New rules to be brought in by the techno glitterati – surly young men in their twenties who take dance music hyper seriously – means that you need to have a degree in electronic music before you’re allowed to have an opinion about it.
“I’m just sick of people thinking they can talk about dance music without having an intimate knowledge of obscure Detroit producers,” claimed one young techno fan/producer/DJ/promoter Sam Greene who refers to himself as a turntablist without any embarrassment even though he can perform only the most basic of scratches. “If you don’t have an in-depth knowledge of Jeff Mills’s early work then you really shouldn’t be allowed to open your mouth about dance music generally.”
“There’s just so many posers in the scene now who don’t even collect vinyl or espouse at length like fan boys about anorak trivia that nobody really cares bout.” continued Sam while pointing to the number of tracks he’s got in his Beatport crate. “If you don’t know the artist, the remixer and the label of each track you hear then you really shouldn’t be even allowed to dance to it, never mind talk about it.”
Sam and the rest of the techno hierarchy of self conscious young men believe that some sort of educational system complete with ‘exams and everything ‘should be instilled before anyone is allowed to express an opinion on dance music culture.
Some of the aspects of the clubbing scene which you must be educated in, according to the techno pedants – who colloquially refer to themselves as ‘the lads’ – include dance music history, unnecessary techno jargon, production techniques that you’ll never use, sound engineering and how to pronounce ‘Berghain’ correctly.
“I see these lads, enjoying the music and having a laugh without even wanting to become DJs or producers themselves,” moaned Sam. “They’re always dancing at parties and smiling instead of sitting next to the laptop with two other surly lads arguing about who’s more into techno.”
The quiz, claimed Sam, will ask simple questions to prove how techno a person is and if they pass then “they can join our Facebook group where we each share tunes apparently for the joy of just sharing music, but really as a display of how cool and knowledgeable and balls out techno we are.”

If I were to start Djing again I would call myself “Clifford The Big Red DJ”
… and I would openly state my opinions on music whenever it pleased me.