We humans are sense-making
creatures. We're always trying, if only in our
own heads, to give structure and
order to the swirl of events happening
around us every day. "History"
is when we try to record those
sense-making exercises on paper
and share them with others. Like all
history books, Generation
Ecstasy (GE) is full of factual flaws and
riddled with the author's
personal opinions. Like all good history
writers, however, the author is
frank and forthright about those opinions,
so you can easily identify them
and incorporate them into or reject
them from your own sense-making
on the topic of techno.
As an overview of the jam-packed
15 or so odd years existence of techno,
the book is quite adequate.
Reynolds covers in an engaging fashion
the early days of Detroit
techno, Chicago and New York house, and
(especially) UK rave and
subsequent hardcore and jungle, at times weaving
together tales from competing
"folk versions" of those
early days. He covers to a
lesser extent techno offshoots and subgenres
such as "intelligent" and
ambient techno, big beat, trip-hop, garage,
trance, etc. These tales are
liberally strewn with interviews with many
of the djs, producers and
promoters involved in the creation and
popularization of these styles.
And for those who were "there, man,
back in the day," here is where
you'll find the inevitable
wrong dates, sequences of
events, who-did-what-firsts, etc. But this
portion of the book is also a
strength. Hearing gems from Carl Craig
like, "[Kraftwerk] were so
stiff, they were funky," or DJ Mark Moore's
reminisces of how he cleared a
floor with "Strings of Life" at a London
club in 1988 are worth the price
of admission alone, as is listening
to Frankie Bones' tales of early
outlaw NYC parties in urban junkyards
and warehouses. The many
interviews here are part of what makes this book
special and engaging.
What may make GE drag for many
non-UK readers is the detail with which
Reynolds focuses on the politics
of ecstasy use in the UK rave and club
scene, and all the minute
historical/cultural events in UK techno that
he covers in the late 80s and
early 90s. Didn't Matthew Collin already
cover this sufficiently in
"Altered State"? Those for whom it's really all
about the music may actually
want to skip a few of these chapters. And
unfortunately, as I said
earlier, some of the truly interesting UK
material--a description of the
pirate radio movement and its
role in the nascent jungle
scene, including transcripts of dj banter--
has been reduced considerably in
the North American version of the book.
The pirate radio section that
remains nevertheless serves to remind one
what "underground" really means
and could serve as an inspiration to us all.
The real strength of GE,
however, lies in the sections at the end of many
chapters, where Reynolds really
gets into the art of "sense-making" and
tries to locate techno in a
larger context of music and culture. Some of
this theory falls flat, and at
times you get the feeling Reynolds is
trying to pull in every 20th
century pop culture analyst and their
sister in order to say something
profound about techno. Neither are
Reynolds' attempts to reconcile
the whole techno and ecstasy connection
totally sound. I think he forges
too strong a conceptual link between
drugs and the music. Maybe this
was more true for the UK than other
areas, where, as Reynolds puts
it, "ecstasy was a miracle cure for the
English disease of emotional
constipation, reserve, inhibition." But to
imply as he does that most
successful (in an artistic
and cultural sense) techno is
fueled in its creation by a drug mindset,
and that genres not informed by
drug links or not connected to scenes
into heavy drug use (such as
Detroit techno) are somehow soulless or
inauthentic compared to scenes
and musics which are (hardcore and gabba,
for example), is, I think,
utterly absurd. As many of us know, it's
perfectly possible to become
profoundly linked to this music--in both
its spiritual journey aspects
*and* hedonistic dancefloor abandon
aspects--without any use of
drugs whatsoever.
That said, the main recurring
framework that Reynolds uses to try to
understand where techno's going
bears repeating here. Part of Reynolds'
agenda in GE is an ongoing
attempt to identify what's "cutting edge" or
forward-looking in techno,
versus what's backward-looking or retro--a
worthy endeavor in a music and
culture virtually founded on the twin
concepts of futurism and
existing "underground." His position is
basically this: techno (as well
as hip-hop, musique concrete and all
other 20th century postmodern
cut-and-paste forms of music) began as and
has remained for the most part a
supremely electronic music. So a valid
identifier of whether a
particular track or artist is moving the music
ahead becomes, "how is the
artist exploiting that electronic essence in a
new and original way?" (my
words) Note that this is not the kind of sterile
purism that Reynolds (wrongly, I
think) accuses Detroit and
Detroit-influenced
artists of
falling into, where producers supposedly consider synthesizers
are somehow more
"pure" than samplers; drum machines are somehow seen
more inherently
"techno" than breakbeats. If someone does think that
way--and I think
that very few producers actually do--they're only
deluding
themselves, of course. Electronic music is sounds appropriated,
created anew,
mangled at times beyond recognition and taken out of their
original context
to make something never before heard. That's the legacy
of 20th century
art, and techno in particular. Whether that's done with a
sampled,
deconstructed James Brown drum loop or a 909 is really just
splitting
hairs.
However, what this does
mean--and Reynolds comes back to this point again
and again, throughout the
book--is that when techno producers try to "move
forward" by incorporating more
and more traditional musical elements into
their tracks, they're not moving
forward. Simply put, Reynolds holds that
pursuing traditional song
structures, linear "live" vocal tracks, and
obvious emulations of
traditional instruments in techno is retro.
This doesn't refer to the
manipulation and alteration of traditional
sounds, of course; that's what
postmodern cut-and-paste (what Reynolds
calls "sampladelia") is all
about. This refers more to attempts to
"enhance" or "legitimize" techno
by moving it in directions and
building it using structures
taken by the traditional musical
forms--classical, jazz,
rock--that preceded it. Note: this doesn't
make incorporating
non-electronic elements or traditional song structure
into techno bad...that's getting
into the area of taste. But it does
mean that "progressive" house is
anything but, and r & b
flavored song-oriented deep
house is looking backward, while "tracky"
hard house or tech-house is
moving forward (unless of course it's simply
aping the sounds and formats of
10 years ago, but that's another issue
entirely!).
Following this line of analysis,
I would then say that Jeff Mills'
one-bar dj tools and Cari
Lekebusch's floor banging rearrangement of
samples of junkyard scraps
integrated with digital synths are certainly
taking the music somewhere new;
Reynolds doesn't agree, and several
places in the book makes clear
his distaste for "tracky" music,
condemning it as sterile and
self-limiting in a overly zealous,
purist way. He does hold,
however, that "intelligent dance music's
70s prog-rock ambitions and
"smoothcore," string-laden jungle are also
forays into the past, not the
future, and I would agree with him there.
I don't agree with his
enthusiasm for the "freshness" of other recent
techno hybrids, like big beat,
which in my application of Reynolds'
typology is a backward-looking
attempt to make techno safe (read:
commercially viable) for rock
audiences. And remember,
that's not to say that any of
these genres of dance music are inferior
to others...it's just to say
that they're moving backward, not forward.
And whether you agree with
Reynolds' categories (I do, but not always
with his application of them),
it's a stimulating way of looking at
things and certainly food for
thought.
But is it even important to
value "progress" or "innovation" in techno?
Given the fascination with
futurism that still pervades virtually all
varieties of techno and
obviously figures heavily in the thinking of its
producers and fans, clearly
visible everywhere from the outer space
imagery of funky breaks rave
flyers to Underground Resistance
"homeworld" literature to Goa
trance album covers, I'd say yes.
We're as fascinated with the
future and with using technology to get
there as ever, just as much as
May and Atkins were when they started
all this. So it *does* matter
what's moving forward, what's not; what's
on the cutting edge, what's
underground, and what's conservative,
commercial product. It also
matters, of course, what simply makes us
want to *dance* and what
doesn't...but thinking about one doesn't
mean we can't also think about
the other. Techno as a distinct musical
form is still very much in its
infancy, and Reynolds' book at least
makes an important early
contribution to creating a framework for
making sense of it all, for
understanding where it's been and where
it's going.
Frank Smith
vox@speakeasy.org
Do not reprint without
permission.
(whoops.)
_SPIN features Detroit techno in October
issue_
"complete history of detroit techno in a very comprehensive
manner"
p. 104 A TALE OF TWO
CITIES
The gods of Detroit techno went
to Europe to become stars and become rich.
By the time they checked back
in, the homies were listing to booty (so
tacky) and the only people who
cared about their music were...white...and
suburban. By Mike
Rubin.