You might as well get used to the odd name, because you’re going to be hearing a lot about Portugal. The Man very soon.  They’ve played more than 1000 gigs, some of them at high-profile festivals, over the past four years. The press loves them. And their new album, The Satanic Satanist, their fourth in as many years, may well be a defining sound of summer 2009.

When not in the studio, the band spends most of their time crammed up in a van, moving from town to town. But while the road has broken many bands, John Baldwin Gourley, who plays guitar and sings (winning Alternative Press’s Best Vocalist award in 2009), ain’t complaining. “Once you get used to the restrictions of space and of having less around you, living in a van is “not so far out there “

Portugal. The Man – People Say

But the van is not home. Nor20is Portland, where he lives when not on tour. For Gourley, home was, is and always will be Alaska, where his parents fled to from the east in the 1970s in search of a better life and where he grew up.

“Everything about me, including the music, comes from there,” he says. “The song structures come from oldies radio, which was the only thing we had to listen to there. Now [the music industry treats songs] like a science to a point where no soul and substance comes out in the music. But we’re using the structure and bringing substance back to it by writing about things that we know about.”

They also add sounds, textures and tweaks to that structure that the record is much different than the no-frills soul album they thought they were making. “We have so much fun and get way too excited in the studio. We couldn’t have made the stripped down Motown record if we tried because every time we saw some drum machines and synthesizers, we were not about to not use them.”

Now that the album’s done, he’s excited to get back on the road. But  ask why, exactly, he’s excited and he goes blank. “I can’t say what it is. Music is such an escape, and bands like The Beatles changed the world in ways that are taken for granted. And it’s not what it was. But people still need it, need it, need it.

“I can’t say I agree with everything going on in music right now,” he continues. “But for me, it comes down with doing something you love. We love it, and it’s important to me if only for the sake of continuing the music” and the traditions surrounding it.

For that reason alone, getting to play Bonnaroo was especially validating. “I’m glad we had 1000 shows under our belt when we hit the stage at Bonnaroo [this June],” he says. “We had the confidence but, playing the sunset slot the first night, we were nervous because we knew that 95% of the people there had never heard of us. But they watched and gave us amazing respect,” he says. And, thus, the beat goes on.

Words by Neil Feineman

That Underworld was triumphant at the Fox Theater in Oakland August 7 wasn’t really a surprise. After two decades of touring, they are self-assured, charismatic performers with a substantial army of tricks. But because they almost play in 20,000 seat venues or festivals, seeing them up close, indoors, in a beautiful venue had “event” written all over it.

So it’s also not surprising that the show was as beautiful as the venue. Underworld has long been known for their impeccable visual taste and everything, from Karl Hyde’s shiny jacket, which could have been equally at home on the shoulders of Judy Garland or Michael Jackson, to brilliant backdrops, floating balls and those moving pillars from the 2007 tour, worked in tandem to prove the point.

It didn’t hurt that the music was terrific. The hits were all there, played to perfection. So after they drove the crowd into a prolonged catharctic frenzy with “King of Snake” and “Born Slippy,” it was a shock to look at the clock and realize they had been on stage for almost two hours — it felt like half that — and that the concert was almost over.

The set was so good, in fact, that it overshadowed the reason we went in the first place, which was to see what the first live broadcast to the iPhone was like. And on that level, it seemed like a nonevent. Few in the audience seemed to be aware of the broadcast in the first place. And oddly, given that Cupertino is just a hop away from Oakland, there was no cadre of corporate VIPs or no signage hyping up the event. Had Underworld not told the crowd to wave during a refreshingly rare pan across the room or thanked Apple and Quicktime at the end of the show, most people still wouldn’t have known the show went live all over the world.

And, although it may have been due to a simple oversight, the theater didn’t unlock their Wi-Fi network, which meant I couldn’t get on the site. After asking four or five staff employees for the password and coming up empty handed, I felt like I was wasting my time with phone sex while the real thing was right in front of me. So I stopped worrying about the “wonderful and hot times/On your telephone line” they were singing about and, like the “drive boy” I am, turned off the phone and screamed “mega mega white thing” along with everyone else in the room.

Words by Neil Feineman, photos by Camera Girl

Talk about times changing. In the mid-1990s, when Underworld’s track “Born Slippy” jumped off the screen in Trainspotting, it took weeks to track down the name of the band and the song. Now, less than 15 years later, you can get that information with the wave of a hand. But that’s not all. Come this Friday night, you can watch Underworld in concert from the best seat in your house, for free, on your iPhone.

The concert, the first of its kind, is one of three prongs in a concerted Underworld assault on the technological literati. In addition to the performance, they are releasing their rich 21-year catalogue on iTunes. And, in this  “there’s an app for that” world, they’re throwing in an iPhone iDrum app that lets you remix 12 of Underworld’s most popular songs, including “Born Slippy” and “Cowgirl.”

It’s an undertaking that has Karl Hyde, Underworld’s lyricist and vocalist, stoked enough to be sitting in London doing phone interviews to America until the wee hours of the night. With the concert looming, it’s the logical place to start.  “We’re very excited because while the main focus will be the people in the room — the actual audience,” he says, “there will be hundreds of thousands of people looking over our shoulders.” Naturally, he can’t wait to see what that feels like.

Although he understands the skepticism surrounding the translation of a live concert to a phone, he’s seen the test results and swears they — and the possibilities this broadcast opens up — are “amazing. Who knows where we’ll take it? This application applies to the publishing of any audio or visual art. So no one really knows what to make of it. A concert, an installation, those are literal interpretations. But this could go anywhere the imagination takes us. It’s the tip of the iceberg, I think.”

And there’s probably no one better to pull it off than Underworld. As Underworld, Hyde and guitarist Rick Smith have had a textbook perfect career that has spanned decades. Effortlessly straddling the line between rock and dance music and the visual arts, they’ve been headlining festivals and releasing successful albums without compromising their artistic integrity — all without sacrificing their basic anonymity.

“That’s it in a nutshell,” he says. ”At least once a year, we sit in some beautiful place and we say to each other, ‘who would have thought when we were in Cardiff, living on baked beans in a miserable room, recording on this little four-track we’d have this career.’ I cherish being able to walk down the street unnoticed at the same time I know we’re supporting families and able to make art the way we want. I don’t mean that in an arrogant way.  [Believe me.] We never forget how lucky we are.”
Along the way, they’ve inspired bands such as Radiohead, who cite Underworld as a major influence, and been inspired by bands like The Grateful Dead. “It might be because we’re British,” he laughs, acknowledging the left field connection. But the Dead, in addition to being often uncredited pioneers of rave culture, were able to create a body of work that didn’t rely on commercial conventions and that used technology inventively.

Born Slippy Live

As such, the Dead work for Hyde as a concept  “Underworld are essentially outsiders. Yes, we  have a connection to pop culture, but we are outside its constraints.” Just like the Dead or, for that matter, Radiohead. “We respect a band like Radiohead,” he says. “We respect anyone who can walk their own path and make a living doing so.”

The iTunes catalogue release works on both those levels . “Most of the music has been available if you looked, but it was scattered and disconnected,” Hyde says. “Now we can release it all [starting with the LPs and moving on to the 12” and mixes]. And [by making it interactive], we get to add another part of the picture of Underworld.”

“The live CDs, the art, the videos are all part of a more interesting picture than it used to be,” he explains. “Before, you spent 18 months to two years on one big thing that you make a big whoo hah over. But now it’s more about the river run concept of creating a continual release of material in different forms, and updating it in ways we couldn’t have imagined.”

“I took 500 photos for the last book, In the Belly of St. Paul, [published in 2003 with a sold-out limited edition 3,000 copy run], for example, and numbered them. We put one photo in each of the first 500 books and had the owners register their copy and put the photo on this grid. While the shots were taken a few yards apart, they have ended up with new lives all over the world, from places like Hong Kong, Detroit and Minnesota.

“And that expands the idea of a book — it gives it a life that goes beyond the single copy and makes it into something bigger. It works the same with music. Instead of putting out this 12-song album and stopping there, you can add 30 tracks, films, and extend the experience in20ways that are very exciting.“

The release couldn’t come at a better time, because hard evidence, including sellout crowds at massive raves coast to coast, suggests that electronic music has finally broken through in America. It was first expected to blow up here in the mid-1990s. “When Kurt killed himself and there was this huge hole in grunge, and a lot of people thought they could charge in. But we never bought into that, and didn’t try to be a part of that wave,” Hyde says.

Despite chart successes from bands like Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers,  electronic music stayed underground, just as he thought it would. But it never stopped growing. Finally, around two years ago, that growth seemed to hit critical mass, taking it to arenas and venues that would have seemed impossible before.

For Hyde, that moment of realization came in September, 2007, when he discovered Underworld had sold out the Hollywood Bowl. ““You have to understand,” he continues, “that when I was 11 or 12, I got a Fender catalogue and there was this amazing hand-tinted photograph of the Hollywood Bowl and I remember thinking about how incredible it would be to play there. So to be there, knowing it would be full, was unbelievable. ’Hang on,’ I told Rick. ‘Something’s happening here.’

“What you don’t know until you get there is that you can’t see the audience, which is stacked up for miles,” he says. “You rarely see the audience from the stage anyway, but you get used to sound coming from the back. So we weren’t prepared when we got on stage and there was this great roar that seemed to come from the sky.”

This Friday, though, the roar is going to come not from Los Angeles, but straight outta Oakland. If you’re going to the Fox Theater, he recommends not getting too close to the stage, so you can see everything. If not, all you have to do is charge that iPhone  and click your way into history.

Underworld takes the stage at 9 P.M. PST. To listen on the iPhone,  you need the new 3.0 software. Although it will run on 3G, a WiFi connection is recommended. For those without an iPhone or iPod Touch,  tune in via any broadband connected Mac or PC running  Quicktime. For more info and updates, click on www.underworldlive.com.

If there were an award for best pseudonym, Adultnapper, a.k.a. Francis Harris would win in an instant. One of electronic music’s most important artists, this Brooklyn based producer and DJ comes to the scene after stints in grad school (philosophy) and hardcore punk bands. An avid reader of serious literature, he talks faster than he spins and makes you feel smarter just by being part of the conversation.

To prove the point, we begin with the sorry state of the book publishing business:
“Literature is determined by a few publications that tell everyone what is cool and what isn’t. I think Roberto Bolano [late author of 2666, which won the National Book Award this year] is a total poseur but these publications told everyone he was cool and that was it. It’s the dominance of a certain perspective, and it’s happening everywhere and causing us to lose not just real literature, but real music and film too.

Adultnapper – Echologist The Score

“You can also see it in a film like Slumdog Millionaire, which is a glorified Bollywood music video yet won the best film of the year. It’s kind of a joke how reduced most art forms have become. Today there’s an emphasis on quantity, not quality, and the biggest cause of that is the ubiquity of Internet media, where you don’t have to verify sources or facts [and where the emphasis is on simple-minded perspectives, turned out quickly]. Still, if you’re constantly focused on that, it would be impossible to work. So you do what you do without worrying about that.”

Even electronic music is not immune to the pressures. “Electronic music,” he continues “is a cottage industry that by necessity is fully invested in marketing tools – you have to play the right afterparties, be on the right rooftops, play the right festivals. It’s not, for the most part, about the kind of concept you have for the music, or the song, but about the cult of personality.”

This represents a dramatic shift from the old school, where the DJ was an anonymous conduit of the music, rather than a star.  “I liked the anonymity of it, how old-school DJs like Victor Calderone would have the DJ booth way off to the side,” he admits. “It’s not about the DJ, who’s just the medium. The DJ thus becomes secondary to the party and the music, and I liked how that was mysterious and uncommodifiable.”

That anonymity, in fact, was one of the things that drew him into electronic music, a scene that’s much different from the punk world, in the first place. “The hardcore scene is a lot different in that it springs from a political perspective where dance music for the most part is self-indulgent and narcissistic. But I liked the music and always saw something like Detroit techno as experimental music. When you go there and see these working class guys doing house music and doing it as a roofer might, without ego or the desire to talk about it – that’s where there’s no ego or narcissism.”

Besides, he continues, “the activism [of punk] is meant for younger people who aren’t yet as pessimistic about the system. I’m just trying to not take myself so seriously or take partying so seriously because mostly dance music is a bunch of white people hearing good music, surrounded by good graphic design, taking a bump of ketamine.

“I’m not trying to put it down, mind you. I’m just saying that the whole thing seems part fantasy and part graphic novel – except for those times when it’s done right and it comes together and you have a special feeling and energy that you don’t get anywhere else. When that happens, it feels substantial and very real and I like that a lot.”

OPTIONAL/ALTERNATE ENDING: Before we hang up, there’s one final question. He’s got a diverse body of work that remains unknown to the mainstream listener, so we asked where he thought the best entry point would be, especially from someone who doesn’t already love techno and house music. He thinks for a minute and then laughs.  “I’d say it’s less from the bigger dance club tracks, but the deeper and darker ones that don’t sell so much. But I think you could start anywhere since I try to make everything something that’s listenable from home or a club, and base it on a traditional song structure that has melody and harmony. So if you’re musically oriented, it shouldn’t make too much a difference.”

Words by Neil Feineman

Adultnapper – Maxwells Demon

Stellastarr – Freak Out

You got a lot of attention in the band’s early years. Are you where you thought you would be back then?
Mandy: We originally started as a jam band. It wasn’t so much about money or about being famous. So we didn’t have a plan but the more we played, the next step kept coming.
Back then, we kept saying that the only thing we didn’t want to be is a one hit wonder.  The New York scene was getting really big and bands were blowing up and falling down really quickly. Instead of a big bang, we wanted a plateau we had control over. And in that sense we are exactly where we wanted to be. We have a career, a fan base and keep putting out music. [As for] rich and famous [she laughs]. Not so much.

There’s a great line in “Graffiti Eyes” that goes, “You can see color when there’s only grey.” It seems to perfectly capture the role of the artist in society.
Mandy: It’s a funny line. I didn’t write it but I’ve said it a lot. And it can mean different things: You can take it as a statement about relationships but yes, it can apply anyone who’s creative and makes something.

This time around, you’re doing the record on your own. Was it much more difficult?
Mandy: We always had backing, so this is the first album we are releasing ourselves. We had to earn and budget, things we didn’t have to worry about before. It was a learning experience and took us so much longer to figure out the business side enough to do it right and proper. And it was very empowering to realize you don’t have to live within the system we grew up with. It’s a bit more stressful because now it’s about 20% music and 80% business. But it made us a better band because we’ve managed to create something that’s all ours.

Why the extra r and the asterisk in the name? Just trying to be difficult?
Mandy: Because it was a name so we wanted to have one word and two of us are graphic designers and love to make people question things.

Stellastarr*’s album is released officially through its label, Bloated Wife Records, on July 7th. Tracks are available now on iTunes, and can be streamed on the band’s web and myspace pages. They will be on tour with Wild Light and The Postmarks throughout the summer.

Words by Neil Feineman

The Ancient Astronauts are said to be extraterrestrial beings who briefly visited ancient civilizations on earth, only to return in modern times. If bios are to be believed, two of these, Kabanjak and Dogu came back to Cologne, Germany, in 2001, and promptly became mash-up and hip-hop experts, remixing and producing for former members of groups such as Digable Planets and The Pharcyde. On the eve of their new release, We Are To Answer on their own Switchblade Recordings, we caught up with the aliens, to glean what we could from them.

Ancient Astronauts – Classic (12 Remix)

Is it different producing your own work than it is someone else’s? Did you ever think about using other producers for your own work?

AA: Actually we try to give remixes a type of typical Ancient Astronauts sound so you can somehow hear that the remix was done by us. But this is mostly restricted to the beats (gotta be rough and in your face), the basslines (gotta be deep and warm) and our arrangements and different sounds and melodies we add. We are very selective when it comes to the sounds we use for our music and this is also the case when we do remixes. So when someone that we remix uses for example some synths and we don´t like the way they sound then we don´t use them and add something else that fits to our ears.
We never thought of using outside producers for our album because that´s what we are, producers.

Your work has been embraced by the top tiers of hip-hop but Cologne is far from the centers of the music. Do you feel any socio-cultural connection to the work, or is it purely experiments with sound?

AA: Yes, we very much feel a socio-cultural connection to hip hop and all related music styles cause we listen to this music for a very long time. Germany, and especially Cologne, has a long history with solid and conscious hip hop. There is a huge crowd of people believing in the true artform of hip hop and everyone does their part to support it and teach it to those who do not know about its real origin. So no experiments but pure love for it.

Many people criticize hip-hop for reinforcing the sexual and commercial values it set out to subvert. Without forgetting there is an underground of “conscious” hip hop, do you think hip-hop has lived
up to its potential for social and political change or not?

AA: We don´t think so. It depends on what you make out of it. Good music with a conscious background will never lose its force on social or political issues. It is an expression of what people think and feel about the world they’re living in. That´s what we are trying to do: Express ourselves.

Is Chariots of the Gods your favorite book?

AA: Not at all – we heard about it and its theories but never read it.

Did you come back in 2001 because of September 11, or Stanley Kubrick?

AA: We re-entered because it was time to build a solid platform for our music in the future.

What did you pack?

AA: Vinyl, instruments, books and the knowledge of the past, to pass on to the people.

What music was on the speakers when you landed?

AA: Clutchy Hopkins.

Was the moon landing a hoax?

AA: Of course, but ask Stanley Kubrick for more detailed information.

Words by Neil Feineman

Ancient Astronauts -Classic (DJ Brace Remix)

Ancient Astronauts – Risin High Featuring Raashan Ahmad

Ancient Astronauts – Everybody

Ancient Astronauts – I Came Running

Ancient Astronauts – What We Came For

If you love dance music, Detroit on Memorial Day weekend is like Christmas, Thanksgiving and July 4th rolled into one.  This year was no exception, both for what happened and what didn’t at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, or Movement 09.

Of the numerous firsts: Carl Cox and Derrick May’s festival debuts. Although both had been scheduled to play in previous years, Cox cancelled because of stomach problems (caused, some speculate, by the news that Carl Craig, his long-time friend, had just been fired). And May, the last of the original techno trio and only one to never play the festival, got rained out by a thunderstorm. To sweeten the pie, Carl Craig was named creative director of Movement 2010. On this last year of the festival’s first decade, history was well served.

Hip-hop was better represented than it has been. Rising talents like Flying Lotus, top-of-their-game superstars like RJD2 and Z-Trip, and a visit by no less than Afrika Bambaataa, one of the men who started it all, kept the Red Bull Music Academy stage packed both day and night. The reception proved that the festival can easily accomodate diversity, especially when the genres share the same roots.

That stage’s success points out one thing that didn’t happen: drum and bass.  Lots of out-of-towners were missing as well. Most of the people who come regularly from places like California, New  York and even Chicago didn’t make it this year. When people have to give up something so close to their hearts like the festival, you realize how bad things really are.

But mostly what didn’t happen this year was the array of all night parties the festival was famous for. This time, the blame goes straight to the city of Detroit, for refusing to let the bars close at four. While there were plenty of private and underground parties, much of that  action took place behind closed or suburban doors, and the 24/7 freak show was conspicuous by its absence.

Finally, there was no Richie Hawtin, who was wrapped up in the launch of his fancy fashion line. A genuine Detroit hero, in spite of his triggering a mass exodus to Berlin, his year off was taken in stride, with the tacit understanding that he would be back bigger, better and, presumably better dressed next year.

But those a quibbles in an otherwise perfect universe. The level of talent, the quality of the music, and the intelligence of the audience has made Detroit a juggernaut. A feather in any DJ’s cap, its survival assured, there’s no surprise that talk is already turning to next year’s tenth anniversary edition. Here’s what they are saying in four words: Make your reservation now.

Words by Neil Feineman, photos by Dustin Downing

As Jeff Risk, Detroit producer/artist/DJ, found out, never delete your junk mail before you see what’s in it. Because sometimes, buried amidst the spam, the porn and the diet drug solicitations, there’s an email in there that might change your life.

Risk, whose taste in music is as impressive as his ten tattoos, cut his teeth listening to everything from Liz Copeland on the Detroit radio to punk rock, hardcore and death metal. Then he fell in love with drum ‘n’ bass and became a DJ. But while he loves to DJ, he’s not the guy who sends out demos and is intent on elbowing his way up the food chain. Instead, he thought his reach would be no farther than his friends.

But while working at Record Time, one of Detroit’s great record stores, he came across an application for the Red Bull Music Academy. He had already been listening to the compilations and the podcasts, and meant to apply but didn’t.  The next year, he came across another application.

It was due in three days, on Cinco de Mayo. He had been living in a Mexican neighborhood in Detroit and was eager to take part in the celebration, but for the next three days, with sounds of revelry seeping into the windows, he worked on the application. After his girlfriend read it and deemed him a shoo-in, he ran off to the post office, beating the deadline by 15 minutes.

After several months went by without an answer, Risk forgot about it. But when he finally got around to cleaning out his junkmail inbox some weeks later, he saw the email he had been waiting for. He didn’t know when it came, or if he had the courage to  open it. When he finally did and realized he had been accepted, he went into shock. “I kept rereading it, wondering if it was real or if I read it right.”

Sure enough it was and suddenly he found himself in a beautiful hotel room in Barcelona, thrust into an international group of musicians all as talented, energized and eager as him. After a tour of the studios they’d be working in, which  surpassed his expectations, Risk found out that the first lecturer was going to be Melvin Van Peeples, the director of the revolutionary 1970 film, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song.

No one else knew who Van Peeples was, but Risk, who had seen the film at a film festival in Windsor, and was a huge fan. So there he was, sitting in Barcelona next to Melvin Van Peeples, just like that. “I couldn’t believe things were so casual and that I was right there next to him, eating grilled pineapple, talking about what it was like to make incendiary art.”

It was a hard act to follow, but things at the program continued to get better. “I didn’t have a lot of expectations going into the academy, thinking it would just be great to be in the studio. But it was much more than that. I got hope, first of all, that people would listen to my stuff. That’s a big deal, especially for someone who hadn’t had that before.

“But maybe even more important, I got a network of friends all over the world who inspire me to keep doing it.” Since his return to Detroit and the real world, in fact,  he’s been working with another Red Bull Music Academy colleague from Columbia on an industrial noise project. They plan on taking it across the world, touring cities where their friends from the program live.

In the meantime, he’s happy to be back in Detroit, a place that has always inspired him. “It’s harsh and brutal but there’s a lot of open space creatively and physically too. It’s a blank canvas. Yes, there are a lot of cynical people here, but there’s also a lot of immigrants who come here hoping it will change for the better.”

In an odd way, history may be on their side. “People are so focused on the fate of the auto industry that they forget Detroit was a major city before the auto industry, with art, culture, museums and industry. That infrastructure for manufacturing is still here waiting for whatever comes next,” he says.

If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on industrial noise.

Words by Neil Feineman, photos by Dustin Downing

Anyone who loves techno owes Kevin Saunderson for three things: co-inventing techno, coming up with the anthems, Big Fun and The Good Life, and being the unsung hero of Movement, stepping in at considerable cost to save the festival when its future was bleak.

The year was 2004, and the festival, which had been free to the public for the first four years, was in deep trouble. The city approached Saunderson, a well-liked presence in the Detroit community, and begged him to come in and take charge. “I had never run a festival before, but I knew how much time it would take to do it  right. So I agreed on the condition that they officially back the festival by September,” he says.

Kevin Saunderson – World of Deep

Despite their promise, it took them until early 2005  to commit. Saunderson told them it wasn’t enough time, and that they should take the year off, regroup and do it right in 2006. But they were insistent and gave their word that he would protected from any exposure if things were to sour. “Having never dealt with politicians before,” laughs Saunderson, “I believed them.”

He shouldn’t have. He didn’t have the time or organization to land sponsorships, and his plan to charge for the first time ($15 for  three days) met with massive community resistance. The festival itself went off without a hitch; the city took their cut off the top as the money was coming in the ticket sale window, and Saunderson and the festival were left out to dry.

No one would have blamed him for becoming bitter, but Saunderson, who’s equally at home coaching one of his kid’s little league baseball teams as he is in front of thousands of screaming clubbers at festivals all over the world, took the high road.

“I am a happy person and have a great life,” he says. “Yes, I was mad but after a few months, I got over it. I had had enough, and gave Jason [Huvaere, owner of Paxahau], who I had been working with anyway, my full support.” Since then, the festival, under the Paxahau banner, has successfully implemented many of Saunderson’s ideas and last year won Urb  Magazine’s Festival of the Year award.

As he looks over the main stage, filling up to see him this Monday, he’s just happy that the festival is “so good.” He knows what he’s talking about when he says, “Go with your heart and with all your drive. Let no one stop  your vision, because if  you let them, you’ll never know what impact you might have had.”

Words by Neil Feineman, Photos by Dustin Downing

Kevin Saunderson – World of Deep (Jesses Respect to Detroit)

Zach Sciacca, better known as Z-Trip, founder of the mash-up and one of America’s most influential DJs, is stoked. In less than an hour, he will walk on to the Red Bull Music Academy’s stage of Movement. Although a fixture at festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella, he’s never played this one. And he can’t wait to get it started. “Musically,” he says, “you can get away with murder in Detroit. They are so enlightened here that you can play whatever you want and they’ll go along with you.”

But before he goes on, there’s an interview to do. An intensely political person, he had talked last summer, at Electric Daisy Carnival, Los Angeles’ big summer rave, about the election, whose outcome was not yet a foregone conclusion, and how nervous he had been about the outcome. This time around, I wondered if he seen the trickle-down effects of hope filter into cities like Detroit yet.

“For a long time during the election I was nervous because of who we’ve been as a country. The face of it, anyway,” he says. “I knew my people were going to do the right thing, but I didn’t know exactly who my people were. So once people in the Midwest and other places chimed in, it was good to see the tide turn, and to see so many people embrace the change. I mean, just look at it now. The GOP is a skeleton of itself.

“So we got over the big bump. And I relaxed a bit. But Obama has inherited the worst possible situation. The biggest joy for me in the election was his press conferences. We at last have a leader who can speak and be engaged and open minded. It was proof that opportunity for real change is there. But I just worry if people are going to hang in and give him the time he needs.”

The problem now, he fears, is how people manage their expectations regarding the stark realities facing the country. “It’s still unclear how much leeway people will give the [Obama team], or how fast they expect solutions.

“Personally, deep down I don’t feel that things are going to get better until the winter. We still have a lot of shit to eat. The train is moving so hard and so fast that the crashing isn’t going to be over until the last car in the train slams into the wall. So I’m hoping a lot of people won’t judge him too fast or minimize exactly what we’re up against. Because we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Nowhere is this process more critical than in Detroit. “Detroit may be the most broken city, but there is so much pride here that I wouldn’t write it off. It’s the underdog and, as one myself, I relate to that and root for them.

“That’s why I was so excited to play this festival and why I’m planning on leaning on Detroit a little bit tonight. There are some songs that I usually play but for the most part, this one’s going to be special. I think they need it, and I hope they love it. Because for me, whether it’s Motown, the rock that has come from here or the techno, I think that the flower that grows out of the concrete here is the city’s music. This festival is the ambassador of that.”

It is also a city that doesn’t expect special favors or outside assistance. “Detroit has that ‘we’re going to make that happen’ attitude, and I champion that. So I want to tell Detroit that I get it and I don’t take it for granted. For me, this is like going to the Motherland on a pilgrimage.”

Then it was time to go to work. The Red Bull Music Academy Stage was already packed for RJD2′s stunning set but the surprise freestyle jam between the two was just a prelude to a 90-minute “exorcism” that had the crowd mesmerized from the start to the end. Later that night, his performance was the the talk of every elevator and lobby in Detroit. He killed it, in front of thousands of accomplices, happily giving him as much rope as he wanted.

Words by Neil Feineman, photos by Dustin Downing, Additional photos by Joe Gall

Photo Gallery by Dustin Downing

Additional Galleries by Joe Gall