Some artists have fans, others have fanatics—people who obsess overevery facet of the artist’s output. Richie Hawtin, a techno producer and DJ from Windsor, Ontario, is one of those who can claim just such rabid devotees. In a short time, Hawtin (whose first Seattle appearance is this week) has left a huge legacy, from his record labels, Plus 8 and Minus, to his own experimental minimal techno on records like Sheet One, Musik, and his most recent release, Artifakts (BC).
Plastikman
ARO.space, Thursday, February 11
Sally Brown, Brian Beck, and Carlos Miguel are three of Seattle’s most ardent techno fans, so they follow Richie Hawtin’s work. Brown is a staunch supporter of the city’s underground techno scene, endorsing local producers like Mike Perkowitz of 1200 Records and Ben Sims, and attending techno events, no matter how small. Beck, a prime-time DJ at the End, and host of Ultrasound, the station’s weekly two-hour, commercial-free, electronic music show, might play the latest Fatboy Slim records on the air, but he cites Hawtin as his favorite electronic artist. Miguel, a techno DJ, owns Eatknowledge Records and the Capitol Hill store Delicious Music. To better understand Hawtin’s cult-like following, we met Brown, Beck, and Miguel for a discussion of Hawtin and his special brand of techno.
Seattle Weekly: What’s the appeal of minimal techno? A lot of people might say that it’s brilliant but boring.
Brown: I disagree. I think the attraction is that it’s so well thought out, and it’s something that you have to allow to unfold. You can’t make it do anything. You can’t sit there and wait for the four-four kick to hit. You have to listen to see what the artist wants you to see. It makes you work.
Miguel: Take a painter. If you take a white canvas and you just paint the whole canvas red, all you have is a red canvas. But before everything starts out, all you have is your colors. That’s what minimalist techno is—providing the DJ with the ink to make the painting. That’s where the appeal is—you’re giving that creativity to the DJ, and the DJ is going to have to be good in order to do something when he’s spinning that kind of music, because the painting hasn’t been made yet. But if you know what you’re doing, then you have a Van Gogh. Whereas in house music, there’s the beginning, the climax, the finish, the plateau, the mood—everything is already in that song.
Brown: That’s why house music is so disappointing, because you’re being told what to think and feel.
How did you first hear of Richie Hawtin?
Beck: What initially turned me on to his music wasn’t in a club. It was hearing an album, track one to the very end, as an album—not as separate tracks or songs—and appreciating the production throughout the entire album. But his music has more of an effect on me if I have time to focus on that song that he made, rather than hear it in the mix. . . . It does wonders to be able to focus on it without any distractions from any other song or people talking to you. That’s where I get the most out of him—by paying attention to every little detail, to every little progression, that he puts on each track.
Miguel: Minimal, hypnotic rhythms—I like that aspect of it. I like music that’s boring—tracks that, when you put them together, make incredible music. Even that sound that Richie Hawtin started, he was already borrowing that sound from the Detroit guys, from the Red Planet [Records] guys.
What is Richie Hawtin’s relationship with the original Detroit techno scene?
Miguel: Ninety-nine percent of anything artistic works this way: Somebody does something interesting, then other people see and then borrow from that. Which is what Richie Hawtin did. The Detroit guys didn’t want techno to leave Detroit. [Hawtin] was more marketable than the black guys that were supermilitant about this sound, and protective about the city that it came from.
Do you think he’s more popular than the original Detroit guys—Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson?
Miguel: Of course. He’s like a household name. If I put a Richie Hawtin record in the window [of Delicious Music], rocker dudes come inside to buy that record. They know that symbol—it’s like “Plastikman!”
What happened with Richie Hawtin and the Canadian border situation?
Brown: He was crossing the border a lot to play shows, and he finally got caught. You cannot enter a country without having a permit, because you’re going to get paid. And he didn’t have it, so they finally shut him down. He was banned for, like, three years. . . .
How much of Richie Hawtin’s success is marketing and how much of it is for real?
Beck: Look at the Sheet One CD—that’s perfect marketing right there.
Miguel: It’s a sheet of acid—it’s perforated and everything.
Brown: The insert, the CD cover, it looks like a sheet of acid, but it’s not. It was simply a comment, that’s all it was. I don’t think they intended it as a marketing thing, it was meant as a comment to what was going on then in his music, and his music was intended for use with experimentation. And he’s actually said that at the time he was really intrigued with experimentation taking place. And that’s why Sheet One was cut to look like a sheet [of acid]. It’s kind of a no-brainer, right? But there was a kid who got pulled over for speeding in Texas or somewhere, and they found the CD in his car and seized it, and arrested him on suspicion of distribution. They tested it and figured out that it wasn’t acid.
Beck: I ate two of them, and it’s not real. (laughter)
Miguel: A friend of mine told me that the parties he used to go to back then, at admission you had to take a hit of acid. Richie’s crew would be at the door, and you had to take a hit of acid and then you could come in.
Like communion or something . . .
Miguel: Like Sickness and Recovery—they’re like concept parties.
Beck: Sickness was the portion of the night that was like the hard acid. After that it would be more ambient with Recovery.
Brown: It’s more that you’re entering an all-encompassing atmosphere. It’s not just “going to hear somebody play.” You’re entering a new atmosphere and everything’s been done very carefully, from what’s on the walls and on the floor to having Telnet stations logged up so you can beam things out on the Net, to having directional microphones, so when you’re in the ambient room you can hear conversations in the hallway. It’s a full package.
