Chosen Words: J is for Juan Atkins

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Juan Atkins and his chums in the Detroit techno scene are true pioneers of electronic music.

Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick 'Strings Of Life' May experimented with early synthesisers and, inspired by the likes of Parliament and Kraftwerk, came up with soulful electro that took the world by storm.

The closest the UK has had to a Detroit scene is in Sheffield, the birthplace of Warp Records and home of a number of scowling eighties synth pop bands. The violence of the mid-80s Detroit club scene, however, was imported to the UK by Manchester.

It is not known if Juan Atkins has ever been to Sheffield, although he had success under the recording name of Model 500, while Sheffield still has lots of Fiat 500s, so YOU do the math.

Atkins' first synthesiser was a Korg MS10, a chunky two-and-a-half octave knob-tweaky machine that, by night, morphed into a nine-legged cybertronic monster that raped wall sockets and stroked kittens to death.*

*[citation needed]

Top five calamities for which Juan Atkins and his mates are responsible:

- Endless crappy house versions of Strings Of Life
- the acceptance of jazz into the electronic underground
- Balearic
- 2 Unlimited
- the Atkins diet (probably)

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