Thirty Thousand Streets

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Mellotex / Metroplex Conspiracy



..Though I'm not sure quite what the conspiracy might actually entail.. Metroplex being a cult techno label founded by Detroit bleepmeister Juan Atkins, wheras Mellotex is a brand of printer paper widely available in the UK, combining (and here I quote from a downloadable PDF I frisked off the web) "a unique smooth crispness and opacity with excellent print performance."

The internet is of course the first port of call for my own brand of lazy e-journalism. A quick Google of of "Juan Atkins" and "paper" later, and the internet's favourite search engine coughs up an Ebay listing at number two, for an original pressing of Juan's 1985 classic 'No UFOs' under his Model 500 moniker with, notably, SOME LIGHT PAPER SCUFFING.

So maybe that's it. One of the founding fathers of the Detroit techno sound has forged an unlikely alliance with a fully integrated business paper range (produced by a paper manufacturers in Fife, no less) to provide research and development for sleeves that will prove as durable and timeless as the shimmering electro classics he intends them to house.

On the other hand it's half one in the morning, and maybe the logos just look a little similar.. a bit like that Quark/Scottish Arts Council logo fiasco a while back (Yes Scotland again).

So whatever. I'm being silly.. but they do look uncannily similar don't they? (humour me here) and In any event both techno 12s and sheets of crisp white paper are both proper nice to take a stylus to (arf arf) which is something they do have in common at least.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

well, perhaps during the recession the guyhad to become an entrepreneur to keep his artform/music floating above water. I like this conspiracy theory and the link towards the scottish logo is really bloody hilarious. Thanks for the reference.