Quote Originally Posted by JamieBall View Post
1. "I couldn't play any instruments and I'm not remotely musical so I make dance music" - LOL

2.I've watched people who used to be little kids on the "scene" rise to great heights by FOLLOWING THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Don't rock the boat, now, just do like everyone else and you'll be fine... PFFFFFT I just don't want any part of this, it's not what techno is about. **** - it's not even what MUSIC is about, to be brutally honest.

3.A lot of the 'kids' these days missed the glory days and merely have recent stuff as their yardstick - I honestly pity such people, they've really missed something good.
(Numbered a couple of main reference points because by Christ it's a lot to get through, haha)

1. When you look at official bios of a lot of DJs, you'd be amazed how many artists make a big deal of their classical music training, as if that makes them all the more qualified to produce essentially monotempo, monorhythmic and monotonous disco music. Furthermore, the same people ALWAYS converted to electronic music when(without exception!) they heard Gary Numan, and Kraftwerk. There's an extraordinary amount of DJs with that EXACT life story. Either they're all lying(or are at the same agency), or it explains why none of them do anything that's worth mentioning. So I dunno if the fact that these guys see some sort of link with being a clasically trained cellist and techno, or that they ALL worship the same two pop music entities(I'm assuming they read the early detroit guys were into them) has anything to do with their mediocrity.

2. That's partly the fate of all musical movements, and partly the nature of the hierarchy within a scene like techno, where a DJ is the link between your product and the audience: If it's difficult for him to use, or it doesn't get an instant crowd response, then he's not likely to use it again. As a consequence, the prevalent production style in the scene ends up pandering to whatever gets the biggest and most immediate feedback from the people dancing, as it's the easiest(and most flawed) measure of quality.

3. Again it's partly the way with musical history, although it's amazing that even with all this immediate access to information on the net, that people today seem to know less about music than they did maybe 20/30/40 years ago. The Beatles, the biggest pop band in the world in their day, were pretty into avant garde and various bits of asian music and whatnot, to the point where they applied some of the ideas from there into their own pop music. Pick a random 'experimental dark hard techno(lol)' producer of today and they probably couldn't tell you The Beatles' first names.

As for the rest of it, I've already been working on keeping any actual discussions about techno off this forum lately. No offence to anyone here and I'll sound like a "pretentious chin stroking wanker" for saying it, but I don't see enough discussion here. It's almost as if people think that to discuss and disagree with someone is arguing, arguing is fighting, therefore discussion is some kind of violent behaviour. And that to me is part of the problem Jamie's talking about as well: the unwillingness to risk looking stupid or look like someone who just likes a fight, by saying something that's not generally accepted as gospel. Or worse, the unwillingness to risk being accused of damaging the scene. THAT is damaging the scene.