Alton Miller has watched his beloved Detroit soar through tremendous ups and plummet to impossible downs. The DJ and producer was in the thick of the Motor City’s high-flying underground – in 1988, he helped found the Music Institute, a nightclub that unified the scene where global techno was born.
Bangkok, a city with its own booms, busts and black eyes, should feel like home for this techno child of the Motor City as he plays his debut gig here at the new Mode Sathorn Hotel.
He comes to Bangkok with a lifetime of experience in urban blight. These days, Detroit is all warehouses with only a steady handful parties, though revelers can always find some hideaway to take in jazz, blues or rock, he says.
“You can see the renewal but at the same time there are still places in the city where there are no street lights at night,” said the innovator of house. “It is going to take a minute … but if you can make it in Detroit you can make it anywhere, and that’s the truth.”
And Miller is the perfect example – in the early ‘90s he replaced Towa Tei as the tour DJ for Deee-Lite and over the last few years has toured from New Zealand to Canada.
When the Music Institute opened in 1988, it was what Miller called a “rehab operation” – four walls with a wooden floor, slowly built out with murals and intense strobe lights over time. During the week, the downtown nightclub played host to private parties and dance classes, pumping alive on Fridays and Saturdays from midnight to nine in the morning.
“We were just one of the clubs that came into existence because of our travels and being club kids to perpetuate the movement,” Miller said. “We had people coming to the club from all over the world and from different walks of life and there were people in Detroit who had never heard this music before.”
The venue jump-started Detroit’s second-wave of techno before shuttering in 1989. Miller hasn’t been back to the grounds since.
“The building is still there, and I ride by often just because it’s on my way home,” he said. “I think it’s a club now.”
The underground scene is indeed surprisingly healthy in Detroit, despite such widely publicized economic downtown. The Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF) is still a yearly institution, and international DJs find a way to come by and pay homage to the local scene and its groundbreaking history Miller sees the city transforming anywhere from five to 10 years down the road.
“It’s hard being in Detroit right now, but no harder than being in a war-torn country or other places or countries that are poverty stricken,” he said. “There are lots of people moving into the city but at the same time so many people have left and are still leaving because they just can not hold on … it’s not going to be easy, but it is still a great place to live and be from.”
These days, Miller’s in and out of Detroit between tours, and he’s managed to find the great underground in unexpected locations from Mexico City to, of all places, Nova Scotia in Canada (“I played a Halloween party in Nova Scotia that will forever be in the history books of great parties!”). The DJ also spent some time also living and spinning in Chicago, but he says the Windy City’s got nothing when it comes to the heart and soul of his hometown.
“Every so often you may go to a party at a loft (in Chicago) that may be going on longer than normal hours, but it’s few and far between,” he explained. “Chicago is one of the few places where you can go out every night of the week; just to say that is great. But underground? Not really happening.”
For Miller’s first time in Thailand, he’s looking forward not only to wading in our local underground waters, but also for trying new and spicy flavors and most importantly: the weather.
“In Detroit right now, it’s extremely cold and there’s 15 inches of snow on the ground!”
FIND IT:
Disco Robot’s Freaky All-Stars feat. Alton Miller
Mode Sathorn Hotel
144 Sathorn Road, Silom, BTS Surasak
10p, Friday Jan. 10
Free entry
