No Kiddie Techno, Please

Darwin Chamber (Mark G.) on KDGE-FM, Dallas, ca. '93: [7.6 MB .mp3]

On the tape:

During an on-air interview on the dance mix show Edge Club 94, breakbeat pioneer Mark G., visiting from San Francisco, plays a song with a burbling TB303 synth and a high-pitched Elmer Fudd-like voice saying "OK, here I go! 1, 2, 3, 6.... 12.... uh.... nuh...."

Jeff K, host of the show, interrupts the song and tells Mark G. to "Change it right now. This is that damn kiddie techno you said you weren't gonna be doing any more."

Mark G. takes it off and plays an amusingly frantic 303 workout with hyperactive drum loops (this was during the 'ardkore era).

The track ends, followed by several seconds of dead air, then some rather horrible digitized fed-back guitar chops.

Despite Mark G.'s defense that the music is "ambient," Jeff K once again tells him to take it off, saying "This is giving me a bad trip. I want a good trip, Mark."

This exchange haunted me and in 1997 I emailed Jeff K to ask him what the heck "kiddie techno" was. He replied, "kiddie-techno is the opposite of intelligent techno, y'know those songs that just put a beat behind some nursery rhyme or the theme from Sesame Street, etc."

Regardless, I kind of wanted to hear the rest of it.