Motor City's Burning

[Bored Of Education]

Just watched this on BBC2 which had no trailers at all and was the most fantastic documentary with loads of MC5, Stooges and George Clinton footage that I had never seen.

In slightly related news, there is a documentary on Radio 4 about the making of the Live From Folsom Prison album

[My Name Is Ian]

Motor City's Burning

It's a repeat, that programme about Detroit. I assume that BBC4 is running a series of programmes about 1968 or something.

[Bored Of Education]

Motor City's Burning

I think there is a whole loads of "BBC4 on BBC2" programmes on at the moment

[Lucia Lanigan]

Motor City's Burning

It was really good, but - perhaps inevitably, considering the kind of people who are able to get a programme about Motown and The Stooges commissioned - missed a trick by ignoring everything that happened in Detroit between Was (Not Was) and The White Stripes. Detroit Techno was so important, and so tied to its environment, expressive of the city's decline in the 1980s, that it's madness to ignore it. Plus the city's hip hop scene has tended to be at once tougher and less posturing than those on the east or west coast, and has given us fascinating figures like Jay Dilla to look at - typically for Detroit, he was a ridiculously hard-working, singular talent who only began to get his dues after the event.

[Bored Of Education]

Motor City's Burning

Good point there

[jason voorhees]

Motor City's Burning

I'd love to do or see something about the early days of techno. Its a story as incredible as the early days of hip-hop.

[evilC]

Motor City's Burning

Detroit techno was minimal and dancey at a time when I was going through a 'phase' that decidedly wasn't! Thus it just went over my head. I'm only just catching up with the scene now, really, so I'd also love to see a documentary on that scene.

I've recently got into Dopplereffekt and Drexciya (both were Gerald Donald and James Stinson projects) but know next to nothing about Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, Carl Craig et al, other than the bewilderingly endless string of releases I would witness streaming through the racks in the record shops of the late 80s and early 90s. A similar programme about them and the background history to the scene they were on would be most welcome, I can tell you.

They were essentially the movement that picked up the minimal & dancey baton from the likes of Kraftwerk and Clock DVA and thus the precursors of the Minimal-electronic scene that has flourished in the last 10 years.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Motor City's Burning

Yeah, they were buggers for recording under scores of different pseudonyms, each with a different style. I think the definitive Detroit Techno doc has been in the pipeline for a decade or so, but never saw the light of day (might be misremembering though).

Some great albums:

Kevin Saunderson
E-Dancer's superb 'Heavenly' and the Faces and Phases Vol 1 collection.

Juan Atkins
'The Infiniti Collection'; Model 500's 'Deep Space'; Cybotron's 'Clear' collection.

Derrick May
The 2-CD collection, 'Innovator', is the one to get, but it's almost impossible to buy now, helpfully.

Carl Craig
His best stuff's dotted around all over the place (he's never made a really good studio album IMO, with the exception of 'Programmed' by Innerzone Orchestra, his unexpectedly excellent jazz-techno project) but this year's Sessions compilation/mix is really good.

[evilC]

Motor City's Burning

Thanks for that, Mr L - it's great to have some clues as to starting points.

[jason voorhees]

Motor City's Burning

As-good-a-time-as-any-to-post-how-Detroit-first-dealt-with-Sharevari.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Motor City's Burning

^ Such a great clip. Make sure you watch till the end for the coked-up presenter - "Zooom!".

We had someone from Detroit round our house the other day. I had real trouble understanding her accent, and thought she was Swedish or something; she had real trouble understanding my accent, and thought I was Swedish or something.

[jason voorhees]

Motor City's Burning

Because of that moment on that clip, to this day I say "WwwwwwwWHOOOA!"

"Geeked-up" never made it out of Detroit,however.