sorry if some of you have seen this before, but i really thought
everybody would benefit from reading this. mayday's raison d'etre|
DERRICK MAY, TIME TRAVELLER (reprinted from Code 3 95)
Techno. What is techno? Before the developments of technology completely
banish chronology and authorship, while we still can, let us get to the
source, or at least some semblance of a source.
Sometime in the 1980s, somewhere in Detroit, three teenagers called Juan
Atkins (19), Derrick May (18) and Kevin Saunderson (17) fuse their
electronica, release some tracks, call this strange breed 'Techno' and
change the face of modern music.
Techno. What is techno? Derrick May is Rhythm is Rhythm is Mayday is
Transmat. Know the stark, glacial beauty of Strings of Life, feel the
polyrhythmic intensity of The Beginning, touch the agressive melancholica of
Emanon, sense the imminent collapse and the coexistence of the fragile and
the ferocious that characterises all of his work, understand Derrick May.
24.11.94 Derrick May arrives in Dublin, alone. The big hotels are smart
boomed with copies of the magazine and Code is put on ultra-violet alert,
poised. He requested the promoters (Silk) that no-one pick him up at the
airport and there is a dead and alive time and space as we wait for this
enigmatic innovator to make contact. He is an unknown quantity; his
recordings are in the Detroit Museum of Modern Art; he is known for his
dislike of the media and for five years has refused to give an interview. We
wait, no response. Code is lost in the silver box.. he calls; he's up for it.
25.11.94 11:30 pm Tallaghtand contrary to what our most benovolent and
responsible media would have us believe, there are no guns, no syrings, no
violence, no stereotypes - just good times. I am in the Basketball Arena
with 2000 mad bastards, Derrick May transports us into the past, present and
future and I feel... alone, isolated. Afterwards as we nite drive back to
Babylon Centre the photographer, Sharpe, is uncharacteristically subdued; it
is only the next morning that he confesses that despite explicit
instructions to shoot his camera 2 fuck, somewhere in the middle of May's
set he stopped snapping and just listened, frozen as in architecture.
26.11.94 1:00 pm some hotel and Derrick Mayemerges from an elevator. He is
cut like a ninja, disoriently looks exactly like his photographs (taken
eight years ago) and is possessed of an extreme, visceral and intellectual
energy that never, not once lets up.
1992 Transmat ms-18 Kenny Larkin releases War of the Worlds under the guise
of Dark Comdey. And then... nothing. Instead of capitalising on the
legendary status of Transmat, May decided to concentrate on rebuilding the
philosophy.
"I decided to cool it out and not to fuck it up. There have been no bad
releases on Transmat. And we don't plan any."
"Unfortunately, there is no integrity in dance music: the record companies
have no respect for you. They are only interested in money; they only want
you for the moment, the one-off hit. They have no patience."
"It is a dangerous business making dance music. You have got to know when to
pull, and you have got to know when to row. You have got to know how to use
your brain, not just how to stick it out your hand for money."
In addition to the rampant and blind commercialism of the record industry,
May reiterates the inherent problem of racism that permeates the life of
practically every black artist. Invoking a plethora of examples, May is
graphically acute in his comments and cites most specifivally the
experiences of Juan Atkins back in the Cybertronic day.
"At the time Juan was making records (as Cybertron), record companies were
not interested; and the few times that they did show some interest, then it
wasn't in respect to a black artist. They would not take seriously a black
man making electronic music."
"Record companies knew about Juan. They knew what he was doing; they had
every fucking clue in the world about what he was doing. They knew. They
knew that he was making the strongest, most experimental, elctronic music
available. They knew that kids were completely crazy for it, from LA to
Florida to Michigan to Cleveland to Denver to Texas to Kansas City. But they
were not interested. It is an unfortunate state of affairs but record
companies need white artists to make this music for it to have any semblance
of credibility."
"The psychological difference is that in most situations, an 'entertainer'
is black, and an 'artist' is white. And that is not a racist opinion,
because I am not a racist. I am simply aware."
"The reason that I never signed up to a major record company was that I felt
that I needed control. I refused to be enticed into becoming a slave to
their ignorance of what I was trying to do with my music."
"And I am glad that I didn't sign to a major. I called my own shots; I
created my own solutions, I dealt with my own consequences, paid my own
prices. And in the long run I controlled my own destiny."
The legacy of Transmat as an electric entourage with a collective concept is
apparent. One need only look at the saggering beauty of Kenny Larkin's
metaphors, the massive phuture phunk of Stacey Pullen and the imminent
dominance of golden child Carl Craig: all of whom released tracks under
Transmat. It is that inflection of experimentation, that spirit of
innovation, of thinking as hard and as deep as the music itself, that
informs all their works, and is at the heart of Transmat, and of May himself.
"It was never just about the idea of making records. For us (May,
Saunderson, Atkins) it was more a spiritual thing.. a serious connection
with the intellect. That was always the point, right back from the early
days of Kraftwerk and of George Clinton and Funkadelic. For us, this stuff
was heavy. It wasn't just good music.. it was really.. an inspiration, not
just physically, but mentally."
"And that is the reason why all these people are still fascinated. Because
they still have not been able to figure out what the fuck we did and how the
fuck we did it. We were no better nor worse than anybody else with the
ability to make music, we simply had a purpose."
"The real philosophy was the intellect... the soul searching. Which
unfortunately most people don't have."
Thus, May tired of "all of the false hopes and bullshit promises" took
transmat out of the limelight and deep down back into the undergroud
clubscape and returned to what he knew best: dj-ing.
"Music was a philosphy that I learnt from being a dj; that is where my
spiritual connection with music lies. So, I returned there to search.. and
dwell."
A true master never stops learning, and it seems that for the last four
years May has been pursuing a self oddessy of learning, of feeling, of
understanding the dance. And its beyond. During this time he lived in many
cities and as he reflects on London, Paris and Amsterdam - their essences,
their sounds and character, Detroit is inevitably considered.
"What is Detroit like? A good question. Detroit is like a city trying to
relearn how to live. It's been through so much... there are many angry
people in Detroit. Some of the richest people in America live just outside
of Detroit. But inside Detroit: emptiness... and you have people who reflect
that nothing... but there is a characterand a spirit, a lot of imagination,
a magnetism."
"But now I don't need to be in Detroit to make music... I am who I am and I
can make my music anywhere in the world. It is probably the last time I will
go back there and work on my music. I have lost my passion to live there. My
philosophies have changed, my ideas have changed."
And what are these new philosophies ?
"I cannot explain them, I can only live them. But I want to, I have to
project my philosophy in my music. I was a different person then. I am a
different person now. Bit I am still very emotional. Going into the studio
will be a new experience. I don't know what and I don't know how."
May is less concerned with the sheer scale of the influence that the
Belville Three have (however unwillingly) exerted than with the '99 per cent
of generic bullshit' that masquerades under the banner of techno.
"Everyone is trying to discover analogue. In other words, most people have
no clue, again, about what it took to make this music. They run out and buy
all these old keyboards modified for the nineties so they can catch up with
what they think they don't know... they are obviously trying to recapture
something rather than create something new. And that very attitude (of
attempting to recreate the past) demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of
what it is about, of what we are trying to do."
May is well aware of the dillemmas that, as one of the most influential
components in the chronology of techno, he faces as he returns to the
studio. It's 1995, mid-decade and the soundscapes that Mayday created are
still being mapped out, traveresed, (re)discovered, ten years after his
original innovations.
"When I make music again it's going to be funny because people have used
every sound, every arrangement, every composition and every idea that I had
to make music with. So as far as I am concerned, if I make a record that
sounds like myself, it's likely that those who don't know me are going to
think that I sound like everyone else. So I have to create something new,
and yet it will be similar purely by vitue that I have made it."
But, as his own worst critic, and with the talent and an attitude that only
comes from a certain type of self-belief he is ready. Casually, and yet
ominously he adds:
"I'm not looking for it be different; just a sign of the times. It is a good
time to make music."
It is his desire to continue to envolve the ever closer fusion of
manmachine, to invoke the techno-logical as a means to fuse the body and the
mind, the mental and the physical, and the transcend both in the expression
of the soul. It is thus unsuprising that he finds a strong affinity to the
digital brotherhood that is Jungle.
"Understand this: we did not invent techno - that is media invention. We...
enhanced it for the new milleninium. Techno is the genetic offspring of
techno-pop (Klaus Shultz, Eurythmics, New Order etc). Rave, hardcore...
these were mutations, diversions. But now we have a new birth. And that
birth is jungle. Back to club music. Back to the dance. The dance."
One need look no further than the afronautics of such luminaries as A Guy
Called Gerald to witness a similar polyrhythmic quest, of invoking
impossible times - prehistory and the future - indeed of manipulating time
and space itself in an attempt to discover truths and essences.
And techno. What is technno?
"Techno is an original fusion of electronic music with the urban soulness of
black dance music, of black people... that was our original philosphy."
"It is a sort of new breed mentality of dance music. It is a sort of a new
breed mentality of technology."
"What it is not? It is not a soulless music; it is not a genre of drug
music. Unlike many things, it is one of the ultimate areas of creativity at
this time. But it is unfortunate that many of us have decided to... ignore
creativity, and simply just use machines as a convenient way of making
music. Like the video game, we have let the computer assist us so much that
we don't even use our imaginations. These is limitless potential in
electronic music. Unfortunately most of us have taken the time or even
thought about taking the time to explore this potential."
And U+Techno = ?
"Me plus techno? Me plus techno equals nothing! I am just a component in the
machine that drives the wheels of progress."
May does not consider his status as a modern icon to be of importance. What
is essential to him is the absolute neccesity in the constant elevation of
music, that he continues in his pursuit of the future, that he innovate,
that he move on, forever changing, chaging forever.
"That is what we are missing. We are not in the path of progress. It is
essential that we return to that path. And if we do not? ... that elevator
where George Clinton and Kraftwerk are? The doors will open and I will walk
out and in will walking nothing and we live in the halls of redundance."
"Everything I do must stand the test of time."
And it will. For ever and a day.
a sideprint:
"Sometimes I think about my grandfather, my mother, my childhood or my
idols. Strings (of Life) was about Martin Luther King. When they killed him
they destroyed the hopes and dreams of a generation. It was about the hope
in his message."
End of Message