raves didn’t really hit the bay area until the mid to late 90’s. there was power exchange though. and I wouldn’t go there if you paid me in reznor tokens.
I went to a lot of stranger danger raves back then and let me tell you, kids these days got it easy.
At least some would say later, “I’m not sure what they were doing, but they were way ahead of their time.”
to the extent i could have written better tracks faster and more fully, the odds would have been much higher. it’s the difference between stone age and industrial age
I regard getting signed to Ninja Tune as a categorical success. I mean if you want money, just hawk your future tech gear for infinity billion dollars.
But the real reason I bring them up is that they were hungry for talent and especially stuff no one had heard before. That’s a good in for the future sound. Idk how much any of their artists make, but Funki Porcini, Kid Koala, Amon Tobin, Mr. Scruff and many others are legends to me. When I listen to them I go straight back to distinguishing success in money and success in music.
In that case, head over to Detroit or Chicago and try to hang with Richie Hawtin and the Minus crew until things kick off in SF. Catch some of the dot-com money however you can, either with tech skills or music skills. Goal is to be in SF during the crash with fat stacks of cash and a supply of quality of drugs that will carry you through to 2005 or so.
Edit: as soon as it launches, check Craigslist every day for 303s and buy every one.
There was a lot of good music back then, and there’s good music now. I just don’t agree that it would be any easier to have success in music then, though I agree now it’s damn near impossible. If you had a window to some guys tiime who was signing acts it might have been easier to get signed, but it’s like the first thing I said, what is success? If you define success as a contract then success it is and there’s no reason to discuss it any further.
I think it just comes down to what is success to the individual. I knew a lot of people trying very hard with a lot of talent even then who would shit all over people with todays gear and they were not what one would call successful, it makes it hard for me to believe plug ins and vst’s would make any difference in that regard. maybe less work in trying to be successful though, that’s for damn sure.
In that respect, I would argue that it’s the quality of what we write that counts, not the quantity.
And that has never been a function of the tools at hand.
Cheers!
Couldn’t I just go, buy a Sh-101, Juno and a few Roland drum machines cheap and bring back with me and keep being unsuccessful?
let’s charter a time bus. I have some gear I want to bring back too.
This is where I was going. That’s the answer. But another way to put it: I could have picked Warp. They had a similar thing going on. Is Aphex Twin successful? The two answers are “yes” and “I have no taste.”
But comparing to other artists doesn’t really mean anything.
The vector I imagine is this: get signed to a label that isn’t a meat-grinder (Ninja Tune), bring the future, use that position to launch success in music, fandom and money. Signing doesn’t guarantee all of that, but I am personally confident that most of us here today could manage to pull all of that in, because we have the cultural technology that is 30 years of musical refinement. We’re still in touch with that sound (even the kids, thanks to the nostalgia market) but we have heard it in ways few could anticipate back then.
Funky Tekno Tribe! What, what! 
there is no right or wrong in a philosophical discussion, anything is possible when no outcome can be determined. that’s probably best for everyone too. if it were possible to go back and try, some people would be killing other people for the chance, and that’s not positive at all.
This is why I enjoy a civil web forum like elektronauts, I wouldn’t even bother engaging in these discussions in other parts of the net.
That is a tempting thought. You could trade a raspberry pi for all the gear in the world. Might want to put a Jupter 8, CS-80 and a few other goodies on the shopping list.
But I have to point out that the Deepmind is the best synth in the Juno line, and much cheaper.
what if you just went and tapped on uli behrenger’s shoulder like “hey kid… I got an idea I want to make you a part of…”
With my current gear in ‘93? I think I’d be very successful with my new company, it’s called Elektron.
I think the marketing side of music is heavily undervalued when people think about “making it” in music.
From a business perspective, the problem is making a commodity that most people in the world are capable of making at a low quality level (just about anyone can hum a melody or beatbox a rhythm), but doing it in a high quality and novel way and convincing millions of people that they like what you made enough to buy it. The deeper you go, the deeper the history of modern music is a history of marketing.
Warp is a good example of the benefits of a highly focused label. Get involved with Warp at the right time, and you have a career. Make better music than them but not part of the label? Better spend some time studying accounting or plumbing.
If I was going for success in the '90s, I’d start by starting a record label. I would build out a studio and a cafe, and invite bands to come produce records for cheap. I would look for talent that enjoys reading manuals and point them at the rack of samplers. I’d happily wine and dine journalists and editors to get the necessary reviews.
SF would be my preferred location because it was actually cool back then, and was a weird fringe to the tech world rather than the center of it. I miss that weird fringe. Any excess cash would go into residential SF real estate, in preparation for the eye watering rents of the 2000s.
First I’d swing by Don Buchla and Dave Smith and encourage them to become more active making synths. I might look up John Chowning and see if he could hook me up with a Yamaha gig and Japanese residence.
there’s no wrong way to pursue, view, or enjoy success. you have a clear goal of what success is for you. your point about quality of recording is noteworthy in that people now with cheap ways to make excellent recordings are spending a bajillion dollars every year trying to buy the recording equipment used in that time period and before at a premium to make more archaic recordings at an acceptable level of quality as opposed to using the affordable high quality digital recording that almost no one could accomplish back then without spending the kind of money people spend now to get the sound they got then. this cyclical cycle of values is entertaining in and of itself.
OMG this is gold ObRob.
I died at Tupac’s digits. My goodness my funny bone is sore something fierce today. Reznor def got his celly on lock tho fam. Special Caribbean Xxxtension ya feel we? Ya ovahstand I and eye 
Agreed with the homie who shouted out that if it was throwback me, nah, but greying me with modern gear 30 years back…SHIIEEEEEEEEE(The Wire guy voice)
I’ma go Hiroshima Nagasaki like I’m big in Japan. Damn.
His name might be Toon but this ain’t no Sunday Morning Special.
