Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture by Simon Reynolds Page A

versatility that would characterize his whole career, Kevin Saunderson could also turn out tracks as light and upful as Inner City’s ‘Big Fun’ and ‘Good Life’ – to date, Detroit techno’s biggest hits. ‘Big Fun’ was spawned almost accidentally out of the collaborative symbiosis that characterized Detroit’s incestuous and interdependent scene. James Pennington – soon to release tracks for Transmat under the name Suburban Knight – made a bassline round at Kevin’s apartment, left it on tape, and went to work. ‘Kevin said, “Let me use this, man,”’ remembers Eddie Fowlkes, ‘James said, “Okay, just put my name on it.” Next thing you know, you got Inner City.’ With Art Forest co-writing, Chicago-based diva Paris Grey singing the melody, and Juan Atkins mixing the track down, the result was ‘Big Fun’.
    ‘It was real tight,’ reminisces Fowlkes fondly of this golden age of Detroit. ‘Everyone was helping each other out, there was no egos, and nobody could compete with Juan because he had already done stuff [as Cybotron] and knew where he wanted to go. We were just like kids following the Pied Piper.’

The Detroit-Chicago Alliance
     
    Detroit techno came to the world’s attention indirectly, as an adjunct to Chicago’s house scene. When British A & R scouts came to Chicago to investigate house in 1986 – 7, they discovered that many of the top-selling tracks were actually from Detroit. ‘We would sell ten to fifteen thousand records in Chicago alone,’ says Juan Atkins. ‘We were selling more records in Chicago than even Chicago artists. We kind of went hand in hand with the house movement. To a certain degree, I think we helped start that thing. ’Cos we were the first ones making records. Jesse Saunders came out with that record [“On and On”] maybe two or three weeks after we had “No UFOs” out, and he was the first guy in Chicago who was making tracks.
    ‘Chicago was one of a couple of cities in America where disco never died,’ Atkins continues. ‘The DJs kept playing it on radio and the clubs. And since there were no new disco records coming through they were looking to fill the gap with whatever they could find.’ This meant Euro synth-pop, Italian ‘progressive’ and, eventually, the early Detroit tracks. The Belleville Three quickly got to know everybody in the Chicago scene. And they started to make the four hour drive to Chicago every weekend to hear the Hot Mix Five – Farley Jackmaster Funk, Steve Silk Hurley, Ralphi Rosario, Mickey Oliver, and Kenny Jammin’ Jason – spin on local radio station WBMX. ‘It seemed like they had mixes going on all day on the radio,’ remembers Kevin Saunderson. ‘Me and Derrick would drive to Chicago every weekend just to hear the mix shows and be a part of the scene, see what’s going on and get new records. It was an inspiration for us. Especially once we started making records, you couldn’t keep us out of Chicago.’
    Bar the odd session that May would do for Electrifyin’ Mojo, you couldn’t hear mixing on the radio in Detroit. Despite its Europhile tendencies, Detroit was always more of a funk city than a disco town. This difference came through in the music: the rhythm programming in Detroit techno was more syncopated, had more of a groove to it. House had a metronomic, four-to-the-floor beat, what Eddie Fowlkes calls ‘a straight straight foot’ – a reference to ‘Farley’s Foot’, the mechanical kick drum that Chicago DJs like Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk and Frankie Knuckles would superimpose over their disco mixes. Chicago house tended to feature diva vocals, disco-style; Detroit tracks were almost always instrumentals. The final big difference was that Detroit techno, while arty and upwardly mobile, was a straight black scene. Chicago house was a gay black scene.

Disco’s Revenge
     
    ‘Disco music is a disease. I call it Disco Dystrophy. The people victimized by this killer disease walk