EXTRAORDINARY ALIEN: Techno DJ Richie Hawtin challenges borders

First published in Saturday Night, February 1, 1999

By Margie Borschke


Richie Hawtin is driving his late-model silver BMW down familiar streets,
through the modest tree-lined neighbourhoods of Windsor, Ontario. As we turn
onto Huron Church Road, heading north, the maple trees give way to fast-food
joints, and we cruise towards the Detroit River, past the strip malls and
the Assumption CathoLic Church. Hawtin and I are on our way to the United
States, which around here isn't really that big a deal, for most people. The
border between Michigan and Ontario is a line that the residents of Windsor
cross often, to shop, to work, to go out for dinner. But for Richie Hawtin,
the border has proved more complicated.

Hawtin is a DJ, and a world-famous one. It's a job title that has gone
through as many evolutions and permutations as popular music itself: think
of Wolfman Jack spinning platters in "American Graffiti," then Shep
Pettibone keeping the disco beat alive at Studio 54, then Terminator X
scratching and mixing for Public Enemy. Hawtin, who performs around the
globe and can command thousands of dollars for a single night's work,
represents the latest incarnation of the DJ; as "Plastikman," he's become
one of the world's most successful practitioners of the musical style known
as techno, the fast-paced, funky electronic dance music that was born in
Detroit's decaying downtown and spawned a revolution in youth culture in
Britain and Europe - and to a lesser extent in North America - in the late
'80s and early '90s.

Right across the river, Detroit was like a second home to Hawtin when he was
growing up. Now, as we pull up to the tollbooth on the Canadian side of the
Ambassador Bridge, we can see across the water the towering Renaissance
Center, a gasp of architectural optimism that looms above the abandoned
streets of Detroit's inner city. Hawtin, twenty-eight, dressed in a T-shirt,
Carhart work pants, and his trademark Belgian-designed black plastic
glasses, pays the toll, and we roll onto the bridge towards America.

High above the icy chop of the Detroit River, Hawtin points eastward to an
elegant but crumbling neoclassical structure on the opposite shore. "That's
the old train station," he says. Abandoned by Amtrak in 1988, the station is
typical of the faded glory and tragic neglect for which Detroit is now
infamous. But Richie sees more there than just a faded past; he sees the
potential for a raucous, heartthumping present. This is the sort of deserted
building that is ideal for a really loud rave, the huge, all-night dance
parties that are the signature event of the techno world. "Someone tried to
have a party there once," he says, "but it got shut down before it even
began."

Hawtin arrived in Windsor with his parents in 1979, an immigrant from a
small town near Oxford, England. Coming to Canada, nine-year-old Richie had
expected more mountains and bears and less American-style industrialization.
"As soon as we came out of the airport in Windsor it was big cars, concrete,
and wires seemingly everywhere," he remembers."I didn't really see a
difference between Canadians and Americans then. It was all kind of one
thing in my head."

As a boy, Hawtin would lie on his bed in his parents' house in LaSalle, a
suburb just south of Windsor, and listen to cutting-edge music on Detroit
radio. Eclectic shows hosted by the Electrifyin' Mojo and the Wizard
featured proto-techno bands like Kraftwerk, European industrial bands like
Nitzer Ebb, as well as electro, funk, and early house music. It was music
that suggested a world unlike anything he had experienced, and Hawtin knew
he wanted in. His earliest stabs at DJing were at an underage club in
Windsor, and even as a teenager he was frequenting now-legendary Detroit
clubs like the Music Institute. Soon he was working both sides of the
border, and he quickly became a presence in Detroit's underground party
scene. By the time he was eighteen, he had a weekly DJ gig at the Shelter,
another dub in downtown Detroit. "If you want anything that is a bit out of
the ordinary or different around here, you've got to go to Detroit," Hawtin
explains.

It was also in Detroit that Hawtin met fellow Canadian John Acquaviva, a
London, Ontario-based DJ who is his sometime collaborator and long-time
business partner. Together they launched Plus 8, an independent record label
that, along with Hawtin's new label, Minus, owns Hawtin's catalogue - four
albums and twenty-five singles, many recorded under the names of various
alter egos, like F.U.S.E., Robotman, Up!, and Xenon. Hawtin and Acquaviva's
first release, in 1990, "States of Mind," sparked some controversy: printed
on the white label was simply the slogan "THE FUTURE SOUND OF DETROIT." Some
members of the Detroit techno community - which was then predominantly black
- resented a couple of white kids from Canada making such a bold assertion.
"To us, it was our future sound of Detroit," Hawtin explains. "[Detroit] was
where I DJ'd, where I drew my inspiration from, and where it really started
to happen for me. [We took] the sound of Detroit and mutated it into our own
form."

In his early years, it was illegal for Hawtin to DJ in the United States
because he lacked the required work visa. When he tried, at eighteen, to
sort things out, an immigration lawyer told him he didn't qualify. Anyone
could be a DJ, the lawyer said; wasn't it just a matter of playing one
record after another? If Hawtin played a party in Detroit, he added, he
would be taking away an American job.

For years after that, every time Hawtin crossed the border into the U.S., he
didn't mention that he was going to DJ or host a party on the other side. He
was always "visiting friends," "going to dinner," "catching a show." And he
always made it across with a smile and a wave. Then, on April 28, 1995, on
his way to New York City to perform live for 2,000 people at the base of the
Brooklyn Bridge, Hawtin was stopped at the border. Perhaps his shaved head
and car full of electronic equipment prompted suspicion. (After all, the
Oklahoma City bombing had happened just a week before.) Maybe the city's
anti-rave task force was onto him; or maybe the officer was just in a bad
mood that day. But during the ensuing search the U.S. border guards opened a
letter that Hawtin had forgotten to post, in which he noted the date he was
to appear at the rave in Brooklyn. Hawtin, of course, hadn't mentioned it to
the guards; he had told them he was going to see a friend.

U.S. immigration officers questioned Hawtin for over three hours. "It was
pretty nasty," Hawtin says. "This guy was like, 'Tell us the truth and maybe
we can work this out.' They threatened to throw me in a cell. So, the stupid
thing I did was, I told them the truth. I wrote it down in a statement and
as soon as I'd done that they were all smiles. They told me to go home, and
that I shouldn't ever expect to get back into the States again."

The ban was a huge blow to Hawtin. Detroit was more to him than a place to
have good parties. It was also his muse. The Plastikman records, Hawtin
says, were reflections on experiences he'd had in Detroit, and without
access to the city - its diversity, its underground life, its youth culture,
all thriving in a place that everyone else seemed to have written off -
Plastikman didn't exist. "It was a very strange time," he says. "Besides my
family, I didn't have that many people in my life from Windsor. Everyone I'd
been doing parties with was in Detroit. My girlfriend was there. My friends
were there. Everything. Access to all these different things, all my
inspirations - I was cut off from it all. My world got a lot smaller that
day."

The situation forced Hawtin to re-examine his artistic ideas and goals.
"Richie had some profound moments," says Acquaviva. "He got a lot wiser and
his perspective changed." So did his music. Before the incident Hawtin had
begun recording material for what was to be his final Plastikman album, but
afterward, he lost interest. "Being banned gave me time to look to other
things for inspiration," he says. His music became more spare and
contemplative; it was still electronic, but now was increasingly
experimental and less danceable. He began a series called "Concept 1,"
releasing a new single each month for all of 1996. The results were nothing
you'd hear on a dance floor. Then, in 1998, he released two more moody
albums: "Consumed," a composerly minimalist soundscape without a single
dance beat; and "Artifakt [BC]," a more pared-down continuation of his
earlier work. Both were heavily influenced by what Hawtin describes as his
"exile" from Detroit." Artifakt' is about the exile," he explains, "whereas
'Consumed' is a product of that exile. It wouldn't have happened without
[my] getting thrown out of the States."

The treatment Hawtin received at the hands of the American government and
the subsequent support he discovered in his hometown also aroused a
nationalistic pride in Hawtin that he was unaware he possessed. It's part of
the reason that, for the first time, a Plastikman record received a Canadian
release. (The others, though recorded in Canada, were available only as U.S.
imports.) "It was one of the worst experiences of my life," he says of the
ordeal. "I wouldn't want to go through it again. But it really made me who I
am today. Maybe without it, I would still just be doing parties and making
dance tracks. I wouldn't want that either."

In 1996, one and a half years and thousands of dollars in legal fees after
it began, Hawtin's exile came to an end. With four critically acclaimed
Plastikman albums under his belt and his face on the cover of just about all
of the world's major dance-music magazines, the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service agreed that Hawtin was "an alien of extraordinary
ability," or a "non-immigrant, status O-1." He is now free to enter the U.S.
to visit his girlfriend, to hang out with friends, and even to work.

Today, as we approach the American side of the bridge, Hawtin adjusts his
glasses and surveys the possibilities. There are no lines painted on the
pavement at U.S. Customs. Cars and trucks cut erratically across the
would-be lanes, each driver choosing the queue that seems both most likely
to move and least likely to result in a strip search or the dismantling of
one's car. Hawtin veers a couple of lanes to the right. He's placed his bet.

The car ahead of us pulls away from the customs booth, and Hawtin, taking
his foot off the brake, pulls up to be questioned. He sticks his head out of
the window and hands his passport, which is British despite his twenty years
in Canada, to the inspection agent. The plan today is that I will tag along
with Hawtin while he goes about his business, visiting his sound engineers
to master some tracks, meeting with his event co-ordinator, and doing
various label-related chores - all perfectly legal, legitimate pursuits
under the terms of Hawtin's visa. Still, when the middle-aged officer looks
up from Hawtin's passport and asks, "Where are you going?" Hawtin's answer
has the ring of experience.

"To have lunch with a friend," he says.

The guard waves us through.

The big event in Richie's life this week, as is often the case, is a party.
This one is called "M1," and it's going to take place Friday night. As late
as Thursday, M1 remains shrouded in mystery. As we drive around Detroit and
Windsor throughout the week, doing errands - cutting records here, dropping
off files for the printer there - Hawtin hands out flyers, invitations that
list only a date, time, Web address, and phone number. Who, what, and where
are conspicuously absent. Hawtin's parties are famous, and the organizers
want to keep this one intimate. At his last big party he played host to
1,500 people; the space they've rented out for Friday will hold only 400.
Despite the secrecy, the party is already being talked about, albeit
cryptically, on e-mail lists and among local scenesters. Some kids will
drive hundreds of miles to attend; others will fly in from places as distant
as San Francisco and Las Vegas for the night. "Show up early," Hawtin tells
everybody he hands a flyer to, though in the rave world, "early" is a
relative concept: the party is scheduled to begin at midnight and go until 6
a.m.

At 10 a.m. on Friday, the venue is announced on the information line and Web
site of Minus, one of Hawtin's two record labels. M1 is to be held at Better
Days, an after-hours club on Woodward Avenue, Detroit's main drag. We show
up late that afternoon to prepare. Hawtin retires to the DJ booth, where he
fiddles with his equipment and begins downing a steady stream of caffeinated
drinks. His set-up is complicated, as it has to be: when the rave starts,
he'll not only be mixing back and forth between records - like a regular
club DJ - but also playing his own, unreleased electronic tracks that he's
had cut into single-edition vinyl records. Over these tracks, he'll mix in
rhythms that he's programmed into his Roland 909 drum machine, adding the
occasional sample or warping the sound with his effects boxes.

Better Days has certainly seen some. Next door to the Scorpio Book Center
and its twenty-five-cent peep shows, Better Days is little more than a
thirty-by-sixty-foot cinder-block box. Its only concession to decor is a
day-glo mural of the Manhattan skyline, painted, apparently, by someone
unfamiliar with the real thing - the Brooklyn Bridge appears to cross the
wrong river, into the wrong part of town. Party-goers, however, will be
spared this bit of creative geography. Hawtin's crew is busy along long
pieces of burlap to the walls and ceding. Every inch of the room will be
covered in the stuff. It's an organic twist on a Plastikman theme: Hawtin's
nom de spin was inspired by a party space he once covered entirely in black
plastic.

Hawtin describes the parties he hosts as a reaction against the excesses
that have come to characterize the American rave scene: the ubiquitous
drugs, the long lists of big-name DJs who play short sets, the silly clothes
(think giant pants), and the even more ridiculous accessories (pacifiers,
stuffed animals, surgeons' masks, glowing wands, and hats of cartoonish
dimensions) favoured by some teenage party-goers. "I saw so many fuckin'
flowery hats and Dr. Seuss shit when I toured with Prodigy and Moby in
1992," says Hawtin, "that I just wanted to be sick. In America it's always
'More! More! More!' Flashing colours. Hats. Glo-sticks. We just wanted to
strip things back to the essentials." Hence the burlap.

Just after midnight, the scheduled start time for the party, the $ 2,000
customized quadraphonic sound system is silent. Outside, a few hundred kids
are getting antsy. The doors aren't open yet and Tim Price, Minus's event
manager, insists that they go back to their cars and wait. The police were
here at 9:30, hours before the event was to begin, responding to an
anonymous complaint (about what they wouldn't say). Someone from the Minus
crew - an American, at Hawtin's insistence - is down at the precinct sorting
out the problem. Things are tense.

Price's cell phone rings. The Detroit police have given them the go-ahead
and the crew scrambles to get things started. The tension is replaced by an
air of excitement. The gates open at 1:40 a.m., and security guards begin to
check IDs - you must be eighteen or over to enter - and search everyone for
drugs and other contraband. (A sign posted outside the gate reads, "No glo
sticks, alcohol, weapons or attidude [sic] . . . just dancing.") The drugs
long associated with the rave scene are barely in evidence: party-goers on
Ecstasy, the chemical that has defined the rave scene for a decade, are the
exception tonight, not the rule.

By 5 a.m., the room is a mass of swaying, sweaty bodies. Averaging 140 beats
per minute, twice as fast as the average heart rate, techno's pounding bass
and lack of a traditional song structure can, on first listen, seem a bit
like an assault. But the crowd at M1 wouldn't have it any other way. A man
in his late twenties, dancing a few feet away, suddenly stops, holds his
head in his hands, and screams as if he can't take it any more. Just as
abruptly he begins dancing again, only faster and harder this time, lifting
his head towards the ceiling, a beatific smile spreading across his face. A
woman who appears to be asleep on a couch by the entrance suddenly jumps up
and starts to dance, inspired by a new bass-line that Hawtin has mixed in.
The dance floor is a writhing stew of vaguely familiar repetitive movements:
a boy tugs on his baseball cap and hops back and forth in a sort of sped-up
jig; a girl waves her finger in the air, Charleston-style; and a whole bunch
of kids appear to be directing air traffic or sizing windows, their hands
cutting through the air with semaphoric precision.

By 7 a.m., the crowd begins to thin. A few exhausted party-goers rest
against the burlap-covered walls. Hundreds of cigarette butts and colourful
flyers litter the floor. Hawtin spins his last record around 7:30, and there
are still more than 100 people on the dance floor. The lights finally go up.
Everyone looks tired, their faces wan and blotchy and their eyes bleary;
nonetheless, as they exit the club, they seem satisfied. The Minus crew
jumps into action, motivated by the promise of breakfast in Detroit's
Eastern Market district. Giddy with success and sleep deprivation, Hawtin
and the crew members gossip about the party. Narrowly averted disasters are
recounted - the visit of the fire marshal at 2:30 a.m., pop spilled on a
turntable - and celebrity appearances are noted, including those of techno
pioneer Eddie "Flashin'" Fowlkes and, weirdly, Tommy Lee of Motley Crue.
They are a rather dishevelled group; covered in burlap hairs and dub filth,
they'll certainly stick out among the Saturday morning brunch crowd.

Hawtin has not slept in over twenty-four hours, nor will he until many hours
later. But rest is not a priority. His mind is already on his next project:
he needs to scout locations for the film crew he's hired to shoot the
demolition of Detroit's famous Hudson's Building, scheduled for that
afternoon. He won't go home until late tonight, after Hudson's is another
pile of downtown Detroit rubble. Then he'll cross the line again, back into
Canada, to the building that he bought a few years ago, across from the
Hiram Walker factory. He'll lie down to sleep at last, and if he dreams,
he'll probably dream of Detroit. "Even when I couldn't come to the U.S.," he
says, "I liked the view of Detroit from Windsor. I liked the idea of it."

GRAPHIC: Illustration; 1

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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