Movement 2010, Day 2 & 3

Shit Show was on Sunday. I had my tickets early and really wanted to spend some time there. But sleep and other interests got the better of me. We got down there in time to hear Kyle Hall's set, about 10:30. He was scheduled to end at 11 and then Todd Osborn for the next hour. Sadly, I missed Darkcube live and Derek Plaslaiko earlier in the morning. Todd played a banging set that kept my tired legs going for about an hour straight. Seriously, I really didn't stop dancing the whole time. They had two rooms going - one inside and then one outside. Outside was packed that sunny morning, inside was not. There were bunches of people sleeping on couches and chicks swinging on bathroom stall doors - tp party. Todd's set was great, as I expected. No "hot mixes," nothing predictable, primarily lots of lovely things I had never heard before. So that's a score for me.

We left to get lunch at Slows Bar-B-Q on Michigan. First time eating there, it was fantastic. One more notch on the happiness scale for the weekend. I had never had North Carolina style sauce before, so that's what I fell in love with at Slows. And the beer, oh my god, it was a good weekend for beer. Rochester Mills IPA. So good, I had it twice.

We then headed down to Hart Plaza for the Electrobounce crew/Starski & Clutch/Godfather. They were pretty fun as always. By that point, we needed another break and some sleep. I missed some excellent music that afternoon and evening, but getting up for an early party will do that. We got back down to the fest at about 9pm and I got to enjoy Rob Hood's set. By that point, I was crowded out, so we just stood up on a bench and listened from up top. I enjoyed it. What he played was some fun and interesting techno. There were some moving beats. I am so spoiled by being in Detroit year round and have the pleasure of small crowds and small venues. I can easily see what is going on all the time. I love to be able to see what a musician is doing while playing a live set - the equipment and how they manipulate it all. I would have loved to be able to do that for Rob Hood's set.

After that, we very slowly made our way to milkshakes and then to No Way Back. This party is what I should be planning my weekend around. But instead, I exhaust myself to the extent that I am unable to handle any more beats, even beats that I am loving. It's been at the Bohemian National Home for the past two years (not sure about years before that). All the DJs are bound to be fantastic - it's Brendan M. Gillen and Erika Sherman choosing them, so come on, you know it! They decorate the space in such a lovely way to create a great, dark, actually peaceful atmosphere for listening and partying. They had Motor City Brewing Lager - more good beer! I came for Mike Servito, Derek Plaslaiko, BMG, and Carlos Souffront and did not stick around long enough to hear any of them. Saw photos of Carlos playing with morning light coming in softly. He was scheduled to play at 7:30am. I'm serious, next year, I'm leaving the festival early and sleeping until maybe 4am or something so that I can enjoy the whole party, to the end. And I must add, ladies, you will be treated well here. And not in the wink wink we treat the ladies right way. It is a safe partying environment created on purpose. It's actually an important part of Interdimensional Transmissions - Erika and Brendan's record label - to produce parties that are safe and genuinely fun for women and men. They actually accomplish this really well too! Chicks dig IT.

The next day we slept in until I just couldn't sleep anymore, which turned out to be about 10am. Crazy, I know, but I had been away from my kids all weekend and sleeping away from them was actually difficult for this Ma. Rain ended up closing much of the stages down for big chunks of the day. Missed Shigeto and Secrets. Hung out at Forans for a while for more good beer. Then back for the Moritz von Oswald Trio. Now this was another true highlight of the weekend. I had been looking forward to hearing them for a long time. Before they started, we caught some of Francesco Tristano live. He played Strings of Life on his piano without any electronically produced sounds . That was pretty fun. MOV3 got set up a bit late and welcomed Carl Craig on modular synthesizer as a guest.

Now this is not my photo, it's by Greg Cristman of a show by MOV3 + Carl Craig + Francois K at the Unsound Festival this past February. But just look at this. He's producing tones by patching cords.



I mean I can hardly stand it. Check out the rest of the photos of this show here.

The music was interesting, slow to build (in a good way), intellectually moving. It was a weird beauty. There were some nice percussive moments. They played great together. It was a joy to just sit in the alternating sun and clouds and listen. How I wished to be standing with my face in all the gear watching every moment I was hearing.

So that's my weekend.

A few general comments ensue. Serious body jacking happening at specific moments over the weekend. I'm a serious mover so that's important to me. The stages were surprisingly clear of media folks this year as compared to last year. I learned after the festival that Paxahau designed a two tier system for media credentials - media and stage media. So there were some with credentials who could go "back stage" but not on stage. This is excellent for the artists. But not so fun for folks who need/want to report and share images of the fest with their readers. I also learned after the fest that Paxahau did not allow promos to enter Hart Plaza - no cds or vinyl. "To protect their investment." This is actually ridiculous. A lot of small labels benefit from networking inside the festival. This seems particularly damaging to local artists who could easily transport their releases down to the festival and distribute their music on their own terms in a very immediate way.

Once again, I really enjoyed meeting new people and seeing old faces that I hadn't seen since last year. Met Rob Theakston of EMA and Moodmat. Met Jacob Arnold of Gridface. Glad to finally meet both of them! Got a few chances to chat with Frank Glazer of Infinite State Machine. That Frank, he's a good man. Also Tom Cox of ISM.

I didn't get down to YaDigg Records, Whodat's new record store. But I helped her fold shirts and sort records the week before, so that's okay. I'm glad so many people made it over there! Better plan to fit another visit in next year all you fest goers!

Movement Festival, 2010, Happiness

This was a really happy festival for me. Just joyous. And not because every single sound or set was fabulous, but the whole weekend, both inside, and especially outside of Hart Plaza, was filled with great things.

I'll start you with this message from Peaches. Not the pink electro fuck Peaches.



Outkast Peaches.



I have loved this album since high school and this intro expresses how I feel about Detroit and this whole May weekend. You know what I'm talking about, I know you do.

So, for starters, Friday night. We began our weekend with 2010: A Detroit Odyssey hosted by Carl Craig, Planet E, and the Detroit Techno Foundation.


The films were excellent. The event was free. It was such a creative, educational, inspiring, and exciting event. I hope these kinds of events happen every year! Cycles of the Mental Machine was an interesting film. I'll definitely use that when I teach in the future! Mike Banks was interviewed for the film with his back to the camera in front of a photograph of Jeff Mills' hands. It was lovely. I had seen Metropolis before, but never with Jeff Mills' score. Well, I partially slept through Metropolis before. I was very pregnant and it was a quiet, dark theater! This time around, there was no sleeping, I was enthralled. Suite for Ma Dukes was inspiring - particularly the visual aspects. Nice to see lots of Detroit faces in the film performing. And The Drive Home was a film documenting the first year of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Definitely fun and interesting to watch. Particularly paired with RA's oral history of the festival. Carl Craig introduced each film. And the filmmakers of both Suite for Ma Dukes and The Drive Home were present to speak before their films. Derrick May rose to conclude the film portion of the night and prepared the audience for Timeline. Finally, Timeline played featuring Mike Banks, DJ Sicari, Jon Dixon, and De'Sean Jones. It was really exciting to see Mike Banks playing in Detroit! They were all having a great time, and everything sounded great.

It was really moving to be at this event. The crowd grew slowly, but by the time Suite for Ma Dukes began, the Detroit Music Hall was pretty full. The week prior to the Movement Festival, Carl Craig held music workshops for high school students at Detroit School for the Arts, from which Kyle Hall graduated just last year. One of these workshops was hosted by Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau, on event planning. I was so impressed to learn about these workshops. I truly hope that these kinds of events happen every year during the festival. Free events that have the potential to reach Detroit residents, but also to educate visitors from out of town. Kenny Dixon Jr.'s Soulskate definitely accomplishes this. Maybe next year, there could be a block party outside of Submerge, or somewhere around Techno Boulevard - 1486-1492 Gratiot. Theses addresses housed the studios of Juan Atkins' Metroplex Records, Derrick May's Transmat Records, and Kevin Saunderson's KMS Studios. The party could be off Gratiot somewhere around there. The Heidelberg Project is a few steps from there too.



Or a picnic on Belle Isle, on Sunday, with a serious sound system blaring old Mojo radio shows.

There's much more that I have to tell you about, but my boys, they run me ragged...because they're so damn awesome. You'll have to wait until tomorrow...

It's May!

I am getting so excited about this year's Movement Festival in Detroit. It's Detroit's electronic music festival. It's been going on for 11 years now. It has a long fascinating history in Detroit. I went to the second one in 2001, it was free. Inner City and Saul Williams were highlights for me. De La Soul were there too, and would have been a highlight had they not done a MEDLY. A medly. Really?

Anyway, I didn't go again until 2007, and since then, it's become an annual thing for James and me to love doing! I've written about the festival quite a lot, just look at my May archives. The afterparties are so great too. I was trying to just stay in on the Friday night before the festival begins, you know, for sleep! But then last night I saw that Omar S is doing the Beretta Music party at 10 Critics on Friday night. I inhaled sharply with excitement and told James slyly that we might not be staying in after all. There are too many damn parties for me to promote here, so just look at the DLuv for pointers.

And yes, I did post the down with the underground thing to Paxahau. And I stand by that - I refused to miss the artists that I wanted to hear last year even though they were in that concrete tank and the sound was mostly terrible. But I don't want to have to go down there to hear mostly local artists who I am excited about anyway. The Made In Detroit stage is in the underground space again this year. Last years set-up was the worst yet. The gigantic stage was hoisted way up high surrounded by huge bass bins with little attention to the mid and high range sounds. Not only is the sound bad down there regardless of set-up, but Paxahau is continuing to put primarily local, Black artists down there to play. The guys who run Paxahau are not new, they are not confused, they are not slow on the uptake. They know what they are doing and while I don't know everyone's background, most of them have spent a great deal of time in Detroit. Jason Huvaere even lived in Detroit for a few years. I'm sure that collectively, they know every single Detroiter who has ever spun a record or ever released any kind of electronic music. So the fact that they repeatedly fail in the sound quality department at the underground stage, while sound at the other stages gets better every year, confuses me. Additionally, the fact that they put local, mainly Black artists down there, also confuses me. I don't think Paxahua sits down and says, yeah, let's put those Black folks down there because they don't deserve as much respect. But when you step back and take a look at the layout and set-up, the Black, local musicians are getting the shaft. I think a lot of white people like to think that racism no longer exists. That we are now past all that. And particularly with electronic music, many like to think that because the music as a culture sounds and looks so diverse and universal that any kind of oppression based on race and ethnicity is impossible. Clearly the dialog in the comments section of Tom Cox's post at Infinite State Machine will attest to that. But in reality, that is just not true, not anywhere, and certainly not in Detroit. No one is saying down with whitey, but how about we bring the Black people upstairs, K?

It is seriously disturbing that this keeps happening at such a successful and important event. I love this festival. I love the music I get to hear, the people I get to meet, and the people I get to see that I haven't seen since the last festival. I love the new artists that I learn about at each festival. I will keep going, I just want this to change.

Reality and then some fantasy.

Ah man, do I really have to do this...okay so James and I went out to The Works on Friday to see DWynn and Nigel Richards. DWynn sounded good, as expected. As for Nigel Richards, I am content to remain an 18 year old fan in 1995. And I got to see Jit Wiggins play vinyl for about 5 minutes. Maybe he played some records before we got there, but while we were there, he played literally a few records and then the front room shut down. They went past midnight in the front room, but not much past. So here, this is my night: I smelled terrible from the smoke machines and cigarettes. I have never liked those smoke machines, it smells terrible and makes it hard to breathe right when you want to breathe the most after dancing so much to great music (that is the ideal situation!). Visuals never got me too excited either, whether there are a bunch of lasers bouncing around, or an actual projection of video. Just give me a dark room with maybe one light and some slamming sound. And I got a headache from listening to "Girls On Film" by Duran Duran emanating from the single wall of speakers, clanking around the brick and concrete room, with the highs so high, and the mids and lows pretty much gone; I cringed and immediately required earplugs. And this is not good Theo Parrish or Rick Wilhite knob twisting. I really did get a serious headache from moments like that. I'm so sensitive...

Alright now, I need to step out of the *standing in a corner with a scowl on my face* role because I don't like it very much. I like to like things. I did have fun this weekend listening on my nice headphones to Carlos Souffront's Movement 2008 set, Soundmurderer's Movement 2008 set, (here's the general link for those sets: http://www.paxahau.com/sounds/mp3/2008_movement.html They are both at the Red Bull Stage, Carlos' is on 5/25/08 and Soundmurderer is on 5/26/08), some Flying Lotus, and Theo Parrish's Yellow Double Lines, Part 2 mix. I'll probably be staying home more for the next while because we have a big move coming up to a new house!! I'm so excited. And I really need to finish transcribing so that I can work through all the "data" I have collected over the past year and a half and get that outline outlined and then get writing. I am still doing interviews here and there, like Brendan M. Gillen of Ectomorph and Kyle Hall this week!!

I never wrote anything about the Dennis Coffey and Recloose event, how terrible!! Well, I did go and it was pretty good. I got there late because we were coming home from a trip and got stuck in traffic on what should have been the last 15 minutes of the trip. They just shut down a highway! That's Detroit for you, no wait, that's Metro Detroit/Oakland County for you, they do major construction on the weekends and just shut down a portion of a highway from Friday night to Monday morning. Not cut it down to one or two lanes, they close it completely!! So once we finally got home, unloaded, got the kids into bed, showered my funkiness off, kissed my honey (babysitter bailed), and then headed out to pick up Whodat, we had already missed a good portion of the Dennis Coffey Quartet. The music sounded so beautiful when we arrived. We caught the end of the Quartet's set. Dennis Coffey, former Funk Brother for Motown and prominent jazz guitarist in Detroit, is such an incredible musician. The way his fingers flowed across those strings was just really stunning and beautiful. Whodat introduced me to Edwin Fabre, local DJ and producer. So we all talked for a while. He actually knew who I was when WhoDat introduced us (super weird). He said, 'was she the one who brought you all down to Indiana?', referring to the Roots of Techno conference. He shared lots of support and positivity for what I am doing here. This past Wednesday, he was a guest on WhoDat's weekly radio show. And he apparently plays at The Bosco in Ferndale on Wednesday nights now. I'll have to go check it out.

Recloose played a nice set. He was throwing it down playing some good rare jams - all kinds of stuff, funk, techno, house. The sound was a little weird for his set, but I think that's mainly because it's a jazz club, kind of like The Green Mill in Chicago. So the bar is an island in the middle and there are two spaces with lots of tables separated by the bar. The sound was low and the lights were bright. The crowd was proper though. There was actually a line for the men's room all night, and that was funny. I guess that points to my earlier post about women in Detroit. I sailed past right into the ladies room and noticed the line, 'there's a line for the men's room, huh. ...There's a line for the men's room!?' And then some quiet laughing to myself.

Bohemian National Home, Detroit, MI

And now my non-promoter, non-DJ, non-producer self would like to suggest a fabulous Detroit party that I would definitely attend from start to finish. It needs to be at the Bohemian National Home, because right now, that's really my favorite spot in Detroit. It's a really interesting building located in southwestern Detroit near Corktown/Michigan Avenue/old Tiger stadium. It was built in 1914 as a community center for people from Bohemia. There are lots of rooms to explore. It's dark. There's a wooden dance floor, which is always fun. And it's in quiet neighborhood with lots of trees and empty lots. But then sorry to the neighborhood residents for all the noise. And now here's the lineup, and this party needs to go late, like 7AM or something: Todd Osborn and Theo Parrish. THAT'S IT! I know this goes against regular promoter rules of having lesser known DJs play early while the crowds are small, but that ends up forcing all the other DJs who are playing into shorter time slots so that Detroiters never get to experience the journey of a long, intense set by a single person. And if you want one more person added, then I would suggest Minx. But right now, let's just go with Todd and Theo. Todd can play from like 9pm-1am or 10pm-2am or something like that. And Theo can play from 1am or 2am until 7am. I don't care what kind of equipment they have, or whether Todd plays as Soundmurderer, Osborne, or just Todd, but maybe he could bring his vocoder? Shrug? Alright, so there's the idea, someone with money and knowledge can put it together and I can offer to help in anyway I can! Am I dreaming...?

Final day of Movement 2009

Wow, two weeks later and I’m still writing. Way to stay timely!! Sorry for the delay, again, there has been lots of stuff going on, including illness in 4 of the 5 members of our family! And I really want to get down every detail that I can remember for the purpose of my documentation of my experiences here in Detroit. I will be going back to all these notes that I take and other things that I write in order to make a full assessment of what the major themes are so that I can do Detroit justice when I write the dissertation. So that’s why these bloody posts are so long, I want to capture everything that I can remember. And writing these posts does take some effort on my part, so that’s another reason for the delay, because an exhausted, sick brain does not do well with a keyboard and computer screen!

I didn’t take notes at all during the festival weekend unfortunately, and then, Monday evening, I just jotted down a small page of ideas and thoughts. I wrote down a few major ideas that I knew would help me get into a writing mode later that week. I probably should have been taking notes all weekend had I been a dutiful fieldworker. I was just so busy listening, watching, dancing, wandering, and videotaping, that my little moleskin notebook stayed tucked away in my bag all weekend!

So Monday morning, we headed down and actually arrived in time to see Clark Warner at the Beatport stage. Before that though, when we checked in to get our Monday media patch, I signed up to interview Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau, at 3pm that afternoon. James Canning, Paxahau’s person in charge of media for the festival, and the person who approved my request for media credentials even though it came way late, encouraged me to talk with Jason. So, I’ll come back to that later. Clark Warner played a nice set, played CDs, did some nice manipulation with the mixer and, like his wife, Liz Copeland (Warner), is a great selector. The whole Plaza was still pretty empty at that time. Clark started playing at noon and there were no other performances happening that day until 2pm. It’s always nice to arrive at the festival when things are quiet, peaceful and breezy. I videotaped a lot of his set We then skipped out for food so that we could get back to interview Jason at 3pm. I knew I wanted to see a lot of sets the whole rest of the day, so food needed to happen then. I was getting nervous about my interview because usually I get to be leisurely with my interviews and take lots of time to chat and get into history, backgrounds, music, DJing and producing, and whatever else. I start out with a few ideas of where I want the interview to go, but usually have the luxury of letting the person I’m talking with take it in whatever direction they want to go. I knew that this interview would have be short, very direct, and to the point. Over lunch, I thought up three major questions that I wanted to ask Jason about with the hopes that these would be appropriate for the rushed setting, but would provide me with enough information to be a worthwhile interview. And that is just what happened! So here were the big questions that I asked him:

Can you tell me about Paxahau’s history in Detroit, and your history with the Movement festival? And in order to prod a bit deeper, I mentioned my interview with John “Bileebob” Williams (which brought a big smile to Jason’s “business” face). Bileebob talked with me about the lofts at 1217 Griswold in downtown Detroit which were home to many electronic music producers, event promoters, and other local artists and musicians in the early 1990s. Bileebob and Jason Huvaere were both residents there and pre-Paxahau event planning/promoting got it’s start there.

Here are two posts from Famzine about 1217 Griswold:

http://famzine.com/blog/?p=83

http://famzine.com/blog/?page_id=6

I then asked Jason about the challenges in artist booking for the festival, representing local Detroit artists and music, while at the same time inviting national and international artists from outside of Detroit to play. I wanted to understand Paxahau’s perspective on what they do. And I didn’t want to be negative or inappropriate while talking with him during the festival weekend, AT the festival itself. Basically, their perspective is that local, Detroit electronic artists make up a third of the artists at the festival every year, which seems to be true. And not only do they invite the big names from Detroit, they also invite local DJs who are not producers or whose production catalog is very small compared to other artists at the festival. However, the treatment of some of these artists seems to be thoughtless to a certain degree, like putting so many incredible musicians and DJs into the underground area, forcing them to have terrible acoustics for their performances. And this is really disappointing. The underground area was rarely very crowded the whole weekend because the sound was so freaking scary down there!! So many people missed out on great artists because of the sound quality, because all the distinct sound levels got smashed together and muddled from bouncing around the concrete space. Honestly, next year, they should just put some speakers down there broadcasting music from the main stage and it can just be a roller skating rink. I can totally see that happening; no worries about liability or supplying skates, or any other logistical concerns like that. It would just be cool.

Okay, so none of that last part was my interview with Jason, just my mental foray into fantasy. I still need to tell you my last question:

I told him I was excited to hear about Carl Craig being the creative director for the 2010 festival. The press release was all over the web Friday before the festival began. And his response was interesting. Jason explained that this had been a long time goal for Paxahau, but they wanted to make sure they had a solid foundation for the Movement festival before approaching Carl with the offer. They wanted to make sure that the event was secured well into the future and would be something that Carl Craig would feel good about getting involved in. So yeah for next year, we’ll see what this all means!!

The interview went really well. He is clearly a seasoned public speaker and knows how to provide tons of information in a limited amount of time. So I’m really glad I had the opportunity to talk to him.

After the interview, I quickly packed up…oh wait, one little story from the interview lawn…There were these two dudes who were there to interview Afrika Bambaataa. They said they saw something about him on VH1 and wanted to interview him, but couldn't even remember his full name. They asked about him as “Afrika …I don’t remember his last name.” And then again when they started interviewing Jason Huvaere. I over heard as I was packing up my equipment. Are you kidding me? How are you going to try and interview someone, but don’t even know their name and then admit that to the main man in charge of the whole festival?? Please. And how often does that happen, they either get ignored completely, or get interviewed by people who don’t know what they are talking about! Well, at least there’s a few folks out there providing good journalistic coverage.

Alright, finally packed up, heading over to see Flying Lotus. This was one of the best sets of the entire weekend. I had so much fun and got to videotape most of his set. When I got there, the crowd was packed and James got up on stage to photograph while I just looked around for a bit. Then, I almost plowed down some dude in the crowd with my giant tripod (because my monopod broke the day before) trying to say hi to Todd Osborn as he passed by on his way to the stage. Sorry dude! And then I ended up totally interrupting Todd on his way to get some tracks up to Flying Lotus. Total nerd is me! After looking around a bit, I decided it was time for me to get on up there and get some video. Music was so hot, I could barely walk straight. I got myself set up on stage and this was probably one of the four most fun moments of the weekend for me; the other three being Osborne at the Blank Artists Afterglow party, Octave One, and DJ Seoul & T. Linder, which I will get to soon. Shortly after I got set up, FlyLo dropped Osborne’s “Wait A Minute.” I mean everything sounded so great, I could barely stand up, let alone hold my camera up pretending that my tripod was a monopod so that I could move it around easily. In addition to wearing a Dilla t-shirt, he played some J Dilla beats, like the “Takin’ What’s Mine” instrumental with the lyric “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” from a folk song from 1950 by The Weevers (or possibly Peter, Paul, & Mary). Then he gave another nod to Soundmurderer (Todd Osborn) on the mic as he played a jungle track. Don’t know what it was, but it sounded great, and he said something like “Soundmurderer turned me on to this!” He was super active with his equipment, he had a laptop going and an MPC, and it was really fun to watch him. He would turn down the music occasionally to speak to the crowd. It was just really fun.

And here's a photo by Chaircrusher, aka Kent Williams of me smiling at Flying Lotus!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaircrusher/3574906016/

We then bounced around for the rest of the night. Seth Troxler was surprisingly good. Kyle Hall made sure that we went down there to hear him and it was really a sweet set that suited the disco ball lighting and brought a pretty chill atmosphere to the room. He started off with a 45 of the Twinpeaks themesong which was a dramatic switch from the harder sounds that I caught right at the end of Lee Curtiss’ set. He used Serato along with a green tote bag of non-Serato vinyl.

On to Carl Craig which was a bit disappointing, like I mentioned earlier. Seoul vs. T. Linder with four turntables was fantastic! They were ripping through that vinyl and even though the sound was bad, I still enjoyed they’re set. It was cool to watch them trainwreck and then really quickly fix the mistakes and just keep on going. Not that there were lots of mistakes, I just caught a few because I was right there on stage and could see and hear what was happening, and they got things back on track really smoothly each time. Then to Los Hermanos with Pirahnahead on guitar. They sounded expectedly nice, although by this point my feet were about to crumble and it was all I could do to finish that last tape off. And I was done, I could not stick around for another minute. And I know, I missed an excellent Derrick May set and Buzz Goree’s set, but I just couldn’t hang one more second. So we left, got some pizza and ended our weekend with that.

It was a really great time, and I felt nourished by all the music. I’ll look forward to upcoming festivals in Detroit the rest of the summer and I’ll keep you tuned in to what’s going on here the rest of the year.

More photos

All photos by "my man"


Me and Carelton Gohlz


Stacey "Hotwaxx" Hale


Norm Talley & Delano Smith


Mike Huckaby
Oooh yeah, look at that vinyl...

More words, Movement 2009 Part 3

On to day 2 of the fest. After a few hours sleep, we got up and hung out with our boys for a few hours. I missed them so much over the weekend, it was nice to be able to spend a bit of extra time at home with them on Sunday and not get down to the festival until after 2pm. I wanted to see Starski & Clutch and Minx. I wasn’t sure what time the dudes were going on, but Electrobounce took up a time block from 2-6pm. When we got there, we headed straight for the Red Bull stage. I love that corner of Hart Plaza during the festival. It’s so close to the water, so there’s always a nice soft breeze. Windsor’s skyline is right there and there’s also a nice view of Detroit facing the other way. Of course, the view of the sky is huge there and sunsets are gorgeous, especially this past festival weekend! Oh, it’s just so romantic, let’s go hang out over there honey…and here’s where my nature as a delicate flower rears up again.

Delicate flower meets booty and bass, ass and titties. We got there shortly after Starski & Clutch (Brian Gillespie & Todd Osborn) started their set, and they play records together! Records! It was great to watch them up there with their vinyl. They were tag teaming it pretty quick and smooth, Brian got on the mic quite a bit getting the crowd going and talking about Detroit.


UR baby, UR.
Photograph by James M. Rotz

So the “Ass and Titties” song seems to be the anthem of Sunday afternoon, and I say that with a big smile on my face. The Electrobounce crew is so much fun! Whenever I hear the “Ass and Titties” song, I envision a guy with big thick black glasses and a serious lisp saying “ass and titties, ass and titties.” And needless to say, James got to hear my version of that all weekend. Lucky him.

In addition, the Electrobounce crew sported their very own ass and titties dancers. That’s not their official name, but instead of dancers with Paxahau panties on all over Hart Plaza all weekend like in 2008, the special dancers were only to be found at the Electrobounce stage. However, you could also see plenty of that style of dress all over Hart Plaza on festival goers – fishnet stockings, sometimes ripped, sometimes in the form of gloves. Tiny ass-cheek baring shorts and fuzzy leg coverings that go from the knee down that James calls cave girl boots. Lots of chains and spikes and piercings paired with this rave girl-slash-stripper style all over the festival. It was a bit strange, I don’t remember so much sexuality on display at raves in the 1990s when I was a teenager and going to parties around Chicago and New York/New Jersey. And maybe that’s because I was super shy about it and not tuned into some of what was going on around me. But I remember a lot more androgyny, more sporty girls with big pants and sun visors on, and more distinct costumes that were not automatically sexual. I’m not saying that open performance/display of sexuality is bad. It’s totally awesome! If you can dress that way and look good and feel comfortable, then do it, baby. And, I’m a stone cold feminist, so chew on that. Maybe next year, Paxahau will have a vaudeville tent, or sexy roller derby, or something funky like that! Wouldn’t booty music or some nice disco and house go well with busty vaudeville and roller derby?! That’s what the underground area should be next year! Okay, stream of consciousness here, Soulskate and DEMF team up on Hart Plaza. I know, Soulskate is not exactly roller derby or vaudeville, but take all those ideas and bring them together and I think that would make for an awesome party!

Anyway, with regards to the overtly sexual style of dress, I’m trying to keep an open mind to self-expression and creativity. When I see so much compliance to a particular public identity along with lots of drug use primarily by teenagers and young adults, I just feel sad for these kids who are trying to find themselves and seem to sort of latch onto an identity and practices that fulfill the confines of this identity in ways that are pretty conventional and played out. And I know that this is not a totally fair assessment of identity, and I’m sure that anyone who has thought about, written about, studied drug cultures in association with electronic music could potentially have a much more nuanced understanding of all this. I just saw a lot of excessive drug use all over the place all weekend by a lot of young people and I missed the regular atmosphere in Detroit that is much more low key: pot smoking and beer, for the most part.

Okay, so since the Electrobounce DJs showed so much love to females on Sunday afternoon, I thought I might return the love. Insert your caption here:


Starski & Clutch
Photograph by James M. Rotz

So during Starski & Clutch’s set, the time kept inching toward 3pm, which also marked the end of Minx’s set. I really wanted to see her play. Last year, when she played the underground stage, I asked her before hand if I could videotape her. She asked me to meet her down there right before her set and she would ask the stage manager, who, it turns out, was Kevin Reynolds, but I didn’t know that then. He came down in front of the stage a few moments later with a “Worker” lanyard that I could wear to get up on stage to videotape her whole set. I used my not so high quality digital8 Sony camcorder with no monopod or anything and recorded her entire hour long set. And, even though the visual is great, I unfortunately forgot to adjust the audio input on the internal mic (no external) from 12-bit to 16-bit. So the sound is all in the red and I cannot really do anything about it. I was excited to be able to videotape her again this year with a much better camera. The intensity of last year’s set was not matched this year, and that didn’t really have anything to do with Minx. In 2008, Minx played the underground stage at around 4 or 5pm, so it was much more crowded than at 2pm at the main stage. Last year, she also seemed to play more vinyl. She actively used both CDJs and both turntables in 2008 and her set was excellent. I could barely hold the camera straight and not dance. This year, and I only caught about the last 15 minutes of her set, so I’m not sure what she used for the first 45 minutes, but one turntable was empty of vinyl and she was going back and forth between one CDJ and one turntable. I adore Minx and think she’s a great DJ and producer and label owner/manager, I’m just sorry I have bad audio from her 2008 set and didn’t get to see much this year.


Minx & Al Ester
Photograph by James M. Rotz

After she finished, Al Ester danced over to the equipment and started his set. I wanted to see him, but I also wanted to see if Starski & Clutch were still playing. We bounced back to Red Bull and Todd was playing their last song which was “Glow of Love” by Change…oh Luther, you have quite a voice…Luther Vandross! Love that song. We hung out there a bit longer. There were some technical difficulties as DJ Sluggo got on the decks. So what did James do? Got his camera right in there to document it! I laughed, it really is interesting to watch people handle the mistakes or complications that happen during live performances, like a skipping record, or a bad sound system, or equipment that is not connecting or loading up properly. All that in the moment messiness is just all part of it.

We caught most of Al Ester’s set, he was really fun to watch. He clearly loves DJing and loves the music that he plays. He was dancing all over that stage. Played a Detroit style house set, with some funk, disco, and Latin rhythms coming in there. The music he played and the way he danced was emblematic of Detroit’s local house music scene, which is comprised mostly of older African Americans, many of whom have known each other for decades, and even went to high school together in the early 1980s; listened to Mojo and The Wizard on local radio in the 80s; and still party together well into their 40s and 50s at specific weekly events around Detroit.

We went to check out DJ Godfather for a while. I videotaped him from the pyramid because the stage was just too crowded. Then, I finally got to meet up with some other folks that I wanted to meet this weekend. DJ Count Zero of New York texted me to come over and hear Osunlade play – deepest festival moment yet, he said. So I got to meet him and Tom Cox, who has been writing about music for a really long time, and writes great stuff on the Infinite State Machine blog. He also just launched his own all vinyl, all the time record label with an inaugural release by Disco Nihilist. I gladly picked up a copy from Tom at the festival. It was great to meet these guys in person after communicating with them through the 313 email listserv and then through our respective blogs. Tom and I had a nice, but short, chat about our experiences of the weekend up to that point. It is clear that he has a great affection for Detroit and for the people making music who are dedicated to keeping the local musical culture thriving. And, Tom is really tuned in to issues of racial, ethic, and economic struggle and oppression, meaning he doesn’t ignore history or present reality. So that’s always nice.

After taking a break to rest the feet and then eat, we got ready for Octave One…who were amazing! One of my favorite sets of the weekend. And I got to videotape them onstage, so seeing their equipment set up was really cool. Now I’m not skilled enough to be able to identify specific types of analog equipment or computer software at first sight, but I know generally what things are. So as long as I have video and photos, I can figure it out later. The music was extremely intense and somehow sounded great down in that concrete box. I could really distinguish the sounds, tones, melodies, and funkiness that they were creating. They bounced their whole bodies together in unison. And this is when I was sonically reminded of how funky Detroit electronic musicians can really get. It wasn't just boom boom boom boom, or even just boom tschlak, boom tschlak. It was real funky. They’re brothers just in case you don’t know, Lawrence and Lenny Burden. They’re from Detroit, started 430 West Records, and now live in Atlanta. Lenny repeatedly picked up his Korg drum machine and danced with it, showing it off to the crowd. And we all loved it, of course! At one point, he slowly danced it up swaying it from side to side and then punctuating the end of a phrase in the music, he slammed it up in the air with one hand. And it wasn’t some little plastic trinket of a machine, it was a solid Korg machine and he held it up in the air with one hand. It was pretty rockin.




Octave One
Photographs by James M. Rotz

We then walked around a bit, bumped into Rick Wilhite, strolled past Dennis Ferrer and onto the Wignomy Brothers, who were excellent. Played all vinyl, licking it before putting it to spin. I really want to check out more of their music. Their set was really interesting. James wanted to photograph RJD2, so we headed back over to the romantic stage. It was super crowded, but of course the back corner, which took a lot of work to get to, was wide open. After squeezing through with all our equipment, James hung out on stage for a while and got some nice shots. I stood on the sidelines and watched boats creep by and enjoyed watching the more hippie inclined crowd groove to the music.

We slowly bounced around a bit after RJD2 and then decided to head home. We tried to go to the No Way Back party at the Bohemian National Home, but we were way too tired. Unfortunately we missed that party and the Mills party, which I also wanted to go to. We chose sleep and some time in the morning at home with our three little dudes over massive party time. Oh well…

Long Friken Post, Movement Part 2

Sorry for the delay in writing. I was in San Diego for the weekend presenting with some friends from Indiana University at a conference on popular music. As I sat in the Detroit Metro airport Friday afternoon wondering why I was on a flight to Phili and then on to San Diego, I heard this dude blow a bunch of snot behind me. I thought, oh, that’s what I sound like! ...cause I was sick too. I got up and turned around because we were boarding and realized it was Theo Parrish. I said, “Theo?!” He looked at me and laughed. We greeted each other and I told him I was using his thoughts and sounds about genre for the conference. He was very gracious. So that must have been why I was on the flight to Phili!

Anyway, the four of us did a roundtable discussion on genre, using each of our areas of research as a springboard to wax theoretic. It felt so great to be immersed in rigorous academic thought and talk for a few days. We roomed together and spent a lot of time all weekend making sure we had all our theory bases covered, which we did and then some. So, even though I am usually pretty self-conscious about my competency in academic settings, I must say that we kicked ass! I played an audio clip from my interview with Carlos Souffront where he talks in detail about genre. I brought a clip from my interview with Theo Parrish to play, but didn’t have time to play it and just ended up talking about it. And then I played a segment of Synthetic Flemm. Sadly, we were scheduled for Sunday morning at 9am, and at the same time as 5 other panel sessions, which meant that only 3 people showed up to our session. But, they were all very active in the discussion with excellent ideas, and one of them was one of my dissertation committee co-chairs. She seemed to enjoy our presentation and told us at the end, that we should all write an article together on genre…but only after we all finish our dissertations! That felt great to be complemented in that way from a senior scholar who we all respect.

Okay, so on to Saturday, day one of the festival. We drove down trying to get to see Liz Copeland. I’ve never met her, but really dig her impressive background as a disc jockey for WDET playing a Detroit electronic music focused radio show for ten years. James and I sometimes like to park down a ways from the RenCen during the festival and take the river walk path toward Hart Plaza. It’s such a nice walk along the Detroit river, but it’s at least a mile walk, so it can get time consuming. We found closer parking the rest of the weekend, but missed the nice breezy walk. Liz’s set was good. Her husband (Clark Warner) and their baby were there. The babe had big head phones on to block the noise – very cute! Liz made some nice selections and the set was great to hang out and listen to on a breezy, fresh Saturday afternoon. We then headed over to see Stacey Hale play in the underground Made in Detroit stage. James and I were on stage, he with his photo camera and me with my video camera. It was really incredible to be up on stage with all the performers this weekend getting video of them. It is so fascinating to me to watch people perform on turntables, drum machines, laptops, and other types of equipment. Although, I must say that from the video perspective, it’s way more fun to get footage of people playing records or using other kinds of analog equipment as opposed to videotaping someone stand at two CDJs or stand with one hand on the mousepad of a laptop. If I were on the floor listening and dancing, however, my ears would not necessarily be categorizing the sets in that strict of a way. Stacey Hale’s set was interesting and fun. Parts of it were surprisingly hard. I liked the mixture of hard techno and funky, soulful house sounds.

I then got a text from a person I hoped to meet that weekend, a fellow academic studying and writing about Detroit electronic music, Carleton Gohlz. We headed over to the Beatport lawn to meet and chat. We “compared notes” and found that we each are taking really different and equally interesting approaches to our research and writing. Very nice to meet in person someone with whom I had been communicating for about a year now!

We then took a break for some food and beer at Jackoby’s in Greektown. Really good food and lots of German and other international beer choices, which I like I like. We hadn’t really planned out where we wanted to have meals, but we knew we needed cheap and energizing. It was a nice surprise. We made our way back to the Red Bull stage for Kate Simko’s set. It was interesting music, I like Kate Simko, but I felt like I was videotaping her just for the sake of documentation because my footage is basically her swaying in front of her laptop moving her fingers around on the mousepad. Which is fine, documentation is part of the reason I wanted to video the festival. So we headed back downstairs for the Beatdown crew. All three were on the stage, they had moved the monitors around, it was getting crowded. Every time I was down on that stage over the weekend, there was a different set up with the tables and monitors – interesting to note how things morph and adapt. Caught most of Norm Talley’s set – it was intense and the bass rattled my brain multiple times. My feet and knees kept rumbling on stage from the bass – it was disturbingly intense. Delano Smith got on the mic multiple times. Mike Clark was hanging out on stage looking at CDs. That underground stage was very confusing for me that first day. During Stacey Hale’s set, it took me some time to really figure out in my head what was going on with the set up…”wait, what now??” The stage was set up in the center of the dance space – it was huge, gigantic, enormous, and yet on the stage itself, things got crowded really easily. When I first went down there, of course I needed ear plugs. It was very dark and I didn’t want to take off my prescription sunglasses because I’m pretty blind and would have to switch to my regular glasses. So I made it even darker for myself down there. When I first looked around, I thought, “oh, Paxahau wanted to make this like a club.” It was dark; they put large Made in Detroit metallic emblems on all four sides of the stage; there were purple and green lights flashing around and a disco ball hanging above it all which was lit or not lit during the various sets of the weekend. So going down there was stressful and scary sometimes…because I’m such a delicate flower…

And, I should mention, the sound was not good down there. There have been lots of critiquing of that fact by DJs and fans alike about the bad sound quality that came out of the platform of bass speakers that lined all four sides of the stage and the speakers that were hanging from the ceiling bringing the highs; it then bounced around the concrete “garbage compactor” as it has been called.

After Beatdown, we walked around for a bit, passed by the main stage for Steve Bug, sounded good. Bumped into John Johr and Minx – we walked into the VIP area that actually wasn’t for press, but we didn’t know that and no one stopped us, he he. Minx laughed at me when she saw us. I really wasn’t trying to get in anywhere I wasn’t “allowed,” and having a press pass this year was quite weird. Last year, I volunteered, so the jump in position was a strange one. And walking through the VIP entrance area outside near Cobo was weird, too. I often felt out of place among all the other people back there who seemed to have a confident sense of belonging. And not that I really wanted to fit in anywhere anyway, I’m quite comfortable with my lack of sophistication, I embrace it! I just didn’t want to piss anyone off on the stages. And I don’t think I did. Almost all the photographers and the few videographers that were there were very polite and I had a great experience sharing the stages with all of them.

Anyway, talking with John Johr and Minx, John, who assisted me in getting in touch with the media person when I asked him about videotaping, was very happy to hear that things had worked out for the press pass. He’s just a good guy. We talked about our interview, I told him I had a disc for him with our interview on it, but I forgot it at home.

We then walked back over to the Red Bull Stage for Ryan Elliot’s set. It was excellent. He was really into it, the sounds were totally different and distinct from what I was hearing elsewhere at the festival at that time. It was just a great set and fun to videotape too. Then we passed by Francois K – hadn’t see him play before. He played some interesting things. He had a small rectangular piece of equipment with four large knobs on it that was attached to the table right in front of his belly. I don’t know what it was, but it was interesting to see the manipulations he could make in the sound with those big old knobs. Anyone have any suggestions as to what it could have been?

Our final sets of the day were Rick Wade and Mike Huckaby down below. Both of them really slowed things down, which I liked a lot. Rick Wade started off the evening slowing things down immediately. Even his hands moved slowly, he was super chill and serious. It was intense and deep, but nice and slow. Mike Huckaby was back there hanging out and getting his records set up. Oh yeah, both played records, which was refreshing from a day of laptops, a bit of vinyl, and a lot of CDs. It was great to zoom in with my lovely camera to some long fingers touching shiny black vinyl with the lights bouncing off of it and the little technics dots spinning around the platter. Both Rick and Mike’s sets were great and a nice way to end the day.

After that, James and I went home, sat for a bit and tried to let our feet heal, and then headed back out for the Blank Artists party at the Bohemian National Home. I had never been to that space before and I loved it. Really different from a lot of other locations for partytime in Detroit, not that the other spaces aren’t good, I just really liked this old building with lots of rooms and its darkness. And they had pretty good beer, Two Hearted Ale, we’ve already established that that’s a plus for me. So we arrived kind of early during Trent Abbe’s set. He played some nice disco-y house. It was nice and dark in the dance room with barely two lights on the back wall. When Osborne started his set, I got ready to dance, and I was right because he sailed us all through the whole set, it was so much fun. And we were all dancing…like it was a party! He played Nasty Boys (love that), Prince (of course), Theo Parrish’s Synthetic Flemm, and of course many other beauties. Midway through his set, someone turned all the lights off and there was only the light from the laptop and equipment. It was just a really fun party. It felt youthful and vibrant, something that is always good for Detroit!

Oooh, I better put up some photos as well of my travels…more tomorrow.

Movement festival weekend, 2009, Part 1

I am just going to start at the beginning and plan to give you multiple posts about the whole weekend…there’s a lot to tell! First off, I’ll say thank goodness for mothers who drive up Friday night and stay through until Tuesday morning to help care for my three fabulous little dudes. There is no way I could have done this weekend without her help. Thanks Ma! Also, how awesome is it that both James and I are so into electronic music and Detroit, no actually, we are so into each other, that we can spend much time together exhausting ourselves, exploring, photographing, videotaping, chatting it up with friends, and making new friends, and we really loved every minute together. Oh wait, there was that one moment…but a little sleep cured it all. Yay for husbands!

A few general comments: I noticed a few times this weekend, way more than I wanted to, that a few local DJs played more of a trancey rave set with little to no variation in sound, rhythm, style, melody, or anything else, who at other times in the year, play all kinds of different sounds and styles in their sets, don’t stick to one genre, and certainly don’t try to feed Detroiters trancey rave stuff. But I heard an unnecessary amount of music that was uncharacteristic of these Detroit DJs. Not that I’m intent on holing musicians into a generically defined box, I just heard less creativity than I’m use to hearing in this musically diverse city. And I hesitate to say this because as a scholar, I’m really not a music critic. And no slight to talented writers who critique music and can do it really well, Infinite State Machine, but that’s not my job. That’s not the role I want to play with this blog. I also want to recognize that there are a lot of lesser known artists in Detroit who I adore and don’t want to make them feel like their turn for criticism is right around the corner, because it’s not. I just think it would be really great and inspiring to a lot of people to hear Carl Craig, and other big name DJs, play a set that was as interesting and fun and creative as Craig played at the Mojo Tribute party a few months ago at Bert’s Motown Room in Detroit.

Anyway, Friday night James and I went to Corktown Tavern to see Sassmouth, Punisher and James Pennington. I’m a fan of all three and have heard some really hard, funky, mixing it up sets from each of them. There were DJs upstairs and downstairs at the tavern. It’s a pretty nice space – lots of Detroit Techno Militia stickers up all around. And even though it’s an old building, by the time you have ascended to the landing midway between the two stories, you lose the lower level music and begin to hear upstairs pretty well. For an old tavern/biker bar, it’s got some nice acoustics. It was crowded upstairs, but kind of empty downstairs most of the night. They were grilling in back patio space and there were some chairs and tables set up, speakers from the downstairs set up were out there too. It’s nice to be able to go outside and hear the music, especially on a cool, exciting night like the first night before the festival begins. I was looking forward to meeting some folks that I have been communicating with online for a while, and wondering who I might see out that night. I didn’t meet anyone new that night, but texted with DJ Count Zero, aka Frank Glazer. It’s so great to be meeting people in person that I word it up with electronically. I have never really had this kind of experience of meeting people online and forming relationships in that way and then having it be important enough of a connection to actually want to meet in person. I’m so excited about this.

Another thing I like about Corktown Tavern, and the whole Corktown area in general, is that it’s nice to walk around outside there. James and I went for a walk in the empty lot behind the tavern and went partway around the old Tiger stadium. It was nice to be outside, hearing the music, stars were out, I caught the big dipper when we got home later that night. Pretty fun evening.

Okay, so onto the music. Sassmouth and Punisher played pretty hard techno sets. The DJ space in the upstairs is at the front of the building and the windows were open and street lights were shining in. There were no lights in that part of the upstairs, so the black walls and bright lights shining in through the windows made for a nice scene for watching DJs. James purposely didn’t bring his camera that night, but wished he had. I like how Punisher plays, she’s a tiny white lady who occasionally pumps her fist in the air and nods her head through her whole set. Towards the end of her set, James Pennington walked back behind the tables with his record bag, opened it, sat down in the corner and smiled and nodded his head to her set. I like that, DJs who seem to be from totally separate crews (not that it’s usually that formal, but it sometimes is), joining together and enjoying each other’s musical selections and DJing styles. James Pennington got on and played some fun techno. He clearly had fun. Most of the crowd was white and young that night, seemed like a lot of people were from out of town or from out past the city limits and new to that space or that music. Which was totally different from the crowd at that space during other times of the year. Most of the time, everyone knows each other. They’re all friends, went to school together, often play records together, have formed a label together, and other connections. James Pennington had some people there too, and that group made up most of the Black people in the place. The Butcher was there with them. So mild worlds colliding that night in Corktown.

Movement 2009

This was the most fun festival yet for me! I've been to four so far, 2001, 2007, 2008, and now 2009. Favorite things of the weekend: my rental miniDV Sony video camera with an external mic and adjustable audio input levels! So awesome! Osborne's set at the Blank Artist's party at the Bo House Saturday night. Flying Lotus at the Red Bull stage on Monday. And freaking Octave One bouncing their equipment around!

Keywords for future posts here: Wignomy Brothers - new for me this spring, definitely sounded really interesting. Meeting a few new friends - fellow writers, thinkers, and music makers. Ass and titties - now you know that means I'll be writing about the Electrobounce business! More to come, I'll be writing for days about all this stuff, just be patient with me.

Some more ethnomusicology

Microblogging, blogging, dialoging using virtual, online tools and venues can be so great sometimes. There's lots of people online blogging about ethnomusicology and their research and other fascinating things. Feeling lots more positive today about sharing and being "out there!" I added a few links to the ethnomusicology and art category of links. Check em out! Today I'm getting down with ethnomusicology.

I am working on a roundtable discussion with some friends of mine from Indiana University for the IASPM-US conference coming up at the end of May. It's going to be about genre, and we're all coming from really diverse backgrounds of scholarship. The official title of our roundtable is "What Work Does Genre Do?", but the secret title is "Getting Down with Genre." We've got women singer-songwriters and recording studio interactions and dynamics, music store guitar lessons, Middle Eastern music and dance camps, and politically inclinded music addressing public health and HIV/AIDS in Trinidad and Tobago. I'm the techno and house person, I'm also the anti-genre person. Not that I'm anti-genre, but that in my research here I have found widespread rejection of genre categories and classifications for a love of eclecticism and diversity which turns back around to genre and subgenre as reference points all along the way. I'll keep writing about this on here in preparation for the roundtable! Alot of Detroit electronic musicians laugh in the face of genre boundaries and cross them and blend them all the time, in DJ sets, regardless of equipment used, and in studio productions of electronic music. That's one reason why I sometimes opt for the phrase "Detroit electronic music" or just "electronic music." And this is not in place of techno or house music, because all of these terms and phrases are prominent in their use by Detroit electronic musicians. I sometimes find that "electronic music" accounts for a wider aray of musical genres. But I could also just use "techno and house, and sometimes electro" and that could refer to the same thing! And no slight to other scholars of Electronic Dance Music Cultures (EDMC), which is the generally accepted term; I just don't hear that phrase uttered in Detroit or about Detroit ever.

This reminds me of a great part of my interview with Carlos Souffront about genre where he was critical of the over use of genre distinctions. Cutting up techno and house music into a wide selection of very specific, sometimes divisive and exclusionary genre/subgenre titles is disturbing to him, and I have found, it is disturbing to a lot of producers and DJs in Detroit. Carlos' assessment of the functionality of genre in Detroit is as follows: there's techno and there's house, and then there's electro, and that's as far as we're willing to go in Detroit. He explained further: “Genre splitting has led to…some kind of cultural segregation, and some kind of sub-cultural segregation,… in some ways it was good, they can all celebrate music that turns them on, but in some ways it’s bad because there’s no space for everyone to come together and mix it up; which is why I think the festival is a really important event, because at least in proximity, you have the worlds colliding.”

And that leads me to write about Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival. I haven't really written much about it here, I guess I've been preoccupied with other things. But I am very excited about it. There's often a lot of criticism of the festival by Detroit musicians and by some journalists, bloggers, fans, and electronic producers and DJs outside of Detroit. This criticism stems from a concern that this festival does not successfully put Detroit on display to the world. It is an extremely well attended festival and 2009 is the 10th year for it! Various people and companies have organized the festival, and currently, Paxahau has put it on since 2006. The major complaint is that not enough Detroit artists are invited to play the festival, and those that do play, do not get paid or treated like the international artists or the more main stream, popular artists. But at the same time, and almost in the same sentence, many people here tell me that they are thankful that someone is continuing to do the festival. They are thankful that it still happens in Detroit and someone has enough money and is willing to organize this festival.

However, there are some who boycott the festival altogether in protest of the perceived poor representation of Detroit, and I completely understand their perspectives. But if I boycotted the festival, I would be missing out on a hell of a lot of good music and good performances, and alot of Detroit producers and DJs! Had I boycotted last year, I would not have been able to get on the stage with Minx and videotape her! Had I boycotted, I would have missed Todd Osborn, Mike Grant, and many other excellent performers. And this year is just as great! There are a lot of local performers - freaking Stacy Hale, a woman who has been DJing in Detroit for decades, is playing! Al Esther, another long time DJ in Detroit who serves his city well. Buzz Gorree, Delano Smith, Kevin Reynolds, Los Hermanos, Mike Clark, Mike Huckaby, Minx, Norm Talley, Octave One (!!!!!!!), Rick Wade, DJ Seoul and T. Linder, Starski & Clutch, E.T.C. It's gonna be live!!!

Oh, and I met Erika Sherman and Brendan M. Gillen (Ectomorph) last Friday night at Oslo. The show was fantastic!! I'll be interviewing them both soon...very exciting!