02 - april vox

Apparently there is arumour in the border city. On abitter sweet night in the middleof March, if you keep one earopen wide enough and stray justfar enough away from what wecall Saturday, an entirely syn-thetic world avails itself to thosejust weird and strange enoughcontained within the four wallsof a dimly lit basement venue.On or about the birthday ofWindsor's own techno guru IanHind this past March, the annu-al 'Turning' phenomenonoccurred once more.

And so would gatherthe who's who of Border Citytechno artists to the AvalonFront that eve. Experimentalvisuals and good conversationabound, there held an air less ofa dance club and more of abreeding

ground ofthought. The collective per-formance effort of Hind, DM

and Kero could not, for thisauthor anyway, have trans-formed a better venue. "It's ourturn" mandates the theme of theevent and well proven it was asthe three showed with greatstyle why that crowd wanted tobe there. Kero pushed theboundaries for starters with hisunique brand of live electroniccompositions played against hisfirst visual orchestration inWindsor. He set the right-propermood for the relentlessonslaught of Satan Techno'sown DM to play between livecompo's and vinyl attacks as hejust played it cool, clad in whatvery well might have been theaviator sunglasses Tom Cruisewore in 'Top Gun'. Then thebirthday boy himself, armedwith his 909 and Final Scratch,played out tracks which, inten-tionally or not, spoke poeticallyto this particular night.

Personal remixes and originalcompositions led my ears tobelieve that despite thefrozen grounds that keep thecrops of exposure from

growing in this city, we stillcan get fresh techno produce!

Claiming to prefer 'one-off'events, Mr. Hind chooses not toplay too often in his home town.It's not out of ego and pride, but

out of respect for theWindsor audience.

"I want it to bea special kind of thingfor people to come out." ...it's a shame but this authorin some right tends to agree.

Then closing the firstportion of his set with vocalsamples of Nine Inch Nails'Trent Reznor, he then made mynight.... deep dubby techygrooves.

What's more impres-sive is the audience these threeattracted. Like a loaded weaponthey came, 'en masse' cocked,locked and ready for action.Some were reminded of thecrowds Windsor and Detroitused to see five years ago. Andrightly so, as much of them werethe crowd from that early andnaive era. So many old faces ofthe Border City tech-headzmade themselves seen andheard, with peeps from the'Locale 2', now situated inToronto; Detroit's 'the House ofP.R.'; Windsor's own 'RuggedCrew' and Electronic MusicProgression'; aswell asH i n d s 'o l db o y zn e t -

work'E.C.N.'

held a less thansober, but always entertainingaudience. And even the legendhimself, albeit incognito with afull head of hair and sans eye-wear, Mr. Ritchie Hawtin cameout to be impressed. By the endof the night, it became livingproof that the proper performersin this contemporary settingdon't simply play music to thecrowd, but rather discuss it.

"Windsor's my home.Alongside Detroit it is a centralpoint to the world as far as tech-no is concerned. I can lead anormal life as well as be able tokeep doing what I enjoy...there's always been top classd.j.'s and producers in Detroitand Windsor, it would be crazyfor me to leave."

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e-music: e-vvent by francis wong

From top to bottom: A faceless Ian Hind, D.M., and KeroPhotos by Francis Wong