1. Techno reminds us that humans control the machines, and electronics can be used to express funk and soul
TECHNO - Hi Tech Soul
DETROIT
1981
Cybotron
In 1981, Juan Atkins teamed up with a fellow Washtenaw Community College student, Vietnam veteran Richard Davies, AKA 3070 to from Cybotron. "He was very isolated," Atkins
says; "He had one of the first Roland sequencers, a Roland MSK-100. I was around when you had to get a bass player, a guitarist, a drummer to make records: you had all these
egos flying around, it was hard to get a consistent thought. I wanted to make electronic music but thought you had to be a computer programmer to do it. I found out it wasn't
as complicated as I thought. Our first record was 'Alleys of Your Mind.' It sold about 15,000 locally."
Techno was born.
LISTEN- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TccgyZVkonw Alleys of your mind 1981
If there is one central idea in techno, it is of the harmony between man and machine. As Juan Atkins puts it: "You gotta look at it like, techno is technological. It's an
attitude to making music that sounds futuristic: something that hasn't been done before."
Like Kraftwerk, Cybotron celebrated the romance of technology, of the city, of speed, using purely electronic instruments and sounds.
Oooh oooh Techno city
Hope you enjoy your stay
Welcome to Techno city
You will never want to go away
--Cybotron, "Techno City" (1984)
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS6BqcpWP_g Techno city 1984
1985
The Belleville three
In 1985 Cybotron was gone and a trio of pioneers in Detroit came together for the love of music, and eventually merged the sounds of synthpop and Italo-disco with funk. Juan
Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson were high school friends who went to dance parties where the music ranged from Kraftwerk to Parliament.
JUAN ATKINS DERRICK MAY KEVIN SAUNDERSON
MUSICAL INFLUENCES
Kraftwerk
Synthetic electronic sounds
Industrial rhythms all around
Musique nonstop
Techno pop
--Kraftwerk: "Techno Pop" (1986)
Kraftwerk (German pronunciation: [ˈkʀaftvɛɐk], "power station") from Düsseldorf, Germany, is an influential electronic musicproject that was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian
Schneider in 1970,The group's simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. Kraftwerk were one of the first groups to
popularize electronic music and are considered pioneers in the field.
Kraftwerk stand at the bridge between the old, European avant-garde and today's Euro-American pop culture. Like many others of their generation, Florian Schneider and Ralf
Hütter were presented with a blank slate in postwar Germany: as Hütter explains, "When we started, it was like shock, silence. Where do we stand? Nothing. We had no father
figures, no continuous tradition of entertainment. Through the '50s and '60s, everything was Americanized, directed toward consumer behavior. We were part of this 1968
movement, where suddenly there were possibilities, then we started to establish some form of German industrial sound."
Classically trained, Hütter and Schneider avoided the excesses of their contemporaries, along with the guitar/bass/drums format. Their early records are full of long, moody
electronic pieces, using noise and industrial elements --music being indivisible from everyday sounds.
The breakthrough came with 1977's Trans-Europe Express: again, the concentration on speed, travel, pan-Europeanism. The album's center is the 13-minute sequence that simulates
a rail journey: the click-clack of metal wheels on metal rails, the rise and fade of a whistle as the train passes, the creaking of coach bodies, the final screech of metal on
metal as the train stops. If this wasn't astounding enough, 1978's Man Machine further developed ideas of an international language, of the synthesis between man and machine.
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T65NpyfPkQ The man machine(1978) & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHHv4u8Vomw The Model (1978)
Parliament-Funkadelic
Were a funk, soul and rock music collective headed by George Clinton. (an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-
Funk).Their style has been dubbed P-Funk. Collectively the group has existed under various names since the 1960s and has been known for top-notch musicianship, politically
charged lyrics, outlandish concept albums and memorable live performances.
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANlE3sbAUHA Parliament Big Footin (1975)
They listened to an influential radio DJ, The Electrifying Mojo, who played European imports alongside Prince and the B-52’s, Karftwerk.
Techno, electro, and house were made possible by new, inexpensive technology. The Roland TR-808, a programmable drum machine released in late 1980, formed the distinctive sound
for the entire electro genre and was used in countless early techno tracks. 1981’s Roland TB-303 mini-keyboard was used to create squelchy basslines once people discovered the
weird sounds that emerged from a little knob twiddling. Samplers and sequencers also became commonplace.
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87BsVc7oRds Electrifying Mojo radio show (Detroit 1984)
Derrick May once described techno as "just like Detroit, a complete mistake. It's like George Clinton (Parliament Funkadelic) and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator." "I've always
been a music lover," says Juan Atkins. "Everything has a subconscious effect on what I do. In the 1970s I was into Parliament, Funkadelic; as far back as '69 they were making
records like Maggot Brain, America Eats Its Young. But if you want the reason why that happened in Detroit, you have to look at a DJ called Electrifying Mojo: he had five hours

2. every night, with no format restrictions. It was on his show that I first heard Kraftwerk."
DETROIT TECHNO SOUNDS
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2i1QfJ16A0&list=FLL5e-3vm8tiTDl6-ol_TiGg classic detroit techno 1981-1991
LATE 80's
Neil Rushton is a British journalist, DJ, record dealer, record label entrepreneur, event promoter and author who is closely associated with the Northern soul scene. Like many
others, Neil Rushton was galvanized by the electronic music coming out of Chicago mid-decade, which was successfully codified in the English market under the trade name
"house." A similar thing happened in Chicago as in Detroit: away from the musical mainstream on both coasts, DJs like Frankie Knuckles and Marshall Jefferson had revived a
forgotten musical form, disco, and adapted it to the environment of gay clubs like the Warehouse. The result was a spacey, electronic sound, released on local labels like Trax
and DJ International: funkier and more soulful than techno, but futuristic. As soon as it was marketed in the U.K. as house in early 1987, it because a national obsession with
No. 1 hits like "Love Can't Turn Around" and "Jack Your Body."
Derrick May started to release his records in England through Neil Rushtons label.. At that time, Derrick was recording on very primitive analog equipment: 'Nude Photo,' for
instance, was done straight onto cassette, and that was the master. When you're using that equipment, you must keep the mixes very simple. You can't overdub, or drop too many
things in; that's why it's so sparse.
At the time, everything was house, house house. We thought of Motor City House Music, that kind of thing, but Derrick, Kevin, and Juan kept on using the word techno. They had
it in their heads without articulating it; it was already part of their language." Rushton's team returned to England with 12 tracks, which were released on an album called
Techno! The New Dance School of Detroit, with a picture of the Detroit waterfront at night. At the time, it seemed like just another hype, but within a couple of months Kevin
Saunderson had a huge U.K. hit with Inner City's pop oriented "Big Fun," and techno entered the language.
Sometime in the past, the future began. In 1987, a shrink-wrapped record titled, “Nude Photo,” started appearing on the shelves of a few idiosyncratic dance shops throughout
Europe. The techno uprising was underway. The music sounded other-worldly: sub-aquatic basslines raced with hi-hats constructed from welding sparks. It was like listening to
the liquid electricity of one man’s soul.
A part of the original Detroit “Holy Trinity” with Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, Derrick took the Euro-electropop crystals of Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode and New Order beyond
its own horizon, infusing it with house, experimental synthesizer work and just plain soul. Songs and albums like "Nude Photo", "Strings Of Life",
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtxY9unM7b Strings Of The Strings Of Life ( Derrick May 1987)
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mc4c1I3YKY Big Fun (Inner city Kevin Saunderson 1988)
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1q3af3NuOU Sound of Stereo (Model 500- AKA Juan Atkins 1987)
Techno, how far can you go? "A lot of it was kind of as we planned," says Juan Atkins, "but nobody knew it would be a global thing as it is now, from little Detroit."
The computer virus is loose. Right now, techno presents itself as a paradox of possibilities (and limitations, the most glaring being gender: where are the women in this boys'
world?). In its many forms, techno shows that within technology there is emotion, that within information access there is overload, that within speed lies entropy, that within
progress lies destruction, that within the materiality of inanimate objects can lie spirituality.
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYSagw7v4dU&list=FLL5e-3vm8tiTDl6-ol_TiGg Detroit the blueprint of techno (1990's)
DETROIT TECHNO SECOND WAVE
Carl Craig
is a Detroit-based producer of techno music, was an apprentice of Derrick May of the belleville three, and is considered to be one of the most important names in the Detroit
second generation of techno producers and DJs. According to an article about Craig, "Of this group, Craig was often recognised as being the most artful and the most willing to
engage the rapidly growing shape of techno outside Detroit."[1] Carl Craig has approached techno using inspiration from a wide range of musical genres, including jazz and
soul.Carl Craig is without question one of the most significant figures in modern electronic music. Not only one of the most influential artists from Detroit's second wave of
techno producers, Craig is also the founder of the independent electronic music label Planet E Communications and was the creative director of Detroit's Movement Electronic
Music Festival.
WATCH : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUZOwENv-og Carl Craig Interview
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HmoWhfN-y4 Carl Craig 69 Poi Et Pas (1993)
UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE
Begun in the late 1980s by Jeff Mills and "Mad" Mike Banks, Underground Resistance related the aesthetics of early Detroit Techno to the complex social, political, and economic
circumstances which followed on from Reagan-era inner-city economic recession, producing uncompromising music geared toward promoting awareness and facilitating political
change. Later Robert "Noise" Hood joined the collective.
UR mission statement website -Techno is a music based in experimentation; it is music for the future of the human race. Without this music there will be no peace, no love, no
vision. By simply communicating through sound, techno has brought people of all different nationalities together under one roof to enjoy themselves. Isn't it obvious that music
and dance are the keys to the universe?
In terms of techno music you can't get much more important than the Detroit pantheon of musicality Underground Resitance. Part of the celebrated second wave of Detroit, they're
arguably even more revered by the Belleville three which proceeded them, and even more difficult to obtain an interview off.
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI4cBPgETnU Underground Resistance documentary 1990's
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VssWVQRgL4c Underground Resistance Fuck the Majors (1992)
Jeff Mills

3. Starting in the early 1980s, Mills, using the name "The Wizard", was a recurring guest DJ on "The Electrifying Mojo" radio show . He performed DJ tricks like beat juggling and
scratching during his sets, some of which were pre-recorded.
Mills and former Parliament bass player 'Mad' Mike Banks were founding members of Detroit techno collective Underground Resistance (UR),[1] which embraced revolutionary
rhetoric and only appeared in public dressed in ski masks and black combat suits.
Mills never officially left UR, but did relocate from Detroit, first to New York, then Berlin (as a resident at the Tresor club), and then Chicago. There in 1992, with fellow
Detroit native Robert Hood, he set up the record label Axis, and later, sub-labels Purpose Maker, Tomorrow, and 6277, all aiming for a more minimal sound than most of the
techno being produced in those years.
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KevUFO2moZI Jeff Mills The Bells (1996)
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCAY5L2zDtU Real Scenes Detroit
TECHNO 90'S EUROPE
By 1990, the relentless demand for new dance music was such that, in Neil Rushton's words, "The Detroit innovators couldn't take it to the next stage. What did was that kids in
the U.K. and Europe started learning how to make those techno records. They weren't as well-made, but they had the same energy. And, by 1990-91, things became more interesting,
because instead of three people in Detroit, you suddenly had 23 people making techno, in Germany, Belgium, in Sheffield."
In England, the techno take-up came not in London or Manchester (which by then was busy with rock/dance groups like the Happy Mondays), but in Sheffield, an industrial city
about 200 miles away from London, on the other side of the Pennine Hills from Manchester, which in the late '70s spawned its own electronic scene with Cabaret Voltaire and The
Human League. "There are no live venues here in Sheffield," says WARP Records co-owner Rob Mitchell. "The only way to be in a band and be successful is to make dance records.
Joey Beltram's from New York "Energy Flash" released on the Belgian R&S Records in early 1991, defined the new mood. Inherent in the man/machine aesthetic is a certain
brutality that goes right back to the macho posturings of the Futurist F.T. Marinetti: even in records as soulful as those made by Model 500, you'll find titles like "Off to
Battle." With its in-your-face bass, speeded up industrial rhythms and whispered chants of "Ecstasy," "Energy Flash" caught the transition from Detroit techno to today's
hardcore --the aesthetic laid out for all time on Human Resource's "Dominator:" "I'm bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher / In other words, sucker, there is no other / I
wanna kiss myself."
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQfKFwa-jEY Joey Beltram Energy Flash (1991)
LISTEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1pzvapaR1E Human Resource Dominator (1991)
In the early nineties, something odd happened. Techno and house, which had failed to gain mainstream success in the United States, became a huge phenomenon in Europe—especially
in Germany.
Developments in American-produced techno between 1990 and 1992 (Underground resistance ie Jeff Mills) fuelled the expansion and eventual divergence of techno in Europe,
particularly in Germany.[90][91] In Berlin, following the closure of a free party venue called Ufo, the club Tresor opened in 1991. The venue was for a time the standard bearer
for techno and played host to many of the leading Detroit producers (Jeff Mills UR became a resident), some of whom relocated to Berlin.[92] By 1993, as interest in techno in
the UK club scene started to wane, Berlin was considered the unofficial techno capital of Europe.[93]
In the same period, German DJs began intensifying the speed and abrasiveness of the sound, as an acid infused techno began transmuting into hardcore.[102] DJ Tanith commented
at the time that "Berlin was always hardcore, hardcore hippie, hardcore punk, and now we have a very hardcore techno sound.This emerging sound is thought to have been
influenced by Dutch gabber and Belgian hardcore; styles that were in their own perverse way paying homage to Underground Resistance and Richie Hawtin's Plus 8 Records
WATCH; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbuLwzxnkrk Universal Techno 1990's
A Techno Alliance
In 1993, the German techno label Tresor Records released the compilation album Tresor II: Berlin & Detroit – A Techno Alliance,[106] a testament to the influence of the Detroit
sound upon the German techno scene and a celebration of a "mutual admiration pact" between the two cities.[91] As the mid-1990s approached, Berlin was becoming a haven for
Detroit producers; Jeff Mills and Blake Baxter even resided there for a time. In the same period, with the assistance of Tresor, Underground Resistance released their X-101/
X-102/X103 album series, Juan Atkins collaborated with 3MB's Thomas Fehlmann and Moritz Von Oswald[91] and Tresor-affiliated label Basic Channel had its releases mastered by
Detroit's National Sound Corporation, the main mastering house for the entire Detroit dance music scene. In a sense, popular electronic music had come full circle, returning to
Germany, home of a primary influence on the electronic dance music of the 1980s: Düsseldorf's Kraftwerk.
KEY INFLUENTIAL TECHNO DJ'S & PRODUCERS IN GERMANY
FRANKFURT -
Sven Vath
Originally the lead singer of a dance-pop group named OFF (short for Organisation for Funk, which included future members of Snap!), Sven Väth hit the big time in 1987 when
OFF's "Electric Salsa" became a number one hit around the world. The band later disintegrated, leaving Väth free to pursue his interest in the hard trance underground of
Frankfurt. Väth became a DJ of note for his marathon sets (which sometimes approached 24 hours) and his founding of Harthouse Records in 1992 with Matthias Hoffman and Heinz
Roth. By the early 1990s Sven Vath had become perhaps the first DJ in Germany to be worshipped like a rock star. He performed centre stage with his fans facing him, and as co-
owner of Omen, he is believed to have been the first techno DJ to run his own club.
LISTEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTQ-6raODQ Accident in Paradise by Sven Vath 1993
BERLIN
West Bam
is also one of Germany’s most successful and most popular DJ and avantgardist of the Raving Society, he is also the most innovative producer and co-founder of Berlin’ Indie
Dance label, Low Spirit.

4. Germany's engagement with American underground dance music during the 1980s paralleled that in the UK.In 1989 German DJs Westbam and Dr. Motte established the Ufo club, an
illegal party venue, and co-founded the Love Parade.[96] After the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, free underground techno parties mushroomed in East Berlin, and a rave
scene comparable to that in the UK was established.[96] East German DJ Paul van Dyk has remarked that techno was a major force in reestablishing social connections between East
and West Germany during the unification period.[97]
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LeoMfr-vjw Love Parade DJ WestBam (1997)
BERLIN & TECHNO
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, techno became the underground soundtrack to the reunion between East and West. In recent years, it's become an international destination
for ravers—a cheap place to party with clubs that are renowned throughout the world.
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXfK7H2eFl8 Real Scenes Berlin
Interview with Tobias Rapp (author of lost and sound)
For Berlin, the destruction of the wall was a bit like the big bang: a single explosive event that had immeasurable influence on everything that came after. In its wake, an
utterly unique scenario took shape—desolate streets, warehouse parties, squatters and the feeling that the city and everyone in it was working with a clean slate. "The
atmosphere was burning," as Dimitri Hegemann of Tresor said in RA's recent film, Real Scenes: Berlin. Most of the city's unique personality today, not least its techno scene,
was born in this moment of upheaval.Almost 30 or 40 percent of the city was vacant because the East German government wanted to empty out the old buildings to set up new
beautiful communist houses. It didn't come that way, so there were lots of empty houses back then.
In East Berlin in 1990, The Summer of Squatting—the real heyday of squatting, ended in November of 1990 when the city started to kick out people—but the attitude of squatting
remained. The whole history of techno in Berlin in the '90s was really affected by this attitude that people learned in the summer of 1990. This attitude of, "You can take
houses and do with them what you want to." We kicked out walls, we threw stones out of the window, we tried stuff like having huge kitchens—like a whole apartment was a kitchen
—the stuff like most of the people who live in communes do. But what was important for the techno scene was this attitude that you explore spaces and think about spaces in
terms of possibilities. That's where the Berlin techno scene got its attitude from.
Most of the clubs back then were just clubs for the weekend or for a couple of weeks and—maximum—for a couple of months. It was very transient. Also, the scene itself was very
much word of mouth like, "Where is the party, where is it going to be?" Part of the experience was to explore the city, running through this empty city looking for a party. The
inner city of Berlin, where the big stores are were empty and during the daytime there was nobody and during the nighttime there were all of these little groups looking for
parties. It was really an amazing situation.
didn't have "normal" in that sense, because the city wasn't normal. You had 30 percent empty apartments, you had in East Germany a population that was celebrating freedom and
was happy that the GDR days were over, but also didn't know what was coming.
The city looked really different to how it looks now. You had WW II remnants everywhere, because the East didn't clean up the city. You had broken buildings, walls with bullet
holes, and you didn't have that many cars because the East Germans just started to buy cars and the density of the population wasn't that high. It was very gray and it smelled
of coal because of these GDR cars that had this different motor. I really see how the Detroit guys felt at home in Berlin, because it didn't look that different from Detroit.
It was a very run-down city: the difference was that it wasn't dangerous—it was safe, it just looked dangerous. If you were unlucky, you might get beat up by Nazis, but that
wasn't a regular thing that was happening.
A very big difference from Berlin in the early '90s to Berlin now was that Berlin back then was a male city. You didn't have as many girls and women in the streets as you have
now. Now, when I look at the streets of Berlin, it's filled with girls and women and the city has a huge attraction for people interested in fashion. That wasn't the case in
the early '90s. Everybody was just wearing military pants and bomber jackets and had short hair. Also, in the clubs, it was very German and very male. There would normally be
like one girl and eight guys. Techno in the early '90s was very male dominated, which also had to do with the run down appeal of the city. It wasn't that appealing to women I
think. There weren't that many women moving to East Berlin because they thought it was interesting—very different to today.
But most importantly, you have to understand that in the '90s, techno was very small in the beginning, it exploded and then it became this movement that dragged one million
people for the Love Parade into the city, and then it collapsed from more or less one day to another. It was like a textbook [example of a] subculture that goes mainstream and
dies out. That was the '90s.
It is very much different in the '00s. It's not "charts music" anymore. It's music that's underground, music that found its place in a niche—a comfortable niche. I also think
it's a growing niche, but it's not at all music that has this mainstream impact that it had in the '90s. It's a scene that also lost the desire to get mainstream impact.
READ: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1434 Interview with Tobias Rapp
Children Of Berlin is a short piece on the Berlinese electronic music scene, the Berlin Wall and their connected history. It is presented by a variety of people (Deejays,
Artists, Party Goers, Club Owners, Etc...) sharing individual memories and stories from back then and also talking about the scene now.
WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1kT-PAz4Do Children of Berlin (pt1)
Berlin in the 90's speaks of wasteland, empty buildings and cheap rents, liberal authorities, tireless activists and techno institutions which simply keep on going…the clubbing
scene was concentrated on a singe area a km stretch which was still wasteland at the time, in the early 90's you would see more people around here in the night time than during
the day at clubs such as tresor, e-werk, WMF. the clubs there were temporary; everyone knew that the magic would soon be over, as such any refurbishment's would be
provisional , you ran the risk if having a pice of celling plaster trickle into your gin and tonic when certain bass frequency shook the room.It was a no mans land which was
soon to be developed by investors. Yes techno had been played in different parts of the city at this time, but had not not been for this collective of small and large clubs in
close proximity to each other, the friendships the hostilities, rivalries and alliances and the excesses that were played out here, then techno would never have probably
evolved into the dominant sound which inhabited the charts for a certain time and which drew 1 million dancers into the streets for the love parade in 1996.
The 90's were about techno, rave and everything that went with it' great excitement, fantastic records, fantasies of world domination, chart entries, and then after all the
successes and excesses, the whole thing collapsed as the end of the decade approached. Around the turn of the century to the noughties the music went back underground in order
to revitalise itself.
Berlin has no financial industry, no media industry; not a single of the blue-chip companies from Germany's DAX index has its headquarters in Berlin, theres no port here;
Berlin just has politics and culture- and yet it has 3.5 million residents…Clubbing is for Berlin what the financial industry is for New York and London, what hollywood is for
Los Angeles and what fashion is for paris or milan.
Berlin the noughties until present day
Berlin cuurent clubbing scene or "club mile" holds resemblance to the former club mile , much of the area is also wasteland, which may not be the case for long as investors
have already began constructing the the so called media spree.
The new Berlin attracts thousands of clubbing tourists every weekend is the party capital of the western world, its a city where the rents are cheap and the authorities are
extremely liberal; where the reality principle of other cities is abandoned in favour of an all embracing pleasure principle, no one really has to work there, except on some
art or music project. There are constantly new clubs open and everyone just spends their time partying thats top of the list.