Movement 08
Articles about Movement 08:
Grandma Techno Rocks The DEMF
One of the interesting stories to come out of this year’s Movement 08 is the story of Grandma Techno, Patricia Lay-Dorsey.
She’s not a biological grandma – though she looks the part. She’s in her 60’s, gets around in a mobility scooter – and she rocks. She’s a social activist, a blogger, an artist, she’s got an awesome tattoo – and she loves that techno music.
“They call me Grandma Techno,” she explains. “I’ve been coming to this festival every year since the beginning, and I love the music—it’s just fantastic.” Read more…
Here’s a roundup of some of the coolest images from Movement ‘08, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival.
If you’ve posted images from DEMF, add a post in the comments!
Detroit’s Freep.com, says that Movement 08 took the Detroit Electronic Music Festival mainstream:
Eight years into Detroit’s electronic-music festival tradition, the event seems to have secured its future. At Hart Plaza this weekend, the fest audience was younger than ever, packed with teens and early twentysomethings who seemed eager to stamp their own mark on the riverfront ritual.
From its launch at noon Saturday through Monday night’s headlining closing by Speedy J, Movement’s five stages were home to new adventures in sound, as an array of first-time fest performers nudged the fest onto new ground. This was the year Movement went mainstream, with flashy, trendy club music standing out in boldface among the more eloquent, classic styles that once dominated the event.
For purists, it wasn’t necessarily a welcome development. Not all was reflective and poignant, not everything transcendent. The musical romance of previous fests was often supplanted by a fist-pumping party spirit. Acts such as Moby, Benny Benassi and Girl Talk indulged their audiences with accessible, hook-laden sets, gesturing and cavorting onstage like rock stars.
No booking better symbolized the new Movement than Moby, the New York artist who has enjoyed electronic music’s most successful pop crossover career. Saturday night, he packed the Hart Plaza bowl with an animated set that shored up his old-school DJ credentials.
Movement officials said about 53,000 people had passed through the gates by Sunday night — in two days eclipsing the 2007 three-day total of 43,337. Monday’s attendance was 22,397, pushing the weekend’s total to more than 75,000.
“It was a musical experiment, and the response was what we were hoping for,” fest director Jason Huvaere said Monday afternoon. “What happened was, without question, a really defining moment. It was a risk, and what we’ve seen over the past three days is a success for the event and the performers.”
It was the biggest DEMF ever – but does bigger and more mainstream mean better?
The Detroit News has published an interview with Moby in the lead-up to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Movement 08.
Moby is making his Movement debut at this weekend’s Detroit Electronic Music Festival.
Here are a few of the highlights:
What goes into putting together a live show versus a DJ set?
When I DJ, it’s just me playing my favorite records by other people. One of the things I love about DJing is the impromptu spontaneity of it. Every time I DJ it’s quite different. You establish this symbiotic relationship with the audience, where they’re responding to you and you’re responding to them, and you never know what your next record is going to be. It could be this fantastic moment where everyone in the crowd throws hands in the air or it could be a trainwreck where everyone decides to go to the bar and ignore what you’re doing.
What do you spin?
It all depends. I mean, sometimes I’ll play brand new electro tracks, sometimes I’ll play old house and techno, sometimes I’ll break out some old hip-hop records, sometimes its Guns N’ Roses and Pulp. It depends on where I am, and what seems to be appropriate and/or inappropriate.
Do you DJ with vinyl?
I used to, but I stopped playing vinyl about a year ago because I was traveling too much, and traveling with vinyl — it’s just really heavy. If you have two big flight cases filled with vinyl it weighs about 75 pounds, so running through an airport with two big flight cases of vinyl logistically was just a pain in the (behind). So now, like most of the DJs I know, I’m DJing with CDs, and the great thing about that is they weigh nothing, you can carry all your music with you and if you lose something you can burn it again off your laptop. Read more…
Here’s a round-up of info for Movement 08: the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, May 24-26, 2008:
- Movement 08 Schedule (pdf)
- Movement 08 Hart Plaza Map
- Movement 08 MySpace page
- Official Movement 08 blog
- Real Detroit Weekly coverage
- Detroit info
- Official afterparties
- Movement 08 afterparty list (official and unofficial)
- Movement 08 coverage at Synthopia
- Movement 08 video previews
See the Official Movement 08 blog for updated info!
