Blisspop had the pleasure of catching up with Detroit techno second-waver Stacey Pullen to chat about formative experiences with Detroit radio, spending time in Europe and the state of electronic music in the US.
Stacey will be playing Sunday’s Workshop this Sunday (March 18) at a secret location in DC. He’ll be joined by Sascha Dive, Andy Grant and Lomez as well as locals Navbox, Jubilee and Chris Nitti. In addition, there will be visuals by Adrian Loving, art installations and burritos by Rito Loco. RSVP to CocoonDC@gmail.com for location and purchase advance tickets here.
You’ll be playing a special Sunday’s Workshop party in DC this weekend. What has been your relationship with the city? Have you played here much and have you enjoyed it when you’ve been through?
I haven’t played DC in about a year so it’s good to be back to play the nations capital. I came about a month ago to visit a friend and to see the sights, basically I was a tourist. I wanted to see museums and the monuments because all of the other times that I had been here, I had only seen the airport, taxi, hotel, restaurant, club, hotel, taxi, airport, in that order.
You left Detroit and spent a little over a year in Amsterdam very early on in your career, right? How did that experience shape who you are today as a producer and DJ?
When I left Detroit I had a release out and that got me gigs in Europe, I got a chance to see and learn what wasn’t coming to Detroit but I was also teaching the Europeans about the Detroit sound, so I was a student and a teacher.
I think it’s safe to say electronic music and DJ culture has broken back into the mainstream in America. This year’s Grammys being one example, though it’s a far cry from a Sunday afternoon in Panorama Bar. What’s your take on all this?
It’s cool in one way because maybe those people who like the commercial sound will one day find a need to want more than what they already know. Maybe one day they will find out that the reason that Detroit was and still is the influence of so many producers and that we pretty much started this to a certain extent.
Do you see underground dance music in the States being as widely received as in Europe anytime in the near future?
Nope because as long as you have rock & roll and r&b and hip hop, and clubs who only want to sell bottles as their main attraction and especially what just happened to Dennis Ferrer then it will never happen.
You’ve talked about discovering techno and electronic music through Detroit radio. What were they broadcasting on the radio at that time and how do you think being exposed to new music through that medium compares to the pipeline through which most young people are discovering it today – the internet?
We had very good DJs on the radio back in the day, they did not have a playlist of songs they had to play for ratings. You heard everything from Soul Sonic Force to Kraftwerk to Prince to Model 500 to Parliment/Funkadelic. And the difference is that now you have the internet which is saturated with so much that it’s easy to get lost and distracted. With radio back in the day it was all we had.
You recently revived your label, Blackflag Recordings. What was the impetus for that?
I had some typical music business issues that I had to deal with for a while and now that that’s over and done, I needed to get back what was lost for so long.
Tell us about your upcoming releases. What’s up for 2012, any special projects in the works?
My new single called “Circus Act” with a remix from Nic Fanuilli is coming out in May
with another one called “Any Which Way” coming right after that. Working on more tracks to be released in the fall from me as well. I’m working to re-release my classic track “Sweat” with remixes and re-releases of my classic albums that were on Transmat and Elypsia back in the day. Also I have some releases coming from other artists as well.