The beginning - Derrick May

Ok, the challenge is on. After a suggestion from Red in the comments of yesterdays blip, I have decided to let my blipd for the entire month of March be decided by the vagaries of the random track selection in iTunes. Well to a degree and except today obviously.

I decided I better set my self some loose rules for this. Each day i will be allowed a maximum of around ten random tracks from itunes to find a song title which inspires a photo. I decided to have a few as there is a lot of odd stuf on my computer where the titles just don't lend themselves to imagery whether through being unusual or possibly offensive to some.

I also decided that I won't use the same artist twice (except the Fall who were technically used yesterday but that doesn't count so if they come up I can use them once more). as such later into this I will discount from the 10 any tracks which are by artists I've already used.

anyway that's the background, hopefully this will work out ok and not be to oself indulgent or boring for anyone. Each day I'll give you a little bit of background information about the relevant artist.

Todays track, which I admit was chosen by me rather than itunes since it's the first one, is The Beginning by Derrick May. It seemed pretty apt to start with a Techno track as it is a genre which is a large part of my life. I opened a record shop selling pretty much exclusively Techno and House music with a couple of friends when I was 21. It only lasted for 2 years but was a learning experience and good fun while it lasted.

Anyway Derrick May originates from Detroit and, along with Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, is one of the men credited with inventing the genre of Techno, creating some fantastic tracks in the mid to late 80's. Probably his most famous track is Strings of Life, but this one seemed more apt. These days he doesn't really produce much music but still DJ's all round the world, he also runs reknowned techno label Transmat He is also a top bloke and was the most famous customer we ever had in our record shop. He turned up one day when he was playing in Edinbugh and proceeded to spend almost an hour mixing tunes on the decks with no one else there. To this day if he's playing in a club in Edinburgh that I make it along to he finds time to say hello and have a chat.