There have been many discussions over many periods of time that have revolved around the definition of the Underground Sound. What is it? What does it represent? Or even the eventual question, WHO is the underground?
If you haven’t had this discussion with groups of people at different moments in your life, then I’m sorry, you’re not surrounding yourself with the right people, and that needs to change. I’ve personally witnessed this conversation in at least five different cities in at least three time zones, and the arguments are always the same.
We all want to claim to know that sound. We all claim to represent that sound, and yet we can all never own it, because the underground is not something you own, so therefore, it can never be something you define, only feel.
For example, when we first got back into raving, we were in our late twenties. We had taken a break to go to college, and it paid off. When we finally returned to the rave life, we had the energy to enjoy it again, and the ability to appreciate it since we had experienced life without it.
I can even remember our first real show back was seeing Derrick Carter at Effex downtown, a few years ago. We had been to Effex a few times before, but this time felt different, especially because it was the first time we’d ever get to see Derrick. Finally, we were seeing Derrick.
Derrick Carter was the first true DJ to me, mainly because I knew he was the one DJ that could play anywhere at any time, and he’d know how to bump it. He represents the true idea of a DJ, in that the DJ themselves are a walking dancefloor, capable of creating that feeling without even knowing it.
Derrick Carter breathes house music just like we all hope to, and yet we knew from his example, you breath it by living it, and you live it every single moment of every single day.
That was always the Underground Sound to me, but then again, things change. Right around the time we finally saw Derrick Carter, we also took a trip to see another House DJ named Solomun.
I’d say it was around 2015 or so, and he was playing a sound I just didn’t recognize and still I loved. It was different. It was unique. It was just as much its own power as something from Chicago, and it was nothing like it. Existing because of House music, and yet evolving into something new. Creating its own Underground Sound.
It was during this period we became obsessed with seeing Solomun in person, agreeing to go any distance if given the chance. Over the course of four years or so we saw him at least six times, with every single one being amazing and unique.
Maybe I’ll talk about each trip someday, but the point is that for that period, the Underground sound to me had evolved from one era and city to another. But then again, was it Solomun that we loved, or was it the environment of the cities we saw him in? What decides the underground?
Somebody had to book him. Somebody had to set it up. Somebody had to create the environment he walked into. To say the DJ was the only thing that represented the underground would be unfair to every single person involved.
As I began to ponder and ask these questions, before I knew it, it did that thing again, and it evolved into something else. This time it was Luke Slater.
Now, if you know who Luke Slater is, you know he’s not any new kind of sound. In fact, he’s as vintage a techno sound as any DJ out there, and yet his sound pops with freshness as much as anybody’s.
Yet still, even with saying that, I know he represented a new moment of Underground sound for me for just a bit there. He represents an evolution. I suppose they all do.
It started with seeing him in a dark scary warehouse in Los Angeles, and it continued with seeing him in an even darker and scarier warehouse in Detroit. In both instances it seemed to be a pinnacle moment for us, as we had heard of Luke Slater for two decades leading up to seeing him, and now saw him in such real underground environments, that I feel they may never be topped. For that moment at least.
Then after that, it did that thing again, where it evolved, and it became somebody else, and so on and so on. It just keeps going. Luke Slater is just as underground as ever, and yet I will never have that chance back.
Same with seeing Solomun in that warehouse in LA, or when we didn’t get into the warehouse Derrick Carter played here in New Mexico. Different eras. Different scenes. Same idea.
I suppose my overall point is that there’s no such thing as one underground sound, but there is such thing as one underground feeling, and that’s what we have to remember, now more than ever.
If I were to tell you Solomun was underground, you’d laugh and make fun of me. He just played Coachella. But I can remember a time where nobody knew who he was, just like I can remember being the only person who knew who Derrick Carter was, and that seems so crazy to think now. Such changes happen to our culture before we even notice it.
With that I wish to say we’ve got to get back to that moment where we celebrate each other, but also where we’re honest as well. This obsession with being the best sound is taking the place of being the truest underground.
That’s why, after all my travels, and all the shows, and all the lessons I’ve learned, I’ve come to one simple conclusion. I suppose I didn’t want to see it at first, but now I know it as fact.
For New Mexico, the only true underground is local, and we’ve got to believe in that again.
Long live the underground.
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