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Poke holes in my history of techno
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| torontotrance |
since I get asked by too many people weekly about the history of techno, i figured why not write as concise as I can get it. This is what I have so far (for the people who know their , tell me what I missed)
History of Techno (according to ME!, should be 98% accurate)
Most people don’t know about techno, so I read a few books and did some research over the years and I believe I know all about Techno, for the most part (this will concern itself with the history of Detroit techno)
Before one needs to understand how Techno formed, one needs to understand how House formed. In the late 60’s-early 70’s Kraftwerk and others had been creating electronic sounds, which got some people in New York thinking about creating music, so people like Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles, Giorgio Moroder, David Mancuso, Francois Grasso, Francois K and others were heavily involved in disco. Disco started in Gay NYC clubs because it was a way that they could have fun, hang with other gays and not get hurt. The first real club was the Cont. Baths in New York in 1974, deejayed by Larry Levan. His protégé was a man named Frankie Knuckles who got going by spiking the punch at a party. Anyway, disco started to grow and Levan was a true legend.
Well in 1977, a Chicago house promoter came to Larry Levan (while he was deejaying at the Paradise Garage) and asked Larry if he wanted to go be the resident at a new Chicago house club that was starting. Larry Levan said “No” but he suggested his good friend Frankie Knuckles. So Frankie says yes and he moves to Chicago to the Warehouse, where he actually lived for a few years, there was a loft somewhere in the club and that was where Frankie lived. So house grew in popularity and while he was deejaying from 1977-1984, he took a protégé called Ron Hardy, now Hardy was similar to Knuckles and they were friends. So house grew in Chicago, during those years, Levan moved to Studio 54, so in 1983 (this is where the history of techno comes into play), Frankie was asked by another Chicago promoter, if he wanted to join a club catering to upscale gay people, Frankie like Larry said “No” but he knew who would, he suggested Ron Hardy. So Hardy took the job at the Musicbox and a year later, Frankie moved to the Powerplant. Now what most people don’t understand is, Frankie and Ron were the best of friends, the media played out most of competition as pure hatred, which was not the case.
Meanwhile in Detroit, a man named Juan Atkins and Vietnam Veteran Rick Davis formed Cybotron, which in 1983 released a few songs, they were early techno but it was not named techno at that point. Ron Hardy was famous for having a lot of producers and deejays (who are famous now) show up to watch him spin. Hardy had a temper and was a notorious drug addict and was very mean but people loved the records he played. There were two people at that time who kept traveling to Chicago to see Hardy, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. Derrick May was blown away and decided to start making music that he wanted to make because no one around him was making stuff he liked. May, Saunderson and Atkins were close friends, they grew up together, May, Saunderson and Aaron Atkins (Juan’s brother) were in the same class at Belleville High School (they came to be known as the Belleville Three). So one day in 1984, May, Saunderson and Atkins were sitting around the table discussing what to call their new form of music expression, Atkins or Saunderson suggests “Techno” and May, the notorious problem child said “No”, after fighting for a while, they decided to call it Techno. Juan Atkins under Model 500 unleashed No UFO to an audience that wondered, what the heck are they doing. May lived in Chicago for some time and he eventually came back and formed the Music Institute, a club that lasted for about 18 months to a year but during that time, it got Kenny Larkin, Stacy Pullen, Carl Craig (2nd generation of Techno producers), Richie Hawtin interested in music. Derrick May’s Career did not take off (nor did techno) till he unleashed Rhythim is Rhythim – Nude photo on his own Transmat label. He followed it up with “Strings of Life”, which hit Britain in 1987 like a storm. Eventually May and Co. were invited to play in the UK, during the house explosion of 1987 (just a year before acid house hit the bigtime). During that time, his performances and remixes were influential on a variety of artists, Dave Clarke, Colin Dale and others.
Back in Detroit around 1987, a small man with fast hands named Jeff Mills was setting down to help make music history. He was a radio deejay for a few years, competing against the electrifying mojo (no one knows much about him, cept he wrote a book about some mayor and some poetry book). They competed on the radio, they were good friends but the competition became so fierce that Mills drove to Toronto to get a Prince Record that was not out in the USA. He still had his deck skills, which he played the strongest parts of records (1 min usually) that led to his quick deck style. He had a friend named Mike Banks, who lived in California for a time and eventually he and Mike Banks got down to forming a record label. Now they spent months talking about what would later become known as Underground Resistance, where music was the message and artists stayed out of the limelight. UR started in 1991 with a house record, Jeff Mills later left for a residency at a Peter Gatien owned club called Limelight in 1993. Robert Hood and Alan Oldham later helped push UR into the limelight and no one knows much about Mike Banks, who has never been photographed and done 3 interviews (all phone in his life). Back to Europe, eventually techno started to get going, Belgium caught on and R&S was formed in 1991 and two years later Tresor got started. Close to that time, two scots who would be known as SLAM started SOMA. Around the same time, Dave Clarke and his future wife started Magnetic North.
Techno eventually grew to be a worldwide force all over the world but if house had not led the way, it would be vastly different. Derrick May eventually went into self imposed retirement because critics slammed his album in 1993 and he took it so offensively, he has continued that retirement till today. Blake Baxter was blackballed by Derrick May from Detroit for no reason and Baxter went into house. Japan has a techno scene that formed, that is still very strong to this day and techno has moved on. Now Derrick May does not do much with techno these days besides deejaying and bitching about life. Juan Atkins is the Godfather of Techno, Kevin Saunderson went into house and Jeff Mills continues to deejay around the world.
About the house music deejays, eventually Studio 54 closed, with the owner dying of Aids, in that time, Larry Levan had developed a bad drug addiction, he did not hold a steady job after 1987, he did set up the original ministry of sound soundsystem but did not do much, he toured Japan and died in 1991 from a heart problem brought on by drug addiction. Ron Hardy developed an even more serious drug addiction and after the music box closed in 1987, he had to feed his heroin addiction, it eventually snowballed to where he was selling records (ultra rare now) to feed his addiction, he died in 1992 from drugs. Frankie Knuckles is still around as you know. |
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| Shudder |
| its very hard to read |
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| starglider |
| Paragraphs please. |
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| torontotrance |
| no , it is not finished by a long shot, I'll make paragraphs later. |
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| torontotrance |
| should be easier now |
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| InfiniteSquare |
| it's not too cool that gays started it.. |
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| keddo |
| quote: | Originally posted by InfiniteSquare
it's not too cool that gays started it.. |
does it mather ? :rolleyes: if someone really likes the music i dont think he/she cares where it came from. Like me. |
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| Psy-T |
why dont you just direct the people that ask you towards reading 'last night a dj saved my life'?
i would say its a 'little' more comprehensive...
:toocool: |
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| Cobalt |
| quote: | Originally posted by InfiniteSquare
it's not too cool that gays started it.. |
Why? I honestly have no idea why you would say this other than to reinforce your own prejudices.
The gay club scene has probably done more for dance music over the years than any other subculture in the world. |
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| AlphaStarred |
| this is great...many thx. i've been getting into techno of late and i likewise agree that if it were not for house, things would probly be different. |
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| basd |
Interesting read, though some of your sentences need rephrasing :) But I suppose it was not really meant to be published as an article or something...
For what I can recall, things are pretty much accurate.. I couldn't believe Derrick May hasn't been doing since '93 (except for DJing) and still be that famous.. But a quick search didn't really reveal anything produced by him after '93, except for his Mayday mix of Knights of the jaguar. |
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| Sand Leaper |
| quote: | Originally posted by InfiniteSquare
it's not too cool that gays started it.. |
why? |
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