the origins of our music, Chicago house to detroit techno
From the Autobahn to I-94
The Origins of Detroit Techno and Chicago House
Story by Heiko Hoffmann
Twenty years ago, two groups of young, mostly black Midwesterners-- influenced in parts by disco, Philly Soul, and European synth-pop-- simultaneously created the two major movements in modern dance music, house and techno. We celebrate those minimal, primitive early pangs of mechanized dance by speaking to Detroit techno pioneers Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes, Blake Baxter, and Mike Grant, as well as Chicago House-DJ Tyree Cooper about the connections between the house and the techno and house capitols.
FIRST CONTACTS
Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes (producer/DJ): I went to Chicago for the first time in August 1981. I was just 18. I kept hearing of this cat named Frankie Knuckles. One day (Detroit disco DJ legend) Ken Collier-- who was a friend of Knuckles-- and a couple of friends wanted to go see him play at the Warehouse and asked me to come along. So I went and checked him out. We went to Chicago at 2:20 a.m. This was my first time at a gay club and I was shocked. But the music was so good! Frankie had his own edits of Philly International tracks and others on a reel-to-reel-tape which he played. That seperated Frankie Knuckles from all the other DJs. And the place was amazing. You had people swinging on trapezes and the lights were amazings. That was an experience! Chicago had the best parties. Hands down.
Blake Baxter (producer/DJ): Detroit people drove to Chicago all the time. Everyone from K. Hand to Derrick May was going because Chicago had the best clubs and a good underground scene. It's just a four-hour drive and people from Detroit went there to party for the weekend. I was in the special forces for two years in the mid-1980s. I always wanted to DJ and to do music but it didn't work out for me when I came back to Detroit. I had heard about Chicago and the house sound so I basically just drove there to hang out.
About 1986, I met Rocky Jones who was the owner of DJ International. At that time I was strictly a drummer in calypso bands doing studio session stuff. Then Rocky asked me for a demo tune. I recorded some drums on electronic drum pads and gave it to him. He said: "This is really good stuff! Which drum machine did you use?" And I said: "I didn't use a drum machine." He said: "Really? This is really good stuff. I want to work with you and sign you!" I was shocked! It was a little bit too serious for me but I was happy that someone was interested. He asked me to add some keyboards but I only played percussion, so I played some rhythm stuff on a Juno 60 which was the only synthesizer I could afford. Rocky liked my sound because it was different. He would book a whole day in a recording studio and bring all the DJ International artists in and would give each two hours to record their music. So I met Marshall Jefferson, Joe Smooth, Chip-E, and Tyree Cooper.
Tyree was funny. He always made jokes about me because I was coming from a punk background and looked the way. I still love Jesse Saunders and Jamie Principle. Those were my two idols! I found my sound because I was listening to these two guys. We all became friends and they took me to all the clubs in Chicago. Every time I went to Chicago I was just sleeping in a truck on the beach.
Tyree Cooper (producer/DJ): When I first met Blake Baxter at DJ International, I thought, "Where the hell is he from?" He just looked weird and had this high-pitched voice and his music sounded like a cross between Thomas Dolby and Jamie Principle.
Blake Baxter: I met Derrick May at DJ International because he was working on something. Derrick was living in Chicago for a time [in the early 80s] because his mom moved there from Detroit when she married. He remembered me from Detroit and then asked me for some music for his label after he heard my records on DJ International. I lived with Derrick for a year because his girlfriend and my girlfriend lived together.
Tyree Cooper: Detroit had a bigger percentage of black people but Chicago was so segregated that there were certain black neighborhoods. So there were DJs who were popular on the South Side or on the West Side. If a party organizer was savvy enough to know which DJs worked in which part of the city he would put together a party in downtown with the most popular DJs from each neighborhood. That way you could regularly have parties with 5,000 kids.
DECKS, EFFECTS & 909
Kevin Saunderson (producer/DJ, member of Inner City): At one point we went from DJing only on turntables to DJing with a 909 (drum computer). 909 was very important because what happened is that Juan [Atkins] started to make beats that he would later use at parties.
Eddie Fowlkes: First came the 808 though. That was in 1984. Juan introduced it at one of our Deep Space parties and it was sweet! At one point we stopped the turntables and Juan would start to work on his 808. He would start switching that shit and mother****ers just went nuts. The next thing you saw was Jeff Mills using an 808 and all of a sudden every DJ had a drum machine.
Tyree Cooper: In 1985 we borrowed an 808 from Marshall Jefferson for 20 bucks and DJed with it for six months. Kids loved that shit! When we went to a party we had a bagful of records, a bagful of cassettes and the 808. When "Move Your Body" [by Marshall Jefferson] came out it used a 707 because we had his 808.
Mike Grant (producer/DJ/labelowner): Juan's and Derrick's DJ group Deep Space were really innovative. The sound system was tight. But a special thing was when Juan brought in his 909 and played drum programs. For example he played the "No UFO's" program before it was out and other Model 500 things. The 909 was their secret weapon!
Kevin Saunderson: We all had the same music-- stuff like Kraftwerk, B-52s, New Order, Depeche Mode, Alexander Robotnik, some Funkadelic, even some Prince, some disco records, Eddy Grant-- but it wasn't enough to DJ. So Juan started to use the 909 beats to his DJ set.
Juan Atkins (producer/DJ, aka Model 500, member of Cybotron): Derrick met Frankie Knuckles and Chip-E in Chicago. He sells Frankie Knuckles his 909 and all of these guys started using the 909 in their mixes and then started making records with them.
Mike Grant: They had 808s in Chicago but for some reasons they didn't have any 909s.
Eddie Fowlkes: Derrick was my roommate at the time. At one point Derrick stopped working so I was the only one to pay my half of the rent. One day I get home and Juan was there. I was tired and wanted to get to sleep. Then Juan wakes me up and says: "Fowlkes, Fowlkes! You know what this mother****er did? Derrick went and gave away the ****ing sound! He couldn't pay his rent and sold his 909 to Frankie Knuckles in Chicago!" Juan was very protective of his sound and Derrick didn't understand this. That's how the 909 sound came to Chicago. This is how the sound between Detroit and Chicago merged.
Tyree Cooper: Frankie Knuckles allowed Chip E to borrow the 909, and he used it to make "Like This".
Eddie Fowlkes: And the 909 still had Juan's beats on it which he used to teach Derrick how to program.
HOT MIX FIVE
Tyree Cooper: [Chicago's] WBMX started in 1981. And this show Hot Mix Five was on air right from the beginning. The station held a competition to find the best DJs in the city. The Hot Mix Five DJ team was Ralph Rosario, Mickey "Mixin" Oliver, Scott "Smokin" Seals, Kenny "Jammin" Jason, and the best of them all: Farley "Jackmaster" Funk.
Eddie Fowlkes: In 81 I went to college in Kalamazoo which was two hours away from Detroit and two hours away from Chicago. Some days we went to a friend who had a good receiver and could pick up the stations from Chicago, so we could listen to the lunch mix show on WBMX. That kept me up on some great music!
Tyree Cooper: Everywhere you went-- for at least three or four years-- WBMX was all you heard no matter where you went.
Juan Atkins: When you look at the radio stations in Chicago and their mix shows they just ignored everything else that went on in the rest of the country. They were doing their disco thing. We went to Chicago sometimes, just to listen to the radio and listen to the mix shows.
Mike Grant: I first heard about Chicago house about 84 through WBMX tapes that Eddie Fowlkes had. He said: "This is bad! It's some Chicago DJs..." It was a mix of disco and Philly stuff like "Let No Man Put Us Under" and the imported dance music of the day and some of the pioneering records of house music like Jesse Saunders' "On & On".
Some people from Detroit just went there to hang out. Eventually we discovered the record shops like Importes Etc. and Barneys where we went record shopping. There was this one guy from Detroit who would book a hotel room in Chicago, hook up a video recorder to a stereo radio, and then record these six-hour tapes from the DJ shows on the radio and make cassette tapes out of them.
Eddie Fowlkes: The Chicago DJs had more structure and were cutting more than the Detroit DJs. The Detroit DJs like Juan and Derrick were more into mixing and blending. The smoother you are the better you are. The Chicago DJs had a different beat and a different vocal every eight bars.
Mike Grant: You had a variety of DJs; they each touched on different things, but they were connected. Ralph Rosario touched more on the Latin, Farley was more funky, and so on.
Kevin Saunderson: Me and Derrick used to go to Chicago almost every weekend just to listen to the radio like WBMX and shows like "Hot Mix 5" and the "Super Mix 6". Going to Chicago was a four-hour-drive and during the last two hours you could already here the Chicago radio stations. Derrick knew all these people like Farley "Jackmaster" Funk and Frankie Knuckles and it had a big influence too. I went to [clubs like] Powerplant and the Musicbox. Derrick would take Juan's music and give it to DJs, distributors, and record stores.
Eddie Fowlkes: I didn't have a car so I always asked cats who were driving to Chicago to buy some records for me because at that time Chicago had the best record shops.
Mike Grant: At that time Derrick wasn't living in Chicago any more. He didn't have a car so he always needed someone to drive him to Chicago. We would then go to shops like Importes Etc sell them the early Model 500 and Transmat records and buy some others for us, then we would go to Derrick's mother to grab something to eat, and then we drove home again. I remember one time going to Chicago with Derrick in the middle of the day. WBMX also had a Hot Lunch Mix on at around noon. I had my radio recorder in the car so that we could record that show on tape.
Juan Atkins: DJs like Farley played these records so much. In Detroit, it was played mainly in clubs because there was no radio.
Kevin Saunderson: Chicago was easy. You just gave your stuff to all the Hot Mix people and they played them. Every DJ played our records.
Mike Grant: Chicago DJs were very supportive of our records. They considered it a different brand of House but that's cool.
Tyree Cooper: For us Model 500s "No UFO's" was a house record. It sounded different but for us it was still house.
Kevin Saunderson: One day I was just listenening to the radio and suddenly I heard this crazy stuff on the radio and that was Derrick. When he returned from Chicago he had a radio show called "Street Beat. On this radio show he was playing a lot of Chicago house music. He played stuff like Chip-E and Jesse Saunders. What happened is Derrick got more time on the radio and what he did was he formed a group where every DJ played for half an hour. We were trying to copy Chicago with WBMX. And that was me, Derrick, Mike Grant, Juan, and Eddie Fowlkes.
Mike Grant: At one point Derrick approached a radio station-- WJLB-- to do a show similar to Hot Mix 5 in Detroit. That was in August 85. There would be four or five DJs mixing dance music at night. At first we would record our sets. I recorded mine in my mother's living room. That was the first station to introduce techno. We played a lot of the early Model 500 stuff. I also took my 909, programmed some beats, and had some friends brother rap to it.
Kevin Saunderson: At the time Jeff Mills, who was known as The Wizard back then, had a show as well. He was scratching and playing records very fast so he became the innovator. It was a like a big battle going on between the two shows. He didn't really play our records. And if he did he played them only for about 40 seconds.
Eddie Fowlkes: Derrick would invite me or Juan on the show. But the show was mostly Derrick's thing. You could hear some good music on the show but The Wizard was the shit. Jeff Mills show was far more popular. He did all this scratching and played a new record every 30 seconds. That's what started booty music in Detroit in my opinion.
Mike Grant: The two shows were competing but eventually the station that "Street Beat" was on lost its frequency.
Some DJs in Detroit even picked up this Chicago thing of having middle names. In Chicago you had names like Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, or Scott "Smoking" Sills, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, or Steve "Silk" Hurley. There was always this middle name. In Detroit you had Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes, Art "Pumpin" Payne, Keith "Mixin" Martin. But I just didn't want to do it.
Eddie Fowlkes: I came up with that middle name when I was about to put out my first record "Goodybe Kiss". Juan asked me about the name and I realized that I hadn't thought about it. So I came up with "Flashin" because all the Chicago DJs had a middle name that started with the same letter as their last name as well.
HOUSE OR TECHNO?
Juan Atkins: It has always been techno music. I always called the music I was making techno music.
Kevin Saunderson: We called it "techno" because of Juan. He was the main influence because he called his music "techno". [sings] "Uuuh, Techno City..."
Eddie Fowlkes: For me my first record was more of a house record even though it was hard. But back then you didn't think too much about how to call it. When Neil Rushton put this compilation together (Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit) Derrick wanted to call it "The Best of Detroit House". But then Juan said: "You can all call your music house but what I do is techno music.
Juan Atkins: See, that was because Derrick was going to Chicago and they tried to call our music the house sound of Detroit. In Chicago, you had the Jesse Saunders stuff and the Jamie Principle stuff and titles like "acid house" or something like that. But that was Techno! They just didn't call it that because it would give Detroit too much influence.
Mike Grant: Detroit had this more funky edge while Chicago was more disco. In Detroit you had Mojo [legendary Detroit radio DJ Electrifiyin' Mojo] on the radio who played Jimi Hendrix, the Gap Band, Parliament/Funkaldelic, and a lot of the European things, whereas folks in Chicago were more focused on disco. To me that stuff out of Detroit was very different from the Chicago sound. It's right more synthesizer-based whereas house music was more drum machine-based. You can hear that difference even right back to Cybotron.
Juan Atkins: When you listen to Chicago recods, a lot of them sounded like Philly International records. They were always like the Philly International disco sound. Going "ks-ks-ks-ks..." you know! That's the whole difference. In Detroit we don't have any real reference point. All the Detroit stuff was pure futuristic. The only thing that we really had in common was the form.
Eddie Fowlkes: The main difference between the two cities was that Chicago was more disco while Detroit was more funk. You know Amp Fiddler? The way he dresses, the way his hair is that's the Detroit funk style.
Kevin Saunderson: I started making music simply because I needed more tracks to DJ. Juan had a stronger vision: He wanted to create this new technological, electronic music, this "techno". I always loved club music. I loved the Paradise Garage in New York and I loved deep music. I like disco and I like vocals. Juan and Derrick were more inspired by European music. But I came from New York, I was inspired more from disco. The European music was important because it introduced this new technology to us. That you can make your own records with these machines...
Juan Atkins: There was definetely competition between the Chicago and the Detroit DJs. We all wanted to be famous. But we were also friends, Tyree Cooper and all of these guys. Farley was a good friend. We went to Farley in Chicago just to hang out and they came to Detroit.
Mike Grant: Chicago DJs came to Detroit to play. There were Hot Mix Five parties. They had five sets of decks on stage. Everybody would do their thing and then at one point one DJs would start his tricks and then move it to the next DJ onto the last DJ. That was sweet.
Kevin Saunderson: That's all we knew, Detroit and Chicago. And Chicago was definitely the market to sell records. We heard Juan's records on the radio and in mix shows. After that Derrick followed with "Let's Go" and his Transmat label. He took some equipment from Juan's studio. You know, Juan helped us all. I didn't know how to make a record. Juan came in and showed me how to make those 8-tracks or 16-tracks or whatever. I made my first track in 198,4 but it was 1985 when it first came out on Metroplex.
Then I realized: "I can do that. I want to have my record back because I want to put it out on my own." So Juan put some records out then I took it back and I remixed it. It was a great time and a great experience It was very important and significant. We spend the time like a team. Derrick made a hot record so I wanted to make a hot one. Eddie made a hot record I made a hot record. So it was competitive and inspiring at the same time.
In 1987, the whole thing developed into a new direction. Derrick had success with his records like "Nude Photo". That made more people interested in Detroit. Now you got "Nude Photo", you got "Goodbye Kiss", you got "Triangle of Love", and you got "Groovin' Without Doubt". All these records were coming out of Detroit. So we sold these to the distributors to export them overseas. Suddenly they became an interest in London. People there were already interested in Chicago because of all these "Jack" tracks. Then Derrick met the British record label owner Neil Rushton who had already put together some Chicago compilations and then did the Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit in 1988. So Derrick was the bridge to Europe.
Mike Grant: I went to the army in December 85 for three years. After the army I went to live and go to school in Chicago. My decision to go to Chicago was heavily influenced by the fact that there was good music. But unfortunately things had changed in the meantime. WBMX went off air and the records weren't all that interesting any longer. The balance had shifted and Detroit had become more relevant.
