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Music

Carl Craig's CDJ Controversy

We're not in the business of pointing fingers, but there's a scratch on this record.

Carl Craig is highly regarded in the history of techno. Not only was he a leader of the Detroit scene's second wave, his adventurous side projects brought electronic music to new frontiers. The man is so trusted with the sound that he curated the 2000 and 2001 editions of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (you may now know it as Movement).

When we saw Craig's name on the lineup for Made Events' Vinyl-Only Sunday School party at Mysteryland, we figured it was a perfect fit. In the words of Made Event, "artists were carefully curated for this stage to bring back the lost art of DJing and mixing records."

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Sounds all good, right? Maybe not. The above picture from our Mysteryland story this week shows a CDJ setup sitting alongside turntables during Craig and Dmitri's b2b set . It got us a little curious. Surely, that goes against the entire ethos of the event? We decided to do some digging…

We reached out to Carl and Made Event, the promoters of the Sunday School stage, who had some strong words on the matter "Just before the festival," they tell us, "Carl Craig threatened to pull out of his confirmed booking if we did not provide CDJs according to his technical rider. This was hugely disappointing and due to the timing and travel involved, we reluctantly provided CDJs for his back to back set with Dimitri only."

When we contacted Carl Craig's camp, they offered a different perspective. "Carl played all of his set except for one track on vinyl. The one track he played on CDJ's was not available on vinyl. Dimitri played on CDJs, because Carl and Dimitri were initially told by Mysteryland they could play CDJs. Then they retracted on this statement after Dimitri had left Holland and couldnt get/bring his vinyl."

Statements made by Craig on Twitter don't jive with either of these statements. He addressed @Clubbinginsider's queries about the presence of CDJ's with the following…

Now we're more confused than where we started. Made Event tells us that Craig strong-armed his way into playing on a CDJ but Craig's management say he only played one track on CDJ and Dimitri was the guy who insisted on the CDJs. Meanwhile Craig himself says he didn't use a CDJ at all. We're not in the business of pointing fingers, but there's a scratch on this record.

Learn more about all involved:

Could Google Buy Detroit? We Spoke to Carl Craig About the Future of Techno City Mysteryland Recap: How PLUR Revived Woodstock