EIN EST BERLINER BOOTY
In this month's finest when-worlds-collide moment, DJ Assault and producer Ade Mainor — responsible for the booty-quakin' tracks "Ass ’n Titties" and "Tear The Club Up" — were in Berlin last weekend as guest lecturers ("first slide, please … This is the boo-tay…"?) at the Red Bull DJ Academy, a month-long intensive school for aspiring DJs sponsored by the energy drink company. Said Mainor, "We just talked about where the music (ghetto-tech) comes from, talking about like, Juan Atkins and the electro sound and just giving them the background, 'cuz nobody seems to understand it, really."
The soft-spoken Mainor also said he and Assault played legendary techno club Tresor, once the Detroit outpost of techno and home-away-from-home for the likes of Jeff Mills and Underground Resistance, where the enthusiastic Germans loved the ghetto-fied update on the classic Kraftwerk-ian robo-funk electro sound. "They danced to it," said Mainor, "though not exactly the way we're used to seeing it danced to in Detroit." Sprockets, anyone?
Mainor also said he and Assault are planning their most ambitious release yet, the first-ever "Mix-ompilation," [sic] a part-mix disc/part album release featuring a mixed-together section of tracks as well as four new Assault tracks. As an added bonus, it will also be available as an expanded CD-ROM, which will feature footage from the upcoming DJ Assault full-length video documentary produced by Electrofunk Records. MTV Amp has already requested the vid, citing Assault's and ghetto-tech's prominence in the Detroit and world dance music scene. Meanwhile, MTV proper is mulling over the idea of doing a half-hour show devoted to the Motor City. Seems producers there are as inquisitive as the rest of the country how the same city that produced three chart-dominating white rap acts (ICP, Eminem, Kid Rock) is also responsible for Techno, and now, booty. No word on just when the segment would film — let alone air — but inside sources say the idea is being mulled over right now by MTV brass.
MIXMASTERS
For years, techno stalwarts Underground Resistance and electro group Aux 88 have stood by watching DJs put UR and Aux tracks tracks on a bunch of their mix discs. Now, the two repsective entities are entering the mix disc fray on their own. UR's DJ Rolando, he of the "Night of the Jaguar" single of this year, is putting out the first-ever UR mix disc, while Aux 88 will record one for the prestigious !K7 label, home to phenomenal mix discs by the likes of Stacey Pullen and, more recently, Kruder & Dorfmeister. No word on the track selection, but expect some payback for all those unlicensed appearances of "My AUX Mind" on booty discs. Meanwhile, Detroit's getting all kinds of props on a series of mix discs out now. Carl Craig's remix of a Kenny Larkin track was the highlight of Brooklyn hard techno DJ Adam X's disc for the WaxTrax!/TVT Mixmaster series a few months back, and now Stacey Pullen's "Sweat," a pumpin' hard house opus and the cornerstone of Pullen's new Black Flag Recordings label, is a key track on the new Josh Wink mix CD to be released by Ovum/Columbia next month. Interestingly, though, Wink had the tracks he used made into special remixed vinyl acetate discs which he then mixed in and around the originals on CD. Technical note, and fun watercooler discussion-slash-trainspotting fact: While most mix discs are multi-layered on digital multi-track systems, Wink instead layered his mix with real records he had pressed from his own tinkerings with his selected tracks, "Sweat" among them. Also, the next Heavenly Presents: Live From the Social Vol. 2 disc features an all-Detroit set (Carl Craig's 69 alias, Derrick May's Rythm is Rythm, etc.) on its second disc, and will be available on Heavenly U.K. as an import this month.
