Techno music originators gather for first conference

IU is scheduled to hold its first techno academic conference, "Roots of Techno: Black DJs and the Detroit Scene," from 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Willkie Auditorium.\nTechno is electronically produced music that incorporates drum machines, multitrack mixers, computers and samplers. Most associate techno music with Europe, but black college students initially developed this genre in the late 1970s near Detroit. \nAccording to IU professor Portia Maultsby's original project proposal, techno migrated to Europe's rave parties in the 1980s and returned to the United States in the 1990s.\nMaultsby, a professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture at IU, organized the event after she received a paper from Denise Dalphond, an ethnomusicology graduate student. \nMaultsby had encouraged students to write on a subject they thought could further develop into a topic on which to base their thesis. Dalphond chose to investigate techno, an interest Maultsby shared. \n"Techno is notably absent from scholarship and standard curricula on African American and American popular music," Maultsby wrote in her original description of the project. \nMaultsby said techno's exclusion from the collection of libraries and music archives has left it impossible to critique scholarly. Maultsby and Dalphond decided to change this. A national techno conference will help increase this genre's documentation and will assist Dalphond in collecting her thesis data. \n"The conference will re-establish the African-American origins of the genre and an understanding of the context from which it came," Maultsby said in a statement. \nThe Archives of African American Music and Culture is hosting this one-day conference, inviting several of the genre's revolutionary DJs to share their stories. \n"The major presenters will be those DJs and producers considered to be innovators of the Detroit techno style, as well as radio DJs who exposed this music to local and regional audiences," Maultsby said.\nMany artists are scheduled to appear. The headliners include Juan Atkins, -- who is recognized as the creator of the term "techno" and widely credited as one of the three originators of techno music, -- and the DJs collectively known as The 3 Chairs -- Marcellus "Malik" Pittman, Theo Parrish and Rick "The Godson" Wilhite -- who have helped define today's Detroit techno sound. Jennifer Witcher, otherwise known as DJ Minx, will speak from a woman's perspective about the male-dominated genre. \nThe conference also includes panel discussions, live demonstrations and CD signings. \nMany of the DJs will also perform Friday and Saturday at Second Story Nightclub at 201 S. College Ave. Admission for the Second Story shows will be $6, and performances begin at 9 p.m.