The US equivilent to the 'nuum

[polystyle]

Respect to Kraftwerk , Afrika , Jeff Mills , Cybotron and Mantronik
and for another pov/alt take ( mostly unknown) if one gets into what was going on in 1981 -2 , please check New York Noise 3 listen to Ike Yard's Loss and you tell me if that is
electro or proto techno ...
Or Martin Rev's cut Temptation

I'm curious , does anywhere know exactly when was Clear was done /released ?

 

[Clubberlang]

"Clear" was released on Fantasy in '83 and it's release post-dates "Planet Rock" by a little. It may have been recorded earlier though. Cybotron had two other singles "Alleys of Your Mind" (1981) and "Cosmic Cars" (1982) in a similar Kraftwerk-ian vein which both definitely pre-date "Planet Rock", I believe. The former vies with A Number of Names "Sharevari" (also 1981) for the title of first Detroit techno track.

 

[Clubberlang]

Cybotrons clear was an electro trak but credited as the first techno trak also. Electro was a derivative of hiphop through Bamabaataa who by 1982 when clear was recorded by Atkins had along with his soulsonic force already laid the blueprint for electro and was organising hiphop tours to europe. Atkins must have known what was going on in the electro/hiphop scene and been influenced by the DIY ethos of hiphop though not neccessarily the same musical influences yet both were clearly inspired by kraftwerk.

My point being if there is a US equivalent to the UK 'nuum it's genesis was hiphop and the electronic revolution it inspired led by black youth primarily in the east.

I can barely understand one sentence you wrote in that first paragraph and your "point" in the second paragraph is just plain wrong. Hip hop had little or nothing to do with the genesis of house or techno. The line to those genres go through disco, through Kraftwerk, through Moroder, through Parliament's synth experiments, through Herbie Hancock, etc. Some of those lines also go through hip-hop too (esp. those artists touched by electro and freestyle), sure but that doesn't mean that hip hop was a template for techno or house by any stretch. Both of those genres were defined in large part by being precisely what hip hop WAS not in terms of affluence, sexuality, politics and identify.

 

[mistersloane]

on a side note about mantronix swinging, isn't GM flash gay and maybe scorpio or cowboy from the furious 5 were too?

I heard, from reliable NY sources, that Bam is, and I really hope that's true, and Flash and Cowboy and Mantronix, though I think Mantronix would go both ways. It would just be the best thing.

God, what a retarded thing to write, sorry everyone. Never drinking brandy and coming on a forum again , that's for sure. it would be cool if Bambaataa came out though.
"I maaade your shit, and I'm gaaaaaaaaay and shit, deal with it! Deal with it!" Planet Rock, truth mix.

 

[the undisputed truth]

"Clear" was released on Fantasy in '83 and it's release post-dates "Planet Rock" by a little. It may have been recorded earlier though. Cybotron had two other singles "Alleys of Your Mind" (1981) and "Cosmic Cars" (1982) in a similar Kraftwerk-ian vein which both definitely pre-date "Planet Rock", I believe. The former vies with A Number of Names "Sharevari" (also 1981) for the title of first Detroit techno track.

Planet rock wasn't Bam/soulsonics first tune. They established themselves and the blueprint for hiphop and electro in NY as early as 77 and releasing 'zulu nation throwdown' in 1980 predating anything going on in Detroit.

I can barely understand one sentence you wrote in that first paragraph and your "point" in the second paragraph is just plain wrong. Hip hop had little or nothing to do with the genesis of house or techno. The line to those genres go through disco, through Kraftwerk, through Moroder, through Parliament's synth experiments, through Herbie Hancock, etc. Some of those lines also go through hip-hop too (esp. those artists touched by electro and freestyle), sure but that doesn't mean that hip hop was a template for techno or house by any stretch. Both of those genres were defined in large part by being precisely what hip hop WAS not in terms of affluence, sexuality, politics and identify.

What specifically can you not barely understand ?

Surely if Bam and flash as architects of hiphop are gay then that rules out sexuality in the early days. The politics were the same. Establishing micro scenes for performance and promotion of new "electronic" based forms of music in black communities outside of the predominant framework of superclubs, expensive studios and major label record deals. Hiphop block parties in NY could be consdiered the equivalent of warehouse parties in Chicago and Detroit. The affluence is irrelevent but the ethos was still put on parties that weren't elitist and defined by race. The identity was that most of those involved in creating hiphop, house and techno were all black and shared common problems related to being young, black and gifted in the late 70's/early80's in america while drawing on the same musical/cultural heritage.

Essentially what those scenes did though was adapt JA soundsystem culture. That being, turn up somewhere with a PA and some decks maybe an MC and get down and dirty with it.

What i'm talking about though is the concept of a continuum, not the establishment of specific genres and sub genres. If there were such a thing, it would be difficult to draw straight lines of progression as implied by a continuum. It would as in spacetime resemble a lattice.

first cause would be hiphop, the last effect is still ongoing. I doubt that house and techno would have existed as they did without hiphop showing how you could raise up from the ghetto and influence popular culture.

I really want to finish by syaing ONE and (no homo) but it's just not true

 

[Guybrush]

I can barely understand one sentence you wrote in that first paragraph and your "point" in the second paragraph is just plain wrong. Hip hop had little or nothing to do with the genesis of house or techno. The line to those genres go through disco, through Kraftwerk, through Moroder, through Parliament's synth experiments, through Herbie Hancock, etc. Some of those lines also go through hip-hop too (esp. those artists touched by electro and freestyle), sure but that doesn't mean that hip hop was a template for techno or house by any stretch. Both of those genres were defined in large part by being precisely what hip hop WAS not in terms of affluence, sexuality, politics and identify.

Yep, here's a brief passage from the new "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life":

Though "Alleys of Your Mind" had beaten it by months, the electro crown was seized by Afrika Bambaataa's vastly more successful "Planet Rock", which pursued an almost identical vision of electronic funk.

I don't see how "Zulu Nation Throwdown" (basically an organic funk track with rapping replacing singing) being released earlier in any way indicates that hip-hop influenced Atkins, the above book certainly doesn't write about such an influence; credit for influencing the early Cybotron tracks seemingly instead goes to radio DJ The Electrifyin' Mojo's eclectic selection of tunes (which included the entirety of Kraftwerk's Computer World album, for example).

 

[dubble-u-c]

Food for thought:

Wired: What is your definition of techno? Is it essentially a combination of technology and funk?

Atkins:

Yes. It's interesting, because I met Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk) and he told me that one of his influences was

James Brown. Today, I think "techno" is a term to describe and introduce all kinds of electronic music. In fact, there were a lot of electronic musicians around when Cybotron started, and

I think maybe half of them referred to their music as "techno." However, the public really wasn't ready for it until about '85 or '86. It just so happened that Detroit was there when people really got into it.

Source:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.07/techno_pr.html

Wired magazine interview 1994

 

[polystyle]

Seconding that Guybrush & dubble -u-c

 

[nomadologist]

Right. Note that Atkins says "Today, I think that techno is..." Calling all electronic music techno was a perjorative term indie rockers/the alterna-press came up for anything music that wasn't guitar-based in the 90s--wasn't it? Originally, it referred to a specific beat, the way "jungle" does, or "dub" or "dancehall" or "trance" or "d&b" does. I think, as with "queer" and the gay community, Atkins is trying to reclaim the term "techno" in this Wired article.

There may have been some funk/soul/hip-hop/detroit techno cross-pollination, I'm sure there was, but it's hard to map the idea of continuum from physics directly onto music. Having a really hard time with that.

 

[mms]

miils was an industrial fan who djed all sorts of electronic shit in a hip hop style, presumably for speed .

i think there was more crossover and influence with jam and lewis and swing than hip hop melodically and rhythmically in early techno, there were a quite a few detroit tracks with swingish mixes and vica versa like sauderson mixing paula abdul etc.

there was cross over with hip hop, alan davis' drawings for transmat, rapping on tunes by saunderson, blake baxter and model 500 to name a few, crossover with chicago who were definitley into mcing.

i think that 'the club' is more or less the num., keepng the guys and girls dancing.

don't forget as well that l.a. was using the word techno to describe their music around the same time, unknown dj, kid the glove taylor and ice t, arabian prince, freestyle, egyptian lover were all using the t-word around a similar time. there was later a comp called techno - hop infact.

 

[Slothrop]

miils was an industrial fan who djed all sorts of electronic shit in a hip hop style, presumably for speed .

i think there was more crossover and influence with jam and lewis and swing than hip hop melodically and rhythmically in early techno, there were a quite a few detroit tracks with swingish mixes and vica versa like sauderson mixing paula abdul etc.

there was cross over with hip hop, alan davis' drawings for transmat, rapping on tunes by saunderson, blake baxter and model 500 to name a few, crossover with chicago who were definitley into mcing.

i think that 'the club' is more or less the num., keepng the guys and girls dancing.

IMO the web of influence and evolution though American dance music is sufficiently extensive and complex that trying to highlight certain genres or periods as being some sort of overarching continuum is kind of counterproductive...

 

[the undisputed truth]

Yep, here's a brief passage from the new "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life":

Though "Alleys of Your Mind" had beaten it by months, the electro crown was seized by Afrika Bambaataa's vastly more successful "Planet Rock", which pursued an almost identical vision of electronic funk.

I don't see how "Zulu Nation Throwdown" (basically an organic funk track with rapping replacing singing) being released earlier in any way indicates that hip-hop influenced Atkins, the above book certainly doesn't write about such an influence; credit for influencing the early Cybotron tracks seemingly instead goes to radio DJ The Electrifyin' Mojo's eclectic selection of tunes (which included the entirety of Kraftwerk's Computer World album, for example).

I'm not really talking about musical influences having already acknowledged they share a great many. I'm talking about the ethos of hiphop which is more about fuck the man, self empowerment and a do it yourself attitude. And that being an inspiration to eastern US black kids like Atkins. From the sounds of it the 'mojo' show was more akin to an eclectic hiphop show and the influence though not direct can be inferred from that.

 

[Clubberlang]

I'm talking about the ethos of hiphop which is more about fuck the man, self empowerment and a do it yourself attitude.

Haha so you are just a wind up artist. Got it.

 

[nomadologist]

Your continuum's end points in time are too narrow. I think you'd have to place Atkins and the acid house crew more within the "psychedelic" continuum that Suicide and Silver Apples and other early electronic music would be on. Hip-hop fits in there somewhere, but not as a direct successor to acid house and detroit techno. I think a lot of early industrial is an interesting thing to try place within psychedelia, because it can swing so far between very psychedelic to more amphetamine/speednagreesion anti-psychedelic extremes. Throbbing Gristle illustrates both, I would say.

Of course, for me psychedelic experience is all about the "dysynchronic'' and speed is all about very linear narrative progression (although speed can produce mild hallucinogenic effects, they're more due to loss of sleep than anything else.) So this is what I mean by different extremes.

Polystyle--where would you put Ike Yard? To me, they seem kind of hard to fit squarely within industrial, or in the Suicide/Silver Apples type psychedelic freakout "continuum." Maybe close to D.A.F.

 

[the undisputed truth]

Haha so you are just a wind up artist. Got it.

who isn't sometimes ?

My point is, put the genre of music aside for a second and bearing in mind the political/economic climate using, look at who was doing what, why and where using the developing technologies of the time ? I'm sure you'll find more similarities than not, which do not fit into a linear continuum of progression for any particular genre. For instance was it a coincidence that white punks were rebelling in the UK against the excesses of corporate glam rock at the same time as black kids in the states were rebelling against the excesses of disco or was there more to it than that ?

 

[hamarplazt]

don't forget as well that l.a. was using the word techno to describe their music around the same time, unknown dj, kid the glove taylor and ice t, arabian prince, freestyle, egyptian lover were all using the t-word around a similar time. there was later a comp called techno - hop infact.

Very interesting. I'm always pointing out that the german EBM-scene used the word techno to describe their music at this time, but I've never heard about this before. Anywhere I can get more info?

 

[dubble-u-c]

Very interesting. I'm always pointing out that the german EBM-scene used the word techno to describe their music at this time, but I've never heard about this before. Anywhere I can get more info?

...You can hear echoes of Freestyle's "Don't Stop The Rock" (Pandisc, 1985) in virtually every electro revival record out there. This pre-bass music Miami track from 1985 was released at a time when vocoder vocals and fat 808 beats were in vogue, and its thunderous bass pulses have cropped up in numerous places recently, including RAC's Tangents EP (Warp, 1994). Another formative and influential Miami bass track is the spooky "Give The DJ A Break" by Dynamix II (Sun City, 1987), an eight-minute plunge into oceans of sensation.The early LA electro movement, centered around such labels as Techno Hop and Macola (Ice T's original label), is gaining currency in the UK particularly. When such luminaries as the Dust Brothers (um, Chemical Brothers) listed their top ten in a recent chart, near the top was "8 Volts" by DJ Battery Brian and Vicious C, an 808 cut-and-scratcher from '87 that smokes like a forest fire.

Tracks such as "Beatronic" by the Unknown DJ & 3D (Techno Hop, 1987)...

Source:
Rap meets Techno, with a short history of Electro
By Tim Haslett
http://www.globaldarkness.com/articles/history of electro funk.htm



The Unknown DJ pioneered the mid-'80s style of electro popularized by the Egyptian Lover ("Egypt, Egypt") and the World Class Wreckin' Cru ("Surgery"), then went on to produce the trailblazing gangsta rap group Compton's Most Wanted at the end of the decade.
Born Andre Manuel, the Unknown DJ recorded only a few 12" singles during the mid-'80s for two small-run West Coast labels, Techno Hop and Techno Kut: "Beatronic" (1984), "808 Beats" (1985), "Let's Jam" (1985), "Basstronic" (1988), "Breakdown" (1988), "X-Men" (1988), and "Revenge of the X-Men" (1988), the latter two also produced by DJ Slip....(Terry Allen).


These few 12" singles didn't attain much commercial success, yet they proved highly influential, particularly among the techno bass scene that would later emerge in the 1990s (see the Electro Boogie series).
Beginning in 1989, the Unknown DJ and Slip put aside the electro they had been producing and joined Compton's Most Wanted....~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide


Source:
http://www.electro-funk.de/unknown dj.html

 

[dubble-u-c]

Also from another interesting interview from one of the guys (DJ slip X men) on the LA based Techno Hop label:



In your music you used a lot of Kraftwerk samples, so I guess they were one of your biggest examples. Who else was influencing your music styles?

All the other guys doing Techno especially Juan Atkins. Kraftwerk was (Still is) an influence on my musical style and the way I mix and engineer. I still reference the MIX album to clear my head after a long night in the studio.



Source:
http://www.electroempire.com/cgi-bin/articles/index.cgi?action=details&ID=56

 

[polystyle]

Polystyle--where would you put Ike Yard? To me, they seem kind of hard to fit squarely within industrial, or in the Suicide/Silver Apples type psychedelic freakout "continuum." Maybe close to D.A.F.

Hmmm , good question Nomado
if you have the IY rerelease CD , I would venture that the first 5 cuts (from the '81 Crepsecule Ep) are in what you tag a psych freakout mode - that describes the combined member's energies early on in the group .
And the second half of the CD (Trks 7-12) has elements of a post -Suicide ,
German electronic comtemporaries Pyrolator/DAF/Liasions Dangeruses/Spain's Esplendor Geometrico and industrial mode (scrap metal , bkwards bts, darker lyrical elements) .

Fer me, the speed element you mention came in once I moved to W Berlin in spring '83 !
Cheers

 

[nomadologist]

los ninos de las ninas! love that song. and the entire album. and the entire IY rerelease. but yes, I guess that makes intuitive sense to me, the halves. taah. speed. it's been a while.