Nobody listens to techno?
By D'Arcy Bresson
Editor-in-Chief
November 7, 2007
 Ironically, nobody is more important to the Detroit electronic music scene than Canadian Richie Hawtin. The heady days of raving have long since left the Motor City, brushed aside by the hip-hop movement and vilified by Eminem when he touted, “Nobody listens to techno.” Hawtin never stopped working, in fact, he’s been DJing around the globe for 17 years, and building on the name he made for himself while living in LaSalle. And now the crown prince of techno is returning home to perform in Windsor for the first time in four years.
“The timing was right,” said Hawtin from his studio in Berlin. Hawtin is headlining a showcase of musicians from his record label M-nus (pronounced minus) at the Boom Boom Room as part of an event sponsored by Espace Musique and Radio Canada. The long-awaited return was to originally take place at the downtown Windsor club for Hawtin’s birthday at the beginning of June; however, last minute scheduling conflicts prevented the party from happening.
The stars aligned when Hawtin and his label mates were preparing the launch of their latest compilation album titled Expansion|Contraction. “I felt bad about canceling,” said Hawtin, “I told myself I would do my best to make it up. The owners stayed in touch with me and asked me to come for an event they had planned for the beginning of November. Around the same time I was contacted by Espace Musique about an event they had planned as well.”
 Espace Musique wanted to record a Richie Hawtin set for the launch of a new transmitter in the Windsor area. The event is significant to Radio Canada because this will be the last transmitter launched due to the shift in trends to online music streaming and satellite radio.
The electronic music scene in the Windsor/Detroit area hardly resembles the heyday of techno. However, recent gigs in Windsor by a string of world class DJs like Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren and Deep Dish have given the Rose City a worldwide reputation in the electronic music world. Windsor is no longer just the hometown of Richie Hawtin (and the minivan); it is now commonly the third stop on a Canadian tour along with Toronto and Montreal.
Although he was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England, Hawtin spent most of his life living in LaSalle becoming weaned on Detroit culture. Hawtin and his brother Matthew would listen in awe to the Jeff Mills radio show on 96.3 as he spun the music of Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. These three high school friends became known as the Belleville Three (name after Belleville High School) as well as the founding fathers of Detroit techno—the futuristic form of electronic music characterized by blips, bleeps, and repetitive clicking sounds commonly heard on the city’s famous assembly lines. But it was a fateful meeting at a campus radio station that solidified Hawtin’s desire to become a DJ.
Hawtin, then attending the University of Windsor, heard one of his idols was a guest on CJAM. Derrick May was being interviewed for a show and was approached by Hawtin, “Derrick May was a superstar all over the world and took the time to talk to a skinny kid with glasses,” said Hawtin. “That meant the world to me and inspired me to become a DJ.”
 Soon after, Hawtin created a musical persona/alter ego known as Plastikman. If Richie Hawtin is the superstar DJ then Plastikman is the cerebral science experiment. Richie Hawtin plays relentless techno while Plastikman breaks down the music to a minimal form—which is now the genre for which Hawtin and his M-nus label are known. Hawtin’s minimalist artistic approach has earned him collaborative efforts with renown visual artists as well as the offer to produce a track for the opening ceremonies at the 2006 Olympics in Turin. “I’ve always tried to be on the forefront of where things are going—not popularity,” says Hawtin.
Currently, the popular genre of electronic music is known as trance. Widely regarded as electronic music for beginners, trance typically lacks meaning and leans toward catchy hooks but continuously packs nightclubs and tops record charts. Hawtin had long been vocal about trance music’s lack of meaning but prefers its popularity to its absence.
“Trance is associated with pop. It’s instantaneous and easily accessible,” says Hawtin, “but I’d rather have it big than not at all because it opens doors to other forms of electronic music.”
According to Hawtin, having music be easily accessible is key to its survival. Radio has always been a key way to promote and in the early 90s, people were exposed to electronic music through guys like Jeff Mills until it was pushed aside by grunge music and rap. The scene moved underground and guys like Eminem declared it as dead as disco. The Internet changed all of that when people could easily share files and download music. “The Internet is the best thing that ever happened to electronic music,” says Hawtin, “ In the past, a guy living in Anchorage, Alaska couldn’t listen to electronic music unless he had a friend in New York mailing him records. Now, that guy in Anchorage can go online at the same time as a girl in Buenos Aires or a kid in Tokyo and listen to or buy the same music at the same time.”
 Hawtin sees resurgence in popularity of electronic music, partly in thanks to the rise of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. Social networks act as a conduit for music appreciation. “People can contact the artists and even discuss the different types of music. It’s incredible.”
After 17 years as a DJ, producer, label owner and hardware developer, Hawtin now finds himself in the same position as Derrick May was nearly 20 years ago. “It was special to talk to Derrick and now I like to meet kids that are interested like I was.”
Hawtin recounts two recent shows, one at a tiny club in Okinawa, Japan and the other at an abandoned brewery in Linz, Austria. “I had never been to either of these places but both were packed full of 18-20-year olds who were ecstatic to see me. That’s what inspires me. You can’t deny that feeling.”
Richie Hawtin will be headlining a free show on Friday, Nov. 9 with fellow M-nus artists Magda and Marc Houle at the Boom Boom Room.
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