At 8:09 PM 2/6/96, Jon Drukman wrote:
quoted 10 lines At 5:48 PM 2/6/96, Rob Thorley wrote:
> At 5:48 PM 2/6/96, Rob Thorley wrote:
> >That's it:) I heard the Jedi Knights' remix of Antacid, and I thought
> >"why did people give up on vocoders?"
> > ^^^
> >To me, that is electro.
>
> maybe this is just me, but i always thought the Jedi Knights (especially
> Antacid) were more Miami Bass than Electro.
>
> is this distinction too subtle?
Nah, I think it's a good point. I think anything with a
a vocoder and some syncopated snares is getting an "electro"
tag thrown on it. (No offense to anyone -- it's just that
doing this skips over a _lot_ of history.) There were
longstanding and very different scenes happening in a number
of cities. Most 90's "electro" freely combines elements of
all of them. Even _within_ a city the music is different --
electro from the east side of Detroit is very different
from the stuff coming from the guys downtown, for example.
(just to use an example from a city I have some
familiarity with.)
For example, I was having a conversation with an electro-making
friend and Jedi Knights came up. His comment was "it's not bad,
but you don't call something electro and then put a big-ass
'More Bounce to the Ounce' sample in it!" There's nothing
wrong with the record, but tossing around terms like that
just adds to the confusion.
One of the saddest/funniest things I've heard recently was something
Mad Mike said late last year. Basically for a long time distributors
were discouraging him from doing electro records -- they wouldn't buy
them because they though the sound was too "ghetto". So he had
to be content with sneaking a track here and there on the end
of UR EPs. A few magazine articles later and it's hip. On the
positive side, though, they're getting a little financial
renumeration now for keeping the sounds alive.
Oh yeah, and buy both those Ectomorph EPs, dammit. And there's
a new Detrechno 12" too, for everyone who likes it greasy
and sloppy. :)
on now: Feelies "Crazy Rhythms" [my new-wave fetish kicks into
overdrive]
--
dave walker, detroit art services _
marmoset@mich.com born freeke
<A HREF="
http://www.mich.com/~marmoset/">Dave Walker</A>