Friday, January 27, 2012

"Your 'Tour Detroit' Guides This Evening will be Steven Robert and Joe Vargas"...

Every decade seems to bring about a different style of music that is reminiscent of that time. In the 20's there was Swing. The 50's brought about Rock 'N Roll. There was Disco, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Pop, Techno, Funk, and the list goes on and on. Tour Detroit, is a group that has managed to bring all of these styles together, plus some, to create a series of parties that have become legendary in Detroit.

Tour Detroit is made up of Joe Vargas, Steven Robert, Erno the Inferno and Mike Mackool. According to Joe Vargas, "Tour Detroit was born out of all of us having played a few parties together, and wanting to do it way more often... We drew a lot of inspiration from different sources like, Dorkwave, Organic, Interdimentional Transmission, the family parties, etc. and a lot of dingy, virtually unknown spaces we were going to at the time." The group started by having parties in the warmer six months of the year, starring different guest DJs, and featuring a different venue for each event.

If you have never been to a Tour Detroit party in the past, Steven Robert explained that you can, "Expect to hear both new and old music. We try to keep it fresh, but we're also always digging for the older deep records as well. As for the crowd, they're great! They're just there to dance and have a good time."

Yes, there are DJs, dancing, and it is a party, but these gatherings are not to be confused with rave parties from the 90's or an evening at Tiki Bob's. According to Vargas and Steven Robert, these parties have "Soul" and "Better Music". Steven continues by saying, "People come out to listen to some of the best House and Disco you can find. Not to bang skeezy broads in Ugg boots...Okay, some of them want to bang skeezy broads in Ugg boots."

You can guarantee that when these guys says "Better Music", they mean it. Both of them have been involved in music at a professional and personal level for most of their lives. Once they discovered electronic music, it seems they were hooked. When asked how they each started DJing and what made them want to get into it, they had this to say:

Steven: "I was studying jazz performance and music management at Wayne State when a fellow classmate, by the name of Dominic Arellano, was working at a Techno record label named Transmat and offered me an internship there. I knew little to none about dance music at the time. My parents were pretty serious competitive disco dancers in the 70s. So I grew up listening to disco, but that's as far as it went. Over the course of two years that I had worked there, we put on the Movement Festival twice. I learned a great deal while working with those guys. It opened up a whole new world of music to me. Without sounding too corny, there's a whole vibe about electronic music that you can't really explain. It's something you kind of have to experience. A couple years later, I bought some turntables and a mixer off of an old friend who used to throw parties back in the late 90s and I've been playing ever since."


Joe: "For me, it was going to my first party, and being fascinated by the way the DJ kept the party/music going. I kinda became a 'gear head', wanting to know more about the technical process and mechanics of it all.
That plus a kind of curious fascination with dance rock from the 80's, my emerging appreciation for disco and funk, and more current love for 'indie dance' or whatever, plus, the rich history that Detroit has in electronic music, AND my aforementioned love of gear kinda put me over the edge, ha."


After chatting with the guys, it became apparent that Tour Detroit parties are about good music, good people, and having a good time. 

This Saturday, Tour Detroit Presents: Intellivision. The location for the party is undisclosed, unless you RSVP to the event on Facebook. Along side the great music and killer sound system, Prismviews will be there projecting visual art, that should add to this already awesome event. 

So, if you haven't already, RSVP to this event on Facebook, and while you're at it, get out your dancin' shoes! Hope to see you all Saturday night!


~C

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