Contakt (Minus where are you going?)

[S.D.L]

Juan and those guys did not have the money to play with that Rich has. Who knows what the hell they would have done.

Btw, all the classic artists weren't that poor to start from anyway. They were all at least middle class kids. If not they would've never been able to afford all the equipment, so in all that true ghetto spirit bullshit there isn't much truth anyway.
.

Maybe they found some other ways to get their equipment..

[Storlon]

Lots of differents thoughts here, i would love to have a proper "techno"history (in another Post)

[Torque]

hm... somehow this comparison ur - contakt... it made me instantly feel little bit sick. i think there's some difference... really, i appreciate music with an "idealistic" meta level, esp. futouristic stuff. to put it short: ur/atkins and the likes.... they transport(ed) all this ideas through their sound, directly. the visions have some kind of generalism, on a level of society. contakt..... a cube ... surface is shiny, inside seems to be standard technology. the visions are directly tied to m_nus. it's not about a future of society, it's about where will we be together with m_nus. and it's not about far future anyway, it's about the next year (when all this will take place at contakt-events).
the realization in the first case: the music. in the second case: words, gimmicks, clothes. music - f course. but alone it does not transport the vision to me (which vision?).

I can't honestly say i disagree with you completely but honestly Juan and those guys did not have the money to play with that Rich has. Who knows what the hell they would have done. One thing they did have is music that matched the idea completely, it's still yet to be written if the music at these events will match the vision put forth by the advertisement. I really hope it does because i'm getting sick of seeing so may acts out there that might have some music to play here and there but no grand vision behind it.

The UR crew really dislikes (understatement) Richie and his ideas... they see him as a spoiled rich kid, who lifted on their ideas.

UR crew is breathing, living... everything is about techno. Richie seems to be more into money and being a trend-setter than music and entertaining lately.

I don't know where you're getting that from....
I'v been signed to Submerge Recordings as an artist since 2004 and i talk and hang out with the UR camp everyday and there are no hard feelings towards Richie for anything. All of us in the Submerge camp do live and breathe Techno in a way that allot of people cannot relate to and everybody fully understands what Rich is doing. I can say with all honesty that when i came into the scene here in Detroit i loved seeing Richie play, i loved listening to his mixes and i still think that he is one of the best dj's to ever come around. There was a time after i started making this music and decided to dedicate my life to it where i became frustrated at the popularity of minimal because i was trying to break in the business making traditional techno which by the ultimate act of irony right now is going against the grain i guess but now that has faded away and i actually enjoy watching people do what they do as artists evn if it's different than my own ideal. To Richies credit (IMO) he was the first person ever to license a track from me and he used it on the dvd live footage from Transitions which was totally unexpected. Believe me, if Richie was hated by the UR crew there is no way he would have been able to license my track, much less the Transition accapella. If that hate was the other way around there is no way that i would have been able to license "Decompression" and "Spastik" for my mix cd "D.Part Vol. 1" on Submerge Recordings. I don't always like all the music he uses but i still have respect for him as an artist and even more now that i know what it takes to make it to where he is. If you ask i say Rich is allot more open minded as an artist than allot of people are on this board. You all need to just lighten up sometimes. It's ok to have fun with the imagery. UR and Rich are both part of techno, it's other people like the press that wants to put everything into a genre box like what is minimal and what is not, who fucking cares. If the record is funky i'll play the sh!t out of it and if it's boring i wont buy it in the first place. If you do or don't like what he's doing talk with your wallet and either buy it or don't. If you want to judge an artists merit upon a few pictures and a concept before you hear what the music is like then it's you who have the problem, not Rich. None of us really have any idea what the hell he's going to try to do.

[miroslav]

^^^ well said.

I'm not going to touch Richie's "cube" or buy a membership. But I don't see why to bash him because he is throwing a few parties and trying to make some money with it. All that matters to me is the music. I'll still check out his stuff from time to time and judge it on the merits of what I hear. Sometimes I dig what he does, sometimes I don't. And that's about as complicated as it needs to be...for me, at least.

[Torque]

Juan and those guys did not have the money to play with that Rich has. Who knows what the hell they would have done.

Well, Kevin Saunderson had this million-selling Inner City project with international top-10 hits, just to name one. Between around 1988-92 the early techno artists made a shitload of money - music videos, Top of the Pops, all included - at least as much as the whole M-nus gang makes today. If they didn't make so much out of it then basically because artists at that time weren't as professional and organized as the M-nus guys are today. Maybe they let themselves be ripped off by the record companies; who knows. But there WAS a lot of money.

Btw, all the classic artists weren't that poor to start from anyway. They were all at least middle class kids. If not they would've never been able to afford all the equipment, so in all that true ghetto spirit bullshit there isn't much truth anyway.

Don't want to bash on the old heroes, sicne they're heroes to me as well, and also don't want to defend the commercialisation of the M-nus enterprise, but you have to see things in perspective.

2008 and 1988 in techno are not even comparable. So much has changed. Some of the classic artists were poor, some of them were not. Some of them had their mom but the stuff for them, some of them went and broke into peoples cribs for the equipment. Some of them used credit card scams, some of them drag raced their cars on the streets for the cash. Every individual has a different story. People seems to forget sometimes that there was never anything as organised as minus/+8 the only thing that was even close to that was UR. Most of the rest of the labels were just private imprints the artists used to publish their own material and maybe a couple of others. Most of these labels were in competition with each other allot more than they were helping each other out. Allot of them had absolutely no idea what it took to sell a record. Some of them were just there at the right time and some of them had music that was so fresh and inspiring that it drew people in. If all of them were as organized as the minus crew we would have seen allot more cheese ball photo shoots than the one for contakt. It really is amazing that this sh!t ever happened at all considering the circumstances and the place it came from. Nobody was there in 1988 calling Inner City sell outs or Juan Atkins before them. They just did what they had to do to get the music out there. Minimal itself was made out of nessesity by Rob Hood because he only had one machine and if he tried to run too many sounds out of it at once it would distort and sound fucked up and when he got the sound right that's when "Minimal Nation" was released. Sometimes things just turn out a certain way because that's what was supposed to happen. There's no way to know what God wants next.

[PsyTox]

I don't know where you're getting that from....
I'v been signed to Submerge Recordings as an artist since 2004 and i talk and hang out with the UR camp everyday and there are no hard feelings towards Richie for anything. All of us in the Submerge camp do live and breathe Techno in a way that allot of people cannot relate to and everybody fully understands what Rich is doing.

Hmm, there's also a lot of documented Mad Mike ranting to prove the opposite, Torque. It's mentioned in many documentairies and interviews of that time that they first saw richie as an intruder if you will.
Not to mention the completely racist bullshit he sometimes spewed in many interviews...

i believe you of course when you personally like Hawtin, but saying that there hasn't been "some friction" in the beginning is not exactly true, no?

[fl0w]

If they didn't make so much out of it then basically because artists at that time weren't as professional and organized as the M-nus guys are today. Maybe they let themselves be ripped off by the record companies; who knows. But there WAS a lot of money.

I do totally agree with that. The people producing techno were artisans.

Meanwhile, the hip hop scene was very organized from the start and developed an industry. I'll always wonder how huge techno could have got with more cooperation and organization, rather than short-range short-minded brawls and selfishness.

OTOH, when I see where hip hop has gone today...

I wish the difference between the techno and hip hop scenes would be discussed more often. Maybe I'm a bit naive and maybe strong competition also has its benefits (Torque describes Detroit as a dojo, and is apparently happy with it)...

Feel free to express your views

[alexx.wolfe]

[MINUS071] Bob Sinclar | We Are Underground, And You?

RELEASE INFORMATION:

Artist/Title: BOB SINCLAR | WE ARE UNDERGROUND, AND YOU?
Catalogue No.: M71
Label: MINUS
Format: CD, LP, MP3, WAV
Release Date: TBA

SAMPLES HERE :

bob sinclair - we r underground demonstration mix .mp3 - 1.42MB

you seem to have an old version of this track.. just got news from berlin that richie has modified the track to his standards

http://www.zshare.net/audio/12107275b73aaec7/

It's getting even betterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!