This weekend closes Smartbar‘s month of Daphne events, and among the talent in town is someone that I think everyone could learn a hell of a lot from: Noncompliant. Steeped in the Midwest techno tradition (the secret handshakes are the best), Noncompliant will be playing with Camea and Kiddo on this Very Good Friday, March 30 2018.

Among my favorite quotes in my extremely quotable feature story with Noncompliant last September is this one, which I think should be the frontispiece of the Bible of Midwest Electronic Music when I get around to writing it:

… That was part of what made the Midwest so interesting. We are the forgotten land in between the coastal regions. And even though we (thankfully) have two of the epicenters of house and techno (Chicago and Detroit), the rest of the Midwest is just sorta cornfields and manufacturing. But we’re all pretty easily connected by highways. And with the advent of internet and the cheap gas we had then – boom! We just all started doing our thing in every city, and traveling among them.
 

And what was so fantastic (and still is): Midwest DJs are still the best in the world. We developed a little differently, in the heat of the one hour rave set, where you had to just go out there and be fucking awesome from start to finish. You only have an hour? You’re gonna fucking PROVE yourself in that hour. Forged in the battle of the clock.

 

Daphne 2018 presents Camea, Noncompliant and Kiddo tonight (Friday, March 30 2018) at Smartbar. Tix are available here.