If you look on the “Categories” sidebar, you’ll see “DEMF 08″, “DEMF 09″, and “DEMF 10″. Before those years when I covered DEMF for this blog, I attended every year from 03 on. Barring a drastic change in how the festival operates, that will be it for me moving into the future. I will still be going to Detroit this weekend: I’ll be supporting parties with Detroit deejays playing at them, I’ll be eating food at Detroit restaurants, I’ll be supporting Detroit record stores, I’ll be picking up freshly pressed records from a Detroit record pressing plant, and I will in general be giving my money to businesses and people in Detroit. But not Paxahau.

My beef with these guys is pretty long-standing at this point. I’m not going to rehash every single qualm I’ve had with their running of the festival over the years, but the last straws were last year when stagehands were prepping shit DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the Moritz Von Oswald Trio during their set and when the Detroit artists were once again relegated to the underground stage where sound and air quality are just not up to par. I’ve had enough.

There has been an argument that I’ve heard some people make for many years, the gist of it being that the festival is NOT about Detroit music, that it is only an electronic music festival taking place there. Looking back at the lineups from the jump-off through to 2005 or so, I couldn’t agree with that assessment. If you take into account the lineups from 06-11, I now wholeheartedly AGREE with that point of view. I am not interested in going to some generic music festival just because it is in Detroit. Especially when the results are more like a crappy rave than anything else! I loved the festival because it used to be a celebration of Detroit music and culture. It has ceased being that, and I have spent more time sitting around being irritated at the low quality of the music and the hassle of leaving and re-entering if I want to avoid paying crazy money for crappy festival food.

My mind used to be blown regularly at the festival; that experience has been declining precipitously every year. It’s not just me, either. My man Matt Cohen has a few words about his experiences photographing (for RA, XLR8R, and here!) and attending the festival that you can read here. Less and less of my people from all over the world have been attending the festival, including the dwindling Pittsburgh crew. It’s sad to see it all go downhill like this, but that’s what happens when the people in charge of the festival are more interested in being cool promoter guys than in the legacy of Detroit’s music. Carl Craig’s continuing association with them is yet another blemish on his already pockmarked recent track record. I hope that that money is awesome for all involved.

I do truly hope that this weekend remains a time when techno and house people worldwide can get together in the Midwest and hang out, even if it is primarily at afterparties instead of the festival itself. I can’t even imagine how much shit has come into being as a direct result of the connections made on Memorial Day weekend every year. I know it has been wildly helpful for me and many of my friends who deejay, play live, own labels, put out music, etc. Having this die off would be even worse than the demise of the festival itself!

Many people have been asking me which afterparties I will be attending this year. The only one I am 100% sold on thus far is Deep Detroit Vol. 3, this year’s edition of Kai Alce’s party that has been one of the highlights of the previous two years. This party has had the best vibe, crowd, and music, and with Omar-S and Brett Dancer holding it down with Kai this year there should be no decline in quality! Sadly it appears there will be no Soul Skate this year, I guess that will have to wait till next time.

I haven’t really done much research into other parties just yet, I’ll see what flyers I find on Friday and talk to my people up there to see what’s really happening before deciding. If you hit me up via email or txt message, I will let you know what I’m getting into on any given night! I’ll try to report back here each day if I can with plenty of pictures of whatever I get into in Detroit during the day as well as the parties at night. Definitely check my Twitter page for the real-time business!

Keep an eye out for the Noleian Reusse record on Love What You Feel in the shops, and we’ll also have copies if you need to pick one up. We may also have some other Pittsburgh Track Authority related goodies, as well as other projects we’ve been working on that will remain on the DL for now, so if you see me, ask!

Not sure how I’ve not gotten around to make a post about my little holiday over to the States for DEMF, but I thought I’d say a few things about it now.

Actually, I can pretty much skip the festival as I wrote up a review of it over on the Bodytonic site which you can read here. I pretty much agree with what Tom said. Having not been there before and not knowing how it was originally laid out, I didn’t mind the set ups at the Beatport and Red Bull stages, though there is no doubt that the Underground stage was the worst abomination of a “stage” I’ve ever come across at any festival. I’m flabbergasted that Paxahau could’ve possibly thought that it was ever going to work. It was just plain ignorant to throw many Detroit artists down there. It’s also depressing to see such a low turn out from the local black populace at the festival but I kind of expected that as I’d heard it had gone that way since the festival became ticketed and moved away from focusing on the local artists. Still, it was good to see that they were representing at the after parties, which musically were the highlights of the weekend. I’ve got to back Tom (and Detrotio) up again in agreeing that the set by Jeff Mills was something else. An unforgettable experience, seeing him play such a stunning set on home turf.

One of the highlights of the whole weekend though was before we even got to check out any music! After grabbing some dinner on arrival we took an hour or two to drive around the city. One hears so many stories about what Detroit is like that it was a fascinating eye opener to witness it first hand. There is no real point in trying to dress up or glamourise down town and the surrounding areas – we didn’t go out to the suburbs – it is a city that has seen better days. There are remnants everywhere of a once thriving city, but much of that is now gone, in it’s place abandoned office blocks, burnt out houses and small business long since closed up. Though the typical American chains have not replaced these either, they are few and far between too, many of them having pulled out of the city limits. This does not mean that the city has been abandoned by the people, there was life on many of the streets we drove down or passed by, and some houses one would think to be not inhabited had lights on or people sitting on the porches.

One can’t ignore that it was a city designed for cars. The roads are wider than in many other cities, and it is a sprawl – you won’t be walking to many places – but it’s also noticeable that the roads aren’t particularly busy, another reflection of what happened to the city when the motor industry pulled out of it. We did come across some – well one really – affluent areas but they were not isolated from the more run-down areas, instead they were back to back with each other. The lack of regeneration in the city is startling, and I really don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before.

Part of The Heidelberg Project, in which a series of abandoned houses in Detroit are given a new lease of life

Really, what I’m saying here is not hugely informative for people who’ve either been to the city or read up on it but, most interestingly, all of what I’ve mentioned is truly channeled through into the music of Detroit. I’ve been listening to music from the city for 10 years now and more so than ever I’ve a real understanding why the music of the city sounds the way it does. You can see it everywhere you look. It’s stark, somewhat melancholic but not entirely desolate. I also visited Chicago when I was over, and I never really got the same feeling from traveling around the city like I did in Detroit. Now, they are two very different cities and Chicago seems to be a great city but the idea that I could feel why Detroit music sounds like it does from just driving around was something one didn’t get in Chicago. Actually, I can’t think of any city I’ve been to where I felt like this and it will certainly be one of the lasting memories of my trip that will stay with me forever.

Hitting up some parties was also a lot of fun and, again, different to what I’d experienced before. On the Friday night at Rick Wilhite’s party it was great after so many years clubbing to come across a new experience and environment. I’m far more accustomed to being in a club with gangs of young drugged up kids and not a crowd of such mixed age and also one that is predominately black. Growing up and living most of my life in Ireland, one doesn’t be in many situations where one is the minority and while not feeling uncomfortable in the club it was that little bit different and it was also a lot of fun! I met and chatted to a fair few friendly and cool folk and being a dancefloor with such expressive dancers is always gonna be a buzz. I quickly realised maybe I just don’t have much of an array of funky moves at all.

From a purely fanboy perspective there was a certain surreal feel to the parties and festival with the who’s who of Detroit music strolling around. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, why wouldn’t they be hanging out at the parties, but it’s not every day that you see Mike Huckaby, Theo Parrish, Dj Bone, Eddie Fowlkes, Omar S and many, many others strolling around chatting, drinking and having the odd shimmy.

There was also records to be bought and while there might not have been a vast amount of brand new Detroit wax on offer I still came back with a rather large bag (or two) of records. From little known Detroit labels to old disco, house, techno and italo I could have spent far more time (and money!) in the shops we hit up, and it’s a little bit depressing to return to a county where 2nd hand vinyl is so thin on the ground. I go through the 2nd hand sections in Dublin in a matter of minutes while I wonder just how many gems I managed to miss out in just because I didn’t have enough time to listen to the racks and racks placed in front of me in Detroit, and to a lesser extent due to time restraints, Chicago. And again the fanboy in me went in to overdrive when Scott Grooves walked into Memories and Melodies with his brand new mix cds.

As posted a couple of weeks ago I did a small guest slot on Nic Keane’s Box Deluxe show on Power FM, where I waffled a little (man, do I not like talking on the radio!) and played a bunch of records i’d bought over there – many old, some new, some little known etc – which I was gonna link on this post but the show hasn’t been archived yet, but I thought I’d get this post up now, so I can be a little bit relevant, what with the trip being over a month ago now.

Finally i’d like to give a big shout out to everyone I met, none of whom I’d ever met in “real life” before, who drove me round to parties and record shops, let me crash in their motel room, brought me to White Castle (my innards will never be the same again) and generally showed me a great fucking time; Tom, Kelly, Frank, Adam, Kent, Jwan, Matt Cohen, Andy, Jonathan, partyboy Trevor, Wojciech (pity our meet up was so fleeting) and anyone else I bumped into and had a chat to along the way. Might see yis all again next year…

DEMF wasn’t as happening of a weekend for me as it was for my ISM compatriots. However, I did catch most of Derrick May’s closing set at the main stage, and, most importantly, I was there to witness an excellent Wizard-style performance by Jeff Mills at the Mixworks party–replete with self-made edits, multi-layered blends, and really funky 909 programming.

The Wizard played many tracks that sounded like his own unreleased material, similar in flavor to the compositions on One Man Spaceship or Contact Special albums.  From the eerie, space static ambient intro to the energetic 909 programming, each track flowed nicely into the next.   Mills managed to present a selection of hard as nails techno (I heard a track that featured somewhere in the middle of the Live at the Liquid Room mix), to cerebral, original minimal techno of Rob Hood’s Minus, to the fast, abstract dub of Basic Channel’s Octagon, and Enforcement.

Instead of playing the expected peak time anthem of his own The Bells, Mills chose instead to play a track off of his early Tresor release, Late Night.  Surprisingly, most of these originally fast tracks sounded good played at a seemingly much slower speed than what would be expected from a serious techno set.

Mills’s set wasn’t pure nostalgia and classics, however.  A loop of a Sleeparchive track towards the end sounded like a jazzy electronic trumpet solo, and a layer of a Norman Nodge track (Jeff popped the tone arm after an annoying skip in the middle of this only to have the track land right back on beat) sounded great blended with a recent-sounding production circa The Good Robot.

DEMF weekend is such a crazy time that writing about it is really becoming almost impossible. Every year it seems like more and more of my time is consumed to the point that I can’t even remember what the hell I spent the weekend doing. I’m not the kind of person who wants to take notes or Twitter everything in order to remember, and I don’t take photographs either so that leaves me with just my memory to try to sort through everything. So here goes my attempt to make it all make sense. As usual I will leave most of the non-music related stuff out of the recap, but much time was spent with my crew doing crazy shit and eating breakfast at the Clique.

Friday

Since we arrived in town early on Thursday, we had a head start on record shopping on Friday afternoon. The main problem that we would come across: there were almost no new records in any of the shops. Rick Wilhite’s store Vibes closed down at the end of last year, Submerge is no longer selling records out of their building, and I guess the new vinyl market in Detroit is being hit especially hard along with the rest of the economic problems they have going on. There didn’t seem to be many other out-of-town people looking for vinyl either. Perhaps the festival’s shift towards mnml has meant the crate diggers are not coming through? I know there definitely wasn’t even close to the usual amount of records that Detroit producers get out in time for the festival. Melodies and Memories, Record Time, and Detroit Threads all served up some decent older stuff along with a few newer joints, but my haul definitely didn’t compare favorably to that of past years.

Party at Premium on Friday night

Friday night, I sent out some text messages to see what was going down for a good party to hit. Jerome from Still Music hit me back about something at Premium with Glenn Underground and Karizma, so we went to check that out. It was kind of like the Deep House All-Stars up in there, with nearly every Detroit house producer of note as well as a bunch of Chicago heads and some NYC cats as well all in the house. We saw Lola and Eman from New York, followed by a short live vocal set by Stephanie Cooke before Karizma came on. He was playing some of his own choppy deep house, mixed up very nicely but with too heavy a hand on the EFX. This was a problem that Glenn Underground also had, though his set ended a little more fun than it started with some sweet soulful disco. An excellent way to kick off the weekend.

Saturday

Since we were out late on Friday night, I decided early that I would unfortunately miss Liz Copeland’s set at noon. The aim was to get there in time for the Beatdown set at 4:30, but that was the beginning of possibly the worst DEMF stage experience I’ve ever had. After waiting in line for our Will Call tickets, and then waiting in line to have our bags searched, we finally rolled into the festival around 5:00. Upon looking through the little guide, I came to the realisation that the Made In Detroit stage was in the underground. I have spent less time at the underground stage over the years than any other, due to the fact that there is no good place to dance, sit and chill, or hear the music since the concrete walls and ceilings reflect all the sound waves like crazy. This year was even worse than previous years. I couldn’t hear anything down there except wildly resonating bass that drowned out everything else. And they put the stage up in the air, which was possibly the most asinine way they could have decided to set it up. I would have taken a picture if I wasn’t so angry and disappointed. The setup and sound was so awful that the only time I spent down there was the 5 minutes when we arrived. Being at that stage was actually more painful than not seeing the artists playing, since it would only make me more angry to hear good shit being ruined. Possibly the most annoying part of this setup is that they had STOPPED using the underground in recent years! Why did they suddenly decide that it was time to bring it back? And why did they stick nearly every Detroit artist that I wanted to see down there??!?!?! Because I refused to subject myself to that bullshit, I missed out on the Beatdown guys, Rick Wade, Mike Huckaby, Jay Denham, Octave One, and more. To say that this setup was an insult to the artists booked for it, and specifically the Detroit artists is an understatement.

Prior to this year’s festival, the best thing I could say about Paxahau was that their stage setups, sound systems, and organization were top notch. Now, I’m not sure I can even say that. In addition to the catastrophe that was the underground stage, they altered the Red Bull stage and the Beatport tent setups to be less efficient. The Red Bull stage was usually at the end of the long patio over by the water, leaving a huge dancefloor area that worked well with the awesome soundsystem. This year, they put it along the water side lengthwise, which wasted an insane amount of room and created annoying crowd buildups in the middle that wasted EVEN MORE space. Was it worth it just to have the water behind the artists? I certainly don’t think so. The Beatport tent faced a smiliar fate, with the stage situated perpendicular to how it usually is. This meant that if you couldn’t cram yourself into the super-small space this left under the tent, you were forced to either stand so far off to the side that you couldnt really hear or see well, or you had to stand on a grassy hillside that was uneven and annoying for standing much less dancing. I don’t know why they decided to change all these things, as last year’s festival probably set the bar for good sound, and proper set ups. Thankfully word leaked out on Friday that Carl Craig is going to be the artistic director for the festival next year. Hopefully with his creative vision, Paxahau can concentrate on the logistical shit necessary to make the stages work better and we can have the best of both worlds.

Back to the music…

Since I couldn’t stay in the underground, we rolled over to catch the last half of Kevin Reynolds’ set which was just as deep and beautiful as you can imagine. Malik Alston was on vocals, though it seemed like there were some technical issues there at times, and a dope horn player was playing through some heavy reverb to add some more live touches to it. I only wish I could have made it in time for his whole set! After Kevin, Ryan Elliot came on and I could tolerate exactly 5 minutes of him before we decided to check out Francois K. He started off weakly, though inoffensively, with some boring “techno” that wasn’t really doing much for me but it wasn’t scaring me off either. That only lasted about five records before some of the most atrocious nonsense came through the speakers. I’m not even sure what genre I would call what he was playing, since I just don’t listen to music that sounds like that. But it was bad. Very bad. At this point I was pissed off enough that I just left the festival, having spend less than two hours there. This was by far the worst day of the festival in the seven years I have gone.

One positive aspect of the early departure was the ability to go rest and eat before the Music Institute party that night. We showed up around 11:50 to see Andrés tearing it up to a crowd of no more than 15 people. This was the first time I’ve seen him play, and he was awesome: 80′s disco, some of his own productions, and some hiphop all blended and cut to perfection. I was disappointed that he was done by 12:30, still with almost no one in the crowd, and I began to worry that nobody was going to show up. Chez Damier came on after Andrés, dropping lots of deep house from the 90′s and 00′s, along with some disco edits. Around 1:00, the place suddenly filled up and the whole room was dancing! He banged out some serious classics like the Krivit edit of Lenny Williams “You Got Me Running”, Kerri Chandler’s “Climax 1″, and others, with the appropriate hooting, hollering, and whistling from the crowd. Chez’s dope selection and seamless mixing created quite a nice party vibe up in there. I really wanted to stay for Kai Alcé’s set, but we rolled out around 3am since there was no sign that he would be going on soon and we needed to conserve energy.

Sunday

The Ghetto Tech showcase

Sunday kicked off with a little more record shopping that prohibited me from catching the Minx set that I had been wanting to check out. I made it just in time to see the last few disco records that Starski & Clutch were playing on the river stage before Sluggo took over. He played a really nice set of banging juke tracks old and new, very Chicago compared to Godfather’s banging electro style. Both killed it, especially on that sound system and despite the ridiculous stage setup. The ghetto tech showcase is always a highlight, this year I had to buy a Data Bass t-shirt to show some love to those guys. I really love what they do! Unfortunately I had to dip out before Milton came on so i could catch Osunlade over at the main stage.

Osunlade’s set was one of the highlights of the festival itself, as he actually played appropriate music for his timeslot and stage. The deepest house I heard all weekend created a really nice laid back feeling around the main stage bowl, building slowly but surely to his last record, Erro’s “Change For Me” which was irritatingly cut off for the beginning of the Innervisions Live set. As far as modern European techno and house producers go, Henrik Schwarz and Dixon are at least okay in my book. Amé I am not quite as down with, but I was willing to give them all a chance. Despite the ridiculousness of seeing 4 goofy white guys dancing behind laptops, they managed to play some pretty nice stuff. My main qualm was that they would play something dope for a few minutes, and then it would kind of meander off into weaker territory. It was also impossible to tell what any of them were doing with their laptops, and I’m just not sure you need four people to make the sound they did. Overall it kept my attention for an hour, but it wasn’t particularly captivating.

Wighnomy Bros.

Dennis Ferrer was up next on the main stage, and since I like some of his production with Jerome Sydenham I figured he would play some good stuff. Man, was I wrong. I’m also not sure what to call the music he was playing, but it sounded to me like cheeseball house music. This is the exact kind of music that turned me off of house music back when I first heard it. After a half hour, I decided that in order to try to get my money’s worth I would go check out the only other act with potential playing at that time, the Wighnomy Bros. I had read bits about these guys playing some records that I like, so I was hoping that they would bring it since they were in Detroit. Turns out that was exactly what they did. They stayed away from the weak mnml type stuff, concentrating on the more classic minimal techno style, not dissimilar from some of the things Dan Bell will play in a set. Throw in a couple jams like “Jack Your Big Booty” and the Schwarz remix of “Think Twice” (and something that sounded like a cover of Mr. Fingers’ “Washing Machine”) and there you have it, another highlight of the festival. It’s amazing what decent selection and actual deejaying skills can get you. Hilariously, they played all vinyl in the Beatport tent, which included them flipping off the “Download Electronic Music” sign behind the stage while holding up the sleeves of the records they were playing for everyone to see. Sadly, they were one of the few acts I saw all weekend playing only vinyl. I have to give the one older guy props for his shorts, that shit had me cracking up.

None of the headliners appealed to me, so we dipped back to the hotel for R&R before heading out to see Jeff Mills. We drove out to the space which was a converted warehouse with minimal accoutrements in the middle of nowhere. This was definitely the perfect location for what was about to go down. The main area had a big fucking soundsystem and a little stage where Buzz Goree was banging out some serious hard techno when we arrived. Around 1:00, Jeff Mills stepped up. I guess because of the lineup that included Traxx, Suburban Knight, and Juan Atkins, I was expecting Mills to bang it out. Instead, he started off with these insanely deeeeep techno records that were all bass and spaced out sounds. He began to twist it up into something more and more abstract, before dropping it into grinding industrial sounding shit. Really, talking about it doesn’t do it much justice. It was a headfuck of a three hour set, I was entranced as he took it up and down, from beatiful to nasty so smoothly that it all made perfect sense. I would be reluctant to call the event a “party”, but it was definitely the highlight of the weekend. The only record I recognized was Robert Hood’s “Minus”, though I am not an expert hard techno trainspotter. Mills was amazing and on point, just as I have always wanted to see him. An awesome, special evening.

Monday

Flying Lotus

Monday’s festival lineup was all about the main stage, with the exception of Flying Lotus over by the waterfront. We got there early enough to catch a bit of Luke Hess, whose set sounded nice enough though way too hard and fast for a dubby set at 2:30pm. The waterfront stage was RAM PACKED for Flying Lotus, and for good reason: his music was awesome. I can’t really say for sure what he was doing with his laptop (this is seriously becoming a problem!), so he might have just been pressing “Play” and then dancing about, but no matter what the music coming out of the speakers was awesome. He gave a shoutout to Soundmurderer (aka Osborne), and you could hear the jungle influence in the tracks he played from his forthcoming album. The bass on his tracks sounded amazing, shaking everything and getting people into that deep head nod that would probably look completely ridiculous to anyone who couldn’t hear the music. Another highlight of the weekend.

When he finished, it was back over to the main stage for the end of Quentin Harris. In keeping with the trend of weak performances from NYC deejays over the weekend, he was playing blandish vocal house mixed pretty poorly. We chilled out in the shade while we waited for Carl Craig. Let’s all hope that Carl puts more effort into choosing a lineup next year than he did on choosing his tracks for this set, or choosing the recent releases on Planet E. His set consisted of many of the C2 knockoff style tracks played back to back, boring me nearly to tears. I should have gone to at least check out Afrika Bambaataa, but it totally slipped my mind.

Los Hermanos Live

Instead I toughed it out until Los Hermanos, who were predictably dope. They were maybe not quite as good as the Galaxy 2 Galaxy live band, but they still banged out some dope latin influenced house and techno that is perfect for the sun going down at the main stage. After them, it was time to hide for two hours while Kevin Saunderson played garbage as he likes to do. Finally, it was time for Derrick May to close out the festivities. I hadn’t stuck around for the closing sets on Saturday or Sunday, so I don’t know how packed they got. Monday night was really not very crazily crowded, especially compared to recent years. May started off slow, before gradually picking it up. The last hour of his set was magnificent, going from disco to the deepest epic melodic techno I’ve heard in quite a long time. One track in particular near the end was had these insane strings that were absolutely amazing. Deciding that this set was a perfect way to close out the festival (and since we hadn’t heard anything about any particularly good afterparties), we stayed in Monday night so we could get an early start on Tuesday.

Derrick May

In Conclusion

I may have spent even less total time at the festival this year than any of the previous Paxa-fests. Even though the lineup this year had more good stuff on it than last year’s, they managed to ruin it with the stupid stage setup in the underground. People need to take a stand about this issue RIGHT NOW while it is fresh in everyone’s minds so that this is not the case next year. Without a much better lineup due to C2 and a guarantee that they will not use the underground, I will not attend the actual festival itself next year. It’s difficult to imagine how one can feel ripped off by paying $50 for three full days of music, but that’s exactly how I felt. I can remember years when the best things I saw over festival weekend were all AT THE FESTIVAL. This year, almost all of the good things were at the afterparties. They really need to step everything up for next year. Announcing Carl as artistic director this early is a good first step. There’s much more to be done, though. The lineup NEEDS to be confirmed and put out there by January 1 so that the international crowd will actually show up. Of course, they’re not gonna come out to see the same Euro deejays they can see anytime in their own towns either. More special Detroit performances need to be added, and they need to be spread around all the stages instead of being kept in the underground ghetto like they were this year. In fact, I would love to see the people who played that stage get invited back next year to play in a tent or other stage with a proper setup. Keep the lineup and timeslots exactly the same, I just want to be able to see those guys kill it properly.

No matter what happens at the festival itself, being in Detroit over Memorial Day weekend is a ton of fucking fun. Driving around, hitting record shops, going out to awesome parties, all of these things make it worthwhile to go to the D regardless of the cost. Detroit is an amazing place with a ton of dope musicians doing fantastic work. All we need is for the festival to focus back on that, and then I will hope this continues another 10 years.

Last Thursday, the test presses of my label’s first release came in the mail. A listen through the whole record on my studio monitors revealed no pressing flaws or any other problems, so I tried it out at my Saturday night gig playing records with Jwan Allen and Noleian Reusse. Everything sounded good, and it was quite fun to finally get to work the tracks in the mix as one of my turntables at home has a short in the RCA cable that I have yet to repair.

Now that the record has passed from an abstract concept into the real world, I have to sell this thing to people. This involves promotion and distribution to get it into the hands of the cats who are interested. I had 100 total white labels pressed, five of which have already gone out to the artist, myself, Jwan, and Noleian. The remaining 95 are going to be picked up at Archer on my way into Detroit on Thursday for DEMF. Some of those copies are going to go to the deejays who might be interested in the kind of music on the record. I’m going to try to get some of those copies into every shop that carries dance vinyl in Detroit, at least one is already definitely gonna take some. Watch my Twitter feed to see in which shops it will be for sale. I will also be selling copies out of my backpack at the festival, along with two new limited white label releases on Pittsburgh’s Technoir Audio. The Technoir boys will also be pimping out my label’s release backpack style along with their own. If you want to know the artist and label name, you’ve got to find one of us or visit the shops who are carrying it to find out! Otherwise you have to wait…..

Sometime this week I will finish the paperwork necessary to get some international distribution. As of right now, it looks like that will go down through Crosstalk out of Chicago. They will send the info and soundclips out to shops and distributors in the US and around the world for pre-orders, this will help to ensure the proper number of records gets pressed up. Crosstalk seems pretty open to working with new underground US labels, so hopefully they will help get this record into shops everywhere so that you can go down to your local shop to pick it up. I had initially planned on trying to sell everything myself DIY style, but that kind of cuts out the record stores which is not something I want to do. Once the record comes out, if you’re in some place where it is not going to be stocked, you can get in touch with me directly to find out what the best way for you to get it will be. As this is the label and artist’s debut, getting it out to people is my primary concern!

Now it is just a matter of drumming up as much interest in this record as possible. Obviously, having the ISM audience is a benefit that may not be available to most people starting a new label. Promoing it at DEMF seems to be the most obvious route to getting it into the hands of deejays and people interested, but also the most effective. Between these avenues and the quality of the release, hopefully a substantial number of shops and distros will be interested in it. Once Crosstalk gets back to me with the number of preorders, the artwork will be finalized and the final run will be completed. That will be the final step documented for this release.

Well that is enough to make me want to blow chunks all over my keyboard. If you want to listen to music that sounds suspiciously like trance being played by all sorts of white guys from all over the world (with DJ Minx as the lone Detroit resident, black artist, and female representative), you probably want to be in Detroit two weekends from now. Not that this promotional video should really be surprising to anyone, at least if you already checked my man Frank’s awesome statistical breakdown of the lineups of the DEMFs gone by (read them here, here, here, and here). This makes Paxahau’s direction pretty clear to anyone when they see what trends have taken place since Pax took over festival production.

That said, this year’s lineup is definitely better overall than the previous two years. House music is finally back in the house (ha) this year, with the Beatdown crew (check the link for a new mix by them for the Bleep43 cats!) getting a big chunk of time along with Rick Wade and Mike Huckaby. Why this kind of thing doesn’t happen every year is beyond me; even in 07 when the 3 Chairs and Alton Miller played in a row it was all lumped in the early afternoon, hardly the best time slot for what they do. House artists from outside Detroit are pretty well represented with Osunlade, Dennis Ferrer, and Quentin Harris (who technically hails from Detroit!) all playing on the main stage. This year also sees some more interesting Detroit artists like Al Ester, Kevin Reynolds, Jay Denham, Marc Kinchen, and others who definitely deserve the stage getting a chance to do their thing. Ghetto tech is annoyingly given the early time slot, but they make up for that by booking Slugo and Deeon to play their ghetto house music alongside the typical Detroit characters. Even the cheeseball stuff seems more restrained with nothing as egregious as Moby or Deadmaus, though bafflingly Benny Benassi is making another appearance?!?!? Thankfully Richie Hawtin isn’t playing this time, and the actual European cats booked make slightly more sense to me: the Wighnomy Bros., Steve Bug, and Anthony Rother especially. Still, can we get some Pepe Bradock? How about some Sound Stream? Addings cats like that to the lineup would strengthen things for just about everyone interested in techno. Throw in a little Afrika Bambaataa and Flying Lotus, and the lineup almost seems pretty decent, except when you compare it to the diversity of sounds and styles in the earlier years. What here compares to the Detroit Experiment? Fat Freddy’s Drop? Tortoise? 4 Hero?

Possibly my main concern with this year’s lineup is the lack of “can’t miss”, very special performances. 07 had Rhythm and Sound for 6 hours, which to be honest justified going to the festival all by itself. Last year saw DBX live and Carl Craig live on the main stage, which were both mindblowing spine-tingling sets. Los Hermanos should be awesome if previous UR live band performances are any guide, but they got stuck in a pretty weak timeslot. Ditto Octave One.

Regardless, I will be attending as usual. Kenny, Jwan, and Wojtek will also be in the house, so there should be no end of post-festival ramblings here on ISM. Hopefully the slight upswing in lineup diversity this year is a sign of things to come, not just a pandering to the old school because of the festival’s 10 year anniversary. Without question, having someone as organizationally strong as Paxahau running the festival has been an improvement in many ways. The sound systems have been pretty much awesome since they took over, the lineup on paper usually ends up being very close to what happens on stage at the proper times which reduces confusion, and the question of “is the festival even going to happen this year?!?!?!” has basically been erased. If only their bookings were a little bit better, I think everyone could be happy about the festival again while money could still be made to keep everything afloat.

As usual, there are some afterparties planned that are so dope that I can hardly believe it. The hottest party announced so far is definitely the joint with Kai Alcé, Chez Damier, and Andrés on Saturday night. Man, that is just gonna be off the hook. Sunday night will be “The Homecoming” featuring Jeff Mills, Juan Atkins, Traxx, Suburban Knight, and Buzz Goree for only $10. Only in Detroit, baby. An early morning rooftop set by Omar-S will be going down at Soul City 313 on Sunday, that should be some wild shit as well. Sadly there has thus far been no word on Soul Skate for this year, hopefully that will be going on as usual.

Finally, we will be record shopping like fiends. The usual spots will all be raided: Melodies and Memories, Buy Rite, and Record Time. New joints like Detroit Threads (which is where Submerge’s stock will be sold from) and Whodat’s new shop Ya Digg Records which will be opening just in time for the festival are also on the list for any rabid vinyl hunters. This year is special because there will be not one but THREE releases from Pittsburgh labels around the festival. Keep your eyes open for two new Technoir Audio limited white labels, as well as promo copies of my label’s debut release.

If you wanna meet up to hang out (or buy a record), you can find me at the Shorecrest Motor Inn (and at the Clique for breakfast every morning!) or at the festival and dope afterparties. Hit me up via email before the festival and I can get your numbers in my phone for easy texting and whatnot. So give me a holler!