The Roots of Techno (1994)
Detroit Techno was well appreciated by white kids in the UK, I was one of them and I bought most of the Model 500 records, although back then there &#x27;was no internet&#x27; so it was pot luck as to what you ended up buying. A 12&quot; single would cost £7.95 or so unless it was re-issued by a European label (e.g. R+S), but, if you were into your traxxx then you would happily pay whatever was asked without even listening to the record first.<p>Unlike conventional boring records - &#x27;pop&#x27;, &#x27;rock&#x27; - the 12&quot; single would have very little cover art and the music very much spoke for itself. Gender, colour, sexual orientation, none of that mattered really to us white kids in the UK buying techno records. Location mattered though, so records from Detroit, Chicago or New York had that location detail correct. Often because an artist used lots of different names you would later find that &#x27;Model 500&#x27; was &#x27;Juan Atkins&#x27;. Or you could end up with dozens of Carl Craig records to only later realise that the &#x27;Paperclip People&#x27; was also Carl Craig.<p>What I do find interesting is how music pioneers from that era have moved with the times, or not. Sometimes I see an artist from back then still on the DJ circuit and wonder &#x27;when are you going to get a proper job?&#x27;. But this does happen, went to a modern dance performance recently to discover the music was by a techno pioneer from back in the day.<p>Some artists never made the leap from electronic music to music done purely on the computer. I like to think that back in the day the pioneers would be using the best tools available, so it seems odd to me to still be doing 8 track recording with Roland 808&#x2F;909&#x2F;303 gadgets with the flat batteries producing that sound.<p>Back in the day there was a constant need and appetite for new sounds, there was none of this &#x27;back catalogue&#x27; nonsense. Every weekend one had some expectation of hearing entirely new music, better than what had been heard a month ago, fresh and distinctly evolved from what had gone on before. Having a record that was a &#x27;pressing of 1000&#x27; was kind of important for that, by the time a song had been taken up by a more common label, e.g. R+S (Belgium), you had heard it already. But then a record on R+S was &#x27;not for the parents&#x27; or mainstream, still fairly obscure and unlikely to be found in a &#x27;Our Price&#x27; type of High Street record shop. If a track made it onto a compilation CD and sold on a major label in an &#x27;Our Price&#x2F;HMV&#x2F;Virgin&#x27; shop then you could fairly expect it to be soul-less and extremely poor value for money compared to that £7.95 imported, one of a thousand, bought without listening to first 12&quot; records.<p>Back in the day many people did consistently spend £50 a week every week on records and graduate with no student debt. People from all walks of life in the UK were brought together with this Detroit (and other) techno. Record shops actually existed including small independent stores that would have fresh stock every week with some genuine customer service going on. Not every Detroit techno track was suited for the dancefloor (or open air field), however, sometimes a track would only work and sound good if you had 40000 watts of sound system to play it on.<p>In time legislation against music in the UK put an end to the free party scene, things became commercialised with big nightclubs taking over the clientele. These big nightclubs have subsequently died a death and now you get festivals instead, which are in some ways back to the free party idea but still more about spectating than participating. First time round it was definitely about participating.<p>Nobody spends money on music in this era of downloads and with Shazam there is no longer that captivating track that you hear the once and never know what it was (unless you as the DJ). However, the internet does allow those of us that enjoyed the days of paid for Detroit Techno to finally put some faces to the tracks and find out the history. Living it was better though.