Selector Selectivity

I'm buying fewer records now, which is good. But overall, each record is costing me more. (Which is bad.) I just got this order in the mail from juno.uk :

CHEVY/LEMOS: Woman's Key (Be Chosen Germany)
MOUNTAIN PEOPLE: Mountain 005 (Mountain People Germany)
KOI: Deaf Torero (Styrax Leaves Germany)
CARL, Aaron: Crucified (Millions Of Moments Germany)
NUBIAN MINDZ: Afrika Man (Delsin Holland)
BOLIVAR, Pablo: Gold Series (D Press Industries Spain)
WLADIMIR M: As The Leaves Fall From The Trees (reissue) (Eevo Lute Holland)
FREUND DER FAMILIE: Sark EP (Freund Der Familie Germany)
SLICES: Slices: The Electronic Music Magazine Issue 2-08
Subtotal $93.14
Insurance $1.20
Shipping $39.06
GRAND TOTAL $133.40

And, as usual, I'm very upset that I have to buy these records from over-fucking-seas. I should be able to get all these from a U.S. Internet retailer. Note that the shipping and insurance accounts for more than 30% of the entire cost of the order. (Plus Paypal and credit card companies charge additional fees for foreign currency transactions.)

These ridiculous costs aren't helping me reduce my credit card debt. But GODDAMN HAVE YOU HEARD THESE RECORDS?!? If not, you better git on like you been shit on. All these are essential listening. And if you actually buy music, they are essential purchases as well. "Why?" you may or may not have asked.
Well...

The Chevy and Lemos collaboration is just damn solid and a standout among those hundreds of sound-the-same samples I listen to every week, via the weekly new release e-mail I get from juno.uk.

Mountain People deliver yet again. Mountain People "003" is one of my favorite records. Ever. and "005" is damn good as well.

Koi. On Styrax Leaves. If you need further explanation, research the label immediately. Wait another minute and you'll miss yet another limited sick/deep/gorgeous-as-fuck techno release. Don't like it? No problem. Wait a few months and you'll be able to sell it for double what you paid.

Aaron Carl's "Crucified" gets the re-release treatment but this time it's accompanied by remixes from Quantec and Rod Modell. Thank god. And it comes on pink vinyl too!

I had to listen to the Nubian Mindz record a few times. I've been buying fewer records like this lately, but "Techno Love" is straight-up Underground Resistance-influenced shit. All the releases on Delsin are very Detroit. Which is a good thing; Delsin is a pretty consistent label.

Pablo Bolivar. If you aren't familiar with his output (including Pulshar), then please make the acquaintance. In no time you'll be cozying up next to this 12" with the dubby Beat Pharmacy (Brendon Moeller/Echologist) remixes. Very very good stuff here. VERY GOOD.

"As The Leaves Fall From The Trees" is a repress from the legendary Eevo Lute label. I wonder if this repress is going to piss off all the people who paid $75+ for this record. Yeah, well, I just got mine for $15, bitches. (And apparently this is remastered as well :)

And lastly, The Freund Der Familie label is definitely one to watch. These releases are extremely limited, so WAKE UP AND HEAR THE FUTURE OF TECHNO! Don't sleep on this shit.

Sure, there's a lot of kids out there copying the formulas and following the "minimal" trend down to its boring template. But it's okay, guys. Techno innovates. Always. As soon as you start to feel that tinge of jade coming on, just know that there is something out there, right now, that will blow your fucking mind. You only need to make it a full-time job, wading through all the filler crap music, to find it.

Or you can just read my blog.

DETROIT ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL 2008

Movement: DEMF 2008? Awesome.
For all the haters who said this festival was better 5 years ago or whatever: You're probably right, you bastards.
Whatever. Nothing is perfect.
Nevertheless, spending a few days in the hollowed downtown of Detroit--the city which inspired some talented and ambitious black kids from the suburbs to create a hybrid of Chicago house and Kraftwerk--is about as close to a 'perfect' vacation as I can possibly experience.

Did some things really suck? Fuck yeah. Here's a list :

• Jimmy John's didn't accept my 'Free Sub' coupon.
• Police-cops enforced U.S. narcotics laws. (Always bullshit.) I can't believe people still get arrested for smoking grass. Are you kidding me? That's way less dangerous than that drunken idiot over there...
  
• The M_nus Records afterhours ticket was nearly as expensive as the DEMF Weekend Pass. Yes, Hawtin's set was reliably good, but he sounded just like he did last time I saw him. I don't plan on going to the M_nus afterhours next year; these days I need to hear djs who take more risks musically instead of obsessing over new technologies that don't enhance the audience's exprience. And I want to hear djs who play real vinyl records. You know: environmentally-unfriendly plastic discs that have energy and some surface noise. (Personality goes a long way with me.)
  
• I bought a crap dime bag. Joe Drug Dealer's blunt was great, but he pulled the ol' let-him-smoke-my-personal-stash-so-i-can-sell-him-the-shit trick on me. Asshole. And yeah, I know it's my fault for buying drugs from a stranger at a fucking techno festival, okay? I know.
  
• The Beretta Grey afterhours party...Fuck, where do I begin...? First, we get there at least a half hour before 1 a.m. (at which point the price of entry is only $5.) However, the line isn't moving at all. Not a fucking inch. Then, magically, as 1 a.m. comes around, Mr. Venue Employee comes out to inform everyone in line that the entry price has gone up from $5 to $15. And...oh look! The line suddenly starts to advance and it takes us less than five fucking minutes to get inside and give them ten extra dollars. The RIGHT (ie: ethical) way to have done this would have been to cut the line at 1 a.m. Everyone already waiting in line pays $5. Everyone thereafter pays $15. Beretta Grey: You owe me ten bucks. Wait, I'm not done yet. Then after being inside for a while, enjoying the kids playing their laptops in the backroom, digitally train-wrecking a couple times, I make my way back to the front room to see the man who brought me to that afterhours: MARKO FUCKING FURSTENBERG. Amazingly talented artist. But the sound system kept cutting out. $15 cover. Waiting until 4 a.m. for my man. And the bulk of the sound system isn't even working for more than half his set. Un-fucking-believable. But did I throw a tantrum and bitch? Hell no. I stood right in front of him and listened to his magic through the monitors he was using. That's how fucking hardcore I am. (I know it's not cool to call oneself "hardcore" but if you know me you'd understand. You would understand that you are so much less hardcore than I am.)
• I dropped $30 on the ground. Probably lost it to one of those beast girls. Ouch! Thirty bucks is 6 used records, 4 new domestic records, or 2 import records from Juno.uk. AND I FUCKING LOST MY GODDAMN FESTIVAL T-SHIRT THAT I PAID FOR. FUCK !!!!!!!!!!!!
  
• DEMF is getting LESS Detroit every year. Other than Carl Craig on the main stage, there wasn't any real focus given to Detroit artists.
  

But there was great stuff too:

• The Real Detroit stage was incredible. And given the acoustic space--all concrete walls, floor, and ceiling (highway overhead)--it was the best sound system. It was right next to the bathroom, and every time I went to take a piss or fill my water bottle, I was drawn to the Detroit sound. Didn't matter if it was bangin' techno, ghetto tech, or soulful house, all of it sounded so fucking good in that space. Hey, all of you who didn't bother to go down into that concrete pit and experience real Detroit: You done fucked up! Big time. It wouldn't have hurt you to pry yourself away from the Beatport stage for a half hour to broaden your funk a bit more.
• Deepchord Live. Sure they played at like 4 p.m. and there were only a few heads there. But dealer got me high and deep dub paradise was afternoon delight.
  

p.s. ~ I can hardly wait to be as rich and famous as that Dubfire guy (from Deepdish) so that I too can have pretentious publicity photos taken of me. No really. I'm not kidding. (Seriously. No joke. I REALLY want pretentious publicity photos of me looking like this whole 'techno thing' is very serious. I'm serious!!! Can you not see how serious I am?) Eh. Won't happen anyway. I can't contrive accessibility. Love cannot be manufactured.

I Rock Techno

Forced Exposure still hasn't stocked Mathew Jonson's "Symphony for the Apocalypse" so i gave in, paid the couple extra bucks, and got it from dancerecords dot com instead. I played it three times already tonight. I wish the middle section didn't get so "Return of the Zombie Bikers" but it's still an excellent track. I mentioned this in a previous post, after listening to the mpfree, but now that I own the vinyl I'm very satisfied. Sounds so much better.

I recently set aside some time to throw a mix together. I don't plan this shit. I basically pick out the first couple tracks, the last track, and then improvise everything in between. I don't like mixes that sound too planned and perfect, like they're mixed by a robot playing Ableton Live. I could give you some examples here, but I can't afford to piss anyone off yet. Not until I'm famous. Then I'll feel very free to call out all the toy djs. (And there's A LOT of them.)

Anyway, my recent mix features "Symphony for the Apocalypse" along with a couple handfuls of more dope tracks that you need to buy if you don't already own them.

Download here :
http://www.stephenganser.com/discjockey/discjockey.html

P's And Q's

So I just watched that "trailer" for this year's Movement 2008 / DEMF (Detroit Electronic Musical Festival) . In case you didn't know--I'm hoping you did know, but if you didn't--that track is "Music People" by the estimable Kenny Dixon Jr., aka Moodymann. If you want to get this track on vinyl (and you SHOULD because your life will better for owning this) you have a few options:

The best option is to get the full 9+plus-minute version on Silentintroduction. But if you aren't willing to pay the $50 - $80 that this album may cost, you can get a shorter version via the "I Can't Kick This Feeling When It Hits" twelve-inch, available in several pressings, some with 2 tracks and others with 4 tracks. A 4 track version will be much harder to find. As far as I know, none of these 12" versions have the full-length "Music People" that is available on Silentintroduction. If any of them do, please let me know. I'd be very interested in knowing which one.

The last option to acquire "Music People" is to get the The Silence Is Broken bootleg. However, unless you're a die-hard, slitting your wrists completest for 3 Chairs Detroit House, I wouldn't recommend buying this. Sure it has tracks that you will never find on vinyl. And there's some tracks for which you would have to shell out a couple c-notes to acquire the original pressings. And that's all cool and everything. BUT HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE WORST-PRESSED VINYL EVER. I really think this is my worst-pressed record in my 7500+ collection. It's that bad. So, like I said, unless you're a KDJ mega fan, avoid this one. Oh, and does this crap bootleg have the full-length version of "Music People"? I don't know. I could check. It's sitting about 10 feet away from me on a shelf. I know exactly where it is. But I don't feel like pulling that record right now. It creeps me out.

If I want to hear nearly ten minutes of "Music People" I'd rather just grab my copy of Silentintroduction. I bought it from that piece of shit 'doctorfugazi' seller on Ebay. He's a scumbag. He didn't send my record until after I filed a Paypal complaint, so I got it about 50 days after I paid. Now, okay, I can forgive that kind of negligence. It's stupid, but forgiveable. I'm a very patient person. What WAS NOT forgiveable was that he described the condition as "immaculate" and then delivered a record in 'VG-' condition. What a fucking git. Seriously. Not even 'very good'. No, this was worse. Maybe even 'good+' worse. Anyway, his name is Steven S Grange, and when you see him you can say, "Ohhh... you're that incompetent dicksmack who shouldn't be selling records on ebay."
That's right, fucker.
I'm calling you out, Grange.

Fuck You Rising Petroleum Costs

Shipping gets more expensive every year. The cost of freight, in general, has a higher rate of inflation than, say, eggs. However, since your eggs need to be shipped (using petroleum) the eggs are also more expensive. So when the cost of petroleum goes up EVERYTHING costs more. That's the law of a petroleum-based economy.

I'm now paying more than fifteen-fucking dollars for each of my import records. It's really pissing me off. I should be able to buy these from a U.S. distributor or retailer. But, as far as I know, there are none. Maybe I can get some of these records from Gramaphone Records (Chicago, IL) for $12 or less, but I wouldn't know because I don't live in a real city like Chicago. (Not yet.)

So here's my over-priced record order from the other day :

FURSTENBERG, Marko Repentance EP ARTLESS 2196 12" $11.60
LEFTOVER Eichenholz EP BAUM 002 12" $9.94
PULSHAR Nospheratu PHONOBOX 005 12" $13.26
KRUTON Nitro Hassle KRUTON 1-sided 12" $11.60

Subtotal $46.40
Shipping $18.72
GRAND TOTAL $65.13

That's an average of $16.28 per record. REE-FUCKING-DICK-U-LOUS.
Okay? This is fucking bullshit. There needs to be just ONE retailer in the U.S. who can work directly with the labels (or a good distributor of prime techno) to get me these records for less.

Why did I pay so much for these records...?
Glad you didn't ask.
Two reasons :
1) I cannot get them from any online U.S. retailer, as I already stated.
2) Have you heard these??? If you have and you can't recognize the genius in these records, then please, stop reading this now. You're a fucking retard, and you don't deserve my golden science.

My People

"About this time last year, my records were just settling into a new apartment. Well, once again I find myself typing this column surrounded by boxes, milk crates, and Ibuprofen. But it's 2008, baby. Not even the mortgage crisis can stop this techno train from rollin'."
- - from ML Tronik's monthly "Bubble Metropolis" column in XLR8R.

Current listening : Carl Craig's "Sessions". I'd buy the 3xLP unmixed version, but I already own all the best twelves from these two mixes :)

I was thinking about getting "techno" tattooed on my penis. But I don't have any tattoos or piercings. Why start now? Maybe I'll reconsider tattoos when i'm 65 and selling my records for heroin.

Current Plays

Butane - Becoming is my favorite new techno full length album. Remember, this is from the same genius who graced us with "How Low Can You Go" from his On the Ket twelve-inch, and this new 2x12" on Andrew Rasse's own Alphahouse label is top-shelf material. Immediately upon hearing the first track "Collapse" I knew I was hearing a masterpiece. Now that 99% of new techno releases suck because any jackass with a cracked copy of Ableton Live can make tracks, it's nice to know that I can still depend on artists like Butane to deliver something that's still got some soul, funk, and depth. (See also : related Foundsound Label artists Miskate and Someone Else.)

I just discovered Brommage Dub last month, and I have yet to hear a bad release from this pair (Jean-Louis Huhta and Jesper Dahlbäck). Their last release Carbon Oxide is a perfect record : two tracks, each filling the entire side of the vinyl, and both are undoubtedly playable. Brilliant stuff here. Now that "minimal" techno has become trendy and formulaic (yawn), I look towards artists like Brommage Dub, Rod Modell (Deepchord), Syncom Data, Deadbeat and Pole to bring me the deepness.

Speaking of which, if you can appreciate deep and dubby techno, then go back and pick up any Dean DeCosta or Steve O'sullivan (Bluetrain) record you can get your hands on. There's about a 90% chance you'll get something phenomenal; these guys are very reliable. And what the fuck are they doing now? I don't think either of these gifted producers have released anything new in the last five years. By the way, good luck finding DeCosta's Diminishing Returns! I already bought mine just a few weeks ago from dancerecords.com, and I can't believe you all were sleeping on this for so long. Holy shit I have the rarest luck. If you don't know what I'm talking about and why I nearly crapped myself when I found two brand new copies of this for just $10 apiece, then do some research. Start here : http://www.discogs.com/release/64625

I've been listening to Mathew Jonson's "Symphony" a lot lately. (I wish Forced Exposure would just get this record already so I can buy it.) Atmospheric, haunting melodies. Kinda spacey and a bit psychedelic in a good way, like most of his better productions. No wonder he brought me to tears at DEMF last year.