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Click on the picture for more on Bone

Underground Detroit techno legend DJ Bone chatted to Skrufff this week about the economic crisis affecting his home town and downplayed recent press reports that the city could totally collapse.

“Detroit is in horrible shape, sure, but it has been like that in the hood of the D for as long as I remember,” said Bone.

“What the city and State officials can’t seem to understand is that the city needs to be repaired from the inside out. When someone has cancer, the doctors don’t start with fixing the patient’s hair or dressing them nice. They go straight to the worst area and heal that first.”

The Subject Detroit label chief became one of Detroit’s most popular DJs in the late 90s, regularly attracting 1,000 strong crowds to his the Motor Lounge weekly residency in Hamtramck and has long been recognised as one of the city’s most ardent supporters. Describing himself on his biography as ‘an uncompromising, hype hating, 100% independent, real Detroit native . . . that cannot be bought’ he stressed thus week that his recent relocation to Louisville, Kentucky had nothing t do with Detroit’s woes.

Honestly, I moved so that I could be with my fiancée,” said Bone, “I still OWN a lot of property in Detroit so anybody who thinks I don’t maintain my base there is sadly mistaken. I don’t speak about my houses much at all but just know I’m there even if people don’t see me. I stopped hanging out years ago. It’s all about business and family,” he explained.
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Click for UK official anti-drug website 'Talk to Frank'

George Bush’s one time spiritual issues adviser John J. Dilulio, Jr., called for cannabis to be decriminalized this week and provided a detailed analysis of why America’s war on drugs is failing.

Back in the 90s, Dilulio wrote a zero tolerance themed book called ‘How to Win America’s War Against Crime and Drugs’ with notorious prohibitionists Bill Bennett and John Walters, though this week confessed he’d been wrong.

“Last year there were more than 800,000 marijuana-related arrests. The impact of these arrests on crime rates was likely close to zero. There is almost no scientific evidence showing that pot is more harmful to its users’ health, more of a “gateway drug,” or more crime-causing in its effects than alcohol or other legal narcotic or mind-altering substances,” Dilulio pointed out in an essay published in the journal Democracy.

“Prime-time commercial television is now a virtual medicine cabinet (“just ask your doctor if this drug is right for you”). Big pharmaceutical companies function as all-purpose drug pushers. And yet we expend scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging “war” against pot users. That is insane,” he added.

Dilulio’s comments emerged weeks after Slate Magazine published an in-depth feature examining how America launched an official federal poisoning program in which killed over 10,000 people in the 1920s in a brutal experiment to terrorise drinkers away from alcohol.

New York City’s medical examiner of the era Charles Norris accused the federal government of being ‘morally responsible’ for the deaths labeling the program ‘our national experiment in extermination’. The deaths only stopped when alcohol Prohibition was abandoned in 1933. (Slate Magazine)
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click on the picture to book your cruise

Superstar trance icon Paul Oakenfold has announced he’ll be hosting a four day rave on a cruise ship this October, offering partygoers the chance to enjoy multiple sets of ‘the epic sounds that he’s become known for’.

Tickets for Perfecto at Sea start from $599 per person, including meals, free tea and coffee and use of the ship’s ‘giant waterslide’.

“Oakenfold and friends will help keep the party going 24/7 and deliver a cutting edge, music-meets-leisure experience that simply cannot be missed,” the event’s website blurb promises. “There will be theme nights, gambling, pool-side cocktails, and a seadeck turned dancefloor.”

Ticket buyers curious about who they’ll be cooped up with for four days, can rest assured they’re unlikely to be billeted with former Time Out Chicago Nightlife editor John Dugan who blasted both Oakey and his fans in a retrospective article last week.

“In 2006, I caught him at a Winter Music Conference party that turned out to be a Jersey Shore episode from hell: 1,000 muscley dudes from Jersey, a smattering of females and me beside a pool,” he said.

Oakey, who was getting over a flu he picked up in Mexico, was barely functional; he fumbled his set at one point, leaving dead air,” he recalled. http://tinyurl.com/yfrrzdu

Click here for more info: the earlier you book, the better cabin you can get)

Jonty Skrufff (http://skrufff.com): Follow Jonty on Twitter

Click on the picture to access ADE's site

Amsterdam’s annual dance conference (ADE) has revealed that new wave dance pioneers Tom Tom Club and old skool A&R legend Miles Leonard will be keynote speakers at this year’s event which takes place between October 20 and 23.

Skrufff chief Jonty Skrufff will also be at the conference in its entirety, having joined the ADE team in January as a panel moderator and on-stage interviewer.

“I attended ADE last year for the first time to appear on Dave Clarke’s panel and thoroughly enjoyed both being on Dave’s panel and attending the conference itself,” he said.

“I met stacks of old contacts and more than a few virtual friends I’d never met in person before and the conference itself was small enough to be both friendly and productive. I came away feeling excited and enthusiastic to return. I’m delighted to be working with ADE and very much looking forward to October already,” he said.
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click on the picture for a fantastic clip of Ruth flowers ['‘She’s gonna kick some ass, and you will love her back . . .’

British pensioner Lorna Gobey celebrated her hundredth birthday this week and attributed her impressive longevity to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day accompanied by a glass of Guinness and whiskey chaser (as often as she liked).

“I’ve been smoking since I was 30 and have had no problems at all,” Mrs Gobey told the Daily Telegraph, “People try and tell you it’s bad for you but my family wouldn’t dare ask me to stop. If they did, I’d put them across my lap and give them a slapped bum,” she added.

Mrs Gobey’s refusal to grow old gracefully matched the example of fellow British granny Ruth Flowers, 69, who attracted yet more international publicity this week after becoming feted in France as a superstar DJ. Recently headlining the Cannes Film Festival, Mrs Flowers reportedly mixes classic pop hits with electro and dresses up in leopard skin and spangly outfits attracting delirious attention from adoring twenty something fans.

Speaking to the Guardian last month she denied being a superstar DJ though stressed she had ‘no intention of retiring from the decks ‘unless I drop dead’.

“The bouncers didn’t want to let me in at first, I was quite a lot older than the usual clientele, but once I got inside I hugely enjoyed it. I thought ‘I can do this’, she said, of her entry into DJing.

“My husband had died, I was retired, I had the time, so why not?”

Both ladies’ attitudes struck a chord with the views of 40 something French superstar DJ David Guetta who chatting to the Sunday Times last summer said he had absolutely no intention of ever slowing down.

“I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of the late nights at all. I’ll still be doing this when I’m 80,” the Fuck Me I’m Famous star said, “Inside I actually feel like a  teenager still,” he explained.
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Fidelity Kastrow @ Torture Garden @ SE One (February 2010): click on the picture to hear Fidelity's new track Bad Love)

Promoters who are renaming and re-launching SE One as ‘Debut London’ told Skrufff this week that the massive arches space will be ‘a live music venue primarily’.

Promising to transform the railway arches space with a ‘state of the art PA and cutting edge lighting systems’, the new venue owners said Debut will close at 2am apart from an adjacent new vodka bar which will close at 5am.
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Click on the picture to access Alex’s Facebook memorial page

Friends of underground techno legend Alex Silverfish have set up a Facebook group to commemorate Alex’s contributions to London’s alternative culture, 18 months after Alex committed suicide in her East London flat.

The Italian born DJ established one of London’s first all night art-space locations at Charing Cross Road in the early 90s (called Silverfish) going on to host hundreds of unlicensed warehouse parties in the city over the next decade.

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Al Jazeera on Detroit (click on the picture)

Notoriously accurate financial analyst Marc Faber warned investment bankers to flee cities and buy property in the countryside this week, in a chilling address he delivered to 700 elite fund managers gathered in Toyko.

Advising the super-rich financiers to convert their ill-gotten gains to gold and diamonds ‘because they can be carried’ Dr Faber suggested staying in cities could soon prove particularly perilous.

“The next war will be a dirty war,” he predicted, “What are you going to do when your mobile phone gets shut down or the internet stops working or the city water supplies get poisoned?” he added.

Outlining his vision to Russia’s Troika Dialog Forum in Moscow several weeks earlier the nowadays Thailand based Swiss expert was in similarly apocalyptic mood, singling out the UK, mainland Europe and the US in particular as notably vulnerable locations to avoid.

“I’m convinced the US government will go bankrupt,” Dr Faber told the assembled billionaires, “But not tomorrow. And before they do they will print money [and] you’ll get a depression with very high inflation rates,” he predicted.

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click to access the new Pioneer CDJ2000

Pioneer’s UK division has announced that it is ceasing production of their industry standard CDJ1000 turntable model, to persuade clubs and DJs to switch to their new 900s and 2000 model digital players.

“It is with mixed feelings that today we announce to the channel the discontinuation of the CDJ 1000MK3,” said Pioneer chief Martin Dockree said in a widely circulated statement, “Thanks to the hard work of our then newly appointed direct retailers, installers and established distribution, as well as the DJ’s who instantly recognised it as the first real practical DJ CD player, it very quickly became an industry standard fixture in the DJ booth,” he added.

The sudden demise of the nowadays virtually ubiquitous CD decks matched the predictions of acid house legend Sasha who chatting to Skrufff in 2008 was eerily prescient.

“CDs may become obsolete, maybe their days are numbered but not in the immediate future anyway,” said Sasha, “With every advance of technology something else gets left behind,” he noted, “Who knows what machine they’re working on at Pioneer right now?”
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With his ‘Azuli presents Miami’ mix compilation celebrating its tenth edition this month, it might seem like business as usual for UK house pioneer Dave Piccioni, though ask him whether Azuli and any other independent dance labels will still exist in 2015 and he’s characteristically blunt.

“The only ones that will be left in five years time will be essentially ‘bedroom businesses’ run from home by one or two people,” he predicts, singling out podcasts as just one of the reasons established labels are so under threat.

“Funny you should mention free podcasts, I think they have done more damage to the dance CD compilation market than any other new formats. Considering that normally hardly any royalties are paid to artists I think they are criminal,” Dave continues, “Getting music free may sound like ‘giving it back to the people’ etc, but if no money goes to artists, then creative, inspired people go elsewhere. I think that has definitely happened in dance music.”
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