quoted 8 lines the advantage of techno is that mostly the records consist of little> the advantage of techno is that mostly the records consist of little
> information regarding the origin-so the race, creed, colour of the
> producer is unknown (and irrelevent). the music should stand up by
> itself. detroit doesn't receive the credit it is due and most techno
> released today isn't worthy of the title if used in it's
> detroitcentric terms. techno is a dirty word in alot of places and
> its the stupid, soulless and mostly white population thats to blame.
>
Well, for every million jillion records techno records made, there are
a few gems -- that's why I read this list.
A lot of techno is really dance-floor-only. In classical terms, this
is 'occasional music.' It can sound really dumb on disk if it isn't
first rate.
I just would hate to see the discussion put on a racial basis, since
that isn't true to my experience of the scene. Even if you're a pasty
faced white guy like me, and you deeply empathize with the problems
faced by blacks in America, you can't hope to understand the experience
fully. The best one can do, really, is to meet people on their own
terms, and judge them one at a time.
I used to live in a black neighborhood in Cedar Rapids Iowa. Not the
center of the ghetto, by any means, but a place where I was a minority and
had to watch my manners if I didn't want to get my ass kicked. One
year after Christmas I was sitting in my front room with a white friend
and a black friend from the neighborhood. My friend was joking about what
he got for christmas "oh, a ferrari, a big screen TV, a trip to Rio." The
black guy wasn't laughing, he was just staring at him. When the white guy
finished, the black guys response was "man, you been sleeping overtime."
At that moment I got a glimpse of something alien to my white boy experience:
to the black man joking like this wasn't funny because even though the
white guy was just joking, it was within the realm of his (the white guy's)
possibilities, but completely unattainable and foreign to the black man.
Which brings me back around to James Drexciya's comments about rich white
kids jumping on his bus. I can understand his resentment. But the answer
is not to devalue what any does, just because of the circumstances of their
birth. Being poor and black doesn't grant one any particular nobility, and
being white and relatively well-to-do doesn't automatically make you a twit.
I am curious as to why while I can buy dozens of disks by English dudes
like Orb, FSOL and Orbital, I can't find any good comps of the real detroit
stuff. As much as I like ambient music, do we really need another
ambient comp?