Frank Zappa’s wild jazz rock freak out 'The Torture Never Stops', sticks out for him as a massive influence – aptly, when he tries to encapsulate the craziness of the song, the Skype connection spazzes out, turning his words into a garble of digital scuzz closer to Zappa’s intentions than mere words could convey. After a few tense minutes spent pleading with the modem, a link is re-established and we move on to discussing the ‘dancefloor’ CD of the collection.
“It’s supposed to represent music I use to get the floor in the mood for love,” he laughs. “I wish that there was more new generation Detroit stuff that I could include, but, y’know, I’m still looking out for more of these guys – Kyle Hall’s pretty much the main cat now. Detroit has changed a lot. When I started getting involved in doing this, my influences were hearing local guys that were on the radio – Derek May had a mix show, later on Kevin Saunderson had a mix show, Juan Atkins records were getting played in prime time as well as night time, and for techno music it’s just not like that today. It’s not even like that for Detroit rap music, you couldn’t access guys like Dilla when he was alive because he didn’t have a mix show and there was nobody like him who had a mix show. So now you have to go through other measures to meet these guys who are making music in Detroit, and Kyle went through those measures, meeting Omar S and Theo Parrish and all those guys. Omar S was the one who introduced Kyle and me.”
FOUNDATION
Recently Craig tried to bring his own influence to bear on the situation, setting up the Carl Craig Foundation to encourage kids to hear and create music that reflected Detroit’s vibrant past. He’s hesitant when asked about it, however, deferring that, “the Foundation is a slow situation right now. Because I’m on the road all the time, and because my attention goes to my music and stuff, the foundation needs a head, it needs a CEO. My sister was going to head the Foundation, but unfortunately with family it’s not always the smoothest scenario so the Foundation is on a bit of a hiatus ‘til we can find someone to push it a bit further. We need someone who can deal with young teenagers, who can influence them into hearing new music and that can make it flourish for years, rather than having one or two hits.” When asked if that means
there’s a position going for the right person he agrees. Résumés at the ready people.
In many ways there’s never been a better time for Craig to educate the kids of his home – or indeed any - town. As everyone is doubtless tired of hearing, EDM is big business. The public have an appetite for dance music not seen since the golden age of disco, and all around the States teenagers are downloading hacked software and churning out a million shades of rave. Craig though, has been way too long in the game to get overly excited and isn’t expecting much from the current boom time.
“I don’t have a hell of a lot of trust in it. We go through fads so fast here that there’s a lot more that has to be proven to me. There’s kinda an EDM backlash that’s starting to happen, that’s kinda like the disco backlash that happened, so you’ll probably get people coming out and trying to fire MP3s out of a cannon or something. Really, there are only a few artists that are blowing up, playing Vegas, Miami and LA which are pretty much the hot points right now for electronic music. Some of them are playing for like $300,000 per gig, but they’re the big names. If you go into a store and want a pair of jeans, you’re gonna buy some Acme because you know the name Acme and it’s the hottest thing at the time. People are into buying names and when the names are done they’ll buy into the next thing. It’s a big game.”
As for the ‘trickle down’ effect, he remains cynical. “I think the trickle down, of course, it’s happening. But that just means there's a lot more European DJs in the United States. So what Richie Hawtin did with the Beyond EDM/ Kontrol thing was staking his claim. He was saying, 'Yeah I know exactly what’s gonna happen,' cause we saw this shit happened before, when The Prodigy came over, when the Chemical Brothers came over, that was at the time Moby had his big hit, and they came and they went, and they came again and went again. That’s potentially what could happen this time. But Richie said, 'You know what? Fuck it. I’m gonna let people know what we’re doing.' And he had the very fortunate situation where Deadmau5 really paid him a lot of respect at SXSM with some statements or something on a panel, and that got people to say, 'Let me see who the hell Richie Hawtin is,' and they played together, and I’m sure Richie Hawtin devastated
and destroyed the man when they did their back to back. It’s like Muhammed Ali mentored someone, but when they get in the boxing ring with Muhammed Ali they’re still going to get the shit beat out of them!”
MAINSTREAM DANCE
While he may laugh at the idea of Hawtin’s technical genius coming up against Deadmaus’s ‘press spacebar’ brand of DJing, Craig has absolutely no desire to dismiss the current crop of mainstream dance. Getting serious, he warns, “I tell you, we’ve got to be very careful to not start looking like old men. It pisses me off when I see people going, ‘ahhthis music ain’t shit, the music we used to listen to was so much better, blah blah blah…’ It just sounds like someone’s dad. Someone who listens to EDM and they really like Skrillex, they don’t want you to diss them. Its same way as when I was a kid, I didn’t wanna be dissed because I liked the B52s, or Skinny Puppy, or The Cure.” Ironically, whilst the British pioneers of the dubstep that made Skrillex’s name have abandoned the sound in droves to proclaim their love for the originators of Chicago house and Detroit techno, the same acknowledgement hasn’t happened in the States and Craig doesn’t think it will.
“Most Americans aren’t interested in going back and doing the research. It was very fortunate in the '60s when The Stones came over and said they were real big fans of Muddy Waters, that helped that whole boom of blues music that influenced rock and roll to keep it going. But if Skrillex came out and said, 'I really love Kevin Saunderson,' but people can’t find a new Kevin Saunderson track on Beatport, they’re going to forget about it.” It’s this recognition that you’ve got to be out there doing it, being seen to be doing it, that pushes Craig onwards, that keeps him traversing the globe offering up his soul soaked techno. “I’ve gotta go to work. I’ve gotta do the thing, in the same way as if I was a developer at Apple. I gotta punch a clock. I just have a very enjoyable job cause I get to get drunk on my job, and I get to play what I wanna play to try and inspire people. I don’t have to stand around the water cooler and try to make up conversation, I get to play music and have an influence on people, really it’s the greatest job in the world.”
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djmag.com
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