Curator of Techno: Kevin Saunderson On His Vision For Detroit

I often find myself in awe of the encyclopaedic knowledge that some people have of music. Granted, most of what I envy in people comes from them having been there at the moment when Model 500’s No UFO’s, Derrick May’s’ Strings of Life’ or Inner City’s ‘Big Fun’ first hit the shelves. I guess I’m just jealous of their experience of these world changing records and the imprint left on their minds forever. For someone whose musical path started a bit later on, post-90s, however, it’s quite telling that when I started falling for all things electronic, it was the same people and records I was listening to. In conversation people would say, “Oh, you like techno? You have to listen to Juan Atkins!” or “if you like electro, make sure you listen to Drexciya…” it’s just kind of universally known that certain people created it. Rattling on like this may seem a bit sentimental but it helps to set the stage for Kevin Saunderson’s latest project, Curators of Techno, perfectly. Saunderson was one of those people who was there from the start. He was with Juan Atkins in the fraternity houses of Michigan University when he himself embarked of his own path into making music. Paradise Garage gave him Donna Summer and Chic, The Electrifying Mojo gave him Parliament, Funkadelic and Earth Wind and Fire and then Juan gave him techno and Saunderson just ran with it. What he’s doing with Curators of Techno is provide a setting where the old and new innovators of Detroit perform side by side, making an educational point about where dance music has come from and providing a response to the commercial explosion of dance music in his native country - a place that has taken over two decades to cotton on to electronic music. In this interview with one of techno’s true originators we find out why this tour is not only important to him but important to the genesis of electronic music itself with a bit of education of our own and the story of how Kevin Saunderson played his part in the creation and evolution of techno. So in the spirit of that earlier advice I received, make sure you catch his takeover of both Room Two and Three this Saturday. You were there pretty much as things were beginning for techno, socially and economically what was going on around you and how much of a part did that play in putting you in a room with a drum machine and start making beats? At the time I started making music I didn't have a big social life, I was playing football and I decided that music would become my path. I was going to school this place called Eastern Michigan University when I made that decision. My main influence was Derrick May, through the conversations we used to have and the other big influence was from my early days going to Paradise Garage, those summers while I was at college, anyway it was all a very different kind of scene back then. Rhythm is Rhythm – Strings of Life (Transmat 1987) At that time there were all these black African American kids fraternity parties going on , they were all listening to the techno electronic like ‘Planet Rock’ mixed in with the techno that Juan Atkins was doing, some Chicago house and the stuff that the rest of us were doing. It was just black kids putting on and attending these parties so socially the music connected among blacks it was as simple as that and the gay clubs too, that’s where the music was really strong. We got to have many opportunities to play in front of these fraternity parties, that’s where the connection with the music was. The kids were really preppy and wanted to smoke these cigarettes called the germs, it was a little movement going on so it was a good time. It was a time where I ended up meeting Eddie Fowlkes and people like Blake Baxter and all that. Economically we all didn't have a lot of money, myself, Keith Martin and Eddie Fowlkes were in college at Eastern and everyone else was in Detroit trying to continue their path or start their path to making music so all that played a part because it was all influential - seeing DJs play music at these fraternity parties was inspiring and going back to Paradise Garage, that was also inspiring for me. Then I started going to some friends, R Pain and Keith Martin's, house to go practice on their 1200's, that was just enlightening, thorugh Derrick that was how I met them. So it definitely lead me to the path of DJing and then from DJing it evolved into making music. What would you say was your main musical influences? How did you discover them? My true musical path first started in New York when I used to live there before I moved to Detroit, but I think I used to listen to WLBS there in Detroit, a radio station that played all these master mixes of all this disco and stuff that you heard on the radio in the daytime that was reedited and played around with at night. Disco was my first love, Chic, Whitehead, Donna Summer and all the early disco classics. You know a lot of that stuff was just cool to me, very cool music. Donna Summer – Hot Stuff / Bad Girls (Casablanca Records 1979) As time went on and in my moving to Detroit I got a little more influenced by hearing music from The Electrifying Mojo [a Detroit DJ] who played not just disco but people like Parliament Funkadelic, Prince and Earth Wind and Fire. He really educated you about an artist. Again it was rough Electro Mojo that I heard about a shop called Buy-Rite Music and once I'd determined i was going to be a DJ I started going where everyone else was to buy records. They would get great imports in from Europe that was really cool stuff like Alexander Robotnik that was electronic based but wasn't necessarily made for the DJ to play, but was still dancey enough where it was cool, it was at the time it'd fit into whatever set you'd try to play. Paradise Garage though was the main one, I think in the summer of ‘82 I remember being blown away by the sound system, I went there at 12 at night got out of there at 12 noon. Derrick May and Juan Atkins were also big influences too because they were searching the path of music. Juan first created, then Derrick and myself followed his path. E-Dancer – Heavenly (Juan Atkins Remix) (KMS 1997) What opportunities were there for you to start putting out records? How did you get established releasing your music? The opportunities for putting out music came about because I was around the right people and I got influenced in the right way, it also helped that I was already a competitive person to start with. I wanted to control my own path so really, I just had to have enough money to get my tracks mastered and then worked out deals with the pressing plant whereby maybe they'd press a few 100 and give you 30 days to pay them. So, I’d do whatever I could do with distributors like Nicola and DJ International. I was putting records in the shops by just going in and handing them the record, they’d listen and say “give me 100” or “give me 50” so I’d sell them that way and get cash immediately. That’s kind of how I established myself, by putting out my own records and I was taking them to DJs like Tony Humphries, Frankie Knuckels and Farley and Chippy – I’d take a road trip and take them down there, when I was taking them to the stores I’d take them to the DJ’s too. I was getting support and people were playing my records so something magical was going on with that happening and I was loving what I was doing. I think the biggest opportunity came when I met Neil Rushton who became my manager for many years, he gave me an opportunity to be on a compilation that was done by 10 Records called ‘The Sound of Detroit Techno’ and that opened up more doors because Big Fun was on there along with a few others of my tracks. Big Fun took off in a more commercial way from the big clubs to pop radio. Thaat’s some of the ways I made my opportunities. Inner City – Big Fun (10 Records 1988) You took part in Richie Hawtin’s Beyond EDM tour – why did you decide you wanted to be involved in this? Well I took part in the Control tour because I thought the path and direction and the clarity of what is going on in the music scene needed to be heard and people needed to be educated. I also I thought it'd be just be fun to play with the group of guys who were on the bill as well so and in my own country. It was on a more personal level not just in the clubs, we were going round to these college campuses full of young and inspired potential writers and producers, people who wanted to be involved or close to the record industry, not knowing their path but understanding that they have a connection and they want to be connected to whats' going on. I was able to offer some understanding from the path and the direction we took back then and how things were and how I see things moving in the future. I think that education is inspiring and important for the movement of electronic music moving to the future because it never hurts to have a little history, it's not necessarily needed but I think it adds character to a person when they get to a certain level. Sometimes they need to reach back and see things differently, so that's where the educational part comes in and you know whatever they got out of it was something that was positive, inspirational or encouraging. And translating to Curators of Techno, what inspired that tour? You know I think for me putting on this tour I thought that it was important for people to see the connection between the talents of Detroit or influence of Detroit talents from people like myself who are still around making music being a part of the scene DJing and giving. How would you say the music and scene of Detroit has developed and progressed over the last 20 years? The evolution of Detroit and the way that people like myself Juan and Derrick have influenced the younger talent goes all the way from UR to Carl Craig, Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen, Kenny Larkin and Kyle Hall to some of the newer talents to Seth Troxler and either of my sons who are both making music now. It keeps everything fresh and exciting, it’s really a kind of an infinite cycle of creativity. I mean if you look at the beginning for music there was no music scene, it came from Juan who really was setting the path with the music he made, the sound has evolved in different ways. Kenny Larkin – Cirque de Soul (Planet E 2008) When you look at Cybertron it was very electro, more driven by the electronic but still danceable music. Derrick and myself probably influenced Jaun to change his path, we inspired him even back then to make records like No UFOs to come closer to four on the floor path of music compared to his previous music, just by the music that we were bringing back to him or playing in the scene, this stuff that was going on in Chicago then just the different elevations of different levels even from influencing people in Windsor people like Ritchie Hawtin. Its progress has been steady and never overwhelming but was powerful enough where we made an impact. People like Kenny Dixon, Theo Parrish and Rick Weiss there are many different DJ's and producers that have evolved around the scene that they are still playing and creating within. It’s also lead to a festival which is called Movement now, which was the original Detroit Electronic Music Festival originally produced by a lady called Carol Marvin, her and Carl Craig were the artistic directors. It then changed hands to Derrick May and then to me and now belongs to Paxahau, but we’ve all had a part in keeping things moving. Things are still moving in Detroit because of it, the club scene is not so strong where it was once really strong to the point where we had a club called the Music Institute, but the festival scene and the scene in the Detroit over its weekend is quite great. We’ve influenced the world in many ways I think, and influenced dance floors that’s why you see so many festivals now that’s how I see things have evolved. Where do you think it’s now heading and what’re the greatest challenges of the moment? Well I think where it's headed is very electronic, everybody wants to be a DJ and everybody wants to be a producer and push a button and make a record - that's the dangerous part because it’s very easy for anyone to make a record and get it released. You know, you have people who are really sympathetic and emotionally attached to their music where some people are not so much, I think it gets a little cloudy because there's so much stuff out there and not everybody can be talented at making music. To make music we had to be talented to do what we did back then because we were limited we had electronics but these days the stuff that took us 10 hours to even try to pull off we can pull of in 30 seconds. So the real challenge is what comes out of it and how people perceive the talent; how people perceive people like myself still playing music and how you know the music impacting because it’s so diverse now; from house to techno and to dubstep in the end its meant to be dance music but its path has changed a little, I don't think all of it is dance but it’s still electronic based and its captured the world over the years. I think North America has finally caught up to the bandwagon and now it’s become more commercialised, there is a lot of money being made. There’s a lot of advancement now too which does then help out the underground, now you see more underground movements and people being educated. Where it goes is it depends on technology but I think wherever it goes it’s still going to be electronic based and there's always going to be an underground scene attached to it. What’s funny is that when I was having big hits and my records were being played on the radio and in the clubs you might get to hear Good Life in some states but others wouldn’t touch it - it was just too cutting edge and different from what was normal. Now everybody’s trying to make a sound, every radio station is supporting music that is non-traditional. Social media too has a big impact on people’s profiles and how people perceive them so it’s a very interesting time for all of it – you have to understand it all to be part of it all. Kevin Saunderson will be hosting Curators of Techno in Room Two this Saturday with Kenny Larkin and Kyle Hall. Room Three will see Patrice Scott ply solo and go b2b Kyle Hall while Kevin Saunderson will be going b2b with Seth Troxler. More info and tickets here.