The first in a new series of features, we ask some of today’s figures in music to document somebody who inspired and influenced their musical journey. Kicking off with Brighton’s Skint Records and Big Beat Boutique founder Damian Harris AKA Midfield General.

One night… ooh, around the mid ‘90s, I found myself back at a friends after a club. I ended up by his decks rifling through his very neatly ordered record collection, as you do. Whilst going through his section of Detroit techno I was joined by a random bloke in an Underground Resistance T-shirt. Inevitably one of those typical boys-ie conversations about House Music began. We started trying to out-obscure each other on our knowledge of Techno. It dawned on me pretty quickly that I was out of my depth and in such situations I invariably fall back on my “well when I used to serve Dave Clarke…’ story. I usually see this as a sign to go do something less boring instead, but just as I was about to leave he made a rather sniffy comment about Kevin Saunderson… and, well I wasn’t going to let him get away with that.. and an argument ensued.

The thrust of his argument was that Kevin was the runt of the Belleville 3, the collective name given to schoolmates Juan Atkins, Derrick May & Saunderson who shaped and formed much of the early Detroit sound. In his eyes Saunderson was guilty of selling Techno out with his 2 enormously successful hits Good Times & Big Fun. And he was to blame for 2 Unlimited!!! For him May & Atkins embodied all that was pure in Underground music. Now don’t get me wrong, a purist strand within any music scene is vital, but for me, to restrict it like that, by not allowing it fuse with other styles and not allowing it to develop is criminal. Admittedly this bloke was a bit of an idiot and taking things to extremes. But as I mounted a strong defence of Kevin Saundersons honour it dawned on me just how much I admire the man and his work, how many of his records I play, how much he has influenced me as a producer. And how, thanks in part to this heated exchange… he’s the Techno Overlord I love the most.

Kevin Saunderson was born in 1964 in Brooklyn, moving to Belleville, 30 miles from Detroit, at 9 years old. It was at school as a teenager that he and his friends Juan Atkins and Derrick May began to make music together. It seems that at the beginning of every musical renaissance there is a radio DJ who introduces the pioneers to the raw ingredients that go on to inspire their music. They all listened to “The Electrifying Mojo’ a local DJ who would play music by electronic pioneers like Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Tangerine Dream next to Parliament, Funkadelic and some of the more adventurous New-Wave records of the time. Add to this the developments in electronic equipment, synthesisers and drum machines, place it within the harsh social and political setting of early ‘80s Detroit (basically the beginning of Robocop) and you have the all the ingredients for our heroes to inspire and shape what we call modern Dance Music.

I can only imagine how exciting a time that must have been… House music was like a blank canvas, (sorry, I said to myself I wouldn’t use that expression.. but, well, it just works) the blueprint was there but it was as yet undefined, full of possibility, allowing them to experiment, innovate and push each other further. As a DJ he was frustrated that they weren’t enough of the records he wanted to play, so he just made them… And god damn did he make them. In those early years, Saunderson, under many different pseudonyms produced an incredible body of work. Tracks that helped define House and Techno and its numerous and constant mutations. As Reese, E-Dancer, Kreem, Keynotes, Kaos, Reese & Santonio, Tronickhouse and of course Inner City.

Now, the huge success of Inner City tends to eclipse his portfolio of more Underground tracks. But it is phenomenal… Fluid bass-lines, incessant, nagging percussion, pumping rhythms, dark, rich, brooding, atmospheric, discordant synth-lines,. His ability to push Synthesisers to the limits and create brilliant new sounds where a big part of his hooklines, always instant and memorable without ever being obvious or irritating. His understanding of ‘the groove’ was spot on, his arrangements were always dynamic and he never, ever, made a record that wasn’t soaked in funk. And of course the stabs… laser guided they where.

On my first album ‘Generalisation’ I made a track called Coatnoise that was my attempt at a tribute /rip off to these songs. And I suppose it’s actually quite a good example of what his sound encapsulated for me. (Please, please, please don’t think for a minute I’m comparing my work to his.. it’s just that it’s kinda, Kev on 45 Mega-mix) But for the real thing, I would start by checking out “Bassline” & “Rock To The Beat” by Reese, “Human Bond”, “Feel The Mood” & ‘Pump The Move” by E-Dancer and ‘Ahnongay’ by Inner City. And if this wasn’t enough his own label KMS put out consistently good House and Techno tunes by the likes of MK, Chez-Damier, The Formula and Rocket Ron Trent.

So hopefully I’ve gushed enough about his essential contribution and credentials in early underground House & Techno… And it was this that formed the crux of my argument with our Purist friend from the beginning, remember him? He had argued that Saunderson had taken Techno to the masses, that in someway he had ruined it by making big, successful commercial hits that took the music out of the Underground. But for me, that is the very thing that makes Kevin Saunderson so special and why he just edges it over a lot of his brilliant contemporaries. He made all these amazing dark Underground tunes for dark, sweaty Detroit clubs and yet still given us two of House musics finest moments, Big Fun and Good Life

Both timeless records still played today in clubs as far ranging as Bugged Out to the local Ritzys. The Lo-Fidelity Allstars did a song called Dark Is Easy, suggesting that is relatively easy to make dark, miserable music but that the real skill is making happy, uplifting music that doesn’t suck balls. And it’s true… and it’s especially true in dance music. It’s a very thin line between happy and cheesey. But both Big Fun and Good Life are those rare things, brilliant, euphoric, unashamedly joyous celebratory records that are truly universal.

And that, for me, is a mark of his genius. For all his amazing and pioneering work in shaping all that is fine and good in Underground music and yet still venture out into the world of commercial music and come back with his head held high is why Kevin Saunderson is my musical hero..

Oh yes, I’d always wondered why Daft Punk never included him in ‘Teachers’, but I just presume it was because his name was too many syllables!

Damian Harris www.myspace.com/midfieldgeneral & Generalisation blog

Further reading:

Universal Techno documentry

Discography

Higher frequency interview