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!

RBMA Radio - Whodat (As The Point Turns, Detroit) - Train Wreck Mix

So have a listen, and then listen again, and then listen again. I did, and it was a great day.

RBMA Radio - Whodat (As The Point Turns, Detroit) - Train Wreck Mix

This mix is by my friend, mentor, and research consultant, DJ Whodat (Terri McQueen). I have written about her alot on this blog. We've done three interviews together, she taught me the basics of playing records and using analog equipment, and she taught me a whole lot about Detroit. She has started here own record store, Ya Digg Records. It is online right now and she plans to have a location in Detroit open by December.

Whodat is? Whodat, of course!

The Detroit Ladies

There was some dialog on the 313 list yesterday about the lack of women in electronic music. It started off with a question about a video interview of Jeff Mills on EQ Magazine website. ‘Where are all the girls in that club?’ I watched the video, footage of the crowd is in the first few minutes of the nice, lengthy interview with Jeff Mills. And really, there are hardly any ladies present. The video is taken from a set Jeff played at a club in Glasgow. It looks like the crowds at a lot of Detroit parties, except fewer people in general in the Detroit clubs. Then of course came the terms sausage party and sausage fest. The sausage fest was my fault. Where are the chicks? The girls? The ladies? The women? Well, I’m right here. Really though, in electronic music production, performance, promotion, consumption, and writing, women are not nearly as visibly involved as men. And I want to tell you that I use the term consumption widely, hesitating to include it here because of its connection to marketing and dollars. Economic consumption is not the primary way that I use this term, although marketing and the music industry are still really important in any discussion of musical consumption. I’m speaking of consumption in terms of musical enjoyment, fandom, support, listening both privately and publicly, and other ways in which people consume music. I know that’s a jumbled list, but this is a pretty informal blog and jumbled is how I sometimes roll. My use of consumption comes from some ideas that I am working from in my doctoral research: in music, and other forms of cultural expression and performance, we have production, consumption, and circulation, all concepts involved in the inter-performative relations that form from and formulate what music is and does for all of us. I know, I’m getting mildly academic here with my language. I always want to be careful with how far I go with that here because I really don’t want to alienate any of my readers. This blog is a realm for mostly informal, but detailed discussion of electronic music in Detroit and my doctoral research here. I have had and will continue to have plenty of opportunities to get super intellectual and theoretical in my dissertation and subsequent book, and I will try to find ways to make part or all of my dissertation public so that you all can check it out if you want to. I’ve already thought a lot about the audience for what will eventually become a book about all this stuff. That is still a few years down the road, but it’s there in my future. It needs to be an academically focused book because as a person with a Ph.D. (in the future) looking for an eventual tenured teaching position at a university, I will be required to have a major publication like a book accomplished and out there. However, I realize the potential for readers outside of the realm of academic scholarship as well and will work to figure how best to approach a wide audience. Anyway, this blog is my opportunity to write in a less formal, more immediate and public way than my fieldnotes, conference presentations, and early dissertating allow.

All that for consumption? Alright, so onto the ladies. There are a few fabulous females making music in Detroit. Kelli Hand, the first lady of techno, is busy making music. She doesn’t currently play out much here, but she is hard at work making some sweet beats. DJ Minx and her label, Women On Wax, are staples in Detroit techno and house music. And Women On Wax is not just chicks on vinyl, like Minx and Diviniti, the men are involved too and they all bring the heat. She has releases from Pirahnahead, Reggie Dokes, and Jerry the Cat. Punisher and Sassmouth are a few others, who started HEJ records in Detroit in 2007 with John Overfiend. And you know I’m a fan of Punisher! Jennifer Xerri is another local house DJ who is fairly active here.

And, one of the most instrumental people here who has helped me become more knowledgeable than I ever expected about Detroit and its music, WhoDat, Terri McQueen. I met her unexpectedly when I organized a conference on Detroit electronic music at Indiana University in October 2006. The panelists for the conference were Theo Parrish, Rick Wilhite, Marcellus Pittman, Minx, Mike Clark, Terrence Parker, Cornelius Harris, and 2 of the co-curators of the Detroit Historical Museum’s exhibit on Detroit Techno music, Sulaiman Mausi and Katherine Burkhart. So while planning travel and lodging arrangements for the panelists, Terri was one of the people coming with Theo, Rick, and Marcellus to help out and be at the 3Chairs/Sound Signature table with vinyl and CDs. I did not know she was a DJ, I just knew she was super friendly and funny. We kept in touch via Myspace for the next year and a half and then I moved to Detroit in February 2008 and connected with her in person again. We did multiple 3 hour + interviews, girl has a lot to say! And then, after talking one evening with her, telling her I was really interested in learning how to really play records, not so I could become a DJ, but just so I could have a deeper understanding, she offered to teach me, continuing the mentoring tradition that is part of Detroit’s DJ culture for some. We started weekly evening “classes” in her basement. Each week she had a theme or activity all planned out: she would pick records, she would let me pick records, blending tracks with vocals, sound quality of LPs vs. EPs and 12 inches, how to play a set and select well, how to setup all the equipment and care for it. One time I even brought some of my records and we listened together. We always had a great time together. Now she is opening her own record store, Ya Digg Records. It is currently operational online, but she is still working on setting up the physical location. Supporting local music and vinyl are really central to all that she does and that’s what you’ll see a lot of at her store. She has been trying her hand at producing for the past while and has a track ready to press and release! So yeah, WhoDat is the shit and my dissertation would not be what it will be without her!

So those are some of the ladies. And now for some exploration of larger themes. When I asked Kelli Hand about being a female DJ, she said, “It is what it is.” We’re always last, but the first one they call to organize an event. You always get called last for a gig, after all the guys, especially if it’s a club opening or something like that. WhoDat has described some similar instances of that kind of lack of support and strange expectations from the sausage owners.

Coming back to the 313 listserv on these bigger issues, one of the replies to my “I don’t get why there aren’t more women involved in electronic music as fans, writers, or musicians” speculated that perhaps women don’t feel that they will have success and so don’t bother, or do try to DJ and produce, but find less success than the many other men out there doing the same thing. Additionally, one person suggested that women don’t typically get into the technology, mythology, gear head stuff, and are less likely to become heads, like techno heads or house heads. Further, another 313 lister wrote that female DJs are often aligned, or align themselves, with campy themed parties and events, like topless lady DJs, or all girl DJs for a night. I’m not quoting directly; this is all my interpretation of what was written by others.

I’m not really interested in involving myself in a debate about how men and women are physiologically “wired” differently, and even if they/we are in any meaningful, universal way. I am only speaking for myself when I say that I am very interested in the technology, production, performance, and all the other details that are there in the production, circulation, and consumption of electronic music. I am extremely interested in learning about record labels, pressings and other release oriented details, recording/production/performance equipment, and all the other possible ways to list, define, categorize, and classify all this stuff. Hell yeah vinyl is sexy and when Todd Sines recently posted photos of his production studio to Facebook, I got kind of excited. It is certainly a male oriented, and sometimes male dominated musical culture in a global way.

The topless DJ party is not one that I have found myself at in Detroit, I’ll admit. But I have heard about and been to a few all women events. One included Aaron Carl as one of the ladies last year at Sakana sushi bar in Ferndale! The women that I mentioned above have not aligned themselves strictly with women in their musical endeavors. They have teamed up and collaborated with women and men with whom they pair well. So even though they are few in number compared with all the talented Detroit dudes, Detroit’s women have found/created some nice long lasting success and relevancy for themselves.

It’s in the crowds at parties that I also notice a strong lacking of upside down triangles. And I don’t get this either except that maybe this is just an effect of “underground” musical cultures. Would you agree with me if I say that in general, musical cultures that are labeled as underground tend to be made up of men in larger numbers than women? It just seems like that to me, I’m not really basing this on any kind of serious study. Is there some sort of hostility to women that is inherent or assumed in underground cultures? I don’t know. I don’t really feel that too much in Detroit as opposed to any other realm of general daily existence. I mean why would chicks want to frequent bars and clubs with boring music when they could go enjoy Kenny Dixon’s skills on the decks, or be intellectually and physically stimulated by Theo Parrish’s sets, or have a real party with Rick Wilhite? I mean come on, how could you pass up any of these Detroit folks, like Omar S, D.Wynn, Shake, Todd Osborn, Minx, Buzz Goree, Terrence Parker, or Marcellus Pittman…oh man, Marcellus Pittman, now he would be someone I would like to see play here again! Do I have to wait until Halloween again so that he can wish the devil a happy birthday?!

So this is what you call heat.

WhoDat
Turning Point

Check out this week's show. 80s heat Detroit style!

Electivism, I mean Eclecticism

Alright, been listening to some radio again lately, been streaming/DLing some radio lately, that is. First off, Drew Pompa and Josh Dalberg have a new weekly radio show called Babes in Hi Def Wednesday nights on WDET. Here’s the link for their blog: Babes in Hi Def. Some enjoyable listening.

And what, did you say that show is on the same night as WhoDat’s Turning Point on Netmusique.com?? Mama’s gonna get me! Wait, no Mrs. McQueen, I only listen to Turning Point…I listen to it every day until the next week’s show. Oh yeah right, you can download WhoDat’s shows from her blog: Win WhoDat Blogs. Good listening all around – lot’s of deep house, old R&B, great 80’s music, some techno and electro thrown in for jollies, and just all around mixed up goodness.

I have finally started tuning in to Beats In Space, Tim Sweeny’s weekly radio show. His most recent show pairs a nice Maurice Fulton hour with an hour of Sweeny. I’m going to be spending some time there in the coming weeks.

Then we’ve got the RBMA radio, which really rounds out my work week as I slave away trying to ignore as much of the office “liveliness” as possible and nourish myself with good tunes. Always enjoy a good Morgan Geist mix, there’s plenty to choose from on the RBMA site. Listened to a good Benga & Skream show last week, and a couple of good Dam Funk features. And, right after returning from the IASPM-US conference a few weeks ago, I discovered a lovely chat with composer, Steve Reich. According to the RBMA blurb, he prefers to call himself a post-minimalist composer. Labels are so fabulous! Well, this is interesting to me because my fellow ethnomusicologist friends with whom I presented at the conference brought up his name and his music several times over the course of the weekend. All three of my friends are way more musically trained than me and much more knowledgeable about Western Classical/Art music than I. I’m just the chick who likes that rave techno shit…Anyweedle, one such mention of Steve Reich was prompted by my playing of Theo Parrish’s “Synthetic Flemm” in the hotel room we were all sharing the night before our panel. Their comments? Wow, it really develops slowly. It unfolds like a Steve Reich piece. It was so much fun sharing all our musical knowledge and learning from one another. This leads to one reason I chose to play this track. When I’m speaking to or with people who are not very familiar with any kind of electronic dance music like house or techno, I find that their sonic assumptions about the music are based on mainstream representations that they might hear in commercials, the radio, MTV, etc. And that’s cool, that’s what they know, they’re not fans of the music, they’re into other sounds, fine. But I think the Theo Parrish track has the potential to get beyond those boxed notions of what Detroit electronic music might possibly sound like. Additionally, it abandons genre boundaries so profoundly that drawing comparisons to other seemingly distinct forms of music is almost automatic. And this is Detroit all the way, crossing genre boundaries, getting beyond categories while simultaneously embracing classification as a necessary part of the culture.

And then, when I went to the RBMA radio site yesterday, I saw a new Preset show, #32, up by Todd Osborn. I had to listen right away, you see. Roxanne Shante A.N.D. Drexciya in the first 5 songs! And then the last hour of the show is all Chicano/Latino/Brazilian sounds, some bossa nova, even Tom Zé! And I’m not even going to pretend I know all the genre labels to describe these songs, because I don’t. I do however enjoy the Brazilian love songs because my knowledge of Brazilian music is one of the few good things that came out of my major college relationship with a Brazilian capoeirista (okay, no, that’s not all he was), that, the courage to make momentous life-changing decisions, and momentary almost fluency in Portuguese.

So then from #32, I navigated to #25 and just you wait and see what I come up with using that playlist as a springboard to my own life story…well maybe not life story, but I’ll draw some connections and you can just read along with my inane, I mean brilliant, musings. So the first song is a little hard to listen to at work because of the yelling. I get a little embarrassed in front of the old ladies and turn down the yelling to almost silent during that song. But they’re all very polite and just tell me that I listen to some very interesting music! Next is a great, funky, deep track by DMX KREW, also known as EMDX, Ed DMX, and Ed Upton, who is featured on Osborne “Our Definition of a Breakdown.” Then you get to hear Q-Tip’s sweet voice and then A Tribe Called Quest’s “What,” which always makes me smile and think of my husband…because he likes the song a lot. Next up is Arthur Russell “Make 1, 2” which is a beautiful song that was new to my little kitten ears. Love the melodic, rhythmic vocals and keys – has a syncopated feel, although any good ethnomusicologist would probably shame me for using the term syncopated and force me to replace it with polyrhythmic with the threat of having to transcribe a lengthy field recording of Temiar music from Maylasia. Geez, as though you don’t think my levels of self-absorption and reflexivity were enough to maim a small flock of seagulls, now I lapse into such extreme navel-gazing and solipsism with a transcription reference that potentially 8 readers might catch, if that. Because, as newbie ethnomusicology graduate students at Indiana University, we were all required to take a rigorous transcription & analysis course steeped in historically significant methods of analyzing music. One of the first listening assignments we were given was a field recording by anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Marina Roseman of Temiar music performance that she recorded while conducting research in the Malaysian rainforest. And, we were not told what the recording was, we just had to figure out what all the different sounds were and how they were produced. I actually do prefer the term polyrhythmic to syncopated, it addresses a broader, more nuanced understanding of rhythm that syncopation does not. Apparently I thought it would be fun to tell you a story about historically significant methods of music research.

So here’s a segment of the tracklisting for Preset #25:

Squarepusher - The Coathanger - Warp
Pink Floyd - Wot's Uh The Deal - Harvest
Gandalf The Grey - The Grey Wizard Am I - Gwm
Morgen - Of Dreams - Probe
Stevie Wonder - It Ain't No Use - Unreleased
Frente - Bizarre Love Triangle - Mammoth
Arto Mwambe - Btwo - Brontosaurus
A-Ha - Take On Me (Instr.) - Unreleased
The KLF - Dream Time In Lake Jackson - Wax Trax
Nine Inch Nails - March Of The Pigs - Nothing
Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love - Polydor

And it sounds even better than it looks, so go listen. And not only that, but it’s freaking hysterical to hear all that classic rock after Squarepusher and then Stevie Wonder, A-Ha instrumental, then Nine Inch Nails, which is the culmination of the good sounding, funny youthful reminiscing in the middle of a set that ends with Osborne and Starski & Clutch. And Frente, Frente?? Wow! I have that tape, by accident, but I have that tape, still. It’s tucked away in a Deee-Lite case for Dewdrops in the Garden. You know, “Applejuice Kissing,” “When You Told Me You Loved Me,” etc, from 1994.



And who has, or had, that Deee-Lite tape that I would still listen to today if I had it? My good friend K-Rock totally stole it from me and forced me to spend my adult years with Frente peaking out at me from that cassette case that I refuse to get rid of. And no, her real name is not K-Rock, but we had a very healthy obsession with the Beastie Boys in the mid-90s in high school. Michael Diamond was my boyfriend, of course. Denise Dalphond converts easily to Denny D, you see. My friend K preferred Ad Rock, thus K-Rock. She was also quite a Rock Star. And our third friend, LN, accepted MCA, but I don’t think she was too enthusiastic about it. We were way cooler in real life than it seems on this screen.

After the Bee Gees, you get to listen to the Lyman Woodard Organization play “Belle Isle Daze.” Lyman Woodard, who recently passed in February, was a local jazz musician. Here’s an article about him from the Detroit Free Press. I love that George Benson sounding funky jazz with extensive use of the organ. And then some nice old and newer hip hop, again reminded of my husband by that Method Man track; and finishing with Osborne, R. Kelley (sounded great by the way), and Starski & Clutch.

So yeah, Detroit still has good radio, it’s just way more globally available and not really on the airwaves…

And don’t forget about Crush Collision on WCBN in Ann Arbor, Carlos Souffront’s weekly show. I’ve tried listening live several times to his show on Thursday nights, but the streaming doesn’t really work. It’s frustrating. And then CJAM in Windsor, Mike Huckaby has a weekly show and Adam Francesconi does as well. Mike Huckaby’s show is on Monday nights and Adam’s show is called The Rhythm Gallery on Wednesday nights. Jerry the Cat and Minx started the show years ago and now Adam Francesconi and Tom Desmond host it.

And now for my final story of the day prompted by current happenings in Detroit. Terry Mullan is playing a party this Friday at The Works with DJ Dara and DJ Bone. Now DJ Bone, I like as an adult. But as a newly turned 18 year old living in NYC and college freshman at NYU, a mix I had by Terry Mullan was my favorite tape ever. And I think I drove my two roommates a bit nutty listening to it so much. I was handed a flyer for the party a few weeks ago at the Red Bull Music Academy info session that I went to shortly before the festival. “Terry Mullan!?” Unfortunately, I think I’m going to stay home…for a while. After the festival and then San Diego, I really need to be at home with my family. I mean come on, they need me to carry the heavy star wars ship and continually put the light sabers and little guns back in Darth Vader’s, or Anakin’s, or the clone trooper’s hands! They need me to find all the tiny, very specific lego pieces in the construction of whatever is being built. And I need to shove my nose into their necks every so often and get a good whiff of their childhood loveliness. And I need to do all the daily wonderful things that a wife gets to do! But I’ll reserve the specifics for James…

This post exemplifies the eclecticism of Detroit that I love. And I know I keep writing about Detroit’s vibrant eclectic diverse culture, but it’s really true and it’s really happening here. People are creating and embracing new and different things here all the time and that’s one of the things that is keeping Detroit’s musical life thriving.

So Todd, and doubters that Todd actually reads this, but Todd, Christopher Cross in the next Preset, K!?