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Festival Review |
Detroit Electronic Music Festival
{Detroit, Michigan / May 24th - 26th}
When I was asked to write a “Gonzo” article on this year’s Detroit Electronic Music Festival, or DEMF, I thought “They must want me to write about my trip back to my hometown of Detroit, the city I left 4 years ago…never to look back.” The response was “No, write about drugs, music, alcohol and people who wear pipe jeans in 2008.”
When my plane arrived, I waited for my rental car and I went to the bar for a quick beer. I met two gentlemen who could have been my fathers. Plump bellies, thick moustaches, balding, 9 to 5 jobs and completely fucked up at 1pm. They explained about their houses being foreclosed and how there is going to be a “nigger” president. Thanks for the welcome back Dads.
I drove downtown to meet up with my girlfriend who was there for work, as a sponsor of DEMF. I informed her that my family and friends were going to come out for the night and that meant Jew (my girlfriend is Jewish), Black, Asian, women and abortion jokes. And by jokes, I really mean dead serious comments that you might think were jokes if they came from anyone else. Subsequently, my friends did call me “L.A. pussy boy” for being PC and living in Los Angeles now.
A few shots and beers into my night, the editor of Wide-Eyed, Mr. Benjamin himself, showed up three sheets to the wind. We started a dance party at the locally famous bar, The Town Pump. Keep in mind the people there were not the DEMF type crowd. There were Red Wings fans, hipsters and big sexy African mommas who were patiently waiting for some fun people to be the jump off to their night. We were more than happy to accommodate.
Our crowd stormed in with such fury, the place erupted with approval at the electric slides, robots, and running man dance moves accurately executed. I don’t remember how it started, but it wasn’t long before I was grinding on a 300 pound nubian princess so hard, that my right butt cheek literally got stuck between her thighs. The bartender hasn’t seen that kind of action since Kid Rock made a local appearance in 2002.
The next morning, awake with a belly filled of Lafayette Coney Island hot dogs, rum, tequila, pop (yes, pop), beer, and a penny, I was ready to discover the new sound of DEMF and not Techno Fest.
Techno Fest was the original name of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival back when I was in high school. It was the world’s largest free outdoor electronic music festival and claimed to be the “original techno music festival.” Basically, it was a legal rave.
The last time I went was in 1996 and I saw more candy necklaces, JNCO’s, goggles, and novelty t-shirts than I have ever subsequently saw. This time, I knew it would be more hipster based and I was sure I would see plaid shirts, majorly styled hair, tight jeans and the newest and brightest line of Nike’s. The music had to be much more evolved from the early “unce unce unce unce unce” to the sample heavy and synth layered beats from the electronic music today. Right? WRONG!!!
I walked into the festival to see the same exact clothes I saw in 1996! HOLY SHIT! Literally nothing at all had changed. It was like I walked into a time portal and it was 1996 all over again. “I do what the voices in my head tell me to do” and “Fuck you, you fucking fuck” where the cleverly placed novelty t-shirts. How the hell do people still have JNCO’s? Are they still manufactured? Is there a demographic of people who still purchased the new lines? The music must have changed, right? No! There were seven stages and literally, every single stage was playing the same exact song; “unce unce unce”. I met up with some friends in the Red Bull VIP section for free drinks. We were pounding them back and I was hoping the “unce unce unce” was going to finally make sense to me the more drunk I got. It didn’t. “unce unce unce;” I need to drink more. “unce unce unce;” the place was spinning as I walked down a dark corridor to find a true underground rave. The glow sticks were flying all over the air like mostiqtoes with light bulbs glued to their wings. The music was the same, but the “unces” were faster…”unceunceunceunce;” I was going to throw up. I ran back above ground to find my girlfriend and we went to see the Cool Kids.
Finally, I was able to see good hip hop music. The Cool Kids were as amazing as I was hoping they would be. Their live show was filled with Run DMC bass lines and lyrics that white kids could totally understand. “My mom, my girlfriend, my gold, my pager.” All relatable stuff. During their set, my heart was racing so fast that it made me light headed. I think it wasn’t the great music, it must have been the 11 or so Red Bull and vodka’s. I needed to take a breather and lay down next to the meth kids on top of the pyramid mezzanine to watch Girl Talk in relative peace.
I NEED to say this. Girl Talk is not a fucking artist. I’m sorry. Seriously, he is NOT an artist. He is a bad ass fucking DJ, but he is not an artist. I won’t bore you with a Girl Talk review, because it was the same as any other Girl Talk show. “I love this song!,” “I can’t believe he mixed these songs,” “hahaha, remember that song,” etc etc.
Watching the show from the concrete pyramid monument next to the stage gave me a chance to really look around to see what my city now was, or maybe was evolving into. The segregation, all foreclosures, money troubles, unwanted teen pregnancy, alcoholism, all of it… was normal. Detroit is just a city with people in it. It is no longer a place where an emerging industry is exploding or even self sustaining. It is a city, with people. There really isn’t anything going on. All they have is sports, drugs, booze and techno, and I don’t know why I left.
