Techno boredom

I convinced some friends to go along to Footwork last night which played host to a techno night. Mike Huckaby, an apparent "legend" of the Detroit techno scene was headlining. He was billed as a man that broke "...all the rules in any room or any party" so I was expecting some pretty exciting stuff.

Unfortunately about the only exciting thing that happened all night was free beer being handed out. Music wise I left a frustrated man.

Perhaps there's some innate charm to this music I just do not get. But the music I was hearing was mindnumbingly dull. It lacked any sort of bassline, any sort of melody, any cohesiveness or control. In fact hardly anything happened in it whatsoever. Except, the drums; a whole bar's worth looped and left to pound away incessantly. That's hardly breaking all the rules.

I find it hard to stomach that 20 years after the first techno records began emerging from Detroit, electronic music has descended to this level of mediocrity; it seems to me like a giant step backwards. I once read someone claim that dance music has become like fast food - it's produced cheaply, gives you a momentary buzz, but leaves you deeply unsatisfied in the long run. I don't agree with that; I think there's a fantastic amount of innovative dance music going on right now. But when you hear music so devoid of any sort of interest and see a room full of people seemingly enjoying it, you do begin to wonder.

Image courtesy of deepcity.org