The Detroit Techno House

Saturday night I needed to get out and work off some of the artery hardening, home cooked deliciousness of the holidays, so we made it down to Oslo to get our day-after-Christmas on. I was looking forward to hearing K-Hand spin, it’s been a long minute since I saw her last. When we got there the DJ(did not catch his name) was spinning some nice deep house, and a good crowd was forming. Jesse James was on the decks next, and his set didn’t start off too well, I think his Traktor was fucking up, but needless to say it sounded horrible for about 10 minutes. He finally got it together, and spun a pretty dope ass techno set set for the next hour or so, busting out some slammin’ old school tracks. K-Hand went on around 1 and tore that shit up. She started off strong, and spun some glitched out, acidy techno madness. The video below doesn’t do her justice, but gives you the jist of it.
Sunday Night we headed down to the Cass Cafe for Hail Santa. Great crowd for a Sunday night, and the DJ’s were spinning some awesome house music coupled with some live computer fuckery. Best of all, PBR on draft! The whole party had a great vibe, good sound, and a venue that doesn’t get used enough for electronic music, hats off to the promoters.

We decided to start the weekend early by heading out on Thursday to check out Stacey Pullen. I remember this venue being called Elysium I think, but I guess it’s now called Reliv. Definitely not the typical type of spot I’d hit up; this place was way too big for the usual microcosm of a crowd that shows up for good electronic music in Detroit. Mr. Pulllen never disappoints however, so the music was good and the drinks were strong, which made me forget that it was like the fucking arctic outside. Friday night we made it down to the Northern Lights lounge for some house music. Oddly enough, no of us have ever been to this spot before; it’s got a weird vibe, it kind of reminds me of a lounge/bar in a bowling alley. You know, dark and smokey with very 70′s decorations. Anyway, Sutter was playing when we arrived, always a solid DJ, although I was not feelin’ his track selection that night. We didn’t end up staying long (it would have been nice to see Norm Talley though), the overall vibe of the night just didn’t appeal to us. Sorry, no video or pics this week, but I’ll make it up next weekend. Peace.

After much thought, consideration, and consultation, I decided against going to Nightsneak’s annual Super Mega Ultra Rave extraordinaire. There were some good acts lined up, but I was just not feeling all that PLURish, and $40 admissions fee seemed a bit steep for my current economic climate. Instead, I decided to head down to Oslo to check out Innerphonic; I’d heard about theses dude’s, but never heard them play, and I always enjoy a live set. We didn’t end up paying any cover at Oslo, and got there just as Kevin Henry was hitting the 1′s and 2′s. I have to say, he played some pretty dope tracks of the electro-ish flavor, and his mixing was on point. I was excited by the huge pile of gear that was set up for Innerphonic also. They went on about 12:30 to a scarce crowd, and too be honest I was not that impressed. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt that 3 dude’s with that much gear should have rocked it much harder, and they seemed to be slightly out of sync with each other. I may be just overly critical, but just in case, here’s some video of the first part of their set, you be the judge: