I wanted to know more about techno as I've recently been diggin' on some old British drum'n'bass like Goldie and Grooverider. I've also been bumping a lot of Prodigy and Underworld. But my list of electronic music is very clearly limited to album-oriented artists in the mainstream. Aphex Twin, Crystal Method, Justice, Roni Size, Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Bjork, Portishead, etc. I love it all, but I wanted to get deeper to find more artists who produced music similar to my favorites. I fucking love the first three Prodigy records, especially the first two. Who else does shit of that caliber and what's it even called? I'm diggin' the Metalheadz stuff, but where do I go from there? And what else am I missing? Clearly I'm a neophyte and I hoped a 450 page book on the first 10 years of techno might help a brotha out. So my friend suggested I pick this up. And that I did...
I dig that it starts in Detroit, like a lot of good, heavy, world-changing shit seems to do. While I was here in its heyday, I was far too immersed in hardcore punk to even contemplate hardcore techno. Fuck dancing, fuck drugs. Not my thing. Never has been. But the music and the creativity...clearly I was missing out big time. I wish I could go back in time and accompany friends to some of those warehouse raves. Sheeeeit.
The parallels between both hardcore scenes (punk and techno) are shockingly apparent. After reading the book it's no wonder many punks (especially anarcho-crusties) crossed over and really got into techno. Evidently I'm a bit late to the party. All I knew in 1995 was that I loved the music from Hackers and Trainspotting. And still do. But now I'm putting it into social and evolutionary context.
But enough about me. This is about the book.
It's half good and half jounro' pomp. The chapters that deal with music chronology and history are good. The half that expound on theories and the author's philosophies aren't so hot. He can weave a good tale, and I don't mind it being interspersed with opinion, but sometimes he just rattles on about philosophical garbage. The diction changes from straightforward sensible word-choice in the documentary parts of the book, to thesaurus-requiring unnecessary journalistic one-upmanship in the psycho-babble parts. Maybe the book would read better as two tomes: The History in part 1 and the Analysis in part 2.
Allegedly it came with a cd, which would have been rad if it really did...But I purchased a used copy on Amazon for $4 and alas, it didn't. However, a cursory search didn't reveal any new books that mentioned anything about a cd at all...so...I just used youtube on my iPhone to bring up songs as I was reading along. "What's "gabba" sound like? Ooof, this sucks. How about Chicago "house"...oof, this sucks, too."
SL2 "on a ragga tip"...now we're talkin! ;)
Hyper On Experience? More of that please.
Unfortunately most of these artists were vinyl-oriented and track-oriented, meaning it's impossible to get this crap on cd ten years after the fact. So it might be slim pickings as I hunt down some of the stuff I'm diggin' on.
This is a worthwhile read. It's a good crash course and general overview on techno. It's certainly flawed, but it's still worth the effort if you're a music nerd historian.
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