He first appeared in the early Detroit techno scene as the promoter

Who composes electronic music as The Detroit Escalator Company Co. He first appeared in the early Detroit techno scene as the promoter of The Music Institute (1988-89); the legendary underground after-hours club that served as the pre-release audio testing grounds for the Transmat, KMS and Metroplex record labels. A growing acquaintance with resident DJ Derrick May led to his employment as the Transmat label manager during the labels' most prolific years (1988-1992), wherein legendary artists such as Carl Craig, James Pennington, and Stacey Pullen first exploded onto the global scene.

The first album by The Detroit Escalator Co., entitled 'soundtrack (313),' was released in 1996 on London-based Ferox records. The album, now out of print and rare, is considered a cult-classic. The 2nd album by The Detroit Escalator Co., entitled 'Black Buildings,' was Neils' first recording for Peacefrog. Concurrent with the album production, he completed a long-planned series of acrylic oil paintings as part and parcel of the Black Buildings album project. The paintings abstract, monochromatic geometric landscapes were the subject of a solo exhibition at Detroit's Cpop Gallery. Today these paintings hang in homes and corporate environments in Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Paris and London. In 2000, Peacefrog released a collection of early-era recordings and previously unreleased tracks by The Detroit Escalator Co., entitled "Excerpts."

Visit any large department store, shopping mall, metro station, airport or stadium anywhere in the world and you are sure to find escalators carrying people quickly and safely to their destination. The escalator has become an integral part of the urban landscape. While passenger elevators we re in common use since the 1870s, it was not until 1899 that the Otis Elevator Company

introduced the world’s first commercially successful moving stairs. Otis Elevator Company has been safely and efficiently moving people for 150 years. Otis is the world’s largest manufacturer of elevators, escalators, moving walks and people movers. With 1.2 million instal- lations, 61,000 employees, and operations in more than 200 coun-tries, it’s safe to say that the world rides on Otis The rise of the modern escalator Although there had been several attempts to design and

build moving stairway systems prior to 1899, none proved safe or Elevator China enough to come into general use. It was not until that year — when the Otis Elevator Company built the first step-type escalator — that the idea became commercially feasable. This original Otis design remains the basis for the escalator as we know it today