In Depth: Mark Flash Discusses the Philosophy behind Underground Resistance

Music, wherever it ends up, always starts in one place. Through the entire 20th Century, the United States was responsible for spawning many of the most significant movements in modern music. Rock & roll, before arriving in England, started out with Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry in the Midwest. Not much later than that, New York became a breeding ground for minimalism through the works of composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. And as for techno? Obviously, techno came from Detroit. The back story here is well-documented: when the once-thriving automobile industry slumped into decline in the late 80s, new technology coming out at the time helped inspire a whole new generation of musicians. Several decades later, there’s still an untold amount we’re indebted to them for. Of Detroit’s extensive cast of techno royalty, the group Underground Resistance is among the best known. Using drum machines as their main weapons and black masks to disguise themselves, their music was just one part of a political ideology that shaped their unmistakeable aesthetic. It’s been almost 30 years since they first formed, but the group remains active – amongst their most recent ongoing projects is Depth Charge, the live show performed by Mike Banks and Mark Flash. With Depth Charge landing in Farringdon to play live alongside other Detroiters like Octave One next weekend, we caught up with Mark Flash on Skype for a rare interview to hear more about techno’s original identity, and the underlying spirit of his mythical collective. For as far back as he can remember, Flash was surrounded by music. His father had been part of a travelling Motown band, with whom playing shows provided his main income. Performing in small bars and clubs across the United States, they played opening sets for better-established acts as a means of getting by. The band set themselves a goal of getting a record deal, with Detroit’s healthy scene giving them the best chance to get signed. By the time they arrived, though, the scene had disappeared: all of the most key Motown artists had left for LA. “The band split up, and our hopes and dreams were crushed because they had no money to make it to California.” Flash explains. “So we stayed in Detroit, and my dad carried on following music – playing in clubs and whatever else. So I helped him put music together, we had a little recording studio and our living room was full of band equipment. I didn’t take it seriously though – I just did it because it was my dad. The first time I took music seriously was when I met Mike Banks.” Banks, at this point, needs no introduction: since the group first formed in 1989, he’s been the one key figure that’s remained at its heart. Flash was first introduced to him through mutual friends – growing up in a tight-knit neighbourhood, from a young age he’d been friends with Cornelius Harris (better known as The Unknown Writer) and Rolando Ray Rocha (DJ Rolando). Taking an early interest in electronics, Rocha and Flash invested in drum machines like the Roland TR-909 to make their own music. It was Rocha’s seminal masterpiece Jaguar that first opened Flash up to Underground Resistance’s world. “We all drove down to Submerge [the distribution centre for Underground Resistance] to collect some money for Jaguar, and I walked in and saw that some of the records on the wall I already owned. I got there at around 11am, and must have not left until 6am the next day. I stayed because the guys I met that day had the same dreams that I had. I had big dreams, and I needed someone to push me to give me inspiration. And that was Mike [Banks] and UR.” Whiling away the time flicking through the records on display, Flash spent countless hours in the store meeting groups like Aux 88 and Octave One for the first time. The Underground Resistance label, by now, had been putting out releases for a couple of years, with Banks as the key producer. With Harris connecting Flash to the circle and Mike Banks at the centre, they formed the group Galaxy 2 Galaxy to bring fuse techno with jazz. Where they’d been embracing the use of hardware through drum machines like the 909, Galaxy 2 Galaxy aimed to display the value of classic instruments. “We wanted to show the world that the music you play, was actually being played.” Flash says. “Although the technology was there, we wanted to let people know that musicianship is important. You know, it’s key. In any style of music, bands are important.”

“Technology is advancing faster than we can come up with ideas.”

Group projects have, of course, always been at the core of Underground Resistance. From their earliest works they collaborated under one alias, and on their label they also signed the likes of Drexciya for some of their earliest records. The collective has since formed several different groups, in which Banks has always been at the centre. Following the success of Galaxy 2 Galaxy’s output, he formed Timeline to experiment further the rules of jazz. Many years later, him and Flash started playing as Depth Charge (the name borrowed from one of the offshoot labels to the Submerge imprint). Like the seminal mix series the label spawned, the live project focussed heavily on techno and electro. “We still have lots of bands here in Detroit.” Flash explains. “It’s a performance, so rather than just listening to music and dancing, you can enjoy the music and the show. We broke Galaxy 2 Galaxy down to Timeline. Then that breaks down to Depth Charge, which is just me and Mike [Banks]. Galaxy 2 Galaxy is hi-tech jazz, and Timeline was jazz, but Depth Charge is really Detroit electro and techno. This is real Detroit electro – not whatever you hear now. When we say it, we mean the Detroit sound.” Through the length of our 40-minute conversation Flash has a cynical stance on much of the scene today – from the growth of technology to the way musicians choose to this. In one sense, this shouldn’t entirely come as a surprise: since Underground Resistance formed they’ve operated completely on their own terms, with a philosophy where the music comes first. They first used new technology to develop their distinctive sound, and it’s their inventiveness in using these machines that still defines them after so many years. It’s a world apart from the path followed by many of today’s most successful producers. “We had a limited amount of resources, but we did what we did and people loved it. But now the technology has advanced past the level. You don’t really hear anything innovative any more. A lot of things have already been done, and the technology is still advancing faster than we can come up with ideas. It’s going in different directions. People are enjoying it now, but others are also joining in. So the market’s being saturated. It’s kind of sad for the industry, not just in techno but all music. This is the fear with technology getting away from us.”

“The important thing now is history.”

It’s not just technology that’s recently changed the music industry, of course. Standard add-ons like management help to push up DJ fees year on year, and you don’t need a calculator to see how much money is being poured into the vinyl market on sites like Discogs. The consequences of this are fairly black-and-white: a privileged minority now dominate a large portion of the electronic music scene as we know it, which Underground Resistance surely couldn’t have imagined when they first started out. “The important thing now is history.” Flash attests. “That’s why we have the Submerge museum, to let the kids know where it came from. It’s like forgetting your home where you grew up. It’s like forgetting your mother and father and when the next generation comes they don’t give a shit. The history is not being taught, and when that happens, they lose respect. For the music and for the genre. And a lot of that’s happening so we have to keep fighting. That’s what we mean when we say: Underground Resistance is a movement.”