Copying over the text of a very long facebook post by old techno head Scuba. Interested to see what people think of all this.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HjVCKb58b/
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HjVCKb58b/
What are we all doing here anyway?
Richie Hawtin’s sporadic interventions on topical issues usually attract a lot of attention. The one that tends to pop up in my head is the post on facebook nearly 20 years ago where he mocked a DJ carrying a bag of records, in what in hindsight was clearly a tongue in cheek manner but provoked all the outrage you can imagine from the puritan classes with the kind of absolutist attitudes that had yet to fully occupy the dance music commentariat.
That’s not to say vinyl or even techno purism took over anything at any point. More that the intoxicating power of the accepted narrative acquired a momentum of its own. Regardless of how crazy aspects of that narrative might turn out to be, to question a part of it is to place yourself on the other side of the line.
In this year’s version, a tearful, already-legendary video bemoaning the demise of the Aslice platform, he talked about community and the spectre of PLUR that has stalked the dance scene since the second Summer Of Love nearly 40 years ago. In the opinion piece published by RA on the same topic, the sub header complained of ‘dance music’s hollow activism’.
And it’s true - the utopian ethos of rave was always only part of the story. Thatcherism and the animal spirit of the wideboy entrepreneur was in reality as important as the nascent echoes of 1968 in the acid house revolution.
But while by 1991 there was a balance, the truth is that the “community” now barely even exists at all.
And why would it? For nearly a decade the prevailing narrative has been that rave in its original form was a sham - a stolen culture dominated by the victors who remorselessly plundered from people alien to themselves and shut out others who didn’t fit into the preferred demographic groups, as if a subcommittee had sat at Davos planning out the dance scene at annual intervals for the preceding several decades.
Of course, this account is partially true. The dance scene WAS dominated by a certain type of person, both on the stage and in the studio.
And despite nearly a decade of social engineering, it still is. That is to say, the vast majority (easily 85% and probably more than 90%) of DJs globally are from a commonly designated group, with an even higher figure for producers.
These numbers are reflected in the comments under Richie’s video on instagram, and subsequent posts. Judging by the identities of those people, the efforts to diversify the techno scene at least have been remarkably unsuccessful. Even despite the elevation of highly visible festival headliners in the genre, based more on their social media presence than commitment to the actual music and often justified on the basis that they will inspire a wider range of participants in the sector overall, the makeup of participants in this most ‘community’ of ventures appears to be almost non-existent.
But again, why WOULD new entrants to a scene which was denounced as exclusionary and exploitative seek to join the community in a constructive way? For the dance press (who in conjunction with the lunatic fringe on twitter largely propagated this narrative) to be publicly scratching their heads over this is either pure gaslighting or just plain dumb.
The untold story of Aslice is that the best producers are no longer rewarded with the low and mid-tier DJ sets that aren’t expected to sell significant tickets on their own but are crucial to the health of the music as a whole. The gradual and more recent precipitous decline of smaller clubs, venues which used to be the incubators of production and DJ talent, has revealed the frailties of the system, and the increasing ubiquity of ticketed events even at the smallest venues has exposed every DJ to the reality of their ability to deliver financial return to the promoter.
The added pressure that was introduced around 2016 on promoters and bookers to deliver diversity on lineups was so wildly out of sync with the supply of potential performers as to be ridiculous. That meant the previously incumbent mid tier of mostly DJ/producers who were booked for their music was eased out and replaced by a small pool who ticked a box and, initially, were available for low fees. The resulting spare budget was then hoovered up by the headliners, only to be clawed back in part as it became clear that the supply of the first group in no way met demand.
A parallel effect was the protection from the new entrants from criticism, particularly in their musical output. Ghost production is absolutely rife in dance music, and has been since the very beginning. Many of the most legendary DJs, even ones whose musical output is venerated, have never come close to the platonic ideal of Aphex Twin circuit bending synths in his bedroom.
But to accuse the patently obvious evidence of ghost production in the output of many of the new entrants was, to many in the dance press at least, just more evidence of toxicity in the legacy scene. Again, whether this line was intentional gaslighting or good old-fashioned ignorance is debatable and most likely a combination of the two, but the effect was to further elevate people whose intentions were at best vanity and at worst active sabotage of a culture that, while admittedly flawed, had delivered more than its fair share of the musical innovation of the previous generation.
So what are we left with? Well, the most obvious effect is the breakdown of the relationship between making music and playing out.
“Oh but not all good producers are good DJs, and some of the best DJs don’t produce” - goes the common argument.
The latter point is very much the exception. There are very few top level DJs who don’t also make at least pretty good music, at least good edits and exclusive versions for their sets. Almost all the best DJs make it their business to spend a good amount of time in the studio, even if it wasn’t where their journey in the industry began.
As for the former group - of course this is true, but they get weeded out pretty quickly. It’s one thing getting booked because you made a good track, but you won’t get that return booking unless you played well the first time. It’s a different story if you were only on the lineup to tick a particular box - if that’s the case then your job was largely done before you arrived at the club, and as long as you don’t embarrass yourself completely then that job will likely come up again given the lack of competition for places.
What happens when making great tracks no longer gets you playing out? Well, it certainly means that less great tracks will be made, simply because the experience of playing in clubs tends to sharpen up a producer’s skills. At least in the short term that is - we’ve all heard the stories about how bigger stages and packed schedules have a negative impact on the quality of output. But the widening of experience from bedroom to club is a key development. Take it away and development stops.
It also means that fewer people will continue to bother trying. I received a message on instagram recently from a producer whose tracks I have played quite regularly but can’t get a gig for love nor money and has recently taken a day job again having done music full time for a number of years. Those people are exiting the workforce. Their music won’t be made.
We talk about the positive role of certain types of gatekeeping on the show a lot, but one we haven’t really covered is the pathway from making great music to getting booked. Much music is released today, far too much in fact. The role of promoters in booking DJs whose music they truly love for those low pressure sets has been crucial in the careers of many great producers. That’s increasingly a thing of the past.
So what are we doing here? Is this a music scene? Is it just a party scene? Is it a petri dish for social experimentation?
For most of the lifespan of the dance scene, let’s say from 1987 til now, it was mostly a combination of the first two of those things. With a bit of a conflict between them at times, but mostly self-supporting mechanisms that led to futuristic music and incredible dancefloor experiences.
In the last ten years the march has been towards a combination of the second and third. A party, a lot of social engineering, but not a lot of attention given to the music itself. Maybe for some people that’s a good thing. Maybe they kid themselves that the music is as vital as it's ever been.
Or maybe they just think that if you get the social stuff right, the music will take care of itself.
Good luck with that.
