COME WHAT MAY

Sometime in the third millennium, when the history of 20th century music is written, a hefty chapter will be dedicated to Derrick May.
A frank yet charming interviewee, May granted Digital Beat an audience hours before he rocked at the recent Ministry gig in Dublin s Temple Theatre. The first subject on our agenda is Detroit, May s native city, the place where he, together with his friend Juan Atkins, was inspired to make otherworldly futuristic music, and later on mix it up at the legendary Music Institute. Nowadays, the city has a different focus, and Derrick believes the quality of the city s music isn t as consistent.
Detroit is a growing industrial town, but people focus their lives on educating themselves to leave or find work there, states May. Partying is not part of the daily mentality now, but when the weekend comes, people go out and get fucked up! Young people organise their own parties: there s a surge of independence from them to develop their own party scene, which is good because when clubs open again in Detroit there will be musically educated people. Not all the music that comes from the city is good: some producers make music that caters more to a market than good taste. It s easy to copy everyone else, and many artists believe that this is how to get gigs in Europe. It s a problem, and an identity crisis.
May himself recently started making music again, but, in the spirit of his earlier productions, the Detroitean s debut album will take a fresh spin on dancefloor trends. If his own reports are accurate, May is yet again looking to the past to re-invent the future.
I recently did this drum project, he relates. I took a group of drummers between 25 and 70, eleven different drummers who I worked with for 21 days. The project consisted of different cultures of drumming in different periods of the era of the drum. We laid down 21 different tracks and I had to cipher through those and mix them down. I had to turn it into something creative, that s the point I m at right now. This project is a mind game, it s something unorthodox and challenging for me, away from pure electronic music. It s complex when you have eleven drummers playing the same rhythm at exactly the same time, syncopating them for four or five minutes, then a washboard sound is played over it in sync. Simplicity goes out the window.
Derrick May seems genuinely excited about the release of the work (in early 1998 on his own Transmat label), and admits that he has not yet had time to analyse it. Unfortunately, the holier-than-thou trainspotters will be able to give their valued opinions on it come the release date. Is he worried that expectations surrounding the work will overshadow its true quality?
If it feels right I do it, if not I don t consider it, comes the answer. I don t compromise what I do, and I m stubborn when it comes to sticking to artistic integrity. Analysis doesn t happen until the project is finished and I m looking at it in perspective. People who talk shit about music and write about it don t know shit: consumers listen to it, like it, don t care who made it, and support it. This persona, this image of being one of the first creators, innovators that has been put upon me may sound positive but it s a negative stereotype.
People who bought my records years ago went to college, got a job, had a family. They probably think Derrick May is as settled down as they are. It s not the people of yesteryear, because they are at home watching Greenacres, ready to go to bed. They are not down: they are going to their local beautiful cafes, sitting back and drinking some very expensive drink that makes them feel silly after 20 minutes. They have no inclination to go out and dance their lives away, because they bought their really nice Patrick Cox shoes, and they re not going to dance in them. Youth is power: they control this industry and keep my career going.
As a hard-working, no-nonsense touring DJ, May has brought his music to clubbers world-wide, and as his recent Mayday mix demonstrates, wherein he cuts, scratches, spinbacks and blends over 30 tracks spanning the house/techno/garage/disco divide, he is one of the finest and most unique spinners around. He admits that he has refused a number of lucrative offers that would have compromised his integrity.
I play everything, he asserts. My history goes back further than 1986, and I believe I play interesting music as well as good dance music. The style of mixing on the CD is the same I did years ago on radio. Mixing on the turntables is someone else s idea, but the Mayday mix is my own style: I ve never stolen others ideas, I m as original and authentic as possible.
My job is comparable to being an athlete: this kind of high-tech, high performance top DJing, top producer mentality is very demanding, it s very energetic work and that shit can t continue forever. Instead of taking advantage of every opportunity, just take a few and relax a bit. No-one can refuse those offers more than a few times before they say hell yeah , but I m happy with everything I ve done. I haven t compromised, and I live by the tortoise and the hare philosophy: less is more.
There is life beyond the dance, and at 34, May believes he has finally reached maturity. While it s hard to imagine the man who once played a record with typewriter noises on it down the Ministry at peak time on a Friday night a few years ago to wreck the loved-up buzz, settling down and enjoying the pleasures of a regular life, Derrick May has his own inimitable way of explaining the ageing and mellowing process.
I already got the Patrick Cox shoes, I got a whole wardrobe full of Patrick Cox, he admits. I got all that shit, but I also got some jeans, some Nike shoes and T-shirts. I have evolved, aged and matured, but at the same time I ve kept an open mind, and I m as enthusiastic as the first day I started in this business. Unenthusiastic people bring me down, but I m still encouraged and enlightened by the reaction people give me. I feed on it, and I m very interested in what makes people tick and click. I mightn t always have such a heavy DJ schedule or travel around so much, but I m going to stay involved in the music business. Period.
In parting, I ask May, who has inspired so many to become involved in electronic music, whether he has any advice for today s DJs and producers who are attempting to approach the same dizzying standards his career has reached. On reflection, maybe I should have opted for guidance or inspiration in place of advice .
Fuck advice, he snaps. Advice is someone else s idea of what you should do with your life. Do what you wanna do with your life, that s my advice. In the beginning it was just myself and Juan. We didn t have a plan: we just decided we were going to do this. It took years, we got laughed at, humiliated, we didn t have any money, we were just two young guys, two high school kids. We decided to do it on our own, it was core, but if we hadn t done it on our own and believed in it we wouldn t have got here. We had mentors along the way, but we didn t care for advice.
It was a big risk, but I think it worked out. Hell yeah, don t you? n
Derrick May s The Mayday Mix is out now on Open.