Live in Chi-​​Town, but love my Motown

I didn’t real­ize how much I missed “home” until being back in metro-​​Detroit this past few days. Maybe I’m just con­tribut­ing the feel­ing of “home-​​sickness” to how jaded I am with my for­mer employer. Which is bad, since I really truly do love the city of Chicago.

Any­way, we’re back in Chicago for the next week or so. We have some busi­ness to take care of along with mak­ing sure that Yami & Rain haven’t taken over the entire apart­ment with their crazy antics. (We never know what kind of trou­ble a smart black cat and a senior-​​citizen deaf cat can get into!)

Oh and next week we get to go see this. I am such a Gleek!

But any­body that knows me, knows I have a pen­chant for music. Love to sing. Love to try out har­monies. Love to lis­ten to any type of music with a great beat and an amaz­ing hook.

So it’s prob­a­bly no sur­prise to most of my HS and col­lege friends that I’m head­ing back to Detroit to embrace my Goth/​Industrial roots on Memo­r­ial Day Week­end. Yep … after miss­ing last year, Hubby & I are going to head down to Hart Plaza to attend the Move­ment Fes­ti­val; oth­er­wise known as the Detroit Elec­tronic Music Fes­ti­val (DEMF).

Huh? Goth/​Industrial music related to Elec­tronic Music? Specif­i­cally Detroit Techno?

Yes, I say. My love for New Order nat­u­rally lead me to the darker Joy Divi­sion; then Bauhaus and all their rein­car­na­tions, which even­tu­ally led me to all other Goth/​Industrial music out of the now-​​defunct Wax Trax label out of Chicago and the likes of Front 242, KMFDM, and even Kate’s Meat Beat Man­i­festo.

Yes; the same Chicago that brought on the birth of hard-​​thumpin’ bass-​​pumpin’ House Music. Which, along­side Detroit Techno began the ®evo­lu­tion of Elec­tronic Dance Music.

Any­way it’s no sur­prise that in my col­lege and post-​​college years, I spent lots of time at a bar/​nightclub called Indus­try, which played a lot of indus­trial music mixed in with Chicago House and Detroit Techno.

Okay … so that was a quick les­son on the his­tory of how I got into Elec­tronic Music.

What I really meant to talk about was that this year is the 10^th Anniver­sary of the inau­gural Music Fes­ti­val. Those who attended that first year will agree that there was some­thing quite … for lack of bet­ter words, spir­i­tual about that week­end. It was as if all the stars aligned and remain aligned for the entire hol­i­day week­end. Not that there weren’t any hic­cups dur­ing the first year, but the fact that Detroit man­aged to put together some­thing that gar­nered inter­na­tional atten­tion … and not have it be about the Auto Indus­try or the crime rate of the city … was noth­ing short of incredible.

That inau­gural year was actu­ally cap­tured on film by a few of Hubby’s friends who were putting together a doc­u­men­tary about how the DEMF finally brought Detroit Techno back to its home. But because of a mul­ti­tude of issues, the film … was never released. Until now, that is.

Ten years later, The Drive Home will finally be shown on the Big Screen; it’s pre­mière being included in the pre-​​festival par­ties next Fri­day. I am sooo excited to be going!

For me, the best part will actu­ally be see­ing snip­pets of Hubby in some of the film footage. You see, Hubby & I were asked to “cover” the event for a HS friend of his, whose web­site was pretty well-​​versed in the NYC club scene. So as “Media” guests, both Hubby & I were able to get access to areas that the typ­i­cal festival-​​goer did not have.

Now how do I know that Hubby might be on film? Well, it’s because we’ve already seen him on the trailer! Check it out …

Yep, that’s Hubby on the rail to the right, snap­ping pictures!

Any­way, I find myself con­nect­ing with the over­all theme of this doc­u­men­tary. The fact of the mat­ter is that Detroit Techno, while its roots come from musi­cians who have lived in Detroit, was more influ­en­tial inter­na­tion­ally than it was on its own back­yard. How­ever, as the years and decades past … the impor­tance of this style of music was even­tu­ally rec­og­nized in the city from which it was born. While these artists and musi­cians (because it’s not all about DJ’s and sam­pling … ) are con­sid­ered leg­ends in other coun­tries (such as the Nether­lands and Ger­many), they go mostly “unno­ticed” and they feel most com­fort­able when they’re back in their home town.

And espe­cially since this last visit back home, where we spent more than just a typ­i­cal two-​​and-​​a-​​half day week­end in town, I’ve noticed I’m also more at ease when I’m on more famil­iar ground.

Again, this may all be as a result of my most recent stres­sors here in Chicago. But I can tell you this … I’m look­ing for­ward to our drive home next week.

Any­way, here’s the trailer for The Drive Home … hope you enjoy.

And while you’re at it … check out the part of the arti­cle we wrote for his HS friend’s web­site. I’m actu­ally amazed it’s still out there on the web. Well, at least Part II is … not sure where Part I or III is! LOL!