Cheap Eats
By Dan Leone

Our Masthead

Editorial Staff

Business Staff

Jobs & Internships

SO WHAT IF Detroit techno godfather Juan Atkins is now living in L.A.? He's still going to bang the living fuck out of you on the dance floor this Thursday night at Club Six. Born in 1962 and raised on P-Funk, Atkins began shaping the techno future in 1981 as Cybotron, a collaborative project with Vietnam vet and Jimi Hendrix fiend Richard Davis. Sparse electronics and cold drum-machine effects provided the meat for their first single, "Alleys of Your Mind," which they released on their own Deep Space label. Although the single sold astonishingly well in Detroit, it was the more intricately composed 1982 body-rocking single "Clear" that set the blueprint for faster rhythms later on. By 1985, Atkins had split off from Davis – who went on to pursue rock – and opened the first techno label, Metroplex, where he released his own defining "No UFO's," as well as work by his immediate techno grandpa circle – Eddie "Flashin' " Fowlkes, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson. Tonight, Blaktroniks (Moving and Reflective Records), Jonah Sharp (Reflective Records), Joe Babylon (Plus Research), and DJ Anon (Echolocation) also perform. 9 p.m.-3 a.m., 60 Sixth St., S.F. $10. (415) 863-1221. (Amanda Nowinski)