Re: Techno and the Motor City
Matthew Robert Chicoine (scooby@umich.edu)
Mon, 18 Nov 1996 01:21:58 -0500 (EST)
"Techno has no soul." I used to be of this opinion but when I took a
minute to seek out the deeper material, I found that techno's whole beauty
is that it IS soul, soul injected directly into machinery. A marriage a
lot wouldn't have thought possible. Living in Detroit has showed me that
techno is still one of the most soulful, deepest, and heartfelt musics.
This city is testament to that. Take a minute next time you get a chance
and listen to some of the material coming out of Detroit (Carl Craig, Juan
Atkins, Kenny Larkin, Drexia, Dan Bell, Underground Resistance,
whatever!), and then you'll know why Detroit is sweated so hard by a lot
of the artists and label owners discussed on this list (i.e. 4hero/tek9,
James Lavelle, etcetcetcetc). Like any genre, techno has become
affiliated with a seriously unimaginative, untalented contigent (who's
heard of "acid"??..not jazz), one that unfortunaley heavily outweighs the
credible contigent in sheer numbers. As a professed lover of hip-hop,
soul, jazz, I recommend that listmembers not be afraid to cross that
"techno" line and go pick up some Carl Craig. Trust me, you're friends
won't call you a sell-out, and if they do, educate. Nuff said.
Matt C