Read Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture Online
Authors: Simon Reynolds
Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (6 page)
BOOK: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
9.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Eddie Fowlkes – soon to become the fourth member of the Belleville clique, despite being from a rougher area of Detroit – remembers that kids from the posher West Side of Detroit ‘were more into slick clothes and cars, ’cos the West Side kids had more money than the kids on the East Side. They had more opportunity to travel, get books, and get things. They were into stuff like Cartier and all the shit they read about in
GQ
. So you had black kids on the West Side dressing like
GQ
, and it all kind of snowballed into a scene, a culture.’ According to Jeff Mills – a ruling DJ – producer in the nineties, but then in his last year of high school –
American Gigolo
was a hugely influential movie on these Euro-fashion-obsessed black youth, just for the chic lifestyle of Richard Gere’s lead character, his massive wardrobe of scores of shirts and shoes.
GQ
. So you had black kids on the West Side dressing like
GQ
, and it all kind of snowballed into a scene, a culture.’ According to Jeff Mills – a ruling DJ – producer in the nineties, but then in his last year of high school –
American Gigolo
was a hugely influential movie on these Euro-fashion-obsessed black youth, just for the chic lifestyle of Richard Gere’s lead character, his massive wardrobe of scores of shirts and shoes.
One expression of this upwardly mobile subculture was clubs and dance music. But these weren’t nightclubs but high-school social clubs with names like Snobs, Brats, Ciabattino, Rafael, Charivari; the latter was named after a New York clothing store, and is alleged to have made the first Detroit techno track, titled ‘Charivari’. These clubs would hire spaces and throw parties. ‘They were obsessed with being
GQ
down, and with Italian “progressive” music – Italian disco, basically,’ says Carl Craig, another early acolyte of May and Atkins. Dubbed ‘progressive’ because their music stemmed from Giorgio Moroder’s synth-and-drum-machine-based Eurodisco, rather than the symphonic Philly sound, Italian artists like Alexander Robotnik, Klein and MBO and Capricorn filled the gap left by the death of disco in America. On the Detroit dance party circuit, you would also hear electro-funk from New York, labels like West End and Prelude, artists like Sharon Redd, Taana Gardner, the Peech Boys and Was (Not Was); English New Romantic and European synth-pop artists like Visage, Yello, Telex, Yazoo, Ultravox; and American New Wave from The B52’s, Devo and Talking Heads. ‘Man, I don’t know if this could happen nowhere else in the country but Detroit,’ laughs Atkins. ‘Can you imagine three or four hundred black kids dancing to “Rock Lobster”? That shit actually happened in Detroit!’
GQ
down, and with Italian “progressive” music – Italian disco, basically,’ says Carl Craig, another early acolyte of May and Atkins. Dubbed ‘progressive’ because their music stemmed from Giorgio Moroder’s synth-and-drum-machine-based Eurodisco, rather than the symphonic Philly sound, Italian artists like Alexander Robotnik, Klein and MBO and Capricorn filled the gap left by the death of disco in America. On the Detroit dance party circuit, you would also hear electro-funk from New York, labels like West End and Prelude, artists like Sharon Redd, Taana Gardner, the Peech Boys and Was (Not Was); English New Romantic and European synth-pop artists like Visage, Yello, Telex, Yazoo, Ultravox; and American New Wave from The B52’s, Devo and Talking Heads. ‘Man, I don’t know if this could happen nowhere else in the country but Detroit,’ laughs Atkins. ‘Can you imagine three or four hundred black kids dancing to “Rock Lobster”? That shit actually happened in Detroit!’
Another factor that shaped Detroit youth’s Europhile tastes was the influential radio DJ Charles Johnson, ‘the Electrifyin’ Mojo’, whose show ‘The Midnight Funk Association’ aired every night on WGPR (the first black FM station in the city) through the late seventies and early eighties. Alongside P-Funk and synth-driven tracks by Prince like ‘Controversy’, Mojo would play Kraftwerk’s ‘Tour De France’ and other Euro electro-pop. Every night, Mojo would do his Mothership spiel, encouraging listeners to flash their headlights or bedroom lamp so that the intergalactic craft would know where to touchdown. ‘He had the most magnanimous voice you ever heard,’ remembers Derrick May. ‘This guy would just overpower you with his imagination. You became entranced by the radio. Which is something I have not heard since, and will probably never hear again.’
Around 1980, Atkins and May started making tentative steps towards becoming DJs themselves. ‘Juan and I started messing around with our idea of doing our own personal remixes, as a joke, using a pause button, tape deck, and a basic turntable. Just taking a record and pausing it up, doing edits with the pause button. We got damn good at it. That led to constant experimentation, constantly freaking out, trying all kinds of crazy shit. And Juan thought, “Damn, man, let’s go to the next level, let’s start up our own DJ company.” We found a guy who owned a music studio, a sort of rental place, hiring out gear. And he was nice enough to give us a room in back and set up a pair of turntables and speakers, and let us just have hours. Didn’t charge us a dime! In that room, Juan would teach me how to mix. I remember the two records I learned how to mix with: David Bowie’s “Fashion”, and Edwin Birdsong’s “Rapper Dapper Snapper”. I had to mix those records for weeks, with Juan, like, in my ass, every time I fucked up!’
Calling themselves Deep Space Soundworks, Atkins and May played their first DJ engagement in 1981, at a party thrown by a friend of Derrick’s, as warm-up for Detroit’s most famous DJ, Ken Collier. ‘It was
packed
, but nobody was dancing,’ remembers May. ‘We were spinning 45s [7-inches] and we didn’t even have slipmatts on the turntable. Collier took over, and man, the dancefloor filled in 2.2 seconds. It was the most embarrassing, humbling experience of our lives!’
packed
, but nobody was dancing,’ remembers May. ‘We were spinning 45s [7-inches] and we didn’t even have slipmatts on the turntable. Collier took over, and man, the dancefloor filled in 2.2 seconds. It was the most embarrassing, humbling experience of our lives!’
In the early eighties, Detroit had a huge circuit of parties, and the competition amongst the forty or fifty DJs in town was fierce. Every weekend, there were several parties, often organized around concepts (for instance, everyone wearing the same colour).
‘Everywhere you went you had to be on your shit, because Detroit crowds were so particular, and if you really weren’t throwing down or you had a fucked-up mix, people would look at you and just walk off the dancefloor. And that’s how we developed our skills, ’cos we had no room for error. These people wouldn’t accept it. In Detroit, a party was the main event. People would go out and get new clothes for this shit.’ May and Atkins applied the same kind of theoretical intensity to the art of mixing and set-building that they’d once invested in listening to records. ‘We built a philosophy behind spinning records. We’d sit and think what the guy who made the record was thinking about, and find a record that would fit with it, so that the people on the dancefloor would comprehend the concept. When I think about all the brainpower that went into it! We’d sit up the whole night before the party, think about what we’d play the following night, the people who’d be at the party, the concept of the clientele. It was insane!’
Eventually Deep Space got into throwing their own parties. ‘We’d rent, like, a pub, and turn the pub into a club,’ remembers Eddie Fowlkes, by then a member of the DJ team. ‘The first place we threw a party was, I think, Roskos, which was like a pinball joint. What you tried to do is bring the people into a different place, where they couldn’t even imagine somebody having a party. And when we started doing that, everybody in Detroit started doing offbeat shit. It was like “damn, I used to eat lunch here with my Mom and now I’m partying here!”’
Eventually, the social club party scene got so successful that the
GQ
kids found that an undesirable element began to turn up: the very ghetto youth from the projects that they’d put so much energy into defining themselves against. That was when the clubs started putting the phrase ‘no jits’ on the flyers: ‘jit’ being short for ‘jitterbug’, Detroit slang for ruffian or gangsta.
GQ
kids found that an undesirable element began to turn up: the very ghetto youth from the projects that they’d put so much energy into defining themselves against. That was when the clubs started putting the phrase ‘no jits’ on the flyers: ‘jit’ being short for ‘jitterbug’, Detroit slang for ruffian or gangsta.
‘They would put “no jits allowed”’, says May, ‘but how you gonna tell some 250 pound ruffneck, standing about six foot four, “you’re not coming to my party” – when you’re some little five foot two pretty boy? I don’t think so! He’s coming in! It was a
hope
that they wouldn’t come! It was to make them feel unwanted. And that was when the scene started to self-destruct. West Side kids and the whole élite high school scene, the elitist people that lived in certain areas, they just wanted to keep this shit to themselves. Then other people said “I like that too, I wanna come” and those elitists decided they didn’t want’em there, and that was wrong. It was the beginning of the end. That’s when the guns started popping up at the parties, and fights started happening. By ’86, it was over.’
hope
that they wouldn’t come! It was to make them feel unwanted. And that was when the scene started to self-destruct. West Side kids and the whole élite high school scene, the elitist people that lived in certain areas, they just wanted to keep this shit to themselves. Then other people said “I like that too, I wanna come” and those elitists decided they didn’t want’em there, and that was wrong. It was the beginning of the end. That’s when the guns started popping up at the parties, and fights started happening. By ’86, it was over.’
Prior to forming Deep Space, Juan Atkins had already started making music as one half of Cybotron. Studying music and media courses at Washtenaw Community College in Ypsilanti, Michigan, he befriended a fellow student called Rick Davis. Quite a bit older than Atkins, Davis was an eccentric figure with a past: in 1968, he’d been shipped out to Vietnam just in time to experience the Tet offensive.
‘Once you got to know Rick, he was like a big teddy bear,’ remembers Atkins. ‘But if you didn’t know him, he could come off somewhat foreboding. Rick was a Viet vet. He was
there
, man – in the jungle. He told me stories where he’s been in situations where he saw his best mate get ate by a tiger, or where he was going through the bush, shots rang out, and everybody in the platoon got wiped out but him. That’s got to do something to you, mentally.’ Davis and Atkins discovered they had interests in common – science fiction, futurologists like Alvin Toffler, and electronic music. Prior to Cybotron, Davis had done experimental tracks on his own, like ‘The Methane Sea’. But like a lot of Viet vets, Davis also had a heavy acid rock background; he was a huge fan of Hendrix.
there
, man – in the jungle. He told me stories where he’s been in situations where he saw his best mate get ate by a tiger, or where he was going through the bush, shots rang out, and everybody in the platoon got wiped out but him. That’s got to do something to you, mentally.’ Davis and Atkins discovered they had interests in common – science fiction, futurologists like Alvin Toffler, and electronic music. Prior to Cybotron, Davis had done experimental tracks on his own, like ‘The Methane Sea’. But like a lot of Viet vets, Davis also had a heavy acid rock background; he was a huge fan of Hendrix.
Although both Atkins and Davis shared instrumental duties and contributed lyrics and concepts, Atkins’ focus was on ‘putting the records together’, making Cybotron music work as dance tracks. Davis handled a lot of the ‘philosophical aspects’ of what was a highly conceptual project. He’d cobbled together a strange personal creed out of Alvin Toffler’s
The Third Wave
and Zohar, the ‘Bible’ of classical Jewish Kabbalah. The gist of it was that, through ‘interfacing the spirituality of human beings into the cybernetic matrix’, you could transform yourself into an supra-human entity.
The Third Wave
and Zohar, the ‘Bible’ of classical Jewish Kabbalah. The gist of it was that, through ‘interfacing the spirituality of human beings into the cybernetic matrix’, you could transform yourself into an supra-human entity.
In line with Zoharian numerology, Davis changed his name to 3070; when a third member, guitarist John Howesley joined Cybotron, he was designated John 5. Atkins and Davis devised their own technospeak dictionary, The Grid. ‘This was a time when the video-game phenomenon was coming in,’ remembers Atkins. ‘We used a lot of video terms to refer to real-life situations. We conceived of the streets or the environment as being like the Game Grid. And Cybotron was considered a “super-sprite”. Certain images in a video programme are referred to as “sprites”, and a super sprite had certain powers on the game-grid that a regular sprite didn’t have.’
Independently influenced by the same Euro sounds, Cybotron’s cold, synth-dominated sound and drum-machine rhythms paralleled the electro then emerging from New York. Their first single, ‘Alleys Of Your Mind’ – released on their own Deep Space label – was playlisted by the Electrifyin’ Mojo in 1981 and became a big local hit, selling around 15,000 copies in Detroit alone. The next two singles, ‘Cosmic Cars’ and ‘Clear’ did even better, resulting in Cybotron being signed by the Berkeley, California label Fantasy, who released the
Clear
album.
Clear
album.
In Detroit, everybody assumed Cybotron were white guys from Europe. And indeed, apart from a subliminal funk pulsing amidst the crisp-and-dry programmed beats, there was scant evidence to hint otherwise. Davis’ vocals had the Angloid/android neurosis of a John Foxx or Gary Numan, making Cybotron the missing link between the New Romantics and William Gibson’s
Neuromancer
. But for all their futuristic
mise-en-scène
, the vision underlying Cybotron songs was Detroit-specific, capturing a city in transition: from industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland, from US capital of auto manufacturing to US capital of homicide. Following the late sixties and early seventies syndrome of ‘white flight’ to the suburbs, the decline of the auto industry, and the de-gentrification of once securely middle-class black districts, Detroit’s city centre had become a ghost-town.
Neuromancer
. But for all their futuristic
mise-en-scène
, the vision underlying Cybotron songs was Detroit-specific, capturing a city in transition: from industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland, from US capital of auto manufacturing to US capital of homicide. Following the late sixties and early seventies syndrome of ‘white flight’ to the suburbs, the decline of the auto industry, and the de-gentrification of once securely middle-class black districts, Detroit’s city centre had become a ghost-town.
With its dominant mood of paranoia and desolation (‘I wish I could escape from this crazy place’, as Davis sang it in ‘Cosmic Cars’), Cybotron’s tech-
noir
should have been the soundtrack to
Robocop
, the dystopian sci-fi movie set in a Detroit of the near-future. Songs like ‘Alleys of Your Mind’ and ‘Techno City’ were ‘just social commentary, more or less,’ says Atkins, citing ‘thought-control’ and the ‘double-edged sword’ of technology as Cybotron’s major preoccupations. Lyrics like ‘enter the program / technofy your mind’ and ‘don’t you let them robotize your behind’ – from the gloom-funk epic ‘Enter’ – testify to an ambivalent investment in technology. As Atkins puts it, ‘With technology, there’s a lot of good things, but by the same token, it enables the powers that be to have more control.’
noir
should have been the soundtrack to
Robocop
, the dystopian sci-fi movie set in a Detroit of the near-future. Songs like ‘Alleys of Your Mind’ and ‘Techno City’ were ‘just social commentary, more or less,’ says Atkins, citing ‘thought-control’ and the ‘double-edged sword’ of technology as Cybotron’s major preoccupations. Lyrics like ‘enter the program / technofy your mind’ and ‘don’t you let them robotize your behind’ – from the gloom-funk epic ‘Enter’ – testify to an ambivalent investment in technology. As Atkins puts it, ‘With technology, there’s a lot of good things, but by the same token, it enables the powers that be to have more control.’
‘Techno City’ was inspired by Fritz Lang’s vision in
Metropolis
of a future megalopolis divided into privileged sectors high up in the sky and subterranean prole zones. According to Davis, Techno City was equivalent to Detroit’s Woodward Avenue ghetto; the dream of its denizens was to work their way up to the cybodrome, where the artists and intellectuals lived. Again, these utopian/dystopian fantasies were just a thinly veiled allegory of the unofficial apartheid taking shape in urban America, with the emergence of privately policed fortress communities and township-like ethnic ghettos.
Metropolis
of a future megalopolis divided into privileged sectors high up in the sky and subterranean prole zones. According to Davis, Techno City was equivalent to Detroit’s Woodward Avenue ghetto; the dream of its denizens was to work their way up to the cybodrome, where the artists and intellectuals lived. Again, these utopian/dystopian fantasies were just a thinly veiled allegory of the unofficial apartheid taking shape in urban America, with the emergence of privately policed fortress communities and township-like ethnic ghettos.
Perhaps the most extreme expression of Cybotron’s ambivalent attitude to the future – half-anticipation, half-dread – was ‘R9’, a track inspired by a chapter in the Bible’s Book of Revelation. ‘What you have on the record is the War of Armageddon,’ laughs Atkins. But despite the track’s jagged gouts of dissonance, hideously warped textures, and background screams for ‘Help!’ this is no nightmare vision of the future, says Atkins. ‘For the people who don’t have anything, any kind of change is good. There’s two ways of looking at it.’ The fevered apocalyptic imagery climaxed in ‘Vision’, with Davis whispering about a ‘vast celestial wasteland’, then whimpering ‘I need something to believe in’.
Off to BattleAfter ‘Vision’ was recorded, Cybotron split. Davis – ‘the Jimi Hendrix of the synthesizer’, according to Atkins – wanted to go in a rock direction. ‘I felt that we had built up a strong following on records like “Alleys”, “Cosmic Cars” and “Clear”,’ says Atkins. ‘Why would you come with a rock ’n’ roll record, when you had all the black radio programmers all over the country eating out of your hand?’
Atkins started working on his own material using the name Model 500. Setting up his own label Metroplex, he put out ‘No UFOs’; the sound, Motor City
motorik
, was harder and faster than Cybotron, streamlined and austere, with ciphered vocals demoted low in the mix. Then Eddie Fowlkes – now calling himself Eddie ‘Flashin’ ’ Fowlkes – decided he wanted to make a record too; his ‘Goodbye Kiss’ was the second Metroplex release.
motorik
, was harder and faster than Cybotron, streamlined and austere, with ciphered vocals demoted low in the mix. Then Eddie Fowlkes – now calling himself Eddie ‘Flashin’ ’ Fowlkes – decided he wanted to make a record too; his ‘Goodbye Kiss’ was the second Metroplex release.
BOOK: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
9.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Other books
The Sword Of Angels (Gollancz S.F.) by John Marco
Painted Faces by Cosway, L.H
Don't Believe a Word by Patricia MacDonald
The Firefighter's Appeal (Harlequin Superromance) by Elizabeth Otto
Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann
The Night Shifters by Emily Devenport
literal leigh 05 - joyful leigh by james, melanie
Halloween Submission by Bonnie Bliss
The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic by Mr Wayne Edward Clarke
Finding The One (Meadowview Heroes 1; The Meadowview Series 5) by Rochelle French