Over the past few days, I've written a bit about the end of the Belleville Three. The myth, which was created by journalist Neil Rushton in the 1980s, speaks a fabled tale of three black men from the poorest areas of Detroit coming together and changing the world with their new brand of music from the future. It would be an incredible story of rags to riches if it were…
The myth of the Belleville Three had a good life, but now it’s time for the final nail in its coffin to be well and truly hammered down. With Derrick May now having effectively been disgraced, it has brought about the revelation in Detroit that they will now never see the three men who perform under this fictional name together again. Nearly a fortnight ago, I published a not terribly…
One man who's been awfully quiet so far this year is the normally very loud Derrick May. The Detroit DJ, in times gone by, was his home city's most cacophonous voice - but a raft of allegations of sexual abuse and rape dating back over many years seem to have dampened that down. Many other people facing even a fraction of the claims he does might choose to exercise some…
Spare a thought - the smallest one you can possibly conjure up, ideally - on this Saturday evening for Derrick May. Thanks to all those pesky women who've made all kinds of very unpleasant allegations against him - never actually denied, by the way - his career is an awful lot quieter than it used to be. Sure, the dance music community has failed abysmally to continue speaking out against…
For the first few years of its run, the South Park character Kenny McCormick would die in every episode - yet he would return in the next episode alive and well. No explanation was ever provided, and characters on the show would rarely acknowledge the phenomenon - although McCormick’s weekly demise was rarely a shock to the show's regular cast. Eventually, the writers of the show got fed up of…
You might have noticed this blog hasn't published anything on Derrick May for the past few weeks. That's mostly because there's been nothing new to report. Sources on Detroit have been sending me rumours that the man himself contracted Covid-19 over Christmas, but I'm unable to confirm if this is true. What I can say is his DJing diary is pretty much empty. Whilst the dance music world's reaction to…
The beauty of the internet is you never quite know who might be reading what you write. I learnt this many years ago in a previous blogging life when the subject of an article contacted me to thank me for writing something more accurate than was appearing in the press at the time. I've also been contacted by a few people complaining about things I've said - for example, Mutya…
If a day comes when I ever get bored of writing in this blog, I’m going to have to think about setting up my own course. Of course, I have absolutely no idea what I could teach anyone about anything - but this isn’t stopping the legions of DJs putting themselves forward to front paid lessons on something or other. This is, like most things at the moment, the result…
This blog, as a rule of thumb, generally doesn't like the idea of gloating over someone's misfortune. But in Derrick May's case, I'm more than happy to make an exception. 2021 wasn't a good year for him - as the world started opening up again, May found himself increasingly ostracised within the dance music scene. Bookings have been extremely thin on the ground - which is bad news for a…
Back we go on what is a Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK - and also my birthday, to top it off - to the subject of Alan Oldham. Now, regular readers might have already worked out he’s a touchy little fellow - and he certainly doesn’t like being scrutinised. A few months back, you might remember that I started looking into Rebekah Teasdale and her struggling #ForTheMusic campaign.…
