Techno Tales

It’s 1988 in Manchester, England, and a budding electronic music producer called Gerald Simpson is about to drop off a cassette recording to Piccadilly Radio station of one of his regular acid house jams. Simpson’s hope is that people will hear his work on Stu Allen’s Sunday show which features local demo recordings. When this recording is played on air, among the radio audience is local dj, rapper, and A & R staffer for Rham! ...

It’s the early 1990s, and Blake Baxter, originally from Detroit, is ensconced in the Berlin techno and club scene. Baxter’s relationship with Berlin has been established through his association with one of the city’s most important clubs, Tresor. In being one of Europe’s first techno venues, Tresor has developed an intercontinental relationship with Detroit, the location that many consider to be the birthplace of techno. One aspect...

It’s the late 1990s, in a sleepy location called White Lake Township, about twenty miles outside of Detroit’s city limits. Life here is generally quiet, people keep to themselves, and a peaceful tranquility defines the environment. One of the town’s newer residents lives what you might call a typical life here, such as shopping at the local mall, going to the gym, playing basketball with his kids, and going to bed relatively early....

It’s 1982, and like many of his peers, Eastern Michigan University football player Kevin Saunderson has dreams of playing in the NFL, regularly talking about how committed he is to achieving this goal. Unlike most football players though, he also has an aptitude for music production. These music interests of Saunderson's soon develop into such a serious pursuit, that they take his attention away from football almost entirely. While...

It’s the late 1970s in Belleville, a quiet suburb of Detroit about half an hour’s drive from the city centre. Detroit is located on the northern perimeter of the United States, so close to the border in fact that you can see Canada on the other side of the river that runs alongside the city. Detroit is a metropolis on the margins. At the local high school in Belleville there is a student, Juan Atkins, whose passions revolve around ...