As of this Sunday, mystery still remains at Ears To The House HQ as to whether Derrick May actually turned up at the Detroit premiere of God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines on Thursday evening. From what we’ve been told, May was formally invited – but was explicitly told by Kevin Saunderson that he should not attend. Whether this stopped him is currently unclear.

So where was he? The Detroit Free Press – who somehow managed to totally miss the multiple sexual abuse allegations against Derrick May in 2020 – dutifully reported “May was the only one not present at Thursday’s premiere. He told the Free Press earlier this week he was already scheduled to be out of state attending to a family matter.”.

When Ears To The House checked May’s Instagram page on Thursday, we saw a story featuring a ten second clip of the man himself. Our Detroit sources were able to establish very quickly that it was taken at his loft at Transmat’s original building in Gratiot Avenue in the city. Which doesn’t exactly tally up with his claim of being out of Michigan…

But anyway, here’s the video in question.

Of all the days for May to claim “it’s good to be alive”, this was one of the more curious ones. It was the day a film premiered on the history of Detroit techno, yet he wasn’t there. His career nosedived in March 2020 due to the pandemic, and allegations made later in the year against him meant it never recovered.

We understand that May is struggling financially and has been for a while. Yet May claims “it’s good to be alive”. Perhaps it’s easier than admitting life is rubbish these days – because from what we can see, things are not what they used to be. May was a jet-setter with a minimum of 200 gigs per year for decades – now he has less than a tenth of that and rarely travels outside the USA.

Still, it’s definitely easier than accepting he has no one but himself to blame for his current situation…