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Interview: DJ Bone

Here comes a stingray - By Morgan Short, Jul 17, 09

One of the best VOID shows at The Shelter last year was DJ Bone, a Detroit native who flew into town and assaulted three turntables (listen to that set here). Bone's an uncompromising kind of guy, a purist, a producer in his own right, and a damn good DJ. Plus, he's got some good Detroit stories and some militant opinions.

SmartShanghai sat down with DJ Bone at the excellent Hello Two bar on Hengshan to talk about techno perversions, why America doesn't get techno, and the next shit.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom to find out how you can get a free copy of the Subject Detroit compilation album, "The Lost Tribe of Techno," and don't miss out this Saturday on DJ Bone the Return at The Shelter.

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DJ Bone: Ah, that shit was amazing -- that was off the hook.


DJ Bone: [Laughs]. Yeah, we did a little background check on them. Saw that they were an underground operation... the main thing we look at is the promoters -- you know, their point of view -- and the club. If they¡¯re at a venue that¡¯s ¡°the place to be¡± then we¡¯re very leery and usually I won¡¯t go. But if it's someone trying to build something, or its someone doing it for a purpose then I¡¯m really inspired by that and I want to do it. I don¡¯t want to be the guy coming into the club that¡¯s already established, take my money and then that¡¯s it. I want to go somewhere where people are trying to make a difference.

But yeah it was good. The crowd -- yeah, I could play whatever I wanted. They were there to hear good music so it wasn¡¯t like, ¡°this is a techno night¡±. Sure, maybe some people weren¡¯t happy but the way I look at it is if everyone loves you, you¡¯re doing something not right. I expect that. I call it divide and conquer. I expect people to really get what I¡¯m doing and love it and we have a good time. If not then, to me, they can beat it. They can walk off the floor, they can leave the club, whatever, I don¡¯t care.

That¡¯s what it is. Divide and conquer. I¡¯m for the people who are there for the music and that¡¯s what I¡¯m about and that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to give them.


DJ Bone: Yeah, it was one of the best gigs I had all year. I was ecstatic. It reminded me seeing something that was untapped...


DJ Bone: Yeah, major way. They might not want to admit it. Well, they piggyback and as soon as they felt they were at the pinnacle, they drop it -- drop the association. Everyone was describing their shit, ¡°it¡¯s Detroit-esque¡±, it¡¯s ¡°Detroit-lite¡±, it¡¯s ¡°Detroit-inspired¡±. But as soon as they got to the point where they thought they were the shit, then they dropped it: ¡°I¡¯m my own person, I like to sound different...¡±

Bullshit.

That¡¯s the same motherfucker who was coming to Detroit and taking notes, watching people, know what I mean? Fuck that.

And it might come across as harsh when I say it but it¡¯s been like that...


DJ Bone: Yes.


DJ Bone: Oh yeah... I¡¯m really upset with that. On the record, I was so upset when I met Terry Lee Brown Jr. Have you heard of him?


DJ Bone: He was doing house music. I think he¡¯s out of Germany, I don¡¯t know, somewhere in Europe. His logo is this black guy, right, with big lips and a short little afro... it wasn¡¯t a caricature that offended me, it was just somebody that looked kinda soulful, and everybody who bought his record thought that the picture was him.

That¡¯s him, you know. I met him in London and I just went off. They introduced me and it was some tall white guy from Germany.


DJ Bone: So, straight up, I was like why the fuck do you have this black guy on your records -- they couldn¡¯t believe I said that -- but that¡¯s just wrong...


DJ Bone: He said that he didn¡¯t want to be judged on what he looked like, ¡°it¡¯s about the music¡±, whatever... yeah, but then put the music out there, don¡¯t put a fake-ass face out there. Go ahead and be faceless.

But I think people use Detroit -- they may not see it this way, a lot of people say, ¡°we use it as inspiration¡± -- but explain to me why 80% of techno that¡¯s coming out right now, they¡¯re using the sounds that we used 20 years ago. The dubby-type, heavy Korg¡­ and they want to claim it as something new. If you use the sounds in a new manner then yes, but if you¡¯re just almost, almost imitating what¡¯s been done 15 years ago, then there¡¯s nothing new about that.

There are some innovative people who use older sounds. So, I¡¯m not against using those sounds in general. I¡¯m against the mindset ¡°I¡¯m Detroit¡± when you¡¯re not from Detroit. I¡¯m ¡°Detroit-esque¡±. I¡¯m ¡°Detroit-inspired¡±, but you never visited the city.

How can you be inspired by something that you¡¯ve never even seen first hand. That¡¯s ridiculous to me. Ridiculous. To be inspired is to be there and have an encounter, and that¡¯s not the case for a lot of these guys.

I mean something that¡¯s classic will never die and you can always innovate. When I DJ, when I make music, it¡¯s inspiration. I was inspired by Jeff [Millls], UR, Mojo, Kenny Larkin, Carl Craig, but Detroit is different and a lot of what happens in Europe -- and I see this first hand so I can speak on it -- I see a lot of guys trying, trying their best to sound like someone from Detroit. I¡¯m not saying all of them but a lot of people try to sound like someone from Detroit.

To me, that¡¯s not progression, that¡¯s not innovation, that¡¯s copying. If you are inspired by someone then you take the best qualities and improve on what inspired you. In Detroit, even to this day, if you make a track and it sounds like someone else and everyone you played it for said it sounds like someone else, you throw that track away. You¡¯re not proud. You don¡¯t say ¡°oh sweet, I got a track that sounds like Rob Hood¡±. You throw it away because you¡¯re embarrassed to sound like someone else in Detroit.

If you think about all the prominent guys from Detroit, you can¡¯t take two and say that ¡°these two guys sound alike.¡± Play a Kenny Larkin track, then play a Rob Hood, then play UR, then play DJ Bone, then play Carl Craig, then play Shake. None of those sound alike. We strive to be different.

So when someone says ¡°I¡¯m Detoit-esque¡± or ¡°this record is in the Detroit style¡± -- the Detroit style is light years ahead, so how can you be the Detroit style. Detroit is the next shit and it always has been. It¡¯s around the corner, down the block and when people catch up, they catch up.

Inspired by Detroit. Okay. So people don¡¯t get upset, here¡¯s some: D-tron, Phase -- when I hear his music I hear Detroit, but it¡¯s a new version, its something that¡¯s progression. It¡¯s not some copy cat shit. It¡¯s genuine progression...




DJ Bone: Yeah, I keep tabs...


DJ Bone: Yeah, I never keep tabs on genres, I keep tabs on people. But it¡¯s only as homework... not necessarily someone I care about, it just almost like... it¡¯s almost like Swine Flu. You may not be looking to catch the Swine Flu... but it¡¯s nice that you know it¡¯s out there...


DJ Bone: ...know how to avoid it. What the conditions are if someone has it, etc, etc. So I do my homework, and if they say ¡°deep house is the new minimal¡±, I know about it. That¡¯s my job. But it¡¯s more about looking at the people.

When they said, ¡°oh minimal, minimal¡±. I say Richie Hawtin versus Rob Hood, you know what I mean? Weight the options. When they say ¡°deep house¡±, I say okay your boy or whoever they¡¯re saying deep house is and Kenny Dixon Jr. You tell me what deep house is. No contest as to what the real shit is.

That¡¯s just me though -- my background, my history -- it¡¯s not being cocky, it¡¯s just I can¡¯t say that this DJ is a good techno DJ when I grew up listening to Jeff Mills and Derrick May.

I¡¯ve heard the best techno DJs. I have.


DJ Bone: Bad. Bad shape right now.


DJ Bone: All the clubs are commercial. Underground parties don¡¯t exist...


DJ Bone: It¡¯s a combination... I could blame Detroit for not putting out new music. I mean, we have people touring the world every week, but they haven¡¯t released a record in 15 years... or even if it¡¯s like seven years. That¡¯s wrong. How are you progressing the city? All you¡¯re doing is living off the past and padding you wallet because you don¡¯t have a retirement fund. And no offense, a lot of these people I idolized when I was younger. But if you want to represent the real Detroit, it¡¯s not even if you still live in Detroit. Jeff Mills will always be Detroit. Rob Hood. And these people don¡¯t even live there anymore but they¡¯re always Detroit and they¡¯re making new shit. So I admire these guys for making new music and releasing new music.

But a lot of guys are touring the world off of shit they did 10 to 20 years ago. And that¡¯s not Detroit. Detroit is innovating. Detroit is the next shit, you know what I¡¯m saying? So you either have to put up the music yourself or nurture younger guys who are doing the new shit. And that¡¯s what we do [at Bone¡¯s label, Subject Detroit].

A lot of the cats, the younger brothers, are now are inspired by hip hop, so it¡¯s really hard to get someone who is 18, 17 to do some Detroit Techno. They want to be hip hop. They want to be Jay Z. They don¡¯t want to be Juan Atkins. You know... They want to be Usher, you know what I¡¯m saying. It¡¯s almost like trying to get them to do some funky Motown shit. They want to be T-Pain...


DJ Bone: Two reasons: a) it was started by black people -- that¡¯s the first and most important reason. And b) it wasn¡¯t easily marketable.

Now, if you go back and look at major styles of music that were started by black people, and the biggest example is jazz -- jazz had to go to Switzerland, France, all across Europe and then filter back into America, and even then it was only select black people and Benny Goodman and Big Band shit. They even tried to change the name, ¡°Big Band¡± -- it was jazz. Same with Detroit Techno. It went across the globe and they tried to repackage it as a different kind of techno.

The U.S. is a microwave society -- I have a project coming out called Microwave Society it¡¯s about how instant everything has to be, and calculated -- so the microwave society is, ¡°How can we market it? How can we make money?¡±

And they looked at techno and said, ¡°We can¡¯t¡±. So that was it.


DJ Bone: There were just no stars. There were no faces. So how do you market music like that? They tried with Chemical Brothers, they tried with Crystal Method, and they tried with Prodigy -- you know, smack my bitch up and a bunch of fire and shit.

They even tried with Aphex Twin... of course he was like fuck you guys and did want he wanted to do anyways. [Laughs.] He did this thing, I think it was called ¡°Remixes for Cash¡± -- I love that shit.


DJ Bone: **makes extremely sour-looking face**


DJ Bone: I got nothing against DJ AM. I¡¯m all about someone making a living, but to capitalize and exploit the music. I mean, I¡¯ve seen some bullshit. It¡¯s like the last concern the club has is about the music. As long as the place is packed, they could care less what the DJ is playing. It¡¯s like everything is the opposite. The music used to be the focus, and it didn¡¯t matter about the venue. It could be an old-ass warehouse, an abandoned building, squatters, a field, as long as you had a decent sound system¡­ but you had to have the best music.

Now you have to have the club, the place to be, the best-dressed crowd, the best door policy, the best drinks, and then after all that is the music... the biggest name DJs. And that¡¯s worldwide. There¡¯s very few select pockets of people who, like Public Enemy said, fight the power. Fight the system.

I mean I could easily wake up tomorrow and say, ¡°You know what? I feel like being famous. I¡¯m going to start playing minimal.¡± And I could go and get a computer and get the latest software and just cheer lead and wave my hands and blow kisses, etc, and I would make ten times what I make right now and be a million times more famous...

But to me you know there¡¯s a direct link between technology and lowering the bar. When it comes to DJing. You don¡¯t have to be skillful anymore, you don¡¯t have to have great track selection... all you need to do is buy the top 10 or 20 releases that have feedback on, and then you load them into your laptop, bring it all with you beat match from song to song, leave it for seven minutes and beat match into the next song.

The first thing you learn to do when you¡¯re a DJ is beat match, so you telling me 10, 20 years into your career you're still beat matching? Only? What is that?

Now people pay their money, they want to be in the place to be, and they just accept what is being thrown at them. If everyone else around them is cheering, they cheer. It¡¯s not based on, ¡°Do I like the song? Do I like the mix?¡± They look at their friends and say, ¡°Oh they¡¯re enjoying it, I better pump my fist.¡± That¡¯s ridiculous. It sucks when you go from growing up listening to Derrick May, waiting for the new song -- everybody trusted Derrick to bring the newest, hottest shit -- going from that and now being in a club seeing DJs being afraid to play anything unfamiliar. No one wants to break a new song; everyone wants to step forward at exactly the same time.

Fuck that. That¡¯s ridiculous. That¡¯s why I don¡¯t play the big clubs. I don¡¯t do interviews with the big magazines because everybody does. That¡¯s the norm. I¡¯m not normal. I¡¯m far from normal.


DJ Bone: Everywhere. People feel they have to accept what¡¯s being given to them. That¡¯s not the case. Growing up in Detroit we knew how to be independent because we had the first DJ in the US playing in free format -- The Electrifying Mojo. He played only what he thought was good. It was a black station but when he came on it wasn¡¯t black, it wasn¡¯t white -- we were listening to Pet Shop Boys, B-52s, Parliament Funkadelic, Juan Atkins, RUN DMC, Brian Eno -- so we had everything, the whole spectrum -- Jimi Hendrix, ¡°Star Spangled Banner¡±.


DJ Bone: He just played whatever he thought was good and what we needed to hear. He would talk all the time. Talk, and talk, and talk. But he was so deep that Prince would send him every single extended version, every single album like two weeks before it would come out in the store. And he would tell him, ¡°play this on the radio and get everyone to record it.¡± And Mojo would say, ¡°Get your cassette recorders ready, I got the new Prince coming up.¡±

I remember he played Around the World in a Day in its entirety. He didn¡¯t say a word, he just played it. He said, ¡°Get your cassette players ready.¡± He was doing a show, and out of the blue he had a call -- he never takes calls -- and he goes, ¡°Uh I just uh wanna uh say that we have a special guest.¡±

He was really flustered, which he never was, because he was always really smooth. He¡¯s like, ¡°we got Prince on the line¡±. Prince called after his concert in Detroit -- called Mojo from his dressing room to talk and he was like, ¡°Yeah, Detroit is like my second home, I get so much love here. From now on every concert tour that I kick off will be in Detroit.¡±

And sure as shit, every time he¡¯s started in Detroit. He would send Mojo everything. I have extended versions of everything that only Mojo had access too... it was ridiculous. So that was Mojo -- he has a free format and could play whatever he wanted -- Cameo, ABC, whatever.

It was so dope to be in the ghetto and hear ¡°Rock Lobster¡±. You know in the middle of all this black music you hear and all these black people are like ¡°Oh, Rock Lobster!¡± Everybody¡¯s down on the ground and shit and then it would kick back up and everybody¡¯s up. In the ¡®hood! [Laughs.]

SmSh: And one of the singers from the B-52s did that song with Iggy Pop. More Detroit. There you go.

DJ Bone: See! We¡¯re ahead. We¡¯re individuals. If someone wants to copy, so be it -- when someone is trying to be Detroit, as opposed to being influenced by Detroit that is.

SmSh: My tape is running out but I wanted to ask about this compilation, ¡°The Lost Tribe of Techno¡± on Subject Detroit...

DJ Bone: Actually, my manager slash booking agent slash fianc¨¦ came to me with the idea for a compilation. I had the name for a long time -- ¡°The Lost Tribe of Techno¡±, and it¡¯s basically techno to the core. You know. These are the true roots of what Detroit Techno is, but they¡¯ve still progressed. But it¡¯s almost like we¡¯re lost or in limbo because sometimes we don¡¯t get the time of day or booked into the big clubs or whatever. But it¡¯s still more than valid, you know what I mean. These don¡¯t have the status as one of the originators, and it¡¯s not minimal or Euro-Detroit or whatever you want to call it.

We¡¯re kinda forgotten. So we¡¯re the lost tribe of techno, and the amazing thing is, this CD has been selling like crazy and it makes me so happy to know that people still want to hear this. Even vinyl sales. People say vinyl is dead but we¡¯ve been doing great vinyl sales.

It lets us know that we¡¯ve been on and we¡¯re still on the right track. I think it¡¯s amazing. I think it¡¯s beyond amazing, so we¡¯re going to keep doing it.

There¡¯s always going to be people lost in electronic music.

***

SmartShanghai is giving away four copies on "The Lost Tribe of Techno". [Ed's note: All the CDs have been claimed. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.]

The compilation from Subject Detroit features tracks from Mister X, Metro Unit, Aux88, Niko Marks, and DJ Bone himself. A great primer on the overlooked purveyors of Detroit Techno, The Lost Tribe of Techno is also a great gateway drug into the Subject Detroit ideology as a whole.

Want one? Here's what you have to do: 1) look at the sub headline for this article. 2) Send us an email here with the title of the song that lyric is taken from, with your name, cell phone number, and address.

*******

DJ Bone plays this Saturday at The Shelter. Event information here.

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