Jeff Mills facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

For the American football player, see Jeff Mills (linebacker). For the American football coach, see Jeff Mills (American football coach).

Quick facts for kids Jeff Mills
Mills performing in 2010
Background information
Also known as	The Wizard, True Faith
Born	(1963-06-18) June 18, 1963 (age 62) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Genres	Detroit techno, minimal techno
Occupation(s)	DJ, record producer, composer
Instruments	Turntable, synthesizer, drum machine
Years active	1980–present
Labels	Axis Records

Jeff Mills (born June 18, 1963) is an American DJ, record producer, and composer. He is from Detroit, Michigan. People also know him as "the Wizard".

In the late 1980s, Mills started a music group called Underground Resistance. He formed it with other Detroit techno artists, 'Mad' Mike Banks and Robert Hood. In the early 1990s, he left the group to work on his own music. In 1992, Mills started his own record label, Axis Records, in Chicago. This label released most of his solo music.

Jeff Mills is famous around the world for his work as a DJ and producer. He was in a documentary film about techno music called Man from Tomorrow. He also made a film called Life to Death and Back. He filmed it in the Egyptian part of the Louvre Museum in France. He even had a special four-month stay there. In 2017, a French politician named Jack Lang gave Mills an award for his contributions to the arts. It was called the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Career Highlights
Music Style
Art Exhibits
Discography
- Studio albums
- Extended plays
Filmography

Career Highlights

Jeff Mills performing in Detroit in 2007.

Starting Out as a DJ

Jeff Mills finished high school in 1981. He began his music career in the early 1980s. He used the name "The Wizard." He was known for his amazing DJ skills. He could do "beat juggling" (quickly switching between two records) and "scratching" (moving a record back and forth to make sounds). Sometimes, he even used pre-recorded parts in his shows.

He had a nightly radio show called "The Wizard" on WDRQ and later on WJLB. On his show, he played music by local techno artists. He helped make artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Juan Atkins famous.

In his early career, Mills often played music at clubs in Detroit. He said that a club called The Necto was important for him. It was where he could try out new ideas in techno music. He even tried setting up his equipment on the dance floor with the crowd. For his radio shows, Mills had money to buy new music. He would drive far, even to Toronto or Chicago, to find the newest songs.

Underground Resistance Group

Jeff Mills was one of the people who started Underground Resistance. This techno group began with 'Mad' Mike Banks, who used to play bass guitar for the band Parliament. The group wanted to make music that encouraged change. They often wore ski masks and black suits when they performed in public.

Mills didn't officially leave the group, but he started working on his own projects. Many of Underground Resistance's early songs came from experiments by Banks and Mills. Mills left the group in 1991 to become a successful solo artist and DJ around the world. Underground Resistance is still an important part of Detroit's music scene today.

The group used their music to talk about social and economic problems. They wanted their songs to help people explore themselves and make changes in their lives. Underground Resistance also wanted to create a sense of identity beyond race or background. They didn't want techno music to become too commercial. They showed this by putting messages on their records. These messages talked about being financially independent from big record labels.

Solo Music and Labels

The Tresor Club in Berlin, where Mills played before starting Axis Records.

After leaving Underground Resistance in 1991, Jeff Mills moved around. He lived in New York, then Berlin (where he played at the Tresor club), and then Chicago. In Chicago in 1992, he started his own record label, Axis, with Robert Hood. He later created other labels like Purpose Maker, Tomorrow, and 6277. These labels focused on a simpler, more "minimal" techno sound.

In 2006, Mills released Blue Potential. This was a live album where he played with the Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a classical version of his music. In 2013, he released Where Light Ends. This album was inspired by the Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri and his first trip to space. In 2018, Mills recorded an album called Tomorrow Comes The Harvest with the famous jazz drummer Tony Allen.

Film and Soundtracks

In January 2015, Jeff Mills performed a live show in San Francisco. He used four turntables to create a soundtrack for the 1929 silent film Woman in the Moon. He played this music while the movie was shown. Mills had also worked on other films by the director Fritz Lang. In 2000, he made and released a soundtrack for Lang's 1927 silent film Metropolis.

Mills got into film with the help of French filmmaker Jacqueline Caux. He helped her make Man from Tomorrow, a documentary about techno music that featured him. He continued in film by releasing his own movie, Life to Death and Back. He filmed this movie in the Egyptian part of the Louvre Museum in France. This is the same museum where he had a special four-month stay as an artist.

Music Style

When Jeff Mills performs as a DJ, he often uses three music players (decks). He also uses a Roland TR-909 drum machine. He can play up to seventy records in just one hour! His 2004 DVD, Exhibitionist, shows him mixing live in a studio using three decks and a CD player. By 2011, Mills started using three or four CD players for most of his club shows instead of turntables. The magazine Mixmag called Mills the "master" of the 909 drum machine.

The Detroit rapper Eminem even mentioned Jeff Mills in his song "Groundhog Day."

Art Exhibits

Jeff Mills is also an artist. His artwork has been shown in exhibits around the world. Some of his works include "Man of Tomorrow," which shows his ideas about the future. Another work, "Critical Arrangements," was shown at the Pompidou Centre in 2008. One of his most famous works was shown in 2015. It was called "The Visitor." This was a sculpture of a drum machine. It was inspired by a UFO sighting in Los Angeles in the 1950s.

Discography

Studio albums

Year, Title (Label)

1992, Waveform Transmission Vol.1 (Tresor)
1994, Waveform Transmission Vol. 3 (Tresor)
1996, Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo (Sony/React)
1997, The Other Day (Sony/React/Labels)
1997, Purpose Maker Compilation (React/Labels/NEWS/Neuton/Energy/Watts)
1998, From the 21st (Sony)
2000, Lifelike (Sony/Labels/NEWS)
2000, Art of Connecting (Next Era/Hardware)
2000, Metropolis (Tresor)
2001, Time Machine (Tomorrow)
2001, Every Dog Has Its Day CD (Sony/Labels/NEWS)
2002, Actual (Axis)
2002, At First Sight (Sony/React/NEWS/Energy/Intergroove)
2003, Medium (Axis)
2004, Exhibitionist (Axis/React/NEWS/Sonar)
2005, Three Ages (MK2)
2005, Contact Special (Cisco/Soundscape)
2006, One Man Spaceship (Cisco/Soundscape)
2008, X-102 Rediscovers the Rings of Saturn (Tresor)
2008, Gamma Player Compilation Vol. 1: The Universe by Night (Axis)
2009, Sleep Wakes (Third Ear)
2010, The Occurrence (Third Ear)
2011, The Power (Axis)
2011, 2087 (Axis)
2011, Jeff Mills/Dj Surgeles Something in the Sky Mix (Axis)
2011, Fantastic Voyage (Axis)
2012, The Messenger (Axis)
2012, Waveform Transmission Vol. 1 Remastered (Axis)
2012, Sequence – The Retrospective of Axis Records (Axis)
2013, The Jungle PlanetH
2014, Emerging Crystal Universe (Axis)
2014, Woman in the Moon (Axis)
2015, When Time Splits (with Mikhail Rudy) (Axis)
2015, Proxima Centauri (Axis)
2016, Free Fall Galaxy (Axis)
2017, A Trip to the Moon (Axis)
2017, Planets (Axis)
2019, Moon - The Area of Influence (Axis)

Extended plays