In some ways, Ears To The House believes the pandemic was the best thing to ever happen to Resident Advisor. Don’t get us wrong – the content on the site continues to get steadily worse, as do the calibre of their writers. Financially speaking, though, it led to a £750k bailout from the British taxpayer, a £10k grant from a local London council – and even £41k from the Germans.

Since then, the company has been on something of a hiring spree – although the calibre of jobs on offer raises eyebrows. Most of their vacancies are for so-called City Managers – we’ve gone into detail about these before – so where’s the latest place where Resident Advisor have decreed that they need someone to, well, put up local listings and stuff? Why, it’s none other than Detroit.

Now, contrary to popular myth, we quite like the city of Detroit here at Ears To The House. It’s a city which has contributed much to the world – fine things such as the sound of Motown and the first Ford factory in the world, and less fine things such as its high crime rate and the population being 60% lower than it was in the 1950s.

Detroit also had a seismic role in the development of techno – but this history is far from settled. For example, as much as it irritates Juan Atkins, we are not going to stop questioning his claim that he invented the entire musical genre of techno. Even he doesn’t subscribe to this view, as Michael James often demonstrates – yet this nonsensical “The Originator” name persists.

How much of the music in Derrick May’s catalogue did he make personally? Why does Juan Atkins refuse to acknowledge the role of Rik Davis in his career? Why must we pretend that “Good Life” by Inner City is a techno record when it’s clearly a house record? And why did the so-called Belleville Three only stop trying to colonise their role in techno’s development a few months ago?

These are all legitimate questions. But will the Resident Advisor city manager for Detroit dare to pose a single one of them? After all, one of their duties will include “pitching interesting local news, features, artists, labels, releases and mixes for editorial consideration” – but there are two reasons why these possible stories aren’t likely to gain any traction there.

Firstly, it’s because Resident Advisor still believe in the Belleville Three fairytale. And secondly? The website, despite having run two exposés detailing numerous allegations of sexual abuse against Derrick May, continues to make money by accepting listings for events he’s attending – an unworthy and ultimately unsustainable position.

Anyone wishing to apply has a few more days to do so – you just need to live in Detroit and be an obsequious stooge…