In nineteen eighty, futurist Alvin Toffler coined the word, Techno Rebels, in his ‘Third Wave’ Manifesto. In Toffler’s visionary mind, it was the Techno Rebels that would advance towards the future. Techno Rebels are, whether they recognize it or not, agents of the Third Wave, he says. They will not vanish but multiply in the years ahead. For they are as much a part of the advance to a new stage of civilization as our missions to Venus, our amazing computers, our biological discoveries, or our exploration of oceanic depth. In a matter of years three Belleville teens – Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson – inhaled and exhaled Toffler’s words. In much the same way that Kraftwerk filled, culturally and musically, a void in Germany, the Belleville three created a futuristic vision of synthesized music touched with human soul, and the wasteland of Detroit manifested techno that was equally mechanic and raw with a poignant emotion.

After nearly twenty years of pushing towards the future, and riding the ebbs and flows of the music industry Derrick May is a wisened acolyte. His forcible strength of mind, spirit and intrigue are as dominant as they were in that basement studio in the eighties. Without hesitation the adversities of time have only strengthened his poetic personal creed. His vision of the future. “You have to be locked in from the beginning,” says Derrick genuinely. “You are very revealing to people the moment you put out your music, or expose yourself like that. You become transparent or you become translucent. People can feel you. They know you are there and they know you are not there. These things are not things you can hide. In the long run it all comes back down to the individual and what you possess most, and that’s the music, the art. If you don’t have it people will feel your soul and your soul can’t lie. You may be able to lie, but your soul won’t lie and people will feel it and they will let you know.”

It only takes one brief encounter with Derrick May to understand his words. Charismatically he stands up behind the decks, lifts his head, looks deep into the crowd, and then, knowingly, he puts the needle to the record. He knows intuitively exactly where you want to go, where you want to turn, the place you want to reach, and in turn you see Derrick May transparently. “It is really important to be able to do that. As a DJ or musician, whatever forms you are doing with music, when you take an audience, a group of people. You start your own little small place and you keep working it. It is like climbing a mountain,” says Derrick. “You go on this mountain and you just try and make sure that you don’t get up to the top of the mountain too fast. You have to get just enough rest in the process of going up so that you don’t get tired because when you get to the very top you want to come down really fast. That’s the way I’ve always approached it. It’s a climb, it is a real climb and all I am trying to do is pace you and work you and get you mentally ready to come down because getting up is hard enough, but getting down is going to be a lot of fun.”

It was Derrick May’s production work in the late eighties, however, which captured the intensity of his ambition and spirit. There are few who went untouched by the defining power of Nude Photo and Strings of Life. Today, artists as diverse as Lo Fidelity Allstars, Ian Pooley and New Order, who have included May’s work in current and retrospective albums, still pay homage to the emotion captured by Derrick May and his monikers, Rhythim Is Rhythim and R-Tyme. Despite a lengthy hiatus from the studio, and the ever-present challenging situation with a previous record contract, Derrick May is more than ready to create sensory charged music once again. “I am still in the ring fighting. I think something else is going to have to happen,” says Derrick in reference to the album release that was meant to settle the litigation. “Something is going to happen musically for me, but it is not going to be a compromise, whatever the situation. I am going to go ahead and do something, regardless of a compromise or not, I don’t feel like waiting anymore. I think it is just a possession and power trip that has nothing to do with the music, nothing to do with negotiation, nothing to do with what’s right. It is just power, just games that people play.”

Above and beyond releasing music, Derrick May has found solace in continually working to elevate the artists of Detroit and maintain the integral unity of the community. “I am at a point where I am into more things than just music these days. I am into learning more and more about the level of production that puts on to make the music happen. Not just making music, not just producing music, but such as the festivals and other ways of events. I am really into this event thing. I find it really interesting. I really want to get more into that, and I want to get more into exposing the Detroit artists around the world through the event.” In the future there is even a consideration to take the Detroit festival on the road. “That’s why we call it Movement now, because we want to move it around the world. You can’t really move a festival called DEMF around the world. We hope that we can latch it onto other people’s events and get some level of sponsorship and do various movement events at festivals around the world. That’s what we really want to do. Wish us luck on that one.”

Suffice to say no wishes of luck are really needed. For Derrick May’s effort and nous was realized this year with the success of the Movement Festival, Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival. The 2003 Movement Festival witnessed the High Tech Soul collective, headed by Derrick May, produce a Mecca for musical auteurs and listeners alike. “It was quite emotional this year because it was down to the wire and we barely made it. I had to personally come off with a substantial amount of money to make it happen. It was last minute. I didn’t want to do it,” admits Derrick. “The last thing I wanted to do was put my own personal money into this thing, but we got it with four months to go. It is a festival that houses almost a million people and it’s on for four days. There really wasn’t anytime to think about it. It was either spend this money, make this happen or don’t spend the money and it falls to the wayside and it is over forever, and everybody in the city will be affected by it. All the artists, all the businesses, community and probably around the world people would feel some sort of loss, and we can’t let that happen. So I had to go ahead and bite the bullet.” What made the event an emotionally wrought affair was the dire passion of the Detroit artists. This was their last chance to preserve their historical and cultural past, present and future. “All the Detroit artists bit the bullet as well and they played for free. The only people that got paid were the internationals coming, and that just goes to show you how much the Detroit artists believe in their festival as well. It was a success, almost a million people showed up,” says Derrick with justifiable pride. “There were all of these grown men with families playing for free. These guys are not kids anymore and they played for free, that is how much they wanted that thing to happen. They didn’t do it for me, they didn’t do it for Carl, Kevin, Juan or anybody in Detroit. They didn’t do it for any of the artists they did it for the people, they did it for the music, and they didn’t have to do it. We may not come together as big large units and sit around the table and discuss world politics and how to save the world from bad music anymore, but when it comes down to crunch time we come together.”

This year was the first time that the actual Detroit artists had control over the festival, and despite the Detroit council’s lack of financial support the city contributed the revered Hart Plaza venue, city services, security and a spirited support. “We felt like last year that they dropped the bomb,” says Derrick of the Detroit Council. “We know they didn’t necessarily mean to, because they were new administration. We have a very young mayor he is only thirty-two years old. I don’t think that they were really aware of the demographic, nor were they aware of the production scale of an event like that and I think that is why it took so long for them to finally give us a contract to do it. This year they have been much more cooperative, much more understanding. We have had a chance to put a lot of things together.” Financially, it is still in question as to the sum of their contribution. “The city seems to be supportive, yes. I don’t know how much money they are going to give us, but they are definitely going to stand by us. The city of Detroit itself doesn’t have any money. Detroit is surprisingly going through some rough times. There is a saying in the States that when all of America is suffering Detroit is dying. When the country is in a recession Detroit is in a depression.”

The Detroit artists have become immuned to their surrounds. “Most of the guys from Detroit don’t really get too affected by anything. When you live in Detroit you get a thick skin. That doesn’t mean you don’t feel anything, but you don’t feel it as much because you have other things on your mind,” says Derrick. Yet their environment binds them musically and culturally. When asked whether his music or perspective would stand the same if he were, geographically, placed somewhere else, Derrick responded with a swift certainty: “Completely, you are what you eat. My environment is what I am. I have digested my environment and it has become me and I have become it.” And, although they themselves have turned adversity into a powerful expression, May still questions the longevity of music in America. “America as a whole is really a confused place. It has never really been dedicated. The musicians are dedicated to the music, but the audience is just not dedicated and has not been really dedicated to any one form of music very long. You can’t count on the States for any real longevity for our form of music, it just does not happen.”

Derrick May has persevered, however, and his independent label, Transmat, has shown that longevity presents itself in mysterious ways. “Transmat is going great. We have had to make some real adjustments. I have always tried to keep the company forward minded and we are just being more forward minded now. We’ve got lots of music to put out,” he says promisingly. “It has been difficult to get it out because the music industry has been going through such a conflicting time with downloads and record companies left and right are tightening the belt. You have record distributors that are going out of business left and right. So we have had to restrategize how we sell records and I think it is all for the best that we haven’t been very conservative about our releases. We haven’t really overexposed the label. We haven’t overexposed or exploited the music just to keep the company alive. Because I always felt like something was going to happen and it was going to change everything and it is happening now. The download situation has really made the record company and the consumer see the market differently. And I think that now you will see a complete change in the way music is sold around the world.” Whether or not this change is positive or negative, May is reluctant to say. “Let’s just say a change, a necessary change. We really don’t have any choice. Either you jump on board or you will be sitting outside watching it all take off.”

Yet the excitement in Derrick May’s voice when he discusses the forthcoming releases on Transmat is further testament that there is no intention of wavering the desire to push the company and sound forward. “We’ve had several new artists on the label. I’ve got, as we speak right now, two guys we’re listening to at this very moment, I am not going to tell you their names. I’ve got a guy named Lewis Herman that I’ve been working with for over three years, and we’ve been waiting to release his music. I still consider Lewis a new artist because we haven’t released his records. We’ve got another artist named San Soleil. We are going to be releasing his music in a couple of months. Microworld has an EP coming out. It is going to be out in a couple of months. We’ve got some good things happening with the label. Aril Brikha has a new record coming out. We’re busy,” he stops and then somewhat breathlessly he continues. “We’ve been reluctant, like I said, once again, to take on a lot of projects because really nobody knew what was going to happen. Now we have a better outlook of what we’re doing and I think a lot of record companies, hopefully, will survive this bad, bad spell. This is the worse I’ve seen. I’ve seen record companies come and record companies go. I’ve seen artists come and go, I’ve seen DJs come and go, but I have never seen people come and go like this before.”

Despite this perseverance, despite this passion, despite the innovation that was, and still is, emerging from Detroit artists, and despite holding the integral key to the history of electronic music, many have still taken the time to disregard these traits. Critics have voiced their opinions, loud and clear, that Detroit is no longer pushing music forward. Derrick has heard it all, and, without hesitation he responds. “I think in order to push things forward you have to understand and show and define what forward is. You have to show and define what forward is and what it means. There needs to be a reference to forward. If there is no reference to forward then you don’t move forward you simply sway from side to side. You don’t move at all, and that is the difference between moving forward and excelling,” he says. “Swaying from side to side is what most people do. Excelling is when you are able to show people, to mentally stimulate people, and then you go forward, but just to decide now is time for something new. That is not going forward. Going forward is almost pied piper mentality, and that is sort of going forward in a way. To be able to play this music, and to have people follow you and believe in you and at the same time they understand what you are doing, they feel it. I can understand that statement, and it is a fair statement, but I think that most people don’t understand how hard it was to move this thing forward and how hard it is to continue to keep moving it forward. A lot of guys sit on the fence and watch, but get in the game and it is another story.”

Perhaps the old adage is true? Don’t always believe what you read, because, there are few who move you the way Derrick May moves you. To use his very words: “It is not cool when you don’t give people something they can latch onto. It is not cool when you don’t show history. It is not cool when you are not able to show your skills, you are not able to hone in on what you do best, to show people really what is the definition of a DJ. You are supposed to be able to take people from one level to the next. You are supposed to elevate them, make them leave their feet.” With Derrick May you will have layers of raw sounds and emotion to latch onto, you will be shown history, as well as present and quite possibly future, you will be shown skills and a presence that makes the hair on your neck stand to attention, and most importantly you will be elevated. This is the innovator.

Derrick May plays his only Australian show at Home’s 5th Birthday on Saturday 29th November in Sydney. [BUY TICKETS]

Photos courtesy of Raverboy and Iain Wade