arts & life

Fit

CIU

A local artist

and businessman

celebrates his love

of — and Detroit's

hand in the roots of

— techno music.

Suzanne Chessler I

Contributing Writer

Celebrity Jews

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

T

oday's electronic music
meets up with long-endur-
ing vinyl recording plat-
forms in the hands of Aaron Siegel,
a composer, performer
and DJ who developed his
own label (FIT
Sound) in 2010,
two years after
his own record
distribution
company (FIT
Distribution).
Siegel, based
in Hamtramck,
travels the world to entertain and
sell, mixing his greatest pleasure
(music) with prospective business
opportunities.
In the realm of underground
music, Siegel answers to the name
FIT, chosen for its double meaning.
He thinks of FIT as describing a
state of being best and showcasing
an attitude of "freaking out:'
Over Memorial Day weekend,
the performer-businessman will
step away from work and watch
peers on stage at the Movement
Electronic Music Festival to be held
along Detroit's Hart Plaza.
Detroit became the birthplace
of techno music around the 1980s,
when performers started mixing
technology with sound innova-
tions to create a musical form
that became the base of electronic
music. According to the Detroit
Techno Foundation, the dance
music was played in urban lofts,
abandoned factories and ware-
houses as musicians went on to
produce, master and record press
the sounds.
Siegel has attended many of
the local Movement festivals since
their start in 2000 and readily gives
reasons for his recommended
show choices (see "Who's Who" on
the following page). He celebrates
Detroit's part in the launch of the

distinctive techno style and traces
his own interests to his teen years.
"FIT Sound has me curating
music by artists I like as well as my
own music:' says Siegel, 32, whose
most recent recording of sounds he
developed introduces "Carmine"
on one side and "First Found" on
the other.
"I use a mixture of analog key-
boards and drum machines along
with newer keyboards and pull
freely from disco and post-punk to
the most alien forms of techno and
house music breeding in Detroit
today:'
DJ gigs this summer will have
Siegel featuring his new record-
ing in Europe. He also might
feature works by Detroiters on his
label, such as Marcellus Pittman,
Anthony "Shake" Shakir and
MGUN.
Siegel, the son of dancer-chore-
ographer Debra Bernstein-Siegel
and psychiatrist Barry Siegel, had
an early interest in more conven-
tional sounds as he grew up play-
ing piano, guitar and bass. By the
time he attended Seaholm High
School in Birmingham, he was
appearing with punk bands.
"Techno music appealed to me
as soon as I heard it:' Siegel says. "I
connected to the different moods
it created:'
Siegel had a radio show while
studying film at Emerson College
in Boston, where he expressed a
preference for the multi-tasking of
music performance opportunities
over the collaborative nature of
emerging film projects.
"I found a loft in Detroit and
started a bike messenger company
while working at a club as a door
guy:' Siegel recalls. "The club expe-
riences led me to doing my own
parties.
"I was always making music and
DJing, but the distribution came

with the Five Wives — five
former female captives of
a bad guy
with a blood-
thirsty gang.

Most Beautiful issue, along
with her mother, actress
Lisa Bonet, 47 (dad is Lenny

Zoe Kravitz,

AT THE MOVIES
Opening this week: Mad Max:
Fury Road is the fourth in the
series of Mad Max films and
the first in 30 years. After a
series of worldwide apoca-
lyptic disasters, Mad Max
(Tom Hardy) meets Furiosa
(Charlize Theron), a woman
trying to cross a desert along

54

May 14 • 2015

26, plays
Toast, one
of the Five
Wives. In a
recent inter-
Kravitz
view, Kravitz
described her
character as the "toughest
of the five." Kravitz appeared
in People magazine's recent

Kravitz).
Pitch Perfect 2 is a sequel
to Pitch Perfect, the 2012
musical comedy sleeper hit
about an all-women college
a cappella group. The sequel
marks the directorial debut
of Elizabeth Banks, 41, who
co-produced the original (and
the sequel), with her hus-
band, Max Handelman, 42.
She also reprises her role as
a singing competition media

Aaron Siegel, aka FIT

after I met a guy who was doing
record distribution in Europe. He
told me it was hard to get records
from Detroit.
"I was ready to move on and
thought I could help. I liked work-
ing for myself as a bike messenger
and believed I could handle record
distribution on my own. Mike
Banks, a key figure in the festival

and Detroit techno, had a similar
company (Submerge), and he
became my mentor. My music stu-
dio is in a building he owns:'
On the performance end of
Siegel's work spectrum, Tonite
stands out as his debut record. It
was released in 2012 on the FXHE
label of Omar X. Siegel also has
worked closely with Alex 0. Smith

commentator.

stealer. (Both guys have top
Broadway credits. Last fall,
Platt, whose father is a prom-
inent entertainment producer,
did a one-man cabaret show
in New York in which he sang,
and — his words, "told tales
about my big Jewish family.")
Joining the cast for the
first time is Hailee Steinfeld,
18, as Emily, a new Bella
member. I knew she could act
(she got an Oscar nomination
for True Grit) — now we know
she can sing.

Skylar Astin,
27 (born
Skylar Astin
Lipstein), co-
stars again
as Jesse,
who sings in
Astin
the college's
male group
and is romantically involved
with Beca (Anna Kendrick),
a member of the Bellas. Also
seen in a big part is Ben
Platt, 21, as singer Benji
Applebaum, a comic scene-