There are definitely records on Trax that I would rather listen to, but for historical purposes here is the first ghetto house track ever. Well sort of, the first house track I know of that curses at least, predating Whores in This House and such by almost 10 years. While a lot of DJs cite early records like this as an inspiration to express naughty language, guys aren't so excited about being able to say "bitch" on tracks anymore. One individual even mentioned subconsciously stopping this practice to some degree. I think that's enough proof that it's not just "mindless club music" as I've seen it referred to, and the strong experimental nature involved is a lot more risky in the booth than bedroom genres often labeled "conscious".
Begging for a late pass on this monster, and what the fuck is in the water out in L.A. these days? Or rather, what the fuck are they blowing on out there? I think the California supply got tainted by an error in the space program because the smoke clouds are ultraviolet. This brings together the three elements of successful music to me. Weird, banging, and beautiful and it can't make up it's own damn mind. Like a shortwave recording of all the best stations at once. The Bandit EP brings precision splicing on the world heat club DNA: gold teeth picking up the signal on some vacant, glassed-in mesa, sound systems spilling drinks, gargling sirens, tentacle couture. I fully agree.
This dude did EVERYTHING wrong. He's like the Antichrist of Dutch House. Fuck your rave music for a moment and sink into this sinister son of a bitch the same way you would a Wiley beat and clap along like your in Chicago. It's unfortunately hard to come across much in the vein of ghetto bubbeling grime house but this is the centerpiece of it. I have a bit of trouble believing this is over two years old, because it fits right in with 2011. No lasers, just smoke machines and dance floor beat downs that end in somebody getting shanked with a broken bottle.
Now for the record, Daft Punk sort of drive me up the walls. Not their own music, but the millions of annoying kids that find it necessary to pretend to be them. As a group who has had utmost respect for their own musical influences, a lot of their fans seem to have almost no respect and in general are the equivalent of a Grateful Dead cover band in terms of music I give a shit about. I'm naming no names, and no disrespect towards Ed Banger. Now enough of my rant, because this post is about my favorite gesture Daft Punk ever made.
Teachers was directly modeled after shout out tracks that hold the last spot on the b-side to many ghetto house records, especially those on Dance Mania. Instead of naming off the various neighborhoods or fellow DJs in Chicago, they put together their own calling to their influences from the Windy City with intentions to reach out to their mentors. The existence of their homage triggered some attention to stir up across the Atlantic that you might recall reading from my talk with DJ Slugo last spring. "People kept telling us 'ya'll on this record teachers'. I was like we some neighborhood cats we don't know what no damn teachers is". Funny enough during our afternoon together someone in the room even referred to him as 'Slewgo', mocking the mispronunciation of his name that the Frenchies made. Daft Punk got in contact with Ray Barney and had lunch when they came to town with Slugo and Deeon, and on their return home put out their paean to the work of local legends. They put their own style into the same context that shout out tracks were originally done in the city of their heroes, and the results caused smiles out here and over there.
"Still to this day people are like, 'How did ya’ll get that shout out on that record?' We didn’t get them to do that shit; they did that shit on their own. I love them because they respected us for what we’ve done. When they came to Chicago they saw what we were making our tracks on and they were trippin’ like, 'Are you serious? Ya’ll are making those records on this stuff?' We ain’t got those big ass studios and all that shit."
Right off the bat I'd like to apologize for how poor the quality is on this rip, it's one I haven't been able to obtain physically yet and I don't want to pay 50$ for it on Ebay. The amount of money I make selling vinyl outweighs the amount I spend these days, not because I want to but because food is a basic need for survival. Personally I'd rather be able to hear these old Dance Mania 12"s in any form than wait for them to be put into "print" again. The later of which will most likely never happen if they aren't Deeon, Slugo, or Funk records.
Top Cat remains a mystery to me. Discogs links him to Patrick Prins, a Dutch producer who released a bunch of stuff in the 90s which I doubt is correct. Especially considering there are no records in Dance Mania's core catalog that aren't made by Chicagoans. Not that I know of at least, even Detroit is absent maybe due to Assault's Fuckadancemania. Plenty of the roster appears on European labels but there was no room for outsiders even within the span of almost 300 12"s. What a bunch of snobs! This release contains some great skeletal snare heavy ghetto house tracks (Drumbalaya) and congested synths (Molten Metal) that look good stacked up against some of the weirder, exploratory records released during this era. My favorite ones, that is.
Deeon made a straight up Reggaeton beat on this really early 12" and I'm curious if the title is actually a nod to the Puerto Ricans on the north side of town. I don't imagine he got many requests for anything Dem Bow related back in the day, so I'm even more puzzled why this exists. It wouldn't captivate House fans and it wouldn't make it on Latin radio ether, so why the hell did he make it? I don't think we will ever find out, but it's nice to know that there is a precursor to the Violator Juke Squad presence at the Humboldt Park festival. Now I only wish that there was a more prevalent meeting between the two genres that resulted in something interesting, because I've sorta played this song out.
DJ Clent, DJ Slugo, and a few other OG juke legends were kind enough to scan a few hundred old Chicago flyers, CD covers and colored cassettes for those of us who are geeky enough to want to look through them. I don't know how many people that is, but I'm one of them. This is a seriously important bit of Chicago history. My favorites are DJ Milton's mix CD that says "unauthorized duplication will get your ass beat", the Playground Productionz food drive, and the above. See them all here.
This is ether Milton's first or second 12" and as I don't see a bright future in any of them being reissued anytime soon I doubt I'm hurting anybody by posting any of his music. Behind closed doors chipmunk chatter a little slower in that nineteen-ninety four way, maybe appealing to the prudes even if said chipmunk might be saying "fuck it". One of the most unique voices in Ghetto House who really knew how to work vocals over interplanetary project party music. Cosmic records provided an early home to a handful of Chicago singles worth checking out, even if their labels didn't look as cool as Dance Mania's. Also, purple side b/w white side is far inferior to Hennesy side b/w Swisha side.
And come to think about it, there is basically a sped up inferior version of this track that is Milton's guest appearance on DJ Flint's Spank You Very Much. When your this deep into a catalog the lines between Dungeons and Dragons and Ghetto House get kind of blurry.
DJ Puff put out two 12"s under the wings of Deeon in the 90s and nothing else which makes me believe it could have just been a fake moniker or his imaginary friend. I really don't like joking about these things though, because in some cases there's a reason why the discography just stops. Like the AJ Mcghee track I brought up a few weeks ago, this is a meeting between Ghetto House and southern Rap. Legendary Memphis duo 8 Ball and MJG get the Dance Mania treatment that I wish more on the bottom of the map would. And I don't mean Wayne or Gucci like you hear on the radio here, I wanna hear Pimp C shouting anthems fragmented by claps.
2009 was a great year for the Night Slugs crew that was obvious even if you never showed up to any of their parties. I've never been to London, but the output spawned from last year definitely got me more curious about the sound these guys push for. My awareness of UK Funky borderlines on ignorance, but when seasoned with some familiar territory like these guys tend to do I sink into the mix like a warm bath. Not that I'm afraid to listen to a set that only contains the unknown (quite the opposite), but hearing how well DJ Deeon fits in is exciting to this Chicagoan. Manara hooked it up with a short but sweet fix for the habit, and now we can stay warm inside with headphones. Sure, a hot sweaty club can be relief from the cold, but have you ever gotten drunk and slipped on the ice on your way home? Not fun.
Tracklist:
Paula Abdul – Cold Hearted (Dubstramental) Roska- Gone to a Better Place Aero Manyelo – My 8 Kids Aaron Carl – Oasis (Nick Holder Vocal Dub) DJ Gregory – Klappa DJ Gazzeto – Cruel 22 Shaun-D – Spanish Fly (Kingdom remix) Ikonika – Brown Acid remix GIRL UNIT – I.R.L Dj Deeon – Freak like Me (Brenmar mix)
Slugo was kind enough to give away his previous volumes of his Respect My Grine mixtape series while he's finishing volume 4 up. For those of you that don't know, the series covers local Chicago talent, much of the time shedding light onto the young artists making music in the city. Generally comprised of local rappers, you will find the likes of Tha Pope, DJ Nate, and sometimes people I know (what's up Khallee?). Definitely for those interested in following what the kids are doing Hip-Hop wise in the city today.
This is barely a remix, more of an edit of one of the best DJ Chip tracks by some weird guy in the Swiss mountains(?). I get an image of a guy in a cabin with a big stack of Dance Mania records, but that's probably a bit off. I guess he added a few things, but it's pretty much a compressed version of the original. It's not better, but it is weirder, and maybe a bit more club friendly without the rapping.
An old House song with way too much phase shift. I understand using pseudonyms for making music, but why on earth do a lot of the Dance Mania guys use "normal" names for their records, that aren't actually theirs? This is Robert Armani before he became the "Big Boss of Techno" and started doing the Hard House thing (something I know absolutely nothing about). No beard scratching to be found here, just fun goofy lo-fi dance music pulled off a shitty vinyl rip.
Baltimore DJs weren't the only ones goofy enough to do it, Chicago fucked with Sanford and Son too. Not a theme song remix, but a sample from the episode where Fred demanded his fathers record collection from storage. It was totally recorded off a TV with a microphone. This is Paul Johnson under an alias he only used for this one record. I guess as far as playing this out, it's pretty outdated now that Technics don't even make turntables anymore.
Hmm, no love for Gerald on here, let's fix that! A series of records on Dance Mania were dedicated to the now defunct Factory club on Chicago's Westside, an important landmark in the history of House music. Jammin Gerald grew up at the right time, and on the right side of town, hence the existence of these tracks. His early records are a great example of the sound of the mid 90s when the bass started getting heavier, made very clear by 1994's Factory Trax. Erk N Jerk is from one of the later releases on DM, though it's mostly updated versions of his older singles. Like he kept the sounds on his MPC all this time, you can actually hear a bunch of samples he used 5 years prior as well as that same cold bass sound Deeon used for Headhunters. Guy was also up on Bmore before anyone else in Chicago, hell probably a lot of people in Baltimore too.
This site is way overdue for a face lift, I'm just pretty clueless when it comes to web design. Sorry about all the yellow that's gone on around here. Above new banner is only temporary, I just thought the Rudeboy blowin' bubbles was appropriate for the time being. Made me laugh at least.
Been lending my ears to more Detroit sounds lately, a place which always confused me musically. This is the result of reading this article which roots Jittin to the Jitterbug in a century-long time line leaning towards the notion that it didn't start in Chicago. You don't think anyone already tried that with Juke? Ether way a good read, and there is some very interesting history to the way people dance in Detroit. I've always been curious how Ghettotech got so much more notice than Ghetto House, yet DJ Nate probably has a lot more Youtube views than Jittin Jesus. I mean Ass N Titties is a household name, but even DJ Funk has probably only been to Europe once. However, is there like a Kid Sister of Jit? This Dollah Jones song is a Rap track you can Jit to. I can't help but give a nod to Tha Pope's Bob That Back Down also from this year. Not that it's also a Merengue infused Jukerap, but as far as blurring the lines between rhymes and sines, it does the job right and we don't end up with anything like Hip-House. In both instances, the Non-Rap hook permits one to dance rather than just nod your head. The abundance of Rap related Ghetto House/Juke and Ghettotech/Jit tracks out there can be blamed on the radio that has ignored the source material for so long. Here in Chicago, the majority of Juke tracks you will usually hear on the radio are Hip-Hop remixes, and the ones that aren't are played at weird hours of the night when most people are drunk. Hell I've heard DJ Spinn play sets that were over half Baltimore House. The love triangle between the "Ghetto" club genres is a filthy relationship.
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