Midwest Techno Originals

Aril Brikha was born in Tehran, Iran and emigrated to Stockholm, Sweden at the age of three right around the time of the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. He started playing keyboard when he was 7 years old and by the mid nineties was confident enough to shop some labels in his new Swedish [...]

Zak Khutoretsky aka DVS1 moved to Minneapolis from Bronx NY in the mid nineties. He immediately started getting involved with local Techno parties and promotion and has not stopped since. He lost his space for one of his earliest parties with Heiko Laux, Neil Landstrum, and a bunch of other techno superstars a week [...]

My former label mate on Communique and personal friend, Paul Birken (aka Land Of The Lost) and I first met in Duluth Minnesota at a gig we were both booked for sometime around 1994. It may have been his first Live set. Later, he became known as the guy from Minneapolis who hauls [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]