Ok – I am a huge fan of Kirk DeGiorgio as well, and a self-professed “head” (and probably a snob at times too) – but why should “people” give a shit about him any more than Booka Shade, or Dave Matthews? I’d like to hear your reasoning here – is it political? cultural? What defines ‘importance’ for you? It seems to me that everything you’re railing against comes down to taste, so let’s just call it what it is and not judge others for what they choose to find important or interesting.

As far as representing local detroit, discouraging people from attending the festival with a review that is bitter and elitist doesn’t seem like the best way to encourage people to check out the locals either, while they’re in detroit. Let the festival be the ‘gateway drug’ . Let these “masses” stumble into an afterparty and hear D-Train, Roy Ayers, or Arthur Russell for the first time. I started digging somewhere – everyone starts somewhere – you can only dig deeper. If you’re unhappy with the way the music is going, I think the best thing you could do would be to plan, book, and promote your own party with music and musicians you respect, to both cater to the heads and educate “the masses”.

I didn’t attend the festival this year precisely because I expected things to be just as you reviewed them to be (i share many of your opinions), but I just don’t see that it will be fruitful in any way to rant elitist about it. I understand it as much as marketing and branding your blog and ‘voice’, but when journalism is all ‘voice’, i’m afraid it’s just one step away from entertainment.

but if i were to substitute red hot chili peppers with dave matthews band in your argument, you get the same dynamic of the mainstream/populism subsuming the local, but only this time it’s a band you (pipecock) like, so would you be okay with it? tastewise, you probably wouldn’t have much of an issue, but in principle, you’re wise enough to know they have little to do with detroit, let alone electronic music.

at this point, electronic music is well established to the point where there’s little mystique or novelty. this is where i think your argument about “all the worldwide Detroit nerds who flew in en masse to get an experience they couldn’t get elsewhere” is still valid, but doesn’t have as much steam as before. we don’t live in those times anymore. anyone, practically anywhere, can get their detroit fix on regular basis. the question is, why come to detroit, the geographic center of a bigass country when you know wilhite or theo is coming to your town next month?

i’ve never been to detroit, and part of the reason is because this weekend i’ll be seeing huckaby and rick wade here in my town. if i were to go to detroit, it would be because it’s a fascinating city from an architectural and urban perspective with a shitload of unique record stores, and i’ve never rollerskated to moodymann or went to afterparties with such ridiculous lineups. you’re not going to get these things anywhere else.

i think we can push the argument without resorting to insults like “dumbing things down to sell tickets to morons”. that’s pretentious, and to me, isn’t in the spirit of open-mindedness that’s essential to this type of music.

it seems to me where your argument is at its best is how we can support detroit’s music infrastructure, whether that’s putting the local artists front and center (if that’s ghostly, derrick may, carl craig – whoever who makes a contributions to the region, regardless of who you or i think is good or sucks), getting people with special products (records) face-to-face with customers, and ensuring local events won’t get shut down, instead of promoting mindless tourism and cheap, loud (maybe not so this year) thrills.

anyways, keep fighting the good fight.

what it boils down to for me is this: do i REALLY want to go to a festival where a large number of people think that Booka Shade is something to give a shit about? the answer to that is “not really”! it used to be that that kind of music was in the minority, and the kind of people who dug it were in the minority. if you don’t want to call it “taste” that’s fine, but i don’t know what else you can call it.