A veteran DJ with more than twenty years of experience, T.Linder has done his homework and paid his dues.
A co-founder of the Detroit Techno Militia, Linder takes a no-nonsense, working-class approach to the art of spinning records. He cites what he calls “the old-school Detroit street jocks” as major inspirations for his unorthodox aesthetic. He says, “Artists like Jeff Mills, Steve Crawford , Claude Young, and Gary Chandler were very instrumental in what I call my ‘underground education’. If someone’s going to pay money to hear me spin, I’m going to make it worth their money. The way I look at it is, there are so many DJs out there meticulously and methodically blending tracks that all sound the same. As a listener, I’m easily bored with that. I like to take some risks when I play out. I play pretty aggressive, sometimes skipping across genres and eras. I like doing scratch and doubles tricks with two copies of the same record because I want to give the listener the experience of hearing something they haven’t heard before.”
Throughout his career, T.Linder has kept a busy performance schedule. He has played at many of the historic venues in Detroit that cater to electronic music. Notably: City Club, The Labyrinth, The Works, Motor Detroit, St. Andrew’s Hall/The Shelter, Menjo’s, TV Lounge, and many of the underground, unnamed warehouses during the twilight of Detroit’s rave era in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Linder first played at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in 2002 on the Underground Stage at Hart Plaza in Detroit. He returned to the same stage a few years later at the Movement Electronic Music Festival in 2008. At Movement 2009, he performed alongside DJ Seoul on four turntables as the Detroit Techno Militia 2×4. At Movement 2011, T.Linder joined his label-mates on the Made In Detroit stage for a five-DJ, five-turntable, all-vinyl, ensemble performance called the DTM 5×5. Linder and Seoul performed on the same stage in 2014 at Movement as the DTM 2×4 for Kevin Saunderson’s “Origins” showcase. At Movement 2015, Detroit Techno Militia was featured in a showcase of their own on the Made In Detroit Stage. There, he teamed up with label mates, DJ Psycho and DJ Seoul as 313 The Hard Way, which featured the three artists on three decks (a formation that was later featured on the Boiler Room’s “Chicago vs. Detroit” series)
As of 2019, T.Linder has performed in 23 U.S. states and 21 different countries, spanning five different continents.
In 2007, he released his first EP entitled DTM002 on the label that he co-founded: Detroit Techno Militia. He quickly followed that release with DTM003, which gained momentum on the world stage after Dave Clarke featured it on his “I Love Techno 2007” compilation. Since then, he has done dozens of remix projects and original production for many different record labels.
In the future, T.Linder plans to continue doing what he does best: creating and playing timeless records around the globe while asserting his position within the rich history of Detroit Techno.
