Adult. vs. The White Stripes

How about the White Stripes vs. Detroit Grand Poobahs?

How 'bout neither?

The adult. album is great, but I'm a sucker for shouting and beeping and bass driven pop, especially when it's scary.

Didn't make it through the Stripes album, so I won't comment on it more than that.

The White Stripes on the other hand are still vital, although they do not have nearly as much history behind them. I have never been to a White Stripes show, and I don't think I ever will go to one. It is a bit of a political thing, not that I have a problem with them or what their doing, but with my musical history and scene affilations it seems like going to garage shows at The Lager House and trying to cash in on a scene that I paid no dues in is mercenary at best.

I think the Stripes are the real sound of Detroit. In the sense that the people of the city actually recognize them and are interested in what their doing, vs. Adult. who are more of an obscure hipster export act. I can talk about the Stripes with anybody who works for a living under 30 and they have total respect and love, and people actually dig the records. The Adult. crowd is more affluent and either belongs to the CCS corridor art scene or is part of the Oakland County post-rave crowd.

That being said, I play my 12"s of Hand To Phone and Nausea a lot more than my Italy 7"s. The WS seem like more of a social thing and Adult. seems more like an obscure bedroom thing. The WS wins because it has generated a large-scale ongoing social situation, and Adult. is confined to Metro Times articles and record store chatter. Also, WS feels like it has momentum behind it and sheds favorable light on Detroit, Adult. Just is. I could be completely wrong, but that is how I view the situation.

i like the adult. singles comp better than anything the white stripes have ever done

Another _huge_ clarification I should made about this is that I was refering to the white electronic music scene _IN DETROIT_. There is good stuff happening elsewhere, but the Detroit suburban producer scene is really fucking dire right now. When Ghostly International is in the lead, you know thing are bad.

Of course, my opinion probably has little weight as I'm listening to the new Cex album and up until the last couple of songs I was enjoying it.

(And I feel like an idiot for putting in all of those periods, but I think the website scared me into it. Much like my workplace has programmed me into using improper capitalization when typing the name of said business)

Maybe the appeal of Adult. for me reflects some of that isolation I feel in the Appalachia of Michigan (the northern area) and my love for the recurring theme of the distancing effects of technology with respect to one's humanity. For some reason, I get that Ballard/Cronenberg feeling when I hear the best Adult. tracks, and while I agree with the somewhat insular nature of the music, it just hit me at the right time.

The White Stripes, on the other hand, are artifice on a different level, humanity writ large and colorful, screaming and squirming with life, and appealing as hell. See 'em live if you get the chance, but leave Michigan to do so, as it affords a slightly different perspective. Sorry for the ramble, but I just wanted to say "thanks."

When I think of primetime Adult. I think of driving, propulsive, skeletal electro anthems. This seems to lack the characteristics that I felt made A. great. The album seems to limp from track to track; it never really hits its stride. Another thing, I think A. have a real knack for dance tracks (and I mean tracks, not songs) but their song writing is not as strong in the conventional rock sense. To me, they are best experienced on 12". Their singles comp never really worked for me, poor cd mastering aside, they just do not stand up in the album format. It just seems too much of the same, and the same does not stand up to previous releases.

As far as last Friday's gig went, I was thinking of Beat Connection by LCD Soundsystem, and Careering by PIL while I was there. Nobody was really getting into it, and there seemed to be a real disconnect between Adult. and the audience. It seemed to be more about standing around than getting down. The fact that the gig was at the DIA and the sound system was inadequate was a big factor, but I think the crowd had more to do with it. Electronic music audiences in Detroit just don't want to show any kind of outward reaction. It is too much about being hip these days, a shame really.

I hope that statistic doesn't tempt anyone to draw some simplistic conclusions about "the real sound of Detroit." If you feel your knees starting to jerk, listen to Eminem or the Gories, and wait for the feeling to pass. Then acknowledge that in some complex, uncomfortable sense, that figure really does hover over this thread like a twelve ton cloud.

Full disclosure: I'm white. When the evening comes, I drive out of Detroit. As I drive, I listen to the White Stripes and Adult.

Magas is also disqualified, since he resides in Chicago.

who in this bitch is from Michigan

Also, I guess Detroit has a huge electronic music scene but somehow, I'm missing it. I mean, there's DEMF, but other then that...

White Stripes.

Hahaha you live in Tustin? Or do you really mean U.P.?

I am a deliveryman, and I spend most of my time at homes in Oakland County. Not a day passes when I am not completely shocked by the wealth I see. I definitely wasn't poor as a kid, but their level of affluence is mind-blowing. I used to think a half-million dollar house was pretty nice; now anything less than 2 million doesn't faze me.

When you compare that to what you actually see in the city, the discrepancy his glaring. Even the nice parts of Detroit are nothing compared to what is out there. What is even worse is how quickly the change takes place. The change is not so abrupt along Telegraph, but on the Gross Pointe border and along 8 mile the different is literally black and white, pun intended. You cross a street and the world changes.

….

As far as the Detroit electronic music scene goes, it is still pretty big but it is an export scene. Ever since Rave died out here there has not been a real scene as such, nowadays it is a lot of different clubs catering it very specific audiences with little crossover. It still exists, but you have to know where to look to find it, and you have to know what you are looking for. I dropped out long ago, but I still keep tabs on what is going on. Outside of a few records, there is not very much that is worth being involved with. The house scene is still doing well though.

For some strange reason, I've been making comparisons to Big Black. If the older Adult. singles are equivalents of "Racer X," "Cables," and "Steelworker," Anxiety Always is Atomizer. ("Glue Your Eyelids" = "Kerosene"; "Kick in the Shin" = "Fists of Love", etc.)

The current/active sound of Detroit for me = Theo Parrish, Carl Craig, Shake, UR, Andrés, Kenny Dixon Jr (despite the fact that Silence in the Secret Garden and the Pitch Black City 12" have been disappointments) and Adult. The White Stripes have never done much for me, though they must be one of the best rock bands going now.

It's kind of frustrating actually. Of course everyone is very spoiled, and another annoying thing, is the complete lack of diversity. Livonia is, I'm pretty sure, literally the whitest place in America. It's like 90%.

The thing about Detroit music as well is, there has to be a music scene, because there's literally nothing else to do. You go to town, see a show, then look around what looks like the remains of a nuclear holocaust, and then go home.

Definitely not expensive. Don't know where you're coming from, but you can live in mid-Michigan very cheaply. East Lansing is a college town -- lots of bars & places to buy t-shirts. I don't care for it much now, but a lot of people who live there like it. There is one good record store -- FBC on Grand River.

I was born in Lansing & lived in the area for 22 years -- I don't remember anything or anyplace called NOISE. What's that?

Adult. vs. Da Yoopers

Noise is the new newspaper there geared to twentysomethings, based in Lansing. It's prety good. I write a column for them now and hope to work there full time if I move there. we're coming from NYC - culture shock? whaddya think? is there a metropolis nearby enough? we want rual, quiet, but with ties to the outside world. How do you handle the cold?

By the way, I feel like I've heard your name before - do you know John and Tovah?

I do like Eyelids though; I think it is the highlight of the album.

I do agree on the UR/Carl Craig/KDJ/TP... axis being the worthwhile electronic music coming out of Detroit. Other than those guys it seems pretty bleak these days, especially in the burbs.

David, L-town is the whitest in the US, 98.7 percent Anglo. In a city of 100,000 that figure is pretty striking. The stories I could tell you…Take it easy man; I wasn't making a personal attack when I was taking about OC.

The funny thing about Detroit is that by being a vacuum it's allowed some very creative musicians -- Eminem, WS's, Adult., all the artists Andy mentioned, etc. etc. -- to develop their own visions. As far as who captures the more "authentic" sound of Detroit, that's sort of an oxymoron. It's about putting your thumbprint on the empty landscape (I'm not sure how empty it is anymore, artistically speaking, btw, but my experience says that there's some kid in a basement in Southfield right now making the next great musik).

I couldn't care less about white guilt. i just find it disturbing that bands are being compared at the level of race. Since when was there a "white electronic music scene" as opposed to any other racially specific electronic music scene? Maybe the problem is that I'm not from Detroit so I couldn't possibly understand such a scene in which electronic music is aparently racially divided. So, following this logic, if Adult. is electronic music by and for white people, then what is the "real" detroit sound that is by and for the 80% of the city that is black? Is it really 50 Cent? Rock is for white people and rap is for black people? That is just stupid.
Yes there are huge class and race issues in the world, especially in Detroit, but can a thread aboout Adult. and TWS really support ideas of racial representation in the city? I think not.

In an urban region that is literally the most racially polarized in North America, I don't think it is too ridiculous to say that there is a cultural divide, especially regarding music. I never said that TWS have no black fans and Adult. never get played on the block, and no white people like 50 Cent, but just from my own personal experiences in Detroit, I find it pretty unlikely that a black dude who is cruising Jefferson in a Cadillac on a Saturday afternoon will be bumping Elephant. Maybe I am nuts, but when I am in the city; I don't hear black folks pumping The Electric Six.

As far as The black/white electronic music devide goes, when Sharif was bringing in a lot of German acts a few years back, what was the racial make-up of those gigs? (It was at least 95% white...) You go to urban house gigs and it is vastly more racially diverse. The Adult gig was at least 90% anglo, and there is a musical aesthetic that appeals to the people who attend gigs like that. You can use any number of lines (racial/economic/gender/sexual/geographic) to describe the different fan bases, but race seems like the real obvious one to me.

It just seems to me that Adult, German Techno/House and IDM appeal to a narrower demographic group, than say someone like Theo Parrish. When good acts were still coming to Detroit a few years back, I was there for pretty much every gig. Hate to say it, but RRR, Pole, Farben, Substance, Vainquer, CEX, Robert Henke, Kit Clayton, Sutekh, and Thomas Brinkmann drew nearly exclusively white audiences (95%+). KDJ or Theo Parrish and the scene that surrounds it is much more racially diverse. I might be wrong, and it would not be the first time, but I definitely did feel that there was a divide between these two aspects of electronic music.

Saying there is a divide, and that the divide can be draw across racial lines might not make you feel comfortable, but that does not make the divide any less real. I wish everybody were getting down with everything with an equally open mind, but that is just not the reality that I am seeing.

Still, I was curious to hear their rougher, tougher, more Siouxsified sound in concert. Reactions?

not for me. hate parties, fear people. cocaine and sky vodka hold no interest. but I like adult.'s recent album, "anxiety always". i am enjoying, if thats the right word, its spareness of sound, and its craft and deliberateness lead me to move it surreptitiously from the cd shop's Electroclash shelf into the one labeled Music. lyrics about social horror, bores, names being forgotten, and "wouldn't it be nice to go to a party and be the only one there".

we know how to have fun
we know how to have fun

come on, who else finds this album a refreshing tonic?

I haven't heard the 12" How does it comapre with hand to phone EP and Nausea?

How can I tell which is the real sound of Detroit?

this is "Thunderbolt" by Electric Fire Babies. I saw them w/ The Dirtbombs in Ann Arbor in Nov. I wish I had nommed this for the 2008 traxx poll...

It seems this is the only Adult. thread.

Damned if I know, post from 12 years ago. Search is broken.

Anyway, I really liked The Way Things Fall, and just saw that there's a new album out. According to their site, it's all collaborations with people they had stay at their house. It has Sharon Funchess, who I liked from when she was in The Knife. Also Michael "The sex in your soul will damn you to Hell" Gira and the Nitzer Ebb guy. I'd rather ADULT. make another "just them" album, but I'm still excited for this one.

Always ADULT. and never The White Stripes.

ADULT. is pretty great, or at least Resuscitation and Anxiety Always are.