I’ve been lazy about doing basically anything for the past week, lazy enough that I almost feel bad about it. The doctor checked out my knee the other day, he said I likely have a slightly torn meniscus that shouldn’t need operated on unless it gives me great pain and irritation, which it hasn’t for two weeks now. I also went to Ohio to retreive my father who was having some health problems of his own on Monday, I think driving 10 hours in one day might be one source of my lack of motivation.
Moving on, a couple fun things have popped up online this week. First off, our boys Juju & Jordash have a new mix up over at Trackwerk that continues their widly abstracted vision of dance music. No wonder these guys make some of the most interesting music out there right now, with music like this influencing them it all makes sense! And on that page you will find a link to the new mix by Scott of Trackwerk fame, which is also very nice (and coincidentally features the same Perception joint I used on my mix for Trackwerk! Even more coincidentally he uses the track next to last in his mix, the same place I used it in mine. And this is a random four year old record that we both put on mixes at the same time! Wild….).
Reviews of DEMF seem to be pretty sparse (still nothing on RA?!?! They only had like 25 people there to cover it!), but I found one by Greg Scruggs over at Spannered that actually starts to deal with some of the issues that are important in defining the meaning of the festival. Sure, it reads a bit like it was written by the 313 n00b that he is and the tone can be a bit dry for my taste, but it is interesting to see someone out there dissecting the city’s relationship with the music that comes from within it and with the festival itself. I feel like his trip would have been enhanced by hitting a few more of the afterparties attended by black Detroiters instead of the typical Ghostly/M_nus joints that everyone covers year in and year out, as well as trying to take in some of the real downtown culture outside of the festival. There is always next year though, and at least he seems more aware of the workings of Detroit than most and how that relates to Detroit’s music.
Over at Test, Richard Brophy has a post about the pressures on dance music critics by PR people to always give positive reviews. It has spawned a nice discussion about the different ways that dance music criticism is limited by forces inside and out, which is probably the reason that dance journalism is so shit in the first place.
I have a couple interviews and things on the horizon with some good people, hopefully I will be able to bang one of those out this weekend!
2 Comments
he he it is a bit freaky that perception track being on both mixes in the same point of the mix (brilliant track though).
Kelley Polar – Rosenband was in my mix thanks to your mix for tape.
Thanks again for your mix btw – tis great, a few gems to track down.
First I wanna tell you that your blog is the bomb. Loved your review of DEMF, doing it (almost.. lol) right. I live here.. and have some of the feelings you have. No respect. At all…. I couldn’t afford the festival (worst economy and highest unemployement rate in the nation is no joke – take it from me 🙁 )… but I could afford 5 bucks at the door and a beer for me and my girl at the Strickly House Detroit party that Shake spun! 🙂 Grabbed some coney’s afterwords and that was enough to make me happy for the weekend. 🙂 Keep up the good work homie.