UR – “Mad” Mike Banks interview
Sunday, August 17th, 2008Intervista a "Mad" Mike Banks, Underground Resistance, Detroit.
From the free dvd magazine Slices (http://www.eb-slices.net/), english language (with german subtitles)
Underground Resistance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Underground Resistance | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Background information | |
| Origin | Detroit, Michigan, United States |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Label(s) | Underground Resistance, Somewhere In Detroit (SID) |
| Associated acts | Drexciya, Marc Floyd, DJ Rolando, James Pennington, Blake Baxter, Chuck Gibson (Perception/Hi-techfunk) and Gerald Mitchell, DJ 3000, DJ Skurge, DJ Dex, DJ S2, The Vision, Buzz Goree, Suburban Knight, The Unknown Soldier, DJ Di’jital and Claude Young, Galaxy 2 Galaxy |
| Website | www.undergroundresistance.com |
| Members | |
| Mike Banks, DJ 3000, DJ Dex, DJ S2, The Vision, Buzz Goree, Suburban Knight, The Unknown Soldier, DJ Skurge | |
| Former members | |
| Jeff Mills, Claude Young, Robert Hood, DJ Rolando | |
Underground Resistance (commonly abbreviated to UR) is a musical collective from Detroit, Michigan, in the United States of America. They are the most militantly political example of modern Detroit Techno, with a grungy, four-track
musical aesthetic and a strictly anti-mainstream business strategy.
They have exerted their portion of Detroit Techno’s cultural influence
towards promoting political activism.
Begun in the late 1980s by Jeff Mills and "Mad" Mike Banks, UR related the aesthetics of early Detroit Techno to the complex social, political, and economic circumstances which followed on from Reagan-era
inner-city economic recession, producing uncompromising music geared
toward promoting awareness and facilitating political change. Later Robert "Noise" Hood joined the collective.
As with Public Enemy, there have been intimations that UR’s subversively ‘militant’ approach to music was related to the activities of the Black Panthers in the 1970s, something Mills confirmed in an interview.[1]
Many of Underground Resistance’s labelmate’s early releases were the
product of various experiments by Banks, Mills, and Hood, both solo and
in collaboration, before Mills and Hood left the collective in 1992 to
achieve international success as solo artists and DJs. Mike Banks
continued to lead UR in the wake of the split, releasing EPs during the
mid-1990s such as "Return of Acid Rain," "Message to the Majors," and
"Galaxy to Galaxy" under the UR name, as well as 12-inches by
increasingly renowned artists such as Drexciya.
UR tracks have occasionally been released on other labels (usually
in what UR metaphorically describe as "reconnaissance" or
"infiltration").
1998’s "Interstellar Fugitives", the first full album credited to
Underground Resistance, saw Mike Banks redefining the collective’s
sound as "High-Tech Funk", reflecting a shift in emphasis from hard,
minimal club Techno to breakbeats, Electro and even occasionally Drum and Bass and down-tempo Hip-Hop. In 1999, newcomer DJ Rolando released UR’s most commercially successful EP, "The Knights of The Jaguar".
In 2000, Kraftwerk
released a remix single of their theme composed for the Expo 2000 in
Hanover, featuring contributions from Rolando and Banks, making them
two of only a handful of producers ever to be given the privilege of
remixing Kraftwerk. From 2002 onwards, Kraftwerk’s live shows featured
the group performing UR’s remixes compiled in the song now called
"Planet of Visions".
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Contents [hide] |
[edit] Discography
- Your Time Is Up
- Sonic
- The Final Frontier
- Waveform
- Nation 2 Nation
- The Prince Of Techno
- Living For The Night
- Gyroscopic
- Elimination
- Riot EP
- Nocturbulous Behavior
- Fuel For The Fire / Attend The Riot
- Sonic Destroyer
- G-Force
- UR015 Mad Mike / Octave One – Aztlan / DayStar Rising
- Living For The Night
- The Punisher
- The Fury
- M.I.A
- BX-A
- UR019.5 X-102 – Groundzero
- World 2 World
- Pirahna
- Crime Report
- Death Star
- Message To The Majors
- The Return of Acid Rain – The Storm Continues
- Galaxy 2 Galaxy
- Bubble Metropolis
- Black Moon Rising
- Acid Rain III
- Dark Energy
- Aquatic Attack
- Undetectable
- City Of Fear
- Electronic Warfare
- UR034 UR – Electronic Warfare the mixes
- The Aztec Mystic
- By Night
- The Return Of Drexciya
- Code Breaker
- I’m In
- Ambush
- Turning Point
- Condition Red EP
- Hardlife
- Interstellar Fugitives
- Antimatter Premium Unleaded / Frequency Snowstorm
- Speeding Like the Killer Bees
- Knights Of The Jaguar
- The Aztec Mystic Mix
- Hidden In Plainsight
- Don’t You Want It
- UR 27R Venomous – The Toxin / The Charmer / Snake Talk
- Hi-Tech Jazz
- UR 31R Dark Paradise – Aurora / Black Strategy
- UR 040R UR – Analog Assassin / Subsonic Shadow
- Revenge Of The Jaguar
- Millennium To Millennium
- Inspiration / Transition
- URCD 3000-2 various mixed by DJ Rolando – Vibrations
[edit] Remixes
- 1991 Digital Boy – "This Is Mutha F**ker!"
- 1991 The Reese Project – "Direct Me"
- 1992 Bass Probe – "Mind Experiments"
- 1992 Chez Damier – "Can You Feel It"
- 1992 Ingator II – "Skyscratch (Mano Mano)"
- 1992 Måuriziö – "Ploy"
- 1992 The Reese Project – "The Colour of Love"
- 1993 Seven Grand Housing Authority – "The Question"
- 1997 Rashid Salaam – "’D’ Old Skool Dances"
- 2000 Kraftwerk – "Expo 2000"
- 2002 Model 600 – "Update"
- 2006 Depeche Mode – "People Are People"
[edit] References
- Discogs entry.. Retrieved September 8, 2006. (Searchable database of discographies.)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^
"All the black men you see in America today are the direct result of
those actions: all the freedoms we have, as well as the restrictions,
refer back to the government and the Black Panthers in the ’70s," he
said in that interview. "So we make music. We make music about who we
are and where we’re from. Of course there are going to be links –
that’s why we had songs with titles like Riot. Because that’s
indicative of the era we were born in, and the things we remember. As
time goes on, naturally I think the messages will get further away from
that. It’s not a coincidence. There is a reason behind UR and Public
Enemy and these people.” – Jeff Mills Does Solo Flight, Andrez Bergen. Daily Yomiuri, September 2006.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
info:
http://www.undergroundresistance.com/
tti-speaks-to-underground-resistance.txt – intervista con alcuni esponenti di Underground Resistance
