White people have stolen music from black people for decades and then some. This is a matter of historical record. No surprise, then, that white musicians stole techno, too. Kristian R. Hill’s documentary “God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines” purportedly runs down techno’s long journey from Detroit to Germany, from the hands of black artists to European ones, from the 1980s to the 2000s and beyond; one of Hill’s main subjects, Juan Atkins, lays the groundwork for making this case very early in the film, citing Pat Boone’s lifting Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” as just one instance among many others of white mediocrity diluting black genius. Buckle up. Hill’s dropping truth.
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But “God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines” spends about 1 hour and 10 minutes fixating not on the crime of stealing techno, but on techno’s rise in Detroit, as well as the rise of sibling variations on the same sound in other cities (ala Chicago house). This is fine. To appreciate techno’s appropriation, Hill must necessarily trace its origins, which he does through a series of talking-head interviews with people who bore witness to the birth of the style–Jeff Mills, Seth Troxler, Mike Huckaby–as well as those who gave birth: Atkins, of course, and Kevin Saunderson, Eddie Fowlkes, Blake Baxter, Derrick May, and Santonio Echols. For a wide swath of Hill’s audience, his movie may be the first introduction to these artists, and maybe that’s accomplishment enough.
All the same, the rush to punctuate this joint narrative binding Saunderson, Fowlkes, Baxter, May, and Echols with one another, and Black American history writ large, with the circumstances that led to popular misconceptions over who invented techno lands poorly. Frankly, Hill leaves little impression as to how this happened, at least as far as it concerns Europe; more attention is paid to the English-born, Ontario-raised DJ Richie Hawtin, who dipped his toes in Detroit’s techno scene in the early 1990s and met with greater success than the style’s pioneers. Even Hawtin’s involvement with Hill’s primary 6 subjects is glossed over. Ultimately, we’re left with a picture of Hawtin as a white boy from the Great White North who had the good fortune to get in with the right people at the right time and then piggybacked off of their efforts to his own ends.
Given the mixed testimony from the 6 regarding Hawtin’s achievements, the fact of his achievements feels like water under the bridge. There’s precious little drama to Hawtin’s scenes, though there is, at least, more than in most of Hill’s remaining footage; major exceptions to this rule include details about rifts between the 6, interpersonal conflicts that naturally arise when talent assembles to create art and influence culture. But there’s a surprising, unaffected matter-of-factness to the movie’s construction and delivery, as if Hill’s interviewees have told this story so many times that now, there’s as much urgency in the retelling as reciting the ingredients from a cereal box. This may well be the case. If so, then “God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines’” straightforward articulation makes sense. A story rehashed is a story dulled, with each repetition scrubbing off a bit of its shine.
But that story deserves the telling Hill gives it regardless. The formal rigor Hill applies to his documentary efforts in “God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines” is commendable; there isn’t a source he appears to have overlooked, no delimiter in his mind for where techno’s narrative truly begins. The film takes its viewers all the way back to the Great Migration, the journey taken by many Black Americans from the South to the North, and with them such musical traditions as jazz. This, as with techno’s eventual, maybe even inevitable, theft from the hands of its innovators, comes as little surprise, but the scope Hill strives for in his work is breathtaking all the same. If the conclusion to his thesis is rushed, the steps he takes to get there are deliberate, judicious, and paced with a determined sense of vision.
“God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines” is still chiefly a generalist documentary, though, and as a chiefly generalist documentary, it’s disappointing. What Hill does get at here is compelling, and the time warp effect for those in the audience removed from the film’s events, whether by age or location, opens up a world of knowledge: Of Detroit’s place in music history, of techno’s heritage, and especially of the people who are responsible for that heritage. Hill’s meticulous research makes “God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines” a doc worth watching. If the movie stuck the landing with its premise, it might have been something truly special. [C+]
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