Nonsense. Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it. All the Belleville Three were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and euro-electro, and you can hear that too. All of them namecheck a much richer and diverse set of influences than Chicago house, itself a refinement of disco, a far from strictly racially-defined movement. The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did, if you actually know/ lived through the history. Then of course you have Plus 8, Tresor, Basic Channel and so on. You can try for an Afro-American imperial case, but it’s going to get factually unstuck fast.
The whole damn point was people dancing in a room together, not whatever authenticity tests you have in mind.
> Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it
Totally. I have somewhere in my pile of neglected vinyl one of the "Final Cut" releases, which was a straight-up wax-trax style EBM/industrial thing which Jeff Mills was involved in. Late 80s/early-90s.
> The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did
Arguably, the US never really did. Most people here in North America remain clueless to what techno is and can't distinguish from EDM or other dance music forms. In Detroit itself, there was obviously an active scene, but much smaller than anything you'd find in most European cities (Detroit itself is a fairly small city, population wise), and much smaller than its own hip-hop scene. Back in the 90s when I was much more into this scene, it was very much a niche underground thing. Active scene participants here in southern Ontario/Toronto (3rd/4th largest city in North America) were a few hundred people at most and we pretty much all knew each other. Detroit techno producers and DJs spent most of their time touring in Europe (where they could get paid), not here in North America.
The Detroit Electronic Music Festival events were kind of a rare acknowledgement by a larger audience (I went to the first two only, though).
All said though, the "Detroit" "authenticity" pole in techno served as a counteracting force against the unbearable soul-less, drug-rush-focused, "whiteness" of trance, progressive house, etc.
> Detroit itself is a fairly small city, population wise
Detroit's population has decreased. It was the 5th or 6th largest city in the US around 1980, iirc.
> Detroit techno producers and DJs spent most of their time touring in Europe (where they could get paid), not here in North America.
> The Detroit Electronic Music Festival events were kind of a rare acknowledgement by a larger audience (I went to the first two only, though).
Yes, they were virtually unknown in Detroit. I also remember the first DEMF. Detroiters had no idea what was going on - what was this music? Why were people coming here from all over the world? One of my favorite memories was Derrick May finally taking the stage as the headliner:
> One of my favorite memories was Derrick May finally taking the stage
That was a great moment. I recall the Stacey Pullen set being great, too. I'd seen both those people before and not been impressed, actually. But at DEMF it was amazing.
That last part - was trance/prog house always like that? Or did it start more underground and organic in 1989 onward until the mid-90s where it became very commercial and then went to the next level with someone like Tiesto?
When those forms became distinguished as separate genres, basically yes. I think there was a vein of maybe more interesting "trance" in 92, 93 timeframe (I'm thinking about Oliver Lieb's stuff and maybe Rabbit in the Moon and some other stuff) that was a bit more techno-ish, but with some of the hallmarks of what came to be the "trance" form. But by the time people were specifically carving out "trance" it had basically the drum rolls and drug rush thing going on. By 96 when I started paying attention to that, it was already unbearable (to me).
Yep, exactly. It was German etc sounds being appreciated by African Americans in Detroit, being mixed with their influences in Chicago, and then travelling back across the Atlantic. Its a transatlantic international group effort and to deny either side of it misses the whole point.
You both explained it very succinctly. I don't get why people have to grasp at depictions of history that simply aren't true. They want to believe that Jeff Mills and Belleville 3 somehow created this new music from nothing and inspired the entire world.
The whole damn point was people dancing in a room together, not whatever authenticity tests you have in mind.