THE BELLEVILLE THREE!

VANGUARD SOUND!

THE BELLEVILLE THREE!

TO BE FAIR, AND BETTER YET, ACCURATE, ONE MUST INCLUDE MR. EDDIE "FLASHIN'" FOWLKES......

ORIGINATOR OF BLACK TECHNO SOUL!

Exhibit honors growth of ‘techno’ music
By Nick Brandon
HPR Media Services

The big three have had such an amazing impact on our area.

The innovation, ingenuity, and invention that they have provided for us has given Detroit worldwide notoriety for being the place where it all started.

Oh, and by the way, this big three has nothing to do with automobiles.

“Belleville Three,” “The Founders” and even the “Holy Trinity” are other names they go by: but to those who know their story, they may also be known as Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson — the gentlemen responsible for the sound we now know as techno music.

“The techno exhibit shares yet another story about Detroiters who have made a significant impact — not just locally but around the world.”
— Dennis Zembala, director

Eddie “Flashin” Fowlkes also joins this elite group as the Detroit Historical Museum celebrates “Techno: Detroit’s Gift to the World,” an exhibit telling the story of how this special, Motor City-based sound came to life.

“It’s a really nice exhibit,” said Juan Atkins, the founder known to most as the “Godfather” of techno music. “I think it’s overdue.

There should be no doubt the scope of the magnitude what I did and what my partners did.”

His partners, Saunderson and May, first met Atkins while attending Belleville High School together — the three artists went on to launch a worldwide musical phenomenon that even Atkins could have never predicted.

Techno “founders” Eddie Fowlkes (left), Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May stand in front of the exhibit’s home, the Detroit Historical Museum.
“There’s no way that you could blueprint anything that’s gone on over that whole techno run,” Atkins said.

“The techno exhibit shares yet another story about Detroiters who have made a significant impact — not just locally but around the world,” said Dennis Zembala, director of the Detroit Historical Museum. “We think the new exhibit will be of interest to both techno enthusiasts who have followed its explosive growth, as well as to those who are curious and want to learn more.”

“This is an historic event for the city of Detroit,” said Christine Beatty, chief of staff for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. “Techno definitely makes a positive impact on our city.”

The display features such vintage artifacts as rare vinyls and posters, along with many photos of the great minds who contributed to the movement.

“I thought it was great,” said Eddie “Flashin” Fowlkes, who the museum includes in the quartet responsible for the genesis of the music. “It’s for the kids who really want to understand … it’s interactive.”

A replica studio actually puts the attendee into a setting similar to where a lot of the music is created, and features authentic instruments such as Jeff Mills’ turntables and the keyboard that Derrick May composed the classic “Strings of Life” on.

Those who wonder how techno beats are crafted can cure their curiosity with two electronic music machines, both giving people a chance to lay down their own grooves and truly explore the style for themselves.

As with any exhibit, there is also an educational aspect: the stories of many of the involved artists aside from the founders — names like Blake Baxter, Jeff “The Wizard” Mills, Carl Craig and Richie Hawtin, are told throughout the exhibit.

“A lot is said about those (founding) three… the rest of them have kept it going,” said Ron Murphy, a local expert on vinyl, who cut many of techno’s earliest records.

The exhibit also highlights the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, an incredibly significant annual event in Hart Plaza that draws an international crowd of thousands to the music’s birthplace during Memorial Day weekend.

Following its Detroit run, set to go through next year’s DEMF in late May, the exhibit is scheduled to travel to many different museums and institutions throughout the world — the first touring exhibit the historical museum has had in over a decade.

“I think it’s gonna be a good thing,” Murphy said. “It’s gonna be very successful worldwide.”

For Atkins, going through the exhibit was a nice trip down memory lane.

“It was a good feeling,” Atkins said. “I used to come here as a kid … I never thought or dreamed that we would be here on exhibit.”

“I’m excited to see it,” said Derrick Ortencio, head of Transmat Records, Derrick May’s label. “It can only mean good things for the music and the city.

We’ve always felt that the recognition for these artists in the city is long overdue.”

“I think it’s incredible, that’s the only adjective that can describe it,” said Alan Oldham, techno DJ and former WDET-FM host. “Who would have thought the things I did would be brought up in that context?”

“I feel that it legitimizes the music to the normal person … It’s more of a wake up call as to what techno is.”

Oldham, who hosted the famous “Fast Forward” show on WDET in the late 1980s and early ’90s, sees the exhibit as a potentially inspiring story to its visitors, especially younger people.

“It’s a bunch of guys who didn’t have that many options grabbing on to something and making it an international movement,” Oldham said. “I think that’s the main message of the exhibit.”

Nick Brandon can be reached by e-mail at SureAsEggs@aol.com.

Techno Music
Techno music came out of Detroit in the 1980's, and carried the influences of popular electronic music of the 1970's to the dancefloors. The music features regular, pouding beats coupled with distorted synthesized sequences.

The best known early techno producers are Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson, sometimes known as the Belleville Three. They made music for clubs that was a urban take on the music of German musicians like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream were making. While Techno made it to the clubs in Chicago and New York, it was a largely underground style throughout the eighties.

What is Techno?

Techno is pure electronic music, originally designed for dances, that combines the sound of classic German electronica with an american Urban feel. The music emphasizes the machine sound of electronic drum machines, especially the Roland TR-808, and often is based around repetitive riffs played on bass line sequencers like the Roland TB-303.

The history of techno starts in Detroit. The style emerged there when musicians took cheap, used electronic instruments and abused them in ways never intended by their creators. Early techno artists drew on science fiction and futuristic themes in their music. The techno sound depicted a place unlike the aging Detroit city where it was born. The music and the themes of the songs were intended to sound like something from the future. “It’s an attitude to making music that sounds futuristic,” according to techno pioneer Juan Atkins, “something that hasn’t been done before.”

One of the best known early techno songs is "Alleys of your Mind", by techno artists Cybotron. Works from Atkins, May and Saunderson didn't make the charts, but were very influential because they were played in major clubs in the US. In 1988, a compilation called Techno! The New Dance Sound helped define the style.

In the 90's, artists in Europe began to take the Detroit sound of early techno songs and morph it. New variations were created, including acid, ambient techno, hardcore, and jungle. The techno style has gained more popularity in Europe than it has in the United States, because electronica has been popularized more in Europe than in the US.

Techno has been associated with raves since the nineties. The idea of a rave is just a techno party where like-minded techno fans can get together and dance to continuous dj mixes of electronic music. These have been particularly popular in Europe. In 2000, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival became one of the largest and most significant electronica events in the world. It was free and attracted hundreds of thousands of techno music fance from all over the world.

Juan Atkins

Juan Atkins (born December 9, 1962) is an American musician.

He is widely credited as the originator of techno music, sometimes known as Detroit Techno since Atkins and techno co-creators Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson grew up in Detroit, Michigan.

Atkins has cited the radio show of Charles "Electrifyin' Mojo" Johnson as a musical influence. Electrifyin' Mojo, a Detroit DJ, played an eclectic mix of music including Kraftwerk, Parliament and Prince.

Atkins and friend Derrick May created mix tracks for Electrifying Mojo to broadcast, then began to create original music. At Washtenaw Community College, Atkins met Rick Davis, with whom he recorded under the name Cybotron.

Atkins coined the term techno to describe their music, taking as one inspiration the works of futurist and author Alvin Toffler, from whom he borrowed the terms "cybotron" and "metroplex".

Atkins has used the term techno to describe earlier bands that made heavy use of synthesizers such as Kraftwerk, although many people would consider Kraftwerks music and Juan's early music in Cybotron as Electro. Techno is considered today as a specific genre.

Atkins began recording as Model 500 in 1985. He continues to produce his own and other musicians' records under the Metroplex Records label.

He Is "MAGIC" JUAN ATKINS

Dubbed the "Godfather of Techno", "Magic" Juan Atkins is the genius who founded Detroit electronic music, and has influenced and inspired a generation of musicians.

Working under the monikers Model 500, Infiniti and Cybotron, Atkins is one of the foremost musicians of the genre today, and has yet to meet his equal.

Born and raised on Detroit's northwest side, Juan took his City flavor to suburban Belleville, where he attended high school with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. Atkins's talent emerged obvious early on, and he began experimenting with dance music under the influence of the sterile, machine-driven sounds of Kraftwerk and the quintessentially bass-notic funk of Detroit's own Parliament-Funkadelics. What emerged was Cybotron, which quickly gained Atkins and partner Rick Davies national renown, charting top-40 on black music radio.As his musicality developed, Atkins ventured on alone as Model 500, releasing minimalist, high-tech classics such as No UFO's, The Chase, Nightdrive and Ocean to Ocean.

By this time, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May had already begun their experimentation, and under Atkins's direction the three unleashed their talent to create the breathtaking Inner City release. It was soon followed by Big Fun, which deluged first London, and then all of Europe, with the massive, electrifying sound of techno. From that point, Atkins's reputation flourished, and he began receiving requests to remix pop hits from Dr. Robert & Kimmayzelle, Coldcut, Yaz, Fine Young Cannibals, The Tom Tom Club, The Beloved, Style Council, Dave Clark and Carl Cox.

Although Atkins continued to produce cutting-edge, anthemic dance singles during that time, it wasn't until 1994 that he released his first mini-LP entitled Sonic Sunset, followed in 1995 by Deep Space. With these landmark hits, his acclaim finally came home to the growing audiences of North America. His distinctive utopian sound can be heard in some of the most remote corners of the globe, wherever people gather to dance and celebrate life.

The fluidity of his chords and the awe-inspiring power of the inimitable bass line that are his signature have attracted a huge following of fans who are now bumping to another stand-out Model 500 album, Mind and Body, 1999.

Running his label, Metroplex Recordsand deejaying around the world, Atkins continues to share his musical and philosophical perspective. In an industry that is inspired by his work yet bastardizes the word and sound he created, Atkins remains a stand-out as an historical Godfather icon in documentaries, feature films and books, cataloguing his visionary contribution. He anticipated the record industry by a full decade.

The industry as a whole, especially in Europe, has constantly put pressure on Detroit artists, Atkins in particular, to re-invent the wheel and to continuously refresh and advance the dance sound. With a new perspective, a move to Los Angeles to fulfil a lifelong dream of producing an album by the ocean, and a return to the sound of Black America, Atkins is accomplishing just that.To those who truly know its roots and love techno/electronic music, Atkins's musical genius is a deep pool of inspiration that has changed their lives forever. Whatever the future holds and while North America dominates and commercializes the sound of his European imitators and followers, Atkins is still the stand-out, the Sly Stone, the Miles Davis virtuoso of electronic funk.He remains the funk Buddha.

TechnoRadioNewYork ® copyright © 2004 all rights reserved.

Derrick May

Techno is just like Detroit, a complete mistake. It's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator." [...]

Derrick May is one of the founding fathers of Detroit techno, a precursor of its many variants and particularly of acid house. His aesthetic, skeletal, melancholy style gained him the nickname of "the Miles Davis of techno". He introduced both a psychological element and a futuristic vision in dance music.

Along with his high school mates Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, May began early in life to explore electronic music May sponsored the single Let's Go by X-Ray, that introduced the hypnotic, repetitive electronic figures of techno, and then recorded Nude Photo (Transmat, 1987), credited to Rythim Is Rythim, one of the records that started the techno revolution world-wide. An affecting melody, subaquatic basslines, jazzy hi-hats, liquid synthesisers made it an instant underground classic. May followed it with Strings Of Life (Transmat, 1987), his masterpiece. May's label soon became a reference point for an embryonic but rapidly expanding Detroit scene. R-Tyme's R-Theme and Rythim Is Rythim's Beyond The Dance also ranked very high in the techno Valhalla.

In 1990, right after Beginning, May sank into a self-imposed exile from the musical scene. He returned three years later with the evocative Icon (Transmat, 1993), the transcendent Kaotic Harmony (Transmat, 1993) and the compilation of unreleased tracks Relics. The double CD Innovator (Transmat, 1997) contains all the music that May has ever released.

Terrence Parker on Derrick May :

“Simply put, DERRICK put on (what we as DJs use to call back in the day) a clinic, and schooled everyone on how to properly bang out some techno. (…) not just for the records themselves, but rather in the way Derrick presented them. It's the way a DJ presents the music to the audience that makes the difference.”

"I believe that you're in control of your own destiny. I believe that I chose to do songs like "Nude Photo", "Strings Of Life", "It Is What It Is". I really didn't care about making the charts or being a top 40 artist at any point in my life and I still don't. I couldn't give a shit about that."

Many years ago the future began: In 1987 a shrinkwrapped record called "Nude Photo" appeared on the shelves of a few specialist dance shops in Europe and helped kickstart a musical revolution. The label featured a drawing of what looked like a second world-war pilot. Or was it futuristic time-slip rider? The hand written details read Rythim Is Rythim, the word deliberately mispelt, given a fresh twist. The music sounded outer-worldly. Sub-aquatic basslines raced with hi-hats constructed from welding sparks. It was like listening to liquid electricity. But the most outstanding feature of "Nude Photo" and the subsequent music which it's author would produce, was that it was much, much more than just machine-driven sounds. This music was absolutely drenched in emotion. This was the sound of someone's soul.

To put Derrick May's career into perspective you have to include the two other chief innovators of the Detroit techno scene, Juan Atkins (Model 500) and Kevin Saunderson (Inner City). Without these two there would have been no-one for May to bounce ideas off and to help create and achieve a musical vision. It's also worth understanding the state that the city of Detroit found itself in at this time. Having once been home to the empires of Motown and Ford Motors, Detroit was now a crumbling shell laid to waste, unsure of it's future. It's skeleton was as much an influence as electric instruments.

With May having met Atkins and Saunderson at high school, the trio hung out in the early eighties and slowly begun developing their own scene. Influence and inspiration came from imported European electropop crystallised by the likes of Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, New Order and Nitzer Ebb and a fascination with synthesisers. With Juan's primitive electro dabblings as Cybotron and with Derrick and Kevin spinning on local mix station WJLB, it wasn't long before they pooled their ideas musically. During this period Atkins had introduced May and Saunderson to Alvin Toffler's book "The Third Wave", which tells of 'Techno Rebels as agents of the Third Wave', their assigment being to help advance new stages of civilisation by utilising the skills and characteristics of both man and machine with equal placing, but with man still in control. These are the roots of 'techno'.

In the summer of '86 the trio's early explorations produced what was to be the first release on May's own Transmat label, "Let's Go" by X-Ray - an hypnotic space-dub-house journey across the dancefloor. When May released "Nude Photo" into the unknown a year later, following it with what was to become one of house music's classic anthems, the seminal "Strings Of Life", he (like Kevin and Juan) was still unaware of the effect that this music was to have on the European house scene. Between them the trio had created a wedge of inspiring music that, although taking a couple of years to fully sink in, directly helped twist the European dance underground from a sampling prit-stick into a concentrated hub of new investigative musical architects.

Alongside May's solo releases, Transmat released early conceptions by such now well-regarded artists as Carl Craig (as Psyche), Suburban Knight, Octave One, K-Alexi Shelby, Joey Beltram and British house act Bang The Party. And along with Juan Atkins' Metroplex and Kevin Saunderson's KMS imprints, Transmat became a window to what was happening inside the principal musical minds of deepest Detroit. But in 1990, May pressed the pause button.

Now, with such an incredible catalogue and up to this point, obvious motivation, it's a mystery to even the most ardent techno head why May's creative period came in burst of just three intensive years. When Rythim Is Rythim released the spellbinding "Beginning" in 1990, no-one knew that it would be the last they would hear from May for another four years, as he took a self-imposed exile from the techno scene that came complete with rumours of retirement.

TechnoRadioNewYork ® copyright © 2004 all rights reserved.

Kevin Saunderson

Kevin Saunderson is a legend in his own right, known and respected around the world as one pillar of the trinity of Detroit innovators who created Techno music, reshaping the future of Dance music as we know it. He was born in 1964 in NY and moved at the age of nine to the "Motor City". He met Derrick May and Juan Atkins at Belleville High School and dropped a professional football career to become a DJ.

Kevin accompanied May and Atkins to Detroit's Music Institute and founded his own label in 1986, KMS. He began musical production under many different aliases and his works all shared a hard-hitting pumping mechanistic feel. Some of his releases such as Triangle of Love by Kreem or Bounce Your Body to the Box by Reese and Santonio quickly crossed the frontiers and became UK underground hits along with Derrick May's Nude Photo or Strings Of Life.

In 1987, Kevin - then a 22-year-old college student struggling to pass his exam and promote his own KMS label at the same time - recorded a backing track in the basement of his apartment. He needed a girl vocalist and Terry "Housemaster" Baldwin from Chicago suggested Paris Grey. She agreed, flew to Detroit and they recorded "Big Fun". Inner City was born. "Big Fun" (first released on a Virgin compilation, "Techno: The New Dance Sound Of Detroit") became a UK crossover success and finally a wordwide smash hit followed up with "Good Life" which even outsold "Big Fun".

Virgin released Inner City's first album Big Fun (also the first Detroit techno LP in history) in 1989 followed up in 1990 by Fire. In 1991 Kevin Saunderson unveiled his new Reese Project, a more gospel oriented variation of Inner City, and released a debut album, Faith Hope and Clarity in 1992 as well as the third Inner City album, Praise.

A few Inner City tracks like 1994's Do Ya and Share My Life continued hitting the charts while the fourth album was released in 1996 and Kevin was touring worldwide as a DJ.

In 1997, Planet-E compiled Kevin's techno works on Faces and Phases. One year later, he signed a volume of the X-Mix series (after Jeff Mills, Ken Ishii...) and released his E-Dancer LP, Heavenly.

TechnoRadioNewYork ® copyright © 2004 all rights reserved.

Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes

Though he was present at the birth of Detroit techno, Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes was often overlooked in favor of the more press-hyped "Belleville Three" (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson). Still, Fowlkes' template of futuristic techno blended with elements of mellow deep-house and a touch of Motown soul was name-checked with surprising frequency by British and German producers aware of the debt they owed to Detroit's first guard. The style, dubbed "Black Technosoul" by Fowlkes himself, was illustrated in hilarious fashion on the cover of an LP as some kind of interplanetary switched-at-birth scenario.
A big fan of Motown and soul while growing up, Fowlkes began mixing while still in high school and made the move to become a full-time DJ after a stint in business college. He often DJed at the fabled Detroit club Music Institute and first recorded in 1986 with the "Goodbye Kiss" single for Juan Atkins' Metroplex Records. Fowlkes also recorded for KMS, 430 West (the seminal single "Inequality") and Play It Again Sam during the late '80s and early '90s, and released his debut full-length, the hard and soul LP Serious Techno, Vol. 1 in 1991.

After several Detroit producers experienced tremendous success abroad, Fowlkes gained an album contract with Germany's Tresor Records and recorded in Berlin with the in-house production team 3MB (aka Moritz Von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann), resulting in 1993's The Birth of Technosoul. Another LP from the sessions (Deep Detroit Techno Soul, Vol. 1) emerged that same year, and Fowlkes began recording for other European labels like Infonet, Back to Basics and Peacefrog as well. His third album for Tresor, Black Technosoul, followed in 1996. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

Biography:

Detroit-born Eddie "Flashin'" Fowlkes was raised on the music of another Detroit native: Motown Records. The songs of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye filled his parents' house and Fowlkes took this influence and keen vocal ear with him when he began turning heads DJ'ing soul and jazz in 1982. With friends like Juan Atkins and roomates like Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May in 1986, the eventual followed: DJ'ing Kraftwerk gradually turned into making music.

Fowlkes' angle on what would become known as Techno was a smooth continuation of the humanity found in Soul. He sought to bring emotional warmth to the usually cold and machined sound of Techno, seeing Detroit's new and old music styles - Techno and Soul - as inseparable. Unafraid to combine Techno with Jazz tunes, melodies, and especially vocals, Fowlkes sought to bring the FEELING back to Techno.

The success of his first single, "Goodbye Kiss" on Metroplex confirmed his ideology and he pressed on with hits on labels like KMS, 430 West, Play It Again Sam, and Lafayette (UK) until 1992 when Techno caught fire in Europe and Fowlkes caught the eye of Tresor. He recorded for the label with production masterminds 3MB (Thomas Fehlmann & Moritz Von Oswald) in Berlin that year. 3MB were so impressed with Fowlkes' vision that they put together more tracks for the "Detroit Techno Soul" compilation that Fowlkes coordinated for Tresor in 1994. The spirit of Soul was truly contained in Techno. Now Los Angeles based, Fowlkes keeps spreading the message with his own label, City Boy. His music remains unphased by Techno's mutations through the years: the soul is still at the heart of his music.

Mon: 11-28-05
From the Autobahn to I-94
The Origins of Detroit Techno and Chicago House
Story by Heiko Hoffmann Twenty years ago, two groups of young, mostly black Midwesterners-- influenced in parts by disco, Philly Soul, and European synth-pop-- simultaneously created the two major movements in modern dance music, house and techno. We celebrate those minimal, primitive early pangs of mechanized dance by speaking to Detroit techno pioneers Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes, Blake Baxter, and Mike Grant, as well as Chicago House-DJ Tyree Cooper about the connections between the house and the techno and house capitols.

FIRST CONTACTS
Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes (producer/DJ): I went to Chicago for the first time in August 1981. I was just 18. I kept hearing of this cat named Frankie Knuckles. One day (Detroit disco DJ legend) Ken Collier-- who was a friend of Knuckles-- and a couple of friends wanted to go see him play at the Warehouse and asked me to come along. So I went and checked him out. We went to Chicago at 2:20 a.m. This was my first time at a gay club and I was shocked. But the music was so good! Frankie had his own edits of Philly International tracks and others on a reel-to-reel-tape which he played. That seperated Frankie Knuckles from all the other DJs. And the place was amazing. You had people swinging on trapezes and the lights were amazings. That was an experience! Chicago had the best parties. Hands down.

Blake Baxter (producer/DJ): Detroit people drove to Chicago all the time. Everyone from K. Hand to Derrick May was going because Chicago had the best clubs and a good underground scene. It's just a four-hour drive and people from Detroit went there to party for the weekend. I was in the special forces for two years in the mid-1980s. I always wanted to DJ and to do music but it didn't work out for me when I came back to Detroit. I had heard about Chicago and the house sound so I basically just drove there to hang out.

About 1986, I met Rocky Jones who was the owner of DJ International. At that time I was strictly a drummer in calypso bands doing studio session stuff. Then Rocky asked me for a demo tune. I recorded some drums on electronic drum pads and gave it to him. He said: "This is really good stuff! Which drum machine did you use?" And I said: "I didn't use a drum machine." He said: "Really? This is really good stuff. I want to work with you and sign you!" I was shocked! It was a little bit too serious for me but I was happy that someone was interested. He asked me to add some keyboards but I only played percussion, so I played some rhythm stuff on a Juno 60 which was the only synthesizer I could afford. Rocky liked my sound because it was different. He would book a whole day in a recording studio and bring all the DJ International artists in and would give each two hours to record their music. So I met Marshall Jefferson, Joe Smooth, Chip-E, and Tyree Cooper.

Tyree was funny. He always made jokes about me because I was coming from a punk background and looked the way. I still love Jesse Saunders and Jamie Principle. Those were my two idols! I found my sound because I was listening to these two guys. We all became friends and they took me to all the clubs in Chicago. Every time I went to Chicago I was just sleeping in a truck on the beach.

Tyree Cooper (producer/DJ): When I first met Blake Baxter at DJ International, I thought, "Where the hell is he from?" He just looked weird and had this high-pitched voice and his music sounded like a cross between Thomas Dolby and Jamie Principle.

Blake Baxter: I met Derrick May at DJ International because he was working on something. Derrick was living in Chicago for a time [in the early 80s] because his mom moved there from Detroit when she married. He remembered me from Detroit and then asked me for some music for his label after he heard my records on DJ International. I lived with Derrick for a year because his girlfriend and my girlfriend lived together.

Tyree Cooper: Detroit had a bigger percentage of black people but Chicago was so segregated that there were certain black neighborhoods. So there were DJs who were popular on the South Side or on the West Side. If a party organizer was savvy enough to know which DJs worked in which part of the city he would put together a party in downtown with the most popular DJs from each neighborhood. That way you could regularly have parties with 5,000 kids.

DECKS, EFFECTS & 909
Kevin Saunderson (producer/DJ, member of Inner City): At one point we went from DJing only on turntables to DJing with a 909 (drum computer). 909 was very important because what happened is that Juan [Atkins] started to make beats that he would later use at parties.

Eddie Fowlkes: First came the 808 though. That was in 1984. Juan introduced it at one of our Deep Space parties and it was sweet! At one point we stopped the turntables and Juan would start to work on his 808. He would start switching that shit and motherfuckers just went nuts. The next thing you saw was Jeff Mills using an 808 and all of a sudden every DJ had a drum machine.

Tyree Cooper: In 1985 we borrowed an 808 from Marshall Jefferson for 20 bucks and DJed with it for six months. Kids loved that shit! When we went to a party we had a bagful of records, a bagful of cassettes and the 808. When "Move Your Body" [by Marshall Jefferson] came out it used a 707 because we had his 808.

Mike Grant (producer/DJ/labelowner): Juan's and Derrick's DJ group Deep Space were really innovative. The sound system was tight. But a special thing was when Juan brought in his 909 and played drum programs. For example he played the "No UFO's" program before it was out and other Model 500 things. The 909 was their secret weapon!

Kevin Saunderson: We all had the same music-- stuff like Kraftwerk, B-52s, New Order, Depeche Mode, Alexander Robotnik, some Funkadelic, even some Prince, some disco records, Eddy Grant-- but it wasn't enough to DJ. So Juan started to use the 909 beats to his DJ set.

Juan Atkins (producer/DJ, aka Model 500, member of Cybotron): Derrick met Frankie Knuckles and Chip-E in Chicago. He sells Frankie Knuckles his 909 and all of these guys started using the 909 in their mixes and then started making records with them.

Mike Grant: They had 808s in Chicago but for some reasons they didn't have any 909s.

Eddie Fowlkes: Derrick was my roommate at the time. At one point Derrick stopped working so I was the only one to pay my half of the rent. One day I get home and Juan was there. I was tired and wanted to get to sleep. Then Juan wakes me up and says: "Fowlkes, Fowlkes! You know what this motherfucker did? Derrick went and gave away the fucking sound! He couldn't pay his rent and sold his 909 to Frankie Knuckles in Chicago!" Juan was very protective of his sound and Derrick didn't understand this. That's how the 909 sound came to Chicago. This is how the sound between Detroit and Chicago merged.

Tyree Cooper: Frankie Knuckles allowed Chip E to borrow the 909, and he used it to make "Like This".

Eddie Fowlkes: And the 909 still had Juan's beats on it which he used to teach Derrick how to program.

HOT MIX FIVE
Tyree Cooper: [Chicago's] WBMX started in 1981. And this show Hot Mix Five was on air right from the beginning. The station held a competition to find the best DJs in the city. The Hot Mix Five DJ team was Ralph Rosario, Mickey "Mixin" Oliver, Scott "Smokin" Seals, Kenny "Jammin" Jason, and the best of them all: Farley "Jackmaster" Funk.

Eddie Fowlkes: In 81 I went to college in Kalamazoo which was two hours away from Detroit and two hours away from Chicago. Some days we went to a friend who had a good receiver and could pick up the stations from Chicago, so we could listen to the lunch mix show on WBMX. That kept me up on some great music!

Tyree Cooper: Everywhere you went-- for at least three or four years-- WBMX was all you heard no matter where you went.

Juan Atkins: When you look at the radio stations in Chicago and their mix shows they just ignored everything else that went on in the rest of the country. They were doing their disco thing. We went to Chicago sometimes, just to listen to the radio and listen to the mix shows.

Mike Grant: I first heard about Chicago house about 84 through WBMX tapes that Eddie Fowlkes had. He said: "This is bad! It's some Chicago DJs..." It was a mix of disco and Philly stuff like "Let No Man Put Us Under" and the imported dance music of the day and some of the pioneering records of house music like Jesse Saunders' "On & On".

Some people from Detroit just went there to hang out. Eventually we discovered the record shops like Importes Etc. and Barneys where we went record shopping. There was this one guy from Detroit who would book a hotel room in Chicago, hook up a video recorder to a stereo radio, and then record these six-hour tapes from the DJ shows on the radio and make cassette tapes out of them.

Eddie Fowlkes: The Chicago DJs had more structure and were cutting more than the Detroit DJs. The Detroit DJs like Juan and Derrick were more into mixing and blending. The smoother you are the better you are. The Chicago DJs had a different beat and a different vocal every eight bars.

Mike Grant: You had a variety of DJs; they each touched on different things, but they were connected. Ralph Rosario touched more on the Latin, Farley was more funky, and so on.

Kevin Saunderson: Me and Derrick used to go to Chicago almost every weekend just to listen to the radio like WBMX and shows like "Hot Mix 5" and the "Super Mix 6". Going to Chicago was a four-hour-drive and during the last two hours you could already here the Chicago radio stations. Derrick knew all these people like Farley "Jackmaster" Funk and Frankie Knuckles and it had a big influence too. I went to [clubs like] Powerplant and the Musicbox. Derrick would take Juan's music and give it to DJs, distributors, and record stores.

Eddie Fowlkes: I didn't have a car so I always asked cats who were driving to Chicago to buy some records for me because at that time Chicago had the best record shops.

Mike Grant: At that time Derrick wasn't living in Chicago any more. He didn't have a car so he always needed someone to drive him to Chicago. We would then go to shops like Importes Etc sell them the early Model 500 and Transmat records and buy some others for us, then we would go to Derrick's mother to grab something to eat, and then we drove home again. I remember one time going to Chicago with Derrick in the middle of the day. WBMX also had a Hot Lunch Mix on at around noon. I had my radio recorder in the car so that we could record that show on tape.

Juan Atkins: DJs like Farley played these records so much. In Detroit, it was played mainly in clubs because there was no radio.

Kevin Saunderson: Chicago was easy. You just gave your stuff to all the Hot Mix people and they played them. Every DJ played our records.

Mike Grant: Chicago DJs were very supportive of our records. They considered it a different brand of House but that's cool.

Tyree Cooper: For us Model 500s "No UFO's" was a house record. It sounded different but for us it was still house.

Kevin Saunderson: One day I was just listenening to the radio and suddenly I heard this crazy stuff on the radio and that was Derrick. When he returned from Chicago he had a radio show called "Street Beat. On this radio show he was playing a lot of Chicago house music. He played stuff like Chip-E and Jesse Saunders. What happened is Derrick got more time on the radio and what he did was he formed a group where every DJ played for half an hour. We were trying to copy Chicago with WBMX. And that was me, Derrick, Mike Grant, Juan, and Eddie Fowlkes.

Mike Grant: At one point Derrick approached a radio station-- WJLB-- to do a show similar to Hot Mix 5 in Detroit. That was in August 85. There would be four or five DJs mixing dance music at night. At first we would record our sets. I recorded mine in my mother's living room. That was the first station to introduce techno. We played a lot of the early Model 500 stuff. I also took my 909, programmed some beats, and had some friends brother rap to it.

Kevin Saunderson: At the time Jeff Mills, who was known as The Wizard back then, had a show as well. He was scratching and playing records very fast so he became the innovator. It was a like a big battle going on between the two shows. He didn't really play our records. And if he did he played them only for about 40 seconds.

Eddie Fowlkes: Derrick would invite me or Juan on the show. But the show was mostly Derrick's thing. You could hear some good music on the show but The Wizard was the shit. Jeff Mills show was far more popular. He did all this scratching and played a new record every 30 seconds. That's what started booty music in Detroit in my opinion.

Mike Grant: The two shows were competing but eventually the station that "Street Beat" was on lost its frequency.

Some DJs in Detroit even picked up this Chicago thing of having middle names. In Chicago you had names like Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, or Scott "Smoking" Sills, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, or Steve "Silk" Hurley. There was always this middle name. In Detroit you had Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes, Art "Pumpin" Payne, Keith "Mixin" Martin. But I just didn't want to do it.

Eddie Fowlkes: I came up with that middle name when I was about to put out my first record "Goodybe Kiss". Juan asked me about the name and I realized that I hadn't thought about it. So I came up with "Flashin" because all the Chicago DJs had a middle name that started with the same letter as their last name as well.

HOUSE OR TECHNO?
Juan Atkins: It has always been techno music. I always called the music I was making techno music.

Kevin Saunderson: We called it "techno" because of Juan. He was the main influence because he called his music "techno". [sings] "Uuuh, Techno City..."

Eddie Fowlkes: For me my first record was more of a house record even though it was hard. But back then you didn't think too much about how to call it. When Neil Rushton put this compilation together (Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit) Derrick wanted to call it "The Best of Detroit House". But then Juan said: "You can all call your music house but what I do is techno music.

Juan Atkins: See, that was because Derrick was going to Chicago and they tried to call our music the house sound of Detroit. In Chicago, you had the Jesse Saunders stuff and the Jamie Principle stuff and titles like "acid house" or something like that. But that was Techno! They just didn't call it that because it would give Detroit too much influence.

Mike Grant: Detroit had this more funky edge while Chicago was more disco. In Detroit you had Mojo [legendary Detroit radio DJ Electrifiyin' Mojo] on the radio who played Jimi Hendrix, the Gap Band, Parliament/Funkaldelic, and a lot of the European things, whereas folks in Chicago were more focused on disco. To me that stuff out of Detroit was very different from the Chicago sound. It's right more synthesizer-based whereas house music was more drum machine-based. You can hear that difference even right back to Cybotron.

Juan Atkins: When you listen to Chicago recods, a lot of them sounded like Philly International records. They were always like the Philly International disco sound. Going "ks-ks-ks-ks..." you know! That's the whole difference. In Detroit we don't have any real reference point. All the Detroit stuff was pure futuristic. The only thing that we really had in common was the form.

Eddie Fowlkes: The main difference between the two cities was that Chicago was more disco while Detroit was more funk. You know Amp Fiddler? The way he dresses, the way his hair is that's the Detroit funk style.

Kevin Saunderson: I started making music simply because I needed more tracks to DJ. Juan had a stronger vision: He wanted to create this new technological, electronic music, this "techno". I always loved club music. I loved the Paradise Garage in New York and I loved deep music. I like disco and I like vocals. Juan and Derrick were more inspired by European music. But I came from New York, I was inspired more from disco. The European music was important because it introduced this new technology to us. That you can make your own records with these machines...

Juan Atkins: There was definetely competition between the Chicago and the Detroit DJs. We all wanted to be famous. But we were also friends, Tyree Cooper and all of these guys. Farley was a good friend. We went to Farley in Chicago just to hang out and they came to Detroit.

Mike Grant: Chicago DJs came to Detroit to play. There were Hot Mix Five parties. They had five sets of decks on stage. Everybody would do their thing and then at one point one DJs would start his tricks and then move it to the next DJ onto the last DJ. That was sweet.

Kevin Saunderson: That's all we knew, Detroit and Chicago. And Chicago was definitely the market to sell records. We heard Juan's records on the radio and in mix shows. After that Derrick followed with "Let's Go" and his Transmat label. He took some equipment from Juan's studio. You know, Juan helped us all. I didn't know how to make a record. Juan came in and showed me how to make those 8-tracks or 16-tracks or whatever. I made my first track in 198,4 but it was 1985 when it first came out on Metroplex.

Then I realized: "I can do that. I want to have my record back because I want to put it out on my own." So Juan put some records out then I took it back and I remixed it. It was a great time and a great experience It was very important and significant. We spend the time like a team. Derrick made a hot record so I wanted to make a hot one. Eddie made a hot record I made a hot record. So it was competitive and inspiring at the same time.

In 1987, the whole thing developed into a new direction. Derrick had success with his records like "Nude Photo". That made more people interested in Detroit. Now you got "Nude Photo", you got "Goodbye Kiss", you got "Triangle of Love", and you got "Groovin' Without Doubt". All these records were coming out of Detroit. So we sold these to the distributors to export them overseas. Suddenly they became an interest in London. People there were already interested in Chicago because of all these "Jack" tracks. Then Derrick met the British record label owner Neil Rushton who had already put together some Chicago compilations and then did the Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit in 1988. So Derrick was the bridge to Europe.

Mike Grant: I went to the army in December 85 for three years. After the army I went to live and go to school in Chicago. My decision to go to Chicago was heavily influenced by the fact that there was good music. But unfortunately things had changed in the meantime. WBMX went off air and the records weren't all that interesting any longer. The balance had shifted and Detroit had become more relevant.

Heiko Hoffmann is the editor of the Berlin-based Groove magazine and the owner of Mobilé Records. He can be reached at heiko@groove.de.