Unedited Carl Craig Jukebox

Carl Craig Jukebox recorded on January 31, 2008 in Berlin, Germany

Carl Craig may be known as one of Detroit Techno's "second wave" of producers, but probably no other Motor City artist has remained as relevant for as long, in quite as expansive a context. Born in Detroit in 1969, Craig was first exposed to Detroit techno in the late 80s via a cousin that ran the lighting for Jeff Mills. After early collaborations with his "first wave" mentor Derrick May, Craig struck out on his own in the early 90s. Recording as 69, BFC, Psyche, Paperclip People, Tres Demented and under his own name — as well as a slew of other aliases and collaborations — Craig developed an instantly recognizable (and oft imitated, if rarely matched) style, at once lush and economical, bursting and streamlined.

While known principally as a Techno artist, Craig's musical journey hasn't stopped there. The 1992 track "Bug in the Bassbin," recorded by his Innerzone Orchestra, is widely credited as sparking a revolution in breakbeat-based music, while his Detroit Experiment brought together artists from Detroit's jazz and hiphop scenes; more recently Craig recorded with Wendell Harrison, Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison and other members of Detroit's fabled jazz label Tribe for an upcoming Techno-jazz fusion project. He also had a hand in Urban Tribe's The Collapse of Modern Culture, a groundbreaking downtempo collaboration between Sherard Ingram, Kenny Dixon, Jr. and Anthony "Shake" Shakir, and his one-off projects range from participating in Ricardo Villalobos' improvising laptop collective Narod Niki to performing on industrial designer Harry Bertoia's sound sculptures.

In the last few years, Craig has redoubled his presence with a stream of remixes that have become nearly ubiquitous in House and Techno clubs across the world. Many of these — for artists like Theo Parrish, Delia Gonzales & Gavin Russom and Rhythm & Sound — are collected on Sessions, a mixed double CD released by K7 in January. His remix of Junior Boys' "Like a Child" was even nominated for a Grammy award. (It lost out to the Italian pop-dance producer Benny Benassi's remix of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise".)

The Jukebox took place in K7's Berlin offices on the eve of Craig's trip to LA for the Grammy awards ceremony.



Throbbing Gristle
"Walkabout"
FROM 20 JAZZ FUNK GREATS (INDUSTRIAL RECORDS), 1979

[The song plays for several minutes.]

You referenced one of their titles on a 1991 69 record.

This is Throbbing Gristle?

Yeah.

Which song?

"Walkabout," taken from Optimo's mix CD. Was that an explicit reference when you made "Four Jazz Funk Classics"?

Yeah, it was, definitely. I knew of Chris and Cosey from when I started clubbing.

How old were you then?

Like 18. I had an opportunity to go to clubs earlier, so I got to see Jeff Mills play when I was like 15, I was going to clubs watching Jeff play because my cousin was doing lighting for his parties. But when I started clubbing was around 18, and I'd go to goth clubs where they were playing industrial and "Ballroom Blitz" and all that kinda shit. So I knew a bit of Chris and Cosey from there, and SPK and, um, of course Front 242 and that kind of stuff that was happening at the time. I had a very unique opportunity when I first went to London in '89, because when I got off the plane I went with Derrick to play as Rithim is Rithim, to open up for Inner City at the Town and Country club there. I had already befriended Tara Gregory in Detroit, and she was doing makeup for Mark Moore from S-Express. So pretty much right when I got off the plane, I went to a dinner with her and Mark was there and Baby Ford was there and all these guys that you were – because with S-Express, "Lollipop" was a big tune in Detroit, and of course Ford Tracks was huge in Detroit. So that was fantastic. Those guys were on Rhythm King, so I went with Mark over to Rhythm King, and because Mark had carte blanche to have anything he wanted, they let me go into the vaults at Mute, because Mute had the warehouse next door. So they said, "Take whatever you want," and I'm like, "Ok!" And I'm going through and I'm picking stuff out and I see 20 Jazz Funk Greats and I go, "This looks kind of interesting, so let me try some other Throbbing Gristle stuff." So I was just grabbing Throbbing Gristle. The cover was a funny, '60s kind of thing, but I knew it was Mute, I knew what was going on over there so I figured that it might have been just a funny cover. So I took it back, and "Hot on the Heels of Love," I was like, "What the fuck is this? This is amazing!" So I was just converted. I'm one of those guys that, especially coming from Detroit, you can fall in love with one or two tracks from an artist, but if they don't have anything else that you fall in love with, that's it — Ok, I know that artist for this song. And Throbbing Gristle was interesting because some of their stuff had, like, fucking modem noise in it — it was just a record of modem noise. Ok… You know, it's cool that they're experimenting, and it gave me a lot of opportunity to think outside of what I was doing. But at the same time I always came back to that 20 Jazz Funk Greats and, you know, when it was time to make the 69 thing I definitely referenced that.

Kikrokos
"Life's a Jungle"
FROM RON'S EDITS #1 (WHITE LABEL) 1978/2004

[Before the second bar ends:] I don't know who made the original of this, I only know the edit. No, I do! I think I do have a copy of this, but — of the original — but this is a Ron Hardy edit.

I forget what the original is as well, I only have the Hardy edit.

Right, because it's like a serious disco tune but it only breaks down at this part for like a minute and a half or two minutes or something, and it's really a cheesy disco record.

I bought this at Hardwax and it was titled as Ron's Edits, but it's rumored on Discogs.com to be not actually Ron Hardy, but a tribute to him.

It's possibly a guy from Amsterdam that did it, because there's somebody that transcribed Ron Hardy edits and re-did them. Every cut that he made, the guy recreated the cut, exactly how he did it, but with a cleaner version of the record. So he took the vinyl, put it in the computer and cut everything as Ron Hardy did it. So it's very possible that this is his thing, but — there's so many bootlegs flying around that you never know. But with Discogs… Anybody could put information up there, it's like Wikipedia.

Did you ever see Ron Hardy?

Yeah, I went to the Music Box [in Chicago] a couple of times. I mean that whole experience was quite phenomenal, because when I was 13 or so, around the time when "Buffalo Girls" came out and before "Beatbox" came out — I relate everything to musical time — my sister had a boyfriend that was from Hammond, Indiana, which is right on the border with Illinois. And he had these tapes from WBMX. He let me borrow a couple of them, and it was the most amazing shit that I had ever heard in my life. It was like, "Holy crap, this is — I mean, what the fuck is this?" I was already into Yazoo with "Situation," I think that was '82, and all the stuff that was big Detroit records at the time, right before George Kranz' "Din Daa Daa," close to that time. So I had already had an idea of what was going on there, from the radio, but when some friends of mine told me about Ron Hardy, it was like, "Ok, yeah, Chicago, I'll be able to check out WBMX." BMX was still on at the time so we got there, I listened to BMX, fantastic. And then we went to the Box, and the energy was really awesome. I don't remember him as being very wild when he played. I got to meet him, and I think I met Frankie Knuckles at the same time because he came down to the club or whatever. But the energy and the music and what he was doing, you know, really you could hear what Derrick does as a DJ from Ron Hardy. You can really get that impression of how DJs in Chicago play, because he was such a visionary in how he played. I think he had to have been a little crazy.