[Dynagroove] review: hawtin and mills at avalon

[Amy Ricketts]

I eagerly anticipated the Richie Hawtin/Jeff Mills show at avalon last night.

I heard each of these two men play AMAZING sets MANY times in Detroit in
the mid 90's but it has been quite some time since I have heard either of
them, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

Richie went on promptly at midnight, playing a flawlessly mixed two hour
set.  Unfortunately, the one word that I think best encompasses his set is
"boring."  In the two hours that he played I was not moved to dance to a
single record, with the exception of his own "Spastik" which was the
closing record.  I was hoping for the minimal techno and acid that is
characteristically "Plastikman".  I have no idea whether last night's set
was a representative sample of Richie's sets these days, but I was sadly
disappointed in his performance last night. It pains me to type these
words, but they are the honest truth.

During Richie's set, I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I just didn't
like techno anymore...

And then Jeff Mills went on...

And reminded me that not only do I still like techno, I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!

Jeff Mills hasn't forgotten that good techno is hard, fast, melodic, full
of percussion, and most importantly DANCEABLE.  From his FIRST record, I
could not help but to dance as hard as I could until 4:30 a.m. when my
legs practically fell off. I almost wet my pants when he busted my
favorite of his tracks, "The Bells." If you've never heard it this Detroit
classic, I highly recommend checking it out!  And the 4 a.m. treat of
LNR's  1989 classic "Work it to the Bone" gave me that added boost I
needed as I was running out of steam. To be fair, I should mention that
Jeff did have some mixing issues.  But I also must add that I was very
pleased to see him playing actual vinyl throughout his set.

I wish that more of you could have been there to hear this truly amazing
Detroit Techno set.

Thank you Vidal and everybody at Droidbehavior for reminding me to be
proud of being from the D!

Amy Ricketts