From Bill VanLoo Sent Wed, May 31st 2000, 04:45
From Bill VanLoo Sent Wed, May 31st 2000, 04:45
Well, the long-awaited weekend is over, and it's time for decompression. This is going to be long... I've been looking forward to this event since last December, when it was announced in Real Detroit (a weekly city paper here in Detroit) that a free electronic music festival was going to take place during Memorial Day weekend. I saved that issue, thinking that it would be a great piece of memorabilia if I ended up playing by some miracle, and a cool piece of history regardless. Well, thanks in large part to Rob Theakston from Planet E, I did end up playing. I can't thank Rob enough, since it was he who STRONGLY encouraged me to submit a demo. I think his exact words were something along the lines of "DO WHATEVER IT TAKES". I locked myself in my home studio for 3 days recording, tweaking, and recording some more. That was in February. About 6 weeks ago, I got the call saying that I was in the festival. I think I almost fainted. Friday, May 26 was the day before the festival started. I spent a few hours doing final tweaks to my live set, then ran around doing errands. I headed to Hart Plaza and worked on helping set things up for about an hour. I was about to start helping hang black plastic in the Underground stage area when I saw a familiar Dutchman. I met up with Klaas, Hans, and Otto, the true techno tourists, was introduced to their friend Peter, and we all piled into my car and headed to Record Time. Record Time was great, I met lots more (313) listmembers (Holly, Diana Detroit, Horsepower, Mike Taylor, Nova, and others I can't quite remember...). We chilled, shopped, and took geeky record-store pictures. I remember asking a guy behind the counter who was wearing a Sound Signature shirt when the new Theo Parrish double pack was coming out. Then, once I got outside, I found out it was Theo himself. I ran back in and he found me a copy of the new Sound Signature double-pack on white label, which I gladly purchased. It's some next-level material - it should be out in June or July. After a nice barbecue at Ian Malbon and Linda Swanson's, I caught back up with the (313) posse at Fishbone's, ate a little, talked a lot, and finally headed home to pack my gear up and get ready for the next day. Saturday, May 27 - the first day of the festival. My set was scheduled for 4:00PM on the Underground stage, so I got there early, loaded gear in, and waited. I caught Jason Hogans's set at 2:00PM, which was great. I never knew Jason was an MC as well as a talented producer, but there he was dropping rhymes. He didn't play much new material, but he delivered 2 new hip-hop tracks and all 5 tracks off his Planet E relase plus a little new stuff. It was very well done. I chilled and listened to Scott Zacharias's set from 3-4, and then it was time for my live set. I felt great playing - the crowd started off at a decent size, then every time I looked up it kept getting bigger. Towards the end of the set, I think the room was almost entirely full! I ended up playing all 8 tracks I'd sequenced, finishing with the track that should be coming out on THX (http://th.m-nus.com). I should have audio up on chromedecay (http://www.chromedecay.org) in a few days if all goes well. After my set, my mind was still pretty much blown. I listened to Recloose getting busy as I tore my gear down, then went back to the artist hospitality tent and chilled while Tikiman and the Hardwax crew played on the main stage. I have to say, there's not much that compares to the feeling of having played the biggest gig of your life, then having a cold beer and a sandwich while one of your favorite musical groups plays 30 feet behind you. It was really just about perfect. The rest of Saturday night is kind of a blur. I caught part of Stacey Pullen's set and almost all of Kenny Larkin's live/DJ set. Kenny's new live material sounded great, but it seemed like the crowd wasn't up for it so he switched gears and played other people's more uptempo stuff. I can't wait to hear his new record. Saturday night was the 7th city party. Suffice it to say that it was great, a perfect chill vibe, and John Tejada was the sleeper sensation of the evening. He just kept dropping jewel after jewel, and it all sounded *so* tight on their sound system. Sunday, May 28 - day two. I took this as my recovery day, showing up to the festival about 7:30PM. I timed it so I was in time for Slum Village, who played a solid set. Their new stuff (especially the long-awaited Fantastic vol. 2) should be great. Then the Roots stepped up and rocked it for almost 2 hours. I enjoyed their set; Dice Raw made a surprise appearance, Scratch (the human turntablist) was off the hook, and Black Thought ripped it. ?uestlove...well, that man is amazing, flat out. He rocked a drum solo that made a beat junkie like myself just beg for more...starting off slow, then building to razor-sharp drum-n-bass breaks, all live, all on a trap kit. Amazing. Black Thought's "YEW GUYS WERE A KICK-ASS AUDIENCE! ROCK ON!" (in his best New Jersey rock star voice) was a hilarious send-off, and the now-famous "invisible turntables" routine (with Scratch providing the beat) capped off another killer show from the Roots crew. Gary Chandler was...well, Gary Chandler. I give the man plenty of respect, I love listening to him in the car on a hot summer day...but I just wasn't really feeling his vibe on that evening. I chilled out and half-listened, perking up when he played a couple of tracks but mostly it was just background music. I was waiting for...the Mighty Mos Def. Mos didn't show up until 11:30, got on stage at 11:40, played for 25 minutes, and was out. The festival was contractually bound to finish at midnight every night and Mos literally just got off a plane from Europe, so you can't blame anybody...but it was disappointing that it didn't work out. Under different circumstances, I'm sure it would have been a highlight of the entire festival. He stepped out singing "Motherless Child" and then proceeded to step into "Hip Hop" off his solo record. Once his short set was over, I headed out to the Planet E party. Planet E had Theo Parrish, Mike Clark, Hannah, Dego, and Tony Olliviera. Tony played a marathon set (as in long, ya'll) upstairs while Mike Clark and then Theo Parrish rocked it downstairs. Theo really owned that evening, dropping the deepness (though none of his own abstract Sound Signature tracks, which I'm a junkie for). It was great all-round. I left at 4:30 AM with Theakson and we hit American Coney Island for late-night grub. Monday, May 29 - the last day, and the only day that the weather was predicted to cooperate. It was actually fine all weekend, though, which was a treat. I got there early, and sat listening to Clark Warner's gorgeous morning-music ambient set. Clark is one of the people who has impeccable taste in music (a lot like Carlos Souffront), and his selection for the beginning of the day was sublime. He started with 20 MINUTES of E2-E4! I also caught the 2nd Gas record on Mille Plateaux and part of Monolake's Gobi EP (which on the main stage's speakers was AMAZING, what BASS that record has!). Clark finished his first set with a perfect ending track, "It's a wonderful life" off Carl Craig's Landcruising. What a great way to start the day. I wandered for a while longer after than, then ran over to catch Derek Plaslaiko's set on the C-Pop stage. Derek is one of the most enthusiastic people I know, and he's supported me for a long time (for which I owe him a lot - thanks Derek!). He had a brilliant beginning, starting off with the "future" speech from Jeff Mills' first "Tomorrow" 12". Then, he dropped a shoegazer track that I couldn't spot but which was absolutely perfect. The sun was shining, the guitars were droning...it was lovely. Once it was over, however, Derek dropped a deep, bassy house track and really dove into his set. I could tell he was frustrated by needle-skipping problems early on, but he really delivered. Much respect, Derek. I definitely had to catch Theorem's live set at 3:00PM on the main stage, and he didn't dissappoint. Dale said he stayed up for 5 hours on Sunday night after the festival re-working his live set, and it showed. He played some new material, started off with his great THX3 track, and really worked it. One of the biggest highlights of the entire festival was seeing Shake on the Underground stage at 5:00PM. Shake has been having some health problems, and they wheeled him in in a wheelchair, which breaks my heart. But the man is a true spirit, and once he got behind the decks it was like everything fell away. He started out with a track from the new D'Angelo record! DAMN! What kind of DJ does that at an "electronic music" festival!?! A DJ with SOUL, that's who. He followed it up with plenty of fantastic music, cutting up doubles left and right, doing his thing, rocking things, just *feeling* it. The guy turned 2 copies of a Roule record into his instrument. I feel like a student of the man's; every time I watch him I feel like I learn something. When I DJ, I have 2 distinct DJ modes: "cut-up and bangin'" and "smooth and deep". Shake is responsible for the way I play cut-up and bangin'. He deserves immense respect, and my thoughts are with him. Finally it was 6:00PM and time for Rolando on the main DEMF stage. He started it out with his anthem, "Knights of the Jaguar", and built from there. I love hearing Rolando play, it's the perfect blend of old and new, bangin' and smooth. His 2 sets at Motor last summer were defining moments of the summer, and I hope he plays again soon in Detroit. Then at 8:00PM it was time for Derrick May. Derrick started with "The Big Payback" by James Brown, which was dope. Unfortunately, I didn't really pay much attention to much of Derrick's set; a lot of it seemed just OK. He dropped some gems, to be sure, but I was hoping he was going to really take people to SCHOOL. The same thing was true of Richie Hawtin, to some degree. Richie started out with Vaporspace's "Gravitational Arch of IO", which was great, and then played the Maurizio mix of Vainqeuer's "Lyot", which was perfect. Then, however, he moved into "drums" mode. I like bangin' techno just fine, but it seems like a lot of the stuff Richie was playing was really just drums and compression. No melody, no riffs, no defining characteristics, just "banging". Maybe it's just my changing tastes, but I was really hoping for something different from him. I do, however, have to give him enormous respect for the way he worked the 909. That was truly great - he really showed off the true potential of that instrument, tweaking, building patterns up, dropping the tempo down, bringing it up, working it. I think it was just raw 909 for at least 30 minutes, or at least is seemed like that. By the end, he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand, and I was feeling it myself. Carl Craig ended the festival by reading all of the artist's name who'd performed, which was a nice touch. It really was an inspirational site to stand there and look out into the crowd, knowing just how many people had been involved in making this happen and how well it was pulled off. I was really, truly blown away. Congratulations, Detroit. Thanks to all involved for letting me be a part of it. Bill VanLoo