Techno exhibit that will soon be touring the world. The exhibit was a bit of a let-down, but the symposium was cool. Got to meet up with a few of the Techno Tourists early-on, and see a few of Jenn’s friends I hadn’t seen in a while. Also, the talks were really cool:

  • Got to see Lenn Swan show a video of a DMC competition from 2000 (he would later win the world championship) – also got to see him spin (whew!!!)
  • Adriel talked about promotion in Detroit
  • Felton Howard talked about a DJ’s responsibility to play for the love of spreading music and connecting with your audience. He made some really good points, like about being willing to play for free, about knowing your audience so that you can make them move, and even talked about spinning in the ‘70s before pitch-adjustable tables were around. He’s credited with teaching Jeff Mills to spin, so that sort-of speaks for itself.
  • Max from Tresor talked about the Tresor club as the first true re-joining of East and West Berlin via Detroit techno. The wall fell, techno had just arrived, and a club appeared at the center of it all.
  • There was a DJ from Detroit public radio who gave an awesome speach on the history of American radio, and the forces that would begin to tear it apart, starting in 1943, through the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the new proposed amendments that will further dilute the American market. That was really cool.
  • By far the best part was seeing the Glufactory interview footage from their upcoming documentary on Detroit techno. All of it was in a raw, unedited form, beginning with an unbelievable segment from Laura Gavoor. I was really on the verge of tears for that bit. She taught me so much, and I only spoke to her once, briefly on the phone. Her impassioned, communicative powers were astounding, and her understanding of musical/racial politics globally was unequaled in my experience. To see about 10 minutes of interview footage was simultaneously uplifting and melancholy. She meant so much to Detroit.There was also some excellent footage of Alan Oldham, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Stacey Pullen and a hillarious commentary on European clubs from Kenny Larkin.We stuck around for a few hours, then headed back to Ann Arbor. After running errands, we grabbed some Cottage Inn pizza (I’ve been jonesing for this stuff for about 12 years now) and chilled with Casey and his Moms. From there we headed to Casey’s decidedly college’d out hang out, “Dominicks”. They have these enormous (1/4 or ½ gallon) jars for drinking, but that in itself did not sell me on the place. The outdoor deck was nice though, and I got to bond a bit with Jon, my brother in Jenneration X. Evidence:

    From there we were headed to Necto (F/K/A the Nectarine Ballroom) for the Minus party feat. Clark Werner, Magda and Richie Hawtin. On the way I jumped out of the car on the corner downstairs from where Dave’s Comics used to be, and got myself a cigar at a place next door to Stairway to Heaven (can’t believe that place is still around). From there I wandered up State Street to Liberty and saw the sites and sounds that comprised my first adolescent adventures circa ‘86-‘89. Once upon a time I wandered these streets with a skateboard in hand – a few years later I would be carting loads of debate evidence on the same streets. To say the least this was a flood of memories culminating in Necto, where I had my first clubbing experience at 14. Turns out that Jeff Mills used to DJ those same nights, although I suspect he was DJing later than the midnight curfew that was the teen-night terminus.

    On entry we explored my old haunt. Everything was different. They moved the DJ booth, there was an outdoor deck, and a downstairs area I don’t remember. Magda was playing a groovy set on the main floor while the deck had yet to start. The night was so nice we mostly chilled on the deck until Clark Werner came on. Many people were seen. Many drinks were consumed. Eventually I persuaded myself to check out Hawtin, just as he was starting. As usual, I persuaded myself it was really captivating for about 10 minutes, then my patience was tested in the next ten minutes, then I got bored in the last ten minutes I allowed him. I am [] close to writing him off. I’m really getting tired of stories from Hawtin fans telling me I need to see him in the right venue. I don’t believe it. I just don’t like his flacid music. Dare I say it, he is progressifying techno, and that is pretty damn criminal. I’ll still listen to his production, but we’ve known for years that his production and DJing are very different things.

    So… it was back out to the deck, where Clark Werner was continuing to play great music as always, and then things got a bit messier, and devolved into lots of drunken banter + overblown anti-Hawtin rants. End Thursday.

    Friday

    The next morning Ali and I walked up the street to the Village Kitchen, where I finally found my Belgian Waffle with Strawberries and Whipped Cream. True, it was not on a par with Maryland Diner quality, but it was 90% of the way there. On the way back I noticed we were across the street from Veteran’s park, the place where they built the skate park where I first tried out a ½-pipe. It was 32 feet wide, metal and 13 feet tall at the highest extension. I never got very good at skating ramp, but it was fun to try! It was great to see Ann Arbor again, standing in line outside the Necto, being 50 feet from the old home of Schoolkids Records, where I started my musical development, and another 50 feet from the BK where I landed my first job. It was a trip!

    That afternoon we headed to the Omni so Ali and I could check into her and Gil’s room (I was staying there that Friday night). On the way we passed Portal, the old home of Submerge at 2030 Grand River, where I played Casey’s party with Traxx in August, and where we would see Felton Howard and Rob Hood on Saturday:

    After checking in, Casey and I headed up to Dennis’s house in Southfield for his 2nd annual [313] party. Not as many familiar faces as last year, but good to see some new ones. These were the few that were familiar enough to pictorialize (or that I was smart enough to capture):

    Around midnight we headed to the Corktown Tavern to try to take in some of the 7th City Party. I actually grabbed a cab from there, but it turned out that they weren’t letting anyone in anyway, so Magda and Dennis arrived at the Detroit Contemporary around the same time as me. Very silly… I’m fairly certain that my friend Barry AKA Kataconda was playing when we arrived. He mixed a CD set, featuring a lot of his own material from CD-R. Really nice stuff! Christian Bloch followed that with a walloping minimal techno set, TJ (Wraith) followed that with another good techno set, then I came on, thoroughly inebriated at this point. If I can trust the reviews, it turned out well, although I had to mix from techno down to house, which is one of the things I find hardest to do, especially when really drunk. At one point I was manually winding one record up to +10 while in the mix – that was just stupid, although I think it actually worked! I think I recognized my limits fairly soon though, since Mike (who was on after me) allowed me to play a ½-hour into his set, at which point the cops came and shut us down. ‘Twas a shame, but good that we got to go as late as we did, given that some of the other parties got crushed much earlier. It was a fun night, great to see all those peepz who I wouldn’t get to see for long throughout the rest of the festival, and always a treat to play in Detroit. Also great to finally meet John Shipman, who I’ve been chatting with online for ages. Great chap. We got to spend a lot of time together over the weekend, which was long overdue.

    This is getting really long, so I’m going to split it into two posts. On to the festival. ->

  • All Tomorrow’s Parties

    Note: this post has been moved above the two below it, in order to preserve chronology – originally posted yesterday. You may want to read those for the full story. I’m trying to recap in order (and what I remember – thank goodness for this little line-up card):

    Friday

    ====

    The Fall were really good. Never seen them live. Not a ton for me to say really. Just good rock ‘n roll.

    Public Enemy was fantastic. Haven’t lost a step, and *everyone* was getting down. You could tell they were having a great time, and it was really infectious.

    Guy Called Gerald and C2 – remember liking both a lot and dancing a ton, but can’t recall any specifics really. I think Gerald played a lot of house, but my memory is quite sketchy at this point. Carl Craig was good, but as with the last time I saw him, and on The Workout, I wish he would mix more aggressively. My favorite sets from him are always more active.

    Missed Baby Ford and Gescom- ran out of steam around 3:00 after being up since 7:30. Will see Baby Ford on Wednesday and Gescom on Saturday though,

    so no urgency.

    Saturday (AKA the day when darkness reigned and time lost meaning)

    ======

    Note: the venue upstairs was nearly pitch black in the middle of the day. This was severely disorienting. Recall finding out it was 7:30 pm, thinking it was 2:00 am…

    Checked Disjecta for about 15 minutes (he = Mark Clifford, once of Seefeel). He was basically just improvising on a guitar with crazy effects. It was really cool, but did my head in a bit after about 15 minutes.

    El-P and Murs – damn fine rather political hip hop. El-P had a nice 15 minute turntablism intro as well. Good stuff!

    Kool Keith and Kutmaster Kurt – really, really dissapointing. Utter crap. What has happened to Dr. Doom???

    Bola (apparently didn’t show) but the visuals while they played some of his music (I think) were mind-blowing. Someone else may be able to fill in gaps about this.

    [things get very very blurry]

    Aphex Twin – WOW!!! Played about an hour of 110bpmish-techno-industrial-signature-aphex-god-knows-what that sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I believe most of this was live. Concluded with an hour of drum ‘n bass – lots of ragga included. Wicked.

    Skam DJs. Lots of fun. Degraded into making out with some woman on the dancefloor. VERY obnoxious. Apologies to anyone who witnessed.

    In bed at a healthy 7:30am.

    Sunday

    =====

    Arrive about 1/2-way through Stasis. Playing nice house rather poorly. Strictly Kev is a no-show (or maybe showed up about 10 minutes b4 the end of his set???) Stasis played lots of hip hop. Never heard so much ‘Stakes is High’ in one weekend. This is good.

    Checked Jim O’Rourke for about 15 minutes. Nice pure ambience (i.e. no discernable beat). Not suiting my mood. Head back for more Stasis/Kev/Whatever.

    Graham Massey – appears on stage with enormous wire-lantern-bulbous-head-thing. I leave immediately.

    Coil (probably my most anticipated show) – really long set-up process (like 45 minutes). Really weird experimental vocally stuff with 3 Nords?!? Cool

    stuff. Not right for the moment. Run downstaris for…

    LFO (Mark Bell) DJ set. Had no idea what to expect from this. It probably wound up as my favorite set of the festival. Tons of techno classics mixed absolutely flawlessly (using Traktor + 1 CD player it looked like). I suspect he was cueing up two instances of the same track in Traktor and rocking doubles with it. Was really really effective. His mixing was seriously amazing. He finished with what were surely three new LFO tracks – and I can promise you, the wait has been worth it. He’s gone off the IDM deep-end, but the result is pretty stunning, and really complex. I can’t wait.

    Shake’s set was not his finest – seemed to be having an off night, although he and the crowd both seemed to enjoy it quite a bit despite the mixing troubles. It got much better as it went on, but the first 1/2 of the set was pretty messy. We all have these nights though…

    G-Man: played for about 20 minutes of his live set and some assbag pulled the fire alarm (or maybe it was a real fire???) – no one seemed to know for sure. Retreated to chalet.

    Returned just in time for the beginning of Mark Broom. I danced non-stop. Always an excellent DJ – throwing in just enough bangers and just enough depth to keep it constantly interesting. It is true that we are spoiled for choice in London.

    Surgeon: Holy crap! This was a proper Final Scratch workout. It wasn’t the best DJ set I’ve ever seen, but I’ve never seen another set like it. He went everywhere seamlessly, and directed the pace with a mastery that’s only been equalled, not surpassed.

    Drexciyan DJ Stingray was tight, but hearing tracks like M4 and M5 played at 45 ruins them for me. The whole set was really really ghetto tech fast, but slowed a bit towards the end. It was a bit too much for me after 2 and a half days of non-stop movement and throbbing bass. Needless to say, Venetian Snares after him were equally lethal. I lasted about 10 minutes of their set before running in fear, clinging for sanity. And that about sums it up… in short the top three sets were:

    LFO

    Surgeon

    Aphex Twin

    In sum: WAY too much air hockey, blood, saliva, sweat (almost forgot about the sweat), beer, gin and amazing music for one weekend. Not nearly enough food. Can’t wait for next year when all the previous curators do one day each! This was a festival of DEMF magnitude and intensity, enhanced further by the ever-outrageous London techno massive.

    DEMF 2002

    I can’t say I really felt the vibe I came to Detroit for this year @ the festival proper, but I don’t think that had much to do with festival execution. Much like last year, it was hard to find the right place for your mood. I had some issues with the schedule/stages, like Dave Clarke in an absurdly filled underground stage Sunday night, Stewart Walker and Green Velvet on so early but these are ultimately subjective things. There were a lot of things I chose not to see b/c the crowd issues were unpleasant. I spent close to an hour trying to get from MGD -> CPOP -> Underground during P-Funk. You can’t blame the organizers for that, but it’s a vibe killer. If I have any beef with the organization, it’s that the only way you can see what you want for big names is to get to a stage early, and then you need to sit through a 5-minute loop of loud commercials. I understand the funding needs to come from somewhere, but this was a bit too much. The DJ Supply room was a salvation at times. Keith Worthy played a really nice set from 9-10 Sunday during the middle of that chaos. There were only 5 people in there when I showed up and about 100 when I left. I’m not trying to take a dump on the festival, it just didn’t leave me feeling any of the intensity I felt at the parties, and the logistics of seeing what you want can get messy. I still enjoyed a good deal of my time there though.

    So… I found myself seeking out parties this year, not so much because of specific acts, but b/c I thought I would enjoy myself most at those events. Maybe that seems obvious or meaningless, but it helped me guide my choices. Thursday night’s Techno Karaoke party was fun, even though we arrived late. Derrick Plaslaiko should never be given a microphone. 🙂 Dykehouse did a really nice Robert Plant impression for a minute too. It was nice to see lots of locals out for a party designed for fun. Good stuff.

    Friday night was spent @ Dennis’ list party – a great chance to touch base with lots of 313ers before the weekend kicked into high gear. From there I headed to Chamillian Cafe for TP, who was in top form. I got there as he started – he captivated me throughout. Great vibe, small venue, nothing but heads in the place. Pure entertainment at its finest, with TP at his most crowd-interactive. I love seeing him in really small places for that reason. It’s just a great party.

    Saturday night I checked out the OMOA Music shindig for about an hour and a half. I think this label is really gonna turn some heads. Szymanski played a brilliant broken beat set, including his new track (mmm…). Their slogan, “Good for Party”, pretty much summed it up. After that I headed to Cannonball Run for Traxx, Derek Plaslaiko, Carlos Souffront, BMG and others. They played an awful lot of ’80s tracks. Yussel et al did a great job with this event. Derek in particular made my night, doing his aggressive, no-cueing mixes for a while. He can produce so much energy when he goes at it uninhibited like that. It was a pretty stark contrast with his DJ Supply set Monday night, which was tight as hell, with some amazing glitchy tracks I’ve never heard, but not quite so energetic. He’s got to be one of the most talented and diverse DJs in Detroit.

    Sunday night I was a bit fed up with fighting crowds so I headed to the Planet E party early. Rob’s set was really subtle and beautiful. I thought Carl Craig pulled out all the stops. I’ve always loved his DJing, with some *mild* reservations about his ability to capitalize on the power of mixing compared to someone like DJ Bone (not to say he isn’t usually very tight). Sunday he went-off on the decks like I’ve never heard him do. I think my entire body convulsed in one 5-minute spasm when he dropped Fix Flash. Todd Sines’ new material is really going to make a mark. He’s found a warmer sound than the colder, Monolake-esque style he played last year (not that I didn’t love that set too). The Mark Ernestus dub set was really tasty too. Unfortunately the fuel tank was empty at that point. This was all I could have expected from such a brilliant lineup. No one disappointed. Oh – and Mike Clark played a new DNH track that reminds me a lot of “deep burnt”, but expanding on that idea. I think it was called “Trackhead” – I presume it’s Nick Holder. It was a white label, so I think it might be forthcoming. Keep your eyes peeled.

    Monday night was spent @ The Works. I think I checked out the main room for all of 10 minutes all night. I’m pretty sure it was D Wynn playing early in the front. He was really on, playing some uptempo house flawlessly. This really set the mood for Ron Trent, who dropped at least 4 hours of deeeeeeep house. This set really moved me. I’ve never danced that much in my life. Otto didn’t leave the dancefloor for more than 10 seconds of his entire set. I thought when I saw him in DC last Fall, it was one of those Detroit-esque moments that never happen here, that I would likely never see Ron Trent reproduce. Somehow, he surpassed it twelve-fold. This was the best set of the festival for me, only closely matched by Radio Boy. If anyone knows what the building, dueling pianos track was that he played twice about 3 hours apart, I will be forever indebted. He was playing it from track 3 on a CD, and I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt him to find out. The art of deep house mixing is often so much about laying out the tracks in a great order and making the set move conceptually. He wrote the textbook on that last night.

    No matter what happens to the festival going forward, parties like these convey what the Detroit scene is capable of that can’t be found elsewhere. I had a really fabulous time. I <3 Detroit.