When you think of Detroit, you might think of Motown, you may think of the White Stripes or Eminem. You may not think of music at all, you might think of its decimated motor industry, its reputation for a having a huge murder rate, or even the film Robocop which was set there in the not too distant future. At the end of the 80s a series of factory closures all but destroyed Detroit, most of the skilled workers moved to Chicago and wherever the work was, leaving ghettos, closed down shopping centres, rows and rows of derelict houses and the heartbeat of what was once a major city, ripped out.
Detroit's Underground Resistance, represents one of the most interesting responses to Reagan era politics. Jeff Mills and 'Mad' Mike Banks banded together to form a group that would grow in members and stature. Unlike Derreck May and Kevin Saunderson, UR shunned the limelight, opting to wear masks at the warehouse parties they played at. 
The group have toyed with several different genres of music, from hip hop to drum & bass but the staple of the Underground Resistance sound was and remains Techno, to this day.
Although they opted to place the music ahead of the cult of personality, they created (whether or not by accident) a distinct image of what UR represented, a brand, if you like. According to Banks they were as inspired by the album covers and music of Bands like Rush, as they were of the comicbooks of Marvel. The militant standoff-ish look attracted and repelled in equal measure, with accusations of black supremacist views because they would often dress up like the Black Panthers at gigs; this accusation is refuted by Banks and Mills who claim that the whole point was to make sure the music came first. Equally influential to the UR sound was Kraftwerk, who Banks often refers to as a defining influence on the scene, in terms of sound and in terms of image. Members of UR would collaborate with Kraftwerk on Expo 2000.
As new members joined the music took different directions. Out of all the Underground Resistance family Jeff Mills has probably been the most successful but the biggest track to come out on the label is UR049, better known as 'Knights of the Jaguar' by DJ Rolando. A track that still gets played all over the world when the lights go up from Berlin to Tokyo.
The track is consistantly in artists top 5's, consistantly played by the likes of Pete Tong, Laurent Garnier, Francois K, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Josh Wink and anyone else who is worth their salt in the dance music community.
Asking a DJ to name their favourite Underground Resistance track is like asking your parents what their favourite Beatles album is. DJ, Producer and remixer Ewan Pearson opts for 'the whole of the Galaxy to galaxy ep' as his favourite release... and it is easy to see why, there is a track on there for every mood. My favourite of the bunch is Astral Apache, with its tribal sounding vocals, snares, bubbly appregios and the constant sense that it is building into the monster it becomes in the second half of the track. It would fit in easily on Surrender by the Chemical brothers, or Second Toughest in the Infants by Underworld.
Ewans favourite: anything off the Galaxy 2 Galaxy EP
Tom Middleton, Jedi Master, DJ, Producer and all round good egg, also struggles to choose when asked about his favourite UR record, but also opts for a track from the Galaxy to Galaxy EP: "so many! High-TechJazz.Timeless spine-tingling Sax-Techno masterpiece in my box/top 10 for ever."
Tom's favourite: Hi Tech Jazz.
The Beauty of UR is that although they stay within the realms of electronic music, they can be as soft and soulful as they can be hard, with decks, 303's, 909's, and even the saxophone. But they are often brutal, as Tronic boss and legendary techno DJ, Christian Smith's choice attests to...
Christian Smith's favourite: Seawolf.
Liberation Radio (from the Gyroscopic EP) is one of the tracks worked on by Banks, Jeff Mills and Robert Hood, it highlights the harder edge that Robert Hood brought to the tracks that he worked on with UR. The fact that all the producers worked under the umberella of 'Vision' shows a socialist approach to how Underground Resistance put out tracks. No arguments about royalties, no messing, no ego, just uncompromising futurist techno music.
Sometimes the artists on UR tracks would be so secretive they would just go under an alias and no one outside the studio would really know who actually produced it, "I don't go in front of the music. I believe that if you put your ego in front of the music, and place it in front of the speaker, then the people trying to listen to the music can't hear your music, they just listen to your ego."
And that is the best way to sum up UR, the ego was left at the door, whilst europe began to embrace the cult of the superstar DJ none of the Underground Resistance ever did take up that summer residency in Ibiza, DJ at the opening of the Olympics, or have a track appear on the Matrix soundtrack. It's not the sort of thing they would directly badmouth about, they're not the kind of people to do so, but they are proof that UR are in it for the right reasons, and that is the very reason why more people need to explore their catalogue, because there is a lot of quality in there,
Here are my top 5 in no particular order.
For my part, the attraction to UR is the fact that they are doing it for love; as hard as the music can get Banks is obviously a caring guy, who is really involved in the local community through youth projects as well as with the Resistance. I discovered them through Jeff Mills who has always been the celebrity face of UR, It was before the internet made it this easy to share music so I had to get the tracks the hard way, resulting in a few hundred spent and a few boxes of records that I don't really have the space for, would I change a thing? Nope, my life is enriched knowing these tracks.
Complete interview with Mike Banks from Wired Magazine here
Underground Resistance complete discography here
Thanks to Ewan Pearson, Tom Middleton and Christian Smith.
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