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This is my first year attending/covering Movement. Pretty cool event. It's a shame the world sees isolated ruin porn without epic happenings like this to balance out the picture. I'll be blogging most of the weekend about Movement.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/shea
Thanks Bill, very nice read and info.
For the iPhone users out there, the free Movement app is awesome. Among the features, all the DJ's and their performance dates and times are listed. While scrolling through the list it is easy to check them adding them to a list to create your personal line up of who you want see and when. Abundant details and pictures of each are provided. Of course a good map too. A fun feature is a 'Finder' which has audience pictures of each stage. A draggable 'I am here' arrow is offered to point to your location allowing one to text or email the picture to whomever is trying find you.
A lot of people grumble about Paxahau, the organizers, but since they have taken over this event it has become organized and profitable. No more wondering who is going to play a month before the event.
When it was free, it attracte way more people. The city use to subsidize it. Anyway I'm at The Works for the afterparty, $20 if you can make it in the next 10 minutes, $30 after that.
Yeah, there's some pretty cool technology such as the apps for Movement. I hope to write about some this weekend.
For those of you attending Movement this year please take som time to check out The Beehive Project.
http://thebeehiveproject.com/
About
The Beehive Project is a large-scale installation by an interdisciplinary community of artists and thinkers in Detroit. The group’s inaugural project, a human-sized beehive sculpture, will function as a gathering space for informal, critical conversation during the Detroit Electronic Music Festival [[May 29-31, 2010). The beehive serves as a metaphor for the city of Detroit by referencing the hive as a valuable model for community and collaborative, creative production.
Historically, beehives have been associated with local industry, diverse cooperation, and fierce resourcefulness. Honey, a colony’s primary creative product, often references a yearning for sweetness, restoration of health, and rebirth. The beehive is also a particularly poignant metaphor because of the recent phenomenon of colony collapse disorder [[CCD) affecting hives throughout North America and other parts of the world. CCD occurs when workers bees from a beehive abruptly disappear, leaving the colony without enough workers to continue functioning. By paralleling this trend with the steady depopulation and deindustrialization of Detroit over the past 50 years, we hope to honestly portray Detroit’s distressed economic and social situation while still looking to the beehive as a metaphor for the strength of city’s community-based development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and resourceful artistic production.
The beehive sculpture, which is constructed primarily from salvaged wood and donated fabrics, is 12-feet in diameter and is filled with comfortable seating structures, a conference table, and a small library of books about Detroit. The sculpture will also serve as a distribution site for a publication featuring a contemporary re-imagining of Vergil’s Georgics IV, a classical poem on beekeeping. The collaborative team hopes that the intimate yet thought-provoking qualities of the sculptural environment create a space for relationship and informal conversation about the history, present experience, and trajectory of Detroit. They are interested in inviting festival-goers and performers into critical conversations about the cultural, social, and economic conditions of the city that allow them to experience and re-envision the urgent social engagement and vital creative production occurring within the city.
I was at the Movement last night and what a great time. Plastikman was the sh*t, but anyway I wanted to let everyone know that beehive project is a great idea and the movement app for the i-phone cam in handy more then once. They have a find-a-friend program on the app where u an locate your location and send it to your friends! Great time last night and hope the same for tonight! Yeah:)
http://DetroitYES.com/webisodes/iph008.jpg
DJ Sneak on main stage. Last seen in the D at rave at the Eastown 1999.
http://www.detroityes.com/webisodes/...hane_sneak.htm
Direct from iPhone to the web.
Those ladies friends of yours, Lowell?
I'm heading back over after the rain clears.
The Movement festival is absolutely one of the best events the city has to offer. It's really unique. Our rock, jazz and country concerts and festivals are certainly sources of pride, too, but techno-centric festivals just don't happen in every town like the others. I've been going since the first one [[though I think I missed one or two in the early years) and look forward to it every year.
I was down there from late afternoon until close both Saturday and Sunday, though I probably won't be going today [[either because of the rain or the mysterious run-down feeling I have today after getting home at 3:00 this morning - it's probably the latter).
I'd say my favorites were Derrick May, Richie Hawtin [[as himself), Excision, Claude VonStroke and Ghostland Observatory. John Acquaviva was a bit of a let down - not as good as he's been at other shows I've seen him at. I hear Plastikman was outstanding, but we left about halfway through because there were just too many people pushing and shoving to get closer to the stage. Plus, we couldn't see crap. Should have gotten to the main stage earlier...
I'm a bit sad that it's Monday afternoon already, but there's always next year... :D
No friends of mine Bill [[and if I chased them I would be like a dog chasing a truck -- I wouldn't know what to do with it if I caught it) but then at an e loaded event everbody seems to want to be your friend. So the candy kids are happy to pose. The rave culture fashion show is worth the price of admission alone.
http://DetroitYES.com/webisodes/iph011.jpg
http://DetroitYES.com/webisodes/iph010.jpg
http://DetroitYES.com/webisodes/iph012.jpg
http://DetroitYES.com/webisodes/iph013.jpg
I went to this festival a few years ago because it was work-related. I don't know a thing about techno music, although I am a musician and can appreciate good music no matter what the genre.
But -- and this is an honest question, not an attempt to be a smart-ass -- what differentiates a good techno artist from a bad one? When I was there, it looked pretty much like the artists were doing nothing more than playing record players.
Now, I know there are some DJs who use the turntable as an instrument. I saw Beck's DJ, and was blown away at the way he performed, throwing records up in the air, dancing, and then catching the record just in time to slap it onto the turntable. This guy also scratched out the "Stairway to Heaven" solo on the turntable. It was awesome.
But when I went to the Movement [[or whatever it was called a few years ago), the crowds were all jammed in to watch these guys -- and all they were doing was playing records! Maybe I'm just an old fart, but I didn't see what the point was in cramming in to watch that. They weren't putting on a show or anything; just playing a record while bopping their heads.
So how does one techno artist play a record better than the other? It seems like a fairly simple thing to do.
those crazy kids and their empathy drugs. maybe they should put it in the water for Detroit.
Movement is always a lot of fun!
It's too bad it rained today... or is it better in the rain?
Bill, I would be interested to know if there are any statistics on international visitors [excluding Canadians] to Movement. While anecdotal, we heard non-English spoken on several occasions. I would also be interested to know what kind of bump it made, if any, on the hotel industry.
I've requested those numbers. I don't think they can tell from walk-up sales, but maybe it could be extrapolated from the 6,000+ presold tickets? I'm not a stat wonk, so I'm not sure. Organizers seemed to think there are a lot more oversees attendees. Adding more European acts likely accounts for that, along with Movement's growing reputation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowell
Jason Huvaere told me Friday that the event sold out four hotels, up from two last year. I don't know which four. In past years, I imagine the Ponch would have been one.
I missed Ghostland Observatory. I really wanted to see them. Hope they return in 2011.
Book Caddy would be another one of the four. It was sold out on Saturday night when I stayed there. I met German and Swedish kids in the [[super crowded) elevators.
2000 and 2001 were the peak years for international travelers.
First of all, I chose this thread to give an update this year [[I like the photos, Lowell-one of those girls reminds me of a situation back at the DEMF in '02), and a lot of buzz is online but I chose the most palatable.
http://www.freep.com/story/entertain...roit/27937449/
I look at the 3 sets of pictures, and I identify [[may even be more likely to recognize a few of the folks in) more with the second set of pics [[Kimyon-who I remember visited from NYC a long time ago-is the only D.J. I recognize. That's just how out of the loop I am).
Half a mile line for three hours. What are we? Waiting for shoes in the Ukraine in the 1970's? Seemed like a good fest-for the wealthy...
This one's whimsical, some of the ladies may be wondering if he does parties.
http://www.youredm.com/2015/05/26/detroit-cop-movement/