TECHNO TIMES TWO

We haven’t even determined whether one national tour showcasing the rising tide of dance music can succeed, and now there’s a second one being planned. Chaotica--a festival presentation featuring such top names from the field as the Prodigy, Orbital and the Orb--will be joined on the summer tour circuit by Big Top, with a lineup more tuned to up-and-coming techno figures.

Bt, Crystal Method, Spring Heel Jack and the Ninja Tunes roster of deejays are among those expected to be on board the tour, which will have 13 major-market dates between Aug. 14 and Sept. 13, with Moby (under his ambient dance identity Voodoo Child) likely to sign on as well.

“What we’re doing might be part of the same genre, but they’re two very different concepts,” says Marci Weber, one of the Big Top organizers and Moby’s manager. “Ours is coming from a different place, more underground. The other tour sounds wonderful, but is definitely not in competition with us. There’s enough room for all of us here.”

The biggest question raised by the Big Top lineup may be the possible involvement of Moby, who has been perceived by many as having abandoned the dance music realm. He was widely quoted recently in interviews as being disgusted by the commercialization of the genre and what he’s seen as a romanticism of drugs connected to it.

Weber says that while Moby is disturbed by those things, he has never said he was walking away. A Voodoo Child album, released last year in Europe, will be out here this summer, she says, and Moby intends to stay very much a presence in the scene.

“He even deejayed at clubs twice recently,” she says. “He hasn’t done that for four years.”