So imagine being a globally influential music
producer. Okay. You are literally shaping the
defining sound of an entire city. Right. Your
records are being played in underground clubs
all over the world. We're talking Berlin, Tokyo,
London. The absolute biggest stages. Exactly.
But, and here's the catch, you absolutely refuse
to let anyone take your photograph. Wow. You
completely reject the spotlight. I mean, think
about it. Could you resist the pull of fame in
today's, you know, image obsessed world? It's
a huge question. Could you stay completely anonymous
while your creations just become legendary? It
is a fascinating paradox, especially today, because
we live in a culture where so much of modern
success is tied to. building a recognizable personal
brand. Oh, your face is your currency. Literally.
Yeah. So to actively dismantle that, to hide
your identity and insist that only the work matters.
I mean, it takes an incredible amount of discipline
and a deeply rooted philosophy. And that philosophy
is exactly what we're getting into today. So
if you caught the title of today's Deep Dive,
you know we are unpacking the enigmatic world
of Michael Anthony Banks. Better known as Mad
Mike Banks. The one and only. We're using his
Wikipedia article as our primary source material
today. And really our mission is to understand
how this one man became a foundational pillar
of the second generation of Detroit techno. All
while fiercely guarding his anonymity. Which
is just... Wild. Truly wild. We're going to explore
his surprising musical roots, the global spread
of electronic music, the fiercely independent
submerged distribution, and his massive catalog
of sci -fi aliases. It's a remarkable journey.
Yeah. And while the music itself is revolutionary,
Banks' broader cultural and systemic impact is
what truly cements his legacy. We're looking
at someone who didn't just make great beats.
He built an entire infrastructure to protect
the artistic integrity and really the economic
power of his community. He saw the pitfalls.
Exactly. He saw how the music industry historically
treated artists, particularly black artists from
Detroit, and he engineered a completely different
path. Let's start with his origin story, actually,
because it's not what you might expect for an
electronic music pioneer. Not at all. Before
the synthesized beats, before the classic, you
know, 808 and 909 drum machines became the backbone
of dance music. He was a studio musician. Yes.
And he wasn't just playing for anyone. He was
playing bass and guitar for. Parliament Funkadelic.
Which is a massive, incredibly telling detail.
Right. Transitioning from live, groove -heavy
studio instrumentation to the synthesized, machine
-driven world of electronic music. That is a
profound shift. Oh, completely. Because Parliament
Funkadelic, or P -Funk, led by George Clinton.
Absolute legends. Right. They are the absolute
pinnacle of live, organic, sprawling funk music.
It's sweaty, it's highly improvisational, and
it is deeply rooted in the physical interplay
between dozens of musicians on a stage or in
a studio. You're talking about like slap bass,
crazy guitar solos, and a totally unquantitized
human groove. Yes. And he had to take that loose
human swing and somehow force it into the strict,
rigid grid of early synthesizers and analog sequencers.
Exactly. Because in electronic music, you use
a process called quantization. which snaps your
notes perfectly onto a mathematical grid so the
machine can play it back in perfect time. Which
can easily sound robotic. Totally robotic and
lifeless. But because Banks understood the architecture
of a funk groove from the inside out, he knew
how to program those machines to retain a human
feel. He brought the funk to the machines. He
really did. It perfectly illustrates how Detroit's
musical heritage evolved rather than being erased.
The soul of P -funk didn't disappear. It was
just encoded into the circuitry. And you can
actually hear this transition happening in real
time if you look at his work in the late 1980s.
Right, with members of the house. Exactly. He
started working with that collective, and they
released several 12 -inch singles. You've got
Keep Believin' in 1987 and Share This House in
1988. Classic record. And if you listen to those
tracks, you can hear the bridge being built.
It still has the vocals and the warmth of traditional
R &D and funk, but the tempo is pushing up and
those electronic drums are really taking center
stage. It gave his flavor of Detroit techno a
completely different feeling than the colder,
more clinical electronic music that was starting
to come out of Europe at the time. Yeah, it had
a swing to it. It had warmth. It had a physical
memory of a live band, even if it was made entirely
by one guy in a bedroom with a sampler. It really
makes you think about your own career pivots,
doesn't it? How so? Well, think about it. When
you jump from, say, customer service to software
engineering or you go from studying biology to
working in marketing, you bring secret weapons
with you. Oh, absolutely. Your past experiences
give you a hidden edge. For Mike Banks, knowing
how to lay down a live bass line for George Clinton
gave him a massive advantage when he started
programming synthesizers. And that technical
mastery really set the stage for what he would
do next. Because once he had the sound dialed
in, he realized he needed a vehicle to get it
out to the world on his own terms. Which brings
us to a really pivotal moment in the late 1980s.
Banks... Teams up with another absolute legend
in the electronic music scene, Jeff Mills. Yes.
And they create the record label Underground
Resistance, often just called UR. And along with
Robert Hood, another giant in the scene, they
produced most of the label's early releases.
We're talking seminal records here. The Waveform
EP, Nation to Nation in 1991. The formation of
Underground Resistance just cannot be overstated.
They were basically the holy trinity of the second
wave of Detroit techno. Definitely. But UR wasn't
just a traditional record label. It was a militant,
fiercely independent collective. Their visual
presentation was striking. Oh, yeah. The aesthetics
were intense. They wore black combat boots, black
ski masks. And their sound matched that aesthetic
perfectly. It was fast, it was aggressive, and
it demanded your attention. It wasn't background
music. No, not at all. Yeah. Eventually, though,
Hood and Mills departed UR to pursue their own
legendary solo careers. Right, both becoming
global superstars in their own right. Which is
amazing, but you might assume that losing two
towering figures like that would kill the label.
Most labels would sold. But Banks didn't. He
took over completely. He headed the label himself,
continuing his own prolific productions, but
also acting as an incubator for incredible acts
like Sean Deeson and the mysterious duo Drixia.
Bringing Drixia into the UR fold is a perfect
example of Banks' vision. Such a fascinating
group. Because Drekchia didn't just make incredible,
complex electro music. They built an entire Afrofuturist
mythos. Right. They created a sonic narrative
about an underwater civilization founded by the
unborn children of pregnant enslaved women thrown
overboard during the Middle Passage. Just incredibly
heavy, conceptual, deeply imaginative art. Exactly.
And Banks provided the platform for that kind
of uncompromising vision to reach a global audience
without being watered down by major label executives.
And the way he guaranteed that independence is
perhaps his smartest move of all. Submerge. Submerge.
In 1992, Banks co -founded Submerge Distribution
with Krista Robinson. Now, distribution sounds
like a pretty dry logistical business term. It
does. But looking at the industry back then,
whoever controlled the vinyl pipeline controlled
the artist, right? Oh, absolutely. Did they basically
build this so they wouldn't get swallowed by
major labels? That is exactly why they built
it. Think about the physical reality of the music
business in 1992. You are not just uploading
an MP3 to the internet. Right, no streaming.
You are pressing heavy physical vinyl records.
You have to melt the wax, press the grooves,
print the cardboard sleeves, pack them into heavy
boxes, and get them onto cargo planes and ships
to reach a DJ's hands in Berlin or Tokyo. That's
a massive undertaking. It is. And traditionally,
major corporate labels control that entire pipeline.
And if they control the pipeline, they dictate
your release schedule, they take the lion's share
of the profits, and they often own your master
recordings. So by creating submerged distribution,
Banks and Robinson essentially built their own
independent highway to the rest of the world.
Precisely. They created an independent conduit
to distribute Detroit based techno worldwide.
They proved you could have a massive global footprint
without selling out to a corporate structure.
That's huge. Submerge became the central nervous
system for Detroit's independent electronic music
scene. It wasn't just about moving units. It
was about keeping the economic power and the
cultural power. firmly rooted in their own neighborhood.
Having that total control meant his sound could
go to some incredibly abrasive and experimental
places, too. Because nobody was telling him no.
Right. The source notes that his early influences
included the first -generation Detroit techno
pioneers. You know, Derek May, Juan Atkins, and
Marshall Jefferson over in Chicago. But as he
kept producing through the 90s, his work showed
an increasing interest in acid house and industrial
sounds. Yes, and understand that shift. You have
to understand the tools and the environment.
Okay. Acid house is defined by the squelching,
almost alien sound of a very specific synthesizer
called the Roland TB -303. Oh, that classic acid
sound. Exactly. It has a very distinct resonant
hypnotic quality. And when you combine that alien
sound with the hoffness of industrial music,
you get a sound that is gritty, hard. and unforgiving.
The music became a reflection of Detroit itself.
Totally. Because in the 90s, the city was undergoing
massive deindustrialization. The sound of UR
became more aggressive and distorted. It sounded
like the automotive factories that were being
left behind repurposed into these relentless,
driving, sonic landscapes. It was the soundtrack
to a city in transition. And this is where we
have to talk about his strict ethic of the underground,
which we touched on at the beginning. Right,
the anonymity. As the music exploded globally,
Banks completely refused to be photographed in
public. It is a radical act of anti -commercialism.
Completely. The music industry constantly demands
that artists commodify themselves. Your face
becomes the product. You are expected to be on
magazine covers, doing press tours, smiling for
the cameras. Playing the game. Exactly. And by
refusing to be photographed, Banks forced the
listener, the media, and the industry to focus
entirely on the music and the message. It's a
profound statement. Yeah. He is basically saying,
I am not the product. The art is the product.
Yeah. And he needed that focus on the music because
his releases often dealt with heavy elements
of political and social commentary. Which was
actually quite controversial at the time. It
was. Regardless of where anyone stands on the
specific political issues he raised, injecting
harsh, real -world themes into a genre that was
largely built for 3 a .m. club escapism was a
radically disruptive move. People were going
to underground warehouse parties to dance until
dawn and forget their worldly troubles. Exactly.
And here comes Mike Banks pressing records with
titles and liner notes that forced you to confront
systemic inequality and urban decay. He brought
a punk rock ethos to electronic dance music.
that you stay awake and aware the club wasn't
just a place to escape It was a place to gather,
to mobilize, and to reflect on the reality outside
the warehouse doors. Okay, speaking of the reality
outside the doors, there is a piece of trivia
in the source material that is just wildly relatable
but in the most bizarre context. Oh, the custom
story. Yes. In the late 1990s, Mike Banks actually
quit playing live shows. He didn't return to
the stage until the mid -2000s. A huge hiatus
for an artist of that size. And the reason. The
source says it was due to continuing problems
with bringing electronic equipment through customs
agencies. I mean, could you imagine the TSA trying
to swab down a vintage Roland drum machine? It
sounds almost comical today, but it highlights
a very real logistical nightmare for early electronic
musicians touring the globe. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I get annoyed when I have to take my
laptop out of my backpack at airport security.
Imagine dealing with so much red tape that you
actually pause a global touring career. Picture
being a customs agent at Heathrow Airport in
1998, and this guy rolls up with massive, heavy,
black road cases full of analog synthesizers,
drum machines, hundreds of tangled patch cables,
and glowing motherboards. To a customs agent
who has never seen electronic music gear, it
probably looked highly suspicious, maybe even
dangerous. Definitely. And you have to remember
how fragile and heavy this analog gear was. These
machines were not built to be thrown into the
cargo hold of a 7. No, they were incredibly delicate.
But the silver lining of stepping back from that
grueling live performance circuit is that it
kept him locked in the studio. And this is where
the sheer volume and creativity of his discography
just explodes. He starts using these incredible
aliases to release different styles of music.
The naming conventions alone are a masterclass.
They really are. They reflect a deep commitment
to the sci -fi roots of Detroit techno. Let's
look at the list here. Under the alias X101,
he releases an EP called Sonic Destroyer in 1991.
Great title. Then the project evolves into X102,
and he drops an album called Discovers the Rings
of Saturn on the legendary German label Trezor
in 1992. And that album literally maps its tracks
to the physical rings of the planet Saturn. So
cool. But then we get my favorite alias, The
Martian. Look at these track titles from The
Martian. Meet the Red Planet, Sex and Zero Gravity,
Journey to the Martian Polar Cap, The Long Winter
of Mars. What's fascinating here is how these
titles and aliases tap into a distinct Afrofuturist
theme. Right. Afrofuturism often uses the imagery
of space exploration and science fiction to imagine
a future free from earthly oppression and historical
trauma. Leaving the Earth behind. Exactly. By
using names like X101 or The Martian, Banks is
creating entire universes of sound where those
boundaries just don't exist. If the reality on
the ground is harsh and restrictive, deep space
becomes the ultimate frontier of freedom. He's
literally looking to the stars. And he pushes
this concept even further when he launches the
project Galaxy to Galaxy. With this alias, he
introduces this incredible musical concept known
as high -tech jazz, featuring tracks like Journey
of the Dragons and Astral Apache. The concept
of high -tech jazz is brilliant because it explicitly
connects the past to the future. How so? Well,
musically, he's taking the complex improvisational
soul of jazz music using real saxophones, live
bass playing, complex jazz chords. Yeah. And
he's laying them over blistering high -speed
synthesized techno percussion. Jazz is fundamentally
black American music born from a specific history.
Right. By projecting it into a sci -fi future
using the latest technology, he's drawing a straight
line from jazz legends like Charlie Parker or
John Coltrane directly to a synthesizer in Detroit.
It perfectly ties back to what we talked about
at the very beginning. It really does. He is
taking that live P -funk studio musician background,
the organic human groove, and launching it into
orbit. He's not just making dance tracks. He's
authoring science fiction novels through sound.
And because he remained completely faceless throughout
all of this, the listener is completely immersed
in the fantasy. No, entirely. When you listen
to a track by The Martian, you aren't picturing
Mike Banks in a studio turning knobs. You're
picturing a transmission broadcasting from the
surface of another planet. The anonymity serves
the art perfectly. it creates a pure connection
between the sound and the listener's imagination
there is no ego getting in the way none at all
so if we look at the whole picture the legacy
of mad mike banks is just staggering he is a
masterful synthesizer of genres absolutely he
took the sweaty live organic funk of his early
days and welded it to the driving industrial
thud of machines he was a fierce advocate for
independence building the underground resistance
and submerged distribution empires so that that
Detroit artists wouldn't have to beg major labels
for a seat at the table. He built his own table.
He physically controlled the vinyl pipeline.
And above all, he is a pioneer who let the music,
the political message, and the sci -fi escapism
speak entirely for themselves by completely removing
his face from the equation. A true visionary.
Before we leave you today, I want to say a huge
thank you to you, our listener, for joining us
on this deep dive into the world of Detroit techno
and the uncompromising vision of Mad Mike Banks.
Keep exploring, keep listening, and we'll catch
you on the next deep dive. But before you go,
I want to hand it over for one final thought
on the nature of legacy. We live in an era where
everyone, from artists to everyday professionals,
is told that visibility is the only path to success.
We are expected to share every detail of our
lives online, to constantly update our status
and to build a personal brand. Yet Mike Banks
built a lasting global legacy by remaining completely
unseen. He let the political weight and the futuristic
vision of his music be his only public face.
So I leave you with this question. What could
you accomplish if you completely removed your
ego, your image and your need for personal recognition
from your life's work? If the work itself was
the only thing that mattered. How far could it
go?