Movement (DEMF): A Growing Point of Pride for Detroit
Well oh well. I finally got to attend Movement Detroit! And it was everything I though it could be! The festival formerly known as the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (and still often referred to as DEMF) has been running in Hart Plaza over Memorial Day Weekend in some form or another since 2000. Now Ferndale-based company Paxahau has taken control, and they seem to know what they’re doing. Before the fest, I read on their site that they’re also coordinating a Movement Torino that will take place in Torino, Italy, over Halloween weekend. That means Detroit is now part of a global electronic music partnership!
Naturally, I went into DEMF expecting it to be the most positive and progressive thing that Michigan has experienced in the past year. I was only able to attend on Monday, May 25, but I wasn’t too disappointed, since the only name I recognized on the other days was RJD2 on Sunday. (Actually, I heard about the Glitch Mob because they’re also on the Rothbury 2009 line-up.) In a strange coincidence, I saw Heidi and Loco Dice Friday night Spybar, while I was in Chicago for the first part of the weekend. My girlfriend actually recognized their names on the Movement line-up (Heidi performed Saturday; Loco Dice performed Sunday).
Something to listen to: “Rainbow Man” by Busy P
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And of course this leads to a vivid memory of my Monday at DEMF: during the end of Ellen Allien’s set and the beginning of Tiga’s (i.e. – around 6 pm on the Beatport Stage) we saw Heidi dancing on stage in her Euro club gear! We also saw a grungy dude wearing a Rage Against the Machine shirt, only to realize later on that it was Busy P! If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the Parisian owner of Ed Banger Records and (more famously) Daft Punk’s manager. Ed Banger, for the unfamiliar, is the home of Justice, Uffie, DJ Medhi, and a few other names that are staking out solid accomplishments for French house.
The point isn’t to lay out a “who’s who,” but merely to demonstrate that being at DEMF felt like being at the core of a massive tornado of electronica. I’ve read so much about Detroit being the birthplace of techno, but until that day, Detroit never actually seemed like a techno capital of the world. I’m still not sure if any of the artists had that in mind, since most of techno’s energy now radiates from Europe, mostly Germany and the UK.
So the Ellen Allien/Tiga block was amazing, but the first mind-blowing set of the day — and the set that seemed to have the most people talking, especially on Twitter — was Flying Lotus (3:30 pm on the Red Bull Stage). I had heard on his MySpace page that his albums are more headphone music, while his live shows tend to be much livelier. He wasn’t kidding! He mixed the album material with a wide array of other music. My favorite was when he sped up Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th” and put a beat behind it. He also pulled stunts like flipping between Snoop Dogg and intense drum ‘n’ bass techno.
Unfortunately the crowd during Flying Lotus was probably the worst I dealt with all day. I felt surrounded by hippie/thug hybrids (maybe they were all dealers?) who paid no attention to whose shoes they were stepping on. By 7:27 pm, I posted the following on the @MusicEdge Twitter: “DEMF is a weird mix of metrosexual club rats, candy raving hippies, and hard knock Detroit folk looking for a party.” And upon leaving the festival, I tweeted, “Movement wrap-up coming soon. Artists=dynomite. Sound=great. People=slightly creepy and unpolite. More later.”
I keep bringing up Twitter. Part of my mission at DEMF was to test new ways of covering such an event. I still took photos and video clips with my digital camera, but I posted updates to Twitter using my new iPhone. That probably sounds dumb, but I could actually track the realtime web convo about DEMF using my phone. I used Twitterific to search for “demf” so I could see who was posting from the festival. I also posted a few pictures with messages using TwitPic. After the fact, I saw that an account called DEMF_follower was aggregating and re-tweeting messages about the festival.
In doing so, I realized that “coverage” of such an event is no longer done by journalists or the media; it’s done by the audience. I already knew that — actually I’ve been screaming it (oh so quietly) in people’s faces. I try to explain why the industry is failing but no one likes to listen. However, talking about it and seeing it in action are two different things. Of course, to differentiate myself, I should be focusing on the “why” and “how,” but I seem to have rambled around those topics, so I’ll just leave you with some audio/visual delights.
By the way, other artists I got to see include Anthony Attalla, Afrika Bambaataa (think GTA Vice City, the Wild Style disc), Carl Craig (a Detroit techno legend), Michna (a Ghostly International artist who filled in for Benga at the last minute), Bassnectar (who I expect to see again at Lolla ‘09), and Benny Benassi (remember that crazy “Satisfaction” video from around ‘02?). What an awesome day! I can’t wait for next year!
Below you’ll find the photos and video that I took at Movement Detroit.
Flickr slideshow:
Video clips:
Links:
Movement Detroit – MySpace
Movement Torino
DEMF Wikipedia page
Similar Posts:
- The Fields of Detroit (More About DEMF) (June 17, 2009)
- Hercules and Love Affair vs. Detroit Electronica (June 11, 2009)
- Happy Birthday America, From Rothbury 2009 (July 7, 2009)
- Hot Is An Understatement: Days Two and Three at Lollapalooza 2009 (August 13, 2009)
- Video Clips From Rothbury 2009 (July 9, 2009)
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