To MassPlanck and Dirty Bass:

I agree with you in most of your collective arguments.

I hate to bring macroeconomics into something like this, but I have to say that the global economy and in particular, the United States' economy, is putting a serious strain on the development, creation, and most importantly the distribution of new quality music (in general...not just techno) in, from my experience, the USA and probably Europe and South America. To me its a rather simple concept: Less people employed = less expendable income = less music purchases. Now, the idea here is not to say that we are supposed to be selling thousands of releases and makes tons of money because we all know that's not going to happen. What am I saying is that yes, there are still people that have expendable income for non-necessities such as new music, but those people typically are not in the cities (side note: I avoid making a hasty generalization here by using the word 'typically'). And typically if you don't live in the cities or at least around them, experimental [non-mainstream] music is not promoted or readily avaiable (internet is an exception, but is not nearly as effective as live acts or record stores). Moreover, the folks that are in the cities that may even be interested go out less and spend less on music; furthermore, clubs are closing, legislation is limiting (nationwide!), and music is limited mainly to what already "works" in some clubowners' eyes. Where I live especially, and on the West Coast we still have Nigel Richards playing 4 times a year. NIGEL RICHARDS! No offense, but it gets old after a while. But Nigel Richards is an example of what "works" at these clubs because they are guaranteed to make at least the money back on the bar. In conjunction with this point, promoters are less and less (including myself) involved in the club/party process because the risk is not worth or even equalling the reward. Many counter this with corporate sponsorships for some events, but those are few and far between because it can reflect bad on the company if say someone dies from an overdoes at the event...again, from the company's standpoint the risk is not worth the reward.

***I'm not attempting to turn this thread into a "What's wrong with the US scene" thread".***

So how do we fix this? I say we go back to [my] punk/hardcore roots and do it hescher-style (hescher is West Coast slang for "rough") with piling in a van and driving (yes, driving) from gig to gig passing out CDs, promos, or whatever wherever you stop. Even if you don't have a tour full of gigs, you have to start somewhere. Think of an underground rock band that tours and you'll get a better idea of what I mean. Plus, bring along your laptop (yes, i favor the laptop over a sh!tload of hardware) or two crates of records, some clothes and a lot of ramen noodles.

I want to also clarify that I DO believe there is quality music out there now. Not like techno needs some rebirth into the music world because it is already happening...People will need to soon adapt. Vinyl will always be there, but the dj won't...