Midwest Techno Originals

Mike Dearborn - Rubberband Man (1994)

Sometime in 1995, I called Mike Dearborn and his mother answered the phone. She told me he was at school (college). Since this was in the days prior to cell phones being cheap, his mother had to take a message and have him call me back. She then grilled me, asking me how we know each other. It was all very friendly, of course.

Mike was raised in Chicago and grew up exposed to a lot of House music. He had a lot of success being a midwest hard techno guy in the nineties with a number of bangin’ tracks including an Acid scorcher called Birds On E and a number of releases on the DJax and Majesty labels. However, because of that phone call, I have always thought of Mike as a grounded conservative person who probably decided to pursue a normal life as opposed to the rock star kind of life he could have chosen to pursue. All this without knowing if he actually continued his education or received a degree of any kind. I’m just demonstrating how my mind works. Also, Rubberband Man bangs on a big system.

The Sabres Of Paradise - Smokebelch II (David Holmes Mix) (1993)

I was a little hesitant to post this at first because I had a hard time connecting this track to Midwest Techno. After some thought, I decided it’s going up because I played this so damn much and it became so popular that people made up their own name for it.

David Holmes is an Irish native musician who has been producing music for about 20 years now. His accomplishments include a number of film scores including music for Out Of Sight, Ocean’s Eleven, The Good German, and most recently, The Girlfriend Experience starring one of my favorite porn actresses, Sasha Grey. David Holmes currently has 10 full length albums under his belt since 1995 including one of my favorites Let’s Get Killed which highlighted random people talking in the streets of New York. Some of the bands he has remixed include U2, Doves, Primal Scream and Ice Cube. Smokebelch II (David Holmes Remix) is one of his earlier remixes of a track made by a short lived UK electronic group called The Sabres Of Paradise who made a small splash in the Ambient/Downtempo world of electronic music in the UK during the mid nineties.

This track was caned by yours truly at probably three quarters of the parties I DJ’ed in 1993-95 (sometimes I DJ’ed 2 parties a week). Not because I loved it so much but because so many ravers begged me to play it, referring to it as The Pretty Piano Song. I have no idea who started to call it that but people I know still call it that to this day. It took a long time for people to figure out what this track was actually called and a few DJ’s played the original beat-less version but David Holmes’ Remix is the cut. It was hard not to play this almost 15 minute length track in it’s entirety because it made such an impact on the dance floor as I mixed in and out of it. People would notice the bells as the track was being mixed in and they would immediately lose their shit, possibly due to the the X or LSD they were on. Then, just as the piano starts to get annoying, the track pauses then launches into an acidic onslaught which in 1994 was an extremely popular music style when it came to raves in the midwest. Needless to say, there was also plenty of time to mix out of this track. Almost every time I played it, I mixed out of it easily with a long mix of Plastikman’s Spastik, which, as you should know, is another Midwest Techno Original.

Chris Sattinger - Treeing The Dog (1995)

Chris Sattinger is the only musician I know that has come close to using as many aliases as I have. I’m positive I have him beat but you never really know. A former label mate of mine on a number of international record labels, DJ Slip’s former roommate, and my personal friend, Chris has always been one to make music that has not been heard before. His level of originality has always been hard to match be it Live shows or music production. I remember watching him play and being floored with the techniques he’d use to make a live performance consisting of analog studio gear look like a DJ performance of sliders and faders many years before laptops and USB controllers were the norm for such gigs.

Treeing The Dog is off of the Timeblind double 12 inch on Minneapolis’ Communique Records run by DJ ESP/Woody McBride. I included this gem in just about every DJ set back in 1995 and often started out my sets with it.

His aliases include Happy As Hell, Timeblind, Keek, Mono Ekagra, Mothering Noise, Seed Prophecy, Toxic Tits of Buddha, and more.

Tommie Sunshine - Head 2 Toe In Drag (2001)

This is a picture of a pre-Grizzly Adams looking Tommie Sunshine taken at his first (or second) rave gig in Minneapolis in 1994. (I’m standing a couple of people to the left in the unedited version of that picture). We were playing to about 400 people in the “Chill” room of a rave that night/morning. He played right after me and neither of us played “Chill” music. I played Disco for 2 hours and he followed perfectly with 70s & 80s music of various genres none of which had to do with techno or raving. I had met him a couple of times prior to that night gigging in Chicago or Milwaukee and we became familiar with each other for many years to come, however that particular night I realized just how cool he was with his unique track selection, which Minneapolis partiers ate up.

Originally from Chicago, Tommie really started to shine after he moved to Atlanta in the mid nineties where he ran Satellite records. Since then, he has collaborated with fellow mid-western techno dude Mark Verbos, Chicago native Felix Da Houescat, DJ Hell, and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem to name a few. He’s made a solid name for himself as a remixer in the Alt/Pop world and as a man who’s making a run for sticking to the ZZ Top look longer than some actual ZZ Top members.

Lil' Louis - French Kiss (1989)

Before Technics 1200’s, Disco, The Garage, The Music Box, The Warehouse, and The Power Plant nightclubs, there was Lil’ Louis (not to be confused with Little or Lil’ Louie Vega from Masters At Work who he later collaborated with).

Marvin Louis Burns was born in Chicago. His father was guitarist Bobby Sims, who recorded for for the legendary Chess Records in the 50s & 60s. Lil’ Louis made his DJ debut under challenging conditions. Several gangs, including the Latin Kings and the Vice Lords, claimed different sections of Chicago. In an effort to bring peace and unity to the community, Louis’ mother threw a neighborhood party to which she invited members of all of the warring gangs. In a bizarre twist of fate, the hired DJ had an epileptic seizure and was rushed off to the hospital, leaving a hostile crowd with no music. At that point, Louis (age twelve) was commanded by his mother to play music. With only one turntable and an increasingly violent crowd, Louis created a calm in the madness by playing Kool & The Gang’s “Funky Stuff.”

In 1976, at the age of fourteen, Louis was getting paid to DJ at clubs and lounges around Chicago. Louis had complete confidence behind the decks playing music that he believed in, regardless of its popularity or lack of. Later that same year Louis received his first big break. A Chicago DJ by the name of Milton Green brought him on to play at his club, Rivers Edge. Two more of Chicago’s biggest DJ’s, namely Frenchy and “Terrible” Teddy, then put Louis on at their clubs, Keyman’s and MGM Grand.

By the 1980s, Lil’ Louis was hosting the biggest house parties in Chicago, and he began recording his productions around that time as well. His first single How I Feel appeared on his own label, and he began collaborating with Marshall Jefferson on several tracks including Seven Ways to Jack by Hercules and Byron Stingily’s I Can’t Stay Away. In 1987, his new single French Kiss became a local hit, then a platinum-selling international classic after being licensed to CBS and ffrr. The success triggered a major-label contract through Epic, and the release of his debut album From the Mind of Lil’ Louis in 1989. Charting a course across jazz-fusion and R&B as well as house, the LP was one of the best produced by any of the Chicago figures at that time, and included session contributions from Larry Heard, Die Warzau and his own father on drums. His follow-up LP didn’t fare as well and Lil’ Louis retired from recording for over four years, preferring instead to set up his own studio in New York and work on production with Babyface and Me’Shell Ndegeocello. He returned by collaborating with “Little” Louie Vega and Black Magic.

Drexciya - Black Sea (1995)

Drexciya was a duo that kept their identities secret throughout much of the group’s decade long existence. They combined a faceless, underground, anti-mainstream media stance with mythological, sci-fi narratives, to help heighten the dramatic effect of their music. In this respect they were similar to artists within and close to the Detroit collective Underground Resistance. The late James Stinson was the only officially identified member of Drexciya, but it was considered an open secret that he had a partner, Gerald Donald. The name Drexciya refers to a myth comparable to Plato’s myth of Atlantis, which this two man group revealed in the sleeve notes to their 1997 album The Quest. Drexciya was an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women thrown off of slave ships that had adapted to breathe underwater in their mother’s wombs.

James Stinson WDET interview (2002)

Here is a somewhat odd but interesting radio interview of James Stinson done by Liz Copeland shortly before his death in 2002.

DJ Apollo - Old School Succession (1996)

This is the title track from my first vinyl EP on Minneapolis’ Communique label. DJ Apollo “Old Skool Succession” EP was recorded in 1995 and released in 1996. This baby has three 303’s (real ones). 1996 was a crazy year. I released a lot of dance tracks of many kinds that year, including Acid House, Acid Techno, Hard Techno, Minimal Techno, Trip Hop & House music under various aliases. Download more techno by your blog host on this blog here!