Drexciya _ Fighting Talk: A Phophecy From The Past

[Críoch]

I seen a picture of something on Facebook that reminded me of the 90's Music Magazine style & it grabbed my attention furtherwhen I read what the text was about: Prophetic words from James Stinson from Drexciya.

Pic below & text. I did a little digging & found it on http://drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com ... muzik.html

Looks to have come from Muzik in 1995. Some of you may have seen it already, but I thought it worth sharing as the sentiment remains strong 23years later. It could probably remain strong forever

I'm guessing it was aimed at that loopy / tribal techno sound?

Drexciya _ Fighting Talk.jpg (92.67 KiB) Viewed 1288 times

Techno was supposed to be about the future, but its been going backwards not forwards over the last couple of years. It's too easy now. People read about what equipment to buy and, because it's so advanced, all they have to do is push a few buttons and they've made a record. There's no focus, no direction, no understanding. It's meant to be an intelligent music form, but the only intelligent thing about it now is the equipment.

I wish more artists would cut out the sampling and the loops, go back to scratch and programme the shit themselves. I've heard some good ideas, but there are just too many samples. We need sounds we haven't heard before, we need different rhythms and patterns. That's what electro is about. I mean, do you want a fine home cooked meal or do you want to go to some fast food joint and eat a bunch of chemicals and shit?

Too many people focus on what label a record comes out on, rather than what the track actually sounds like. To me, that means there's something wrong. I remember the days when nobody cared if you were on Warner Brothers or Booty Up, just so long as what you were doing was good. When you throw a party, what are you spinning? Are you spinning the middle of a record where all the writing is or are you spinning the wax? You know what I'm saying. When a group comes to perform, who's up on the stage? Is it the business people punching their little computers or is it the artists themselves?

Drexciya won't be putting records out for a while now. We'll still be making music, but not records. We won't allow this form of music to just stop where it's at, but we're not even satisfied with the quality that we are producing. And I have to say that I really wish people wouldn't follow us. Be inspired, sure, but please don't follow. The minute we hear footsteps following us, we switch our style. We'll totally abandon what we're doing. We won't release any records or perform anywhere until things change.

Theres also an interview from Melody Maker - January 1995.

THE UNKNOWN AQUAZONE
The release of Chapter Five in the much sought-after Drexciya series is one of the most anticipated releases of the year. Dave Mothersole is granted a rare ear-bashing from the Detroit team.

Drexciya are not your normal techno act. Having been together for some 10 years, they’ve released just five records. Fiercely independent and highly opinionated, they’re the ultimate perfectionists, working in total secrecy, concealing their identities and discreetly putting out some of the most outstanding, unusual, beautiful and disturbing electronic music ever committed to vinyl.

Their “Journey Home EP”, out this week on Warp, has already been hailed as one of the most important releases of the Nineties.

In a rare interview, one half of Drexcyia, James – he wouldn’t reveal his second name – talks about techno, DJing, the Drexciya philosophy and the fight against the “Caucasian persuasion”.

OFF TO BATTLE
“As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t anybody out there making original Detroit techno – apart from us, and that’s not being arrogant.It’s a plain and simple fact. A lot of people making so-called techno don’t understand where it came from and what it’s all about. I know this stuff; I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’ve been with the real deal, in the trenches, since this shit was born out of the womb. But so many people have come in and stepped over the name of original techno and toned it down. And that’s why were here: it’s time to turn up the heat.”

‘THE CAUCASIAN PERSUASION’
“Ever since the blues and early jazz, black music has been stolen and exploited. It pisses me off that we let it happen. It’s
a political thing; everybody talks about it under their breath, but they don’t come out and say anything about it. As far as I’m concerned, ITCHY Whoretits? (Edit: The Canadian with the shaved head), Moby, and all the rest of ’em can do what they want, but don’t step into my house if you don’t respect it. Don’t even call what you do ‘techno’! I don’t want to hear anybody saying R ichie started any damned thing, ‘cos he ain’t started shit. All he did was step in with his money and his Caucasian persuasion and put himself on the market, and now he’s got all these kids riding his jock. We never had rich backgrounds; we were working jobs for $4.25 an hour. Our mamas never gave us money to buy keyboards and put records out. We work for our stuff. That’s why there’s a big difference in the music.

“Why do R ichie and his Plus 8 family come down here and throw parties in downtown Detroit? He brings in all these kids from the suburbs and from Canada, and that shows a lack of respect. I’ve been to every one of those parties and I’ve never heard an Underground Resistance record, a Cybotron record, a Model 500 record or an Eddie Fowlkes record. It’s a total lack of respect, and it’s got to stop.”

DJ HYPE
“Only guys like Leon and Jeff Mills know how to spin. Serious, man, you have DJs who mix sound like a galloping horse. Give ’em a record that doesn’t have a 4/4 beat and they can’t handle it; their fingers get all tied up and they get all confused. C’mon, you gotta know those records. You got to have quick reflexes and make that record talk. Make those turntables work; you got to see smoke coming off those suckers. These guys fly around the world and people call ’em geniuses, and they don’t even warm those decks up – they’re still cold after a whole night. They’re just fader flippers.”

DEEP SEA DWELLERS – THE DREXCIYA PHILOSOPHY
“The reason why we give alot of our tracks aquatic titles is because waves are constantly changing. It moves in so many different directions, and that’s the way we see our music. It doesn’t go straight forward. It takes you on an adventure. We record all our stuff live. You have to capture that moment, that spirit, that energy. We could never recreate one of our records. Every Drexciya record is different. We’re dealing with your personality, your emotions. We try to get you to open your mind up and listen to the sounds, and hopefully then you can paint a picture in your mind. That’s what it’s all about.”

https://daveg.outer-rim.org/entries/200 ... aker-1995/

I would have definitely bought that edition as a fanatical consumer of both it & NME from 1991 - 1997, though I cant remember reading the interview

I'd say given the size of it, it was probably only a few panels on a page.. but it adds context to the 'Fighting Talk' piece from Muzik later that same year. I think Stinson was hitting out against the commercial expansion of what the original vision of Techno had been. I guess this may have been the breaking away from the 'true underground'?

Some people have called Stinson's POV as being arrogant, but its probably more sympathetic to consider his comments as a type of frustration at losing control. Frustration towards change. In his opinion; negative change. Totally understandable.

Its an interesting snapshot nonetheless & a good insight into how conflicts begin / how people & groups see difference as a threat. A useful insight into human nature basically!

This is how we are built in order to survive. It gets complicated outside of that

[[wesellboxes]]

A great find, thanks for sharing. This is good too and a little sad knowing the outcome...

youtu.be/C-LoZho4HC8

[BG++]

Nice find! I think Stinson actually did his last interview in clubbing.dotcom an smallish Irish publication that wasnt around too long

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_mawa2kxhQQ/ ... 2Bpg22.jpg

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[BG++]

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gVF2QT393AA/ ... 2_0001.jpg

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[chava]

Arrogant AF, but hey that's Detroit Techno for you.

[Lost to the Void]

I understand where that is coming from.
It was the first wave of the commercialisation of techno.
I don't necessarily thinks it's arrogance.
I've had a chat with Gerald and he's cool beans.
There's a lot more to his story, there was a lot of trouble with the Detroit peeps and European bookers in those days too. A lot of them felt like their scene had been stolen out from under them.

A lot of their sentiment is more relevant now as techno has become commercial again, and carries with it all the shit that comes with commercialism with the added injection of the internet, social media etc.

[chava]

I understand where that is coming from.
It was the first wave of the commercialisation of techno.
I don't necessarily thinks it's arrogance.
I've had a chat with Gerald and he's cool beans.
There's a lot more to his story, there was a lot of trouble with the Detroit peeps and European bookers in those days too. A lot of them felt like their scene had been stolen out from under them.

A lot of their sentiment is more relevant now as techno has become commercial again, and carries with it all the shit that comes with commercialism with the added injection of the internet, social media etc.

What was they referring to? British rave? German trance? It didn't really had that much to do with Detroit, or electro for that matter. Was it stolen? Culturally appropriated? Didn't Tresor possibly do more to Detroit than the Detroit dudes themselves? Besides Jeff Mills rides the commercial waves pretty nifty these days. I am the first to lament the fall of Detroit techno, but I don't think it was the fault of the Euro scene, which by the way had lotsa outspoken anti-commercial and radical experimental techno labels (Bunker, Force Inc, Irdial) and events back then as well.

[Lost to the Void]

Ah I`m not going to write a long essay on it, I`m busy today...
There was a lot of fuckery going on in the 90`s.
Detroit Tracks were repressed in europe (bootlegged) with no monies going to the boys.
The "whitey`s" (from their perspective) culturally appropriated techno and sanitised it/removed the context.
Promotions billed them and never actually booked them.
Publications failed to recognise the history or pay respects etc etc
There was a ton of shit to cause them to gripe. Half of it was butthurt, but the other half, I think, was justified moaning.

I mean, I`m not a Detroit fanboy, at all, don`t really like detroit techno, 1st or 2nd wave, my techno roots come from industrial music and post punk rather than detroit, but still, I can`t go full asshole, they earned their stripes and they my respect (as if that means fuck all anyway).

[Amøbe]

Derrick May - at least - have once said in an interview (In German - found it in a library in Berlin one time, when I was looking for something else), that a lot of the Detroit guys felt betrayed by American culture. That interview focused a lot about how a genre called either booty bass or ghetto bass (something along those lines) took over the party scene in Detroit, which meant a lot of the electro/techno guys had to go to Europe (Tresor especially) to sustain (techno's) life.

A lot of the 2nd wave guys have also repeatedly talked about how they had a hard time sustaining the culture, which originated in Detroit, in Detroit. And they were mad at a lot of the 1st wave guys for going to Europe, so that they had no role models to make a thriving scene (of course, as history showed, they succeeded very well).

Lately there has been a lot of talk about how unaware and uneducated Americans are when it comes to know the history of club and dance music (which originated in America?!).

I am not trying to bring up some moral, because Europe (Tresor especially - they also had that Berlin/Detroit alliance thing going with Axis, I believe) have never tried to downplay techno's American roots, which is also why it would be wrong to talk about cultural appropriation in this case (generally people, should know more about cultural appropriation, and when it makes sense to use that critique these days... but that is another talk). I do understand why there is a lot of frustration in Detroit, though.

[Amøbe]

Wrote it before I saw your post, Steve. That is really shitty with the bootlegs had not heard about that before.

[s7ntax]

This release was probably why Ritchie was not liked by the original Detroit techno artists. I can understand why they were fucked off too.

https://www.discogs.com/Cybersonik-Stat ... ease/75093

[Críoch]

The future sound of Detroit.

That would probably do It!

[chava]

Bootlegging was widespread then, but yeah a lot of shady things going on and some really got screwed.
Anyways at least and at last Detroit Techno got the cultural capital they deserved(?). But sure, there were a helluva lot of unsung heroes of Detroit Techno that got way to little attention that's for sure.

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah it took time but the Detroit thing got its dues.
I mean some of the guys are still there and still fighting a lot of the same battles.
Terrence Dixon has documented and ranted a lot about the current woes of techno in Detroit.

[dubdub]

I understand where that is coming from.
It was the first wave of the commercialisation of techno.
I don't necessarily thinks it's arrogance.
I've had a chat with Gerald and he's cool beans.
There's a lot more to his story, there was a lot of trouble with the Detroit peeps and European bookers in those days too. A lot of them felt like their scene had been stolen out from under them.

A lot of their sentiment is more relevant now as techno has become commercial again, and carries with it all the shit that comes with commercialism with the added injection of the internet, social media etc.

I think Drexciya were outsiders even in Detroit, that scene was very every-man-for-himself. Some guys like May and Saunderson were making boatloads of money even very early on and tried to keep it to themselves. There was an anecdote, I forgot from who, about how the Belleville guys were playing at these huge, very commercial raves in the UK very early on and when they came back to Detroit they basically lied and said it sucked and there were only 200 people because they didn't want the others to find out. Not to mention many of the first-wave guys came from upper middle class backgrounds, admission at the Music Institute was over 50 bucks a night adjusted for inflation and required membership, it was very elitist because it had evolved from these really posh highschool parties full of kids wearing european designer brands. Meanwhile guys like Stinson and Banks have held blue collar jobs their whole life.