Marke “too many pills, you’re not 17 anymore” B is at Movement ’08: Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival. Read part one here, and part two here. Apples! Apples everywhere! Downtown Detroit is a laptop orchard. “Mac should really sponsor these things,” said Hunky Beau, freshly arrived on the scene to improve my picture quality. But the answer is that Mac doesn’t have to — those glowing, half-eaten little beauties speak from the booths themselves. 
Oh, that Girl Talk. All pics by David Schnur DEMF’s day 2 was so pleasant it hurt, and the crowd was full of neon-festooned hipsters (they have them here too!) eagerly passing time before new old-school rap duo Cool Kids and sample-happy girly boy Girl Talk hit the the Red Bull stage, which overlooked the Detroit River. We passed the time in the sunny company of the great Mr. De’ featuring Greg C. Johnson, whose “Sex on the Beach” from back in the day is a protobooty classic. The crowd was going nuts — Mr. De’ schooled the “ghetto tech” kids on some real sensuality. 
Mr. De’ sexing the keyboard 
Greg C. Johnson, pleased Cool Kids gave a predictably stunner set — even calling out to Detroit and pumping some rhymes over ancient electro — and then Girl Talk came on and the crowd went bananas. I’ve never really warmed to the Girl Talk phenomenon. We have great mashup artists in SF, and dropping some Public Enemy over a Toto sample is sooo 2005. Still, the man’s a genius when it comes to party music and self-promotion: who knew all you had to do was post several YouTube vids of kids stage diving off your laptop platform and you could be famous? Well, maybe everybody knows that now, but Girl Talk knew it first. And who am I to argue, even when he dropped his pants and mooned the crowd in his boxers for half his set while he leaned over his equipment. But this year is indubitably Richie Hawtin’s year — despite other hometown giants Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, and Alton Miller on the roster — so after a few Girl Talk singalongs (oh yes, there was stage-diving) we went over to the Beatport tent to catch the Windsor homeboy in a harder mood tan the previous night, at least until he dropped Mory Kante’s “Yeke Yeke” and the dance floor exploded. 
Richie Hawtin: Gettin’ Yeke