O
n a summer evening in 1979, in Chicago’s South Side, a peculiar event happened that symbolised disco’s demise and, in that, the seeding of house music. Local ‘shock jock’/anti-disco
DJ, Steve Dahl, held an event at Comiskey Park baseball stadium (infamously known as ‘Disco Demolition Night’) and encouraged a crowd to fetch their disco records in exchange for cheap entry to a game. Once it had finished, Dahl proceeded to blow up the 50,000 + vinyl ‘amnesty’ box as a hateful reaction to disco’s commercial evolution at that point in the late ‘70s.
At this time, Frankie Knuckles, the “godfather of house” who now has a Chicago street named after him, held a DJ residency at the Warehouse; the most exciting club space in Chicago and the Midwest (frequented by a mostly gay black and Latino crowd) that boasted a playlist featuring the upfront disco hits from neighbouring NYC; alongside new-wave and Italo-disco imports from Europe (influential records were ‘Let No Man Put Asunder’ by First Choice, ‘Mainline’ by Black Ivory, ‘Disco Circus’ by Martin Circus and ‘Love Is The Message’ by MFSB). He defiantly kept the disco fires burning in the aftermath of Dahl’s publicity stunt.
“Disco Demolition had a very strong effect on the music scene by and large, but it really had no significant effect on The Warehouse,” he says when we ask him to go back to house music’s genesis. “We weren’t a mainstream commercial ‘disco’. We weren’t tied to radio or any entity that would be strongly affected. The Warehouse, at the time, was a small private club that catered to its membership. When ‘Disco Demolition’ occurred, it had its greatest impact on white, middle-class Midwesterners. Your blue color workers, beer drinkers who hung out at local watering holes and took in baseball and football games religiously. These weren’t club goers, dance or party people. These were folks who had no connection to this kind of nightlife. Therefore, they couldn’t relate. And what they couldn’t relate to they’d prefer to kill off than let live.”
EDIT EVOLUTION
The proximity to a huge faction of people, embittered by the disco movement, provoked an overnight change in Chicago’s mainstream clubs. From this, the underground inspired a new genre of music, and this new dance sound would take its abbreviated name from Knuckles’ Warehouse club. Disco had fallen, but house music would take revenge. Frankie Knuckles remembers this time clearly. “I’d have to say house music entered at the demise of disco. The very next day after ‘Disco Demolition’ every major discotheque across the nation either closed its doors or went in two separate directions — rock ‘n’ roll or country & western. Black R&B music didn’t even have a dog in this fight. And because there was no real viable music being released at the time, I resorted to being creative and re-editing current hits that kept my audience coming back from week to week. That process was how ‘house music’ got its roots.”
Jesse Saunders, a Warehouse regular, was gripped by Chicago’s club scene and the music that Frankie Knuckles spun at the time, and in 1984, wrote a tune called ‘On and On’ (co-produced with Vince Lawrence). The duo had experimented with drum machines and synthesizers in an effort to ‘recreate’ a mix on a disco record that was stolen from Saunders’ collection (spotters note: this was ‘Space Invaders’ by Player One) — fate turned this endeavour into the very first house record. Arguably, some cite another track produced by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley — JM Silk’s ‘Music Is the Key’ — as the very first. Legend may have favoured Jesse Saunders’ effort, but Hurley was to get his
moment a few years later with the worldwide hit, ‘Jack Your Body’. Jamie Principle’s ‘Your Love’, another early illustration of the genre, demonstrated, similar to the disco hits in NYC, how a house music tune could achieve huge success in the underground scene (particularly at the Power Plant, played by Frankie Knuckles) before it was ever released commercially. Its darker, minimal, distinctly European quality reflected the inspiration behind a new-wave obsessed Jamie Principle. This minimal approach was also employed in an early production from another big name in house music, Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk. One of his first house records ‘Funkin’ With the Drums Again’ was a rhythm track composed only using drum machines. These raw tracks would get the required response in the clubs and would be very influential on what followed in the evolution of house music.
THE MUSIC BOX
Another important medium in this evolution was the radio. Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk and a troupe of other DJs, Mickey ‘Mixin’ Oliver, Scott ‘Smokin’ Silz, Ralphii Rosario and Kenny ‘Jammin’ Jason formed the now-legendary Hot Mix 5 in 1981 – also later earning them a street named in their honour. Their slot on the WBMX ‘Saturday Night Live Ain’t No Jive’ mix show became an immediate success during the house music boom, and artists feverishly began to submit tracks for airplay. In 1986, Hot Mix 5 Records started, and their biggest hit was the classic Ralphii Rosario tune, ‘You Used To Hold Me’, released a year later.
In parallel, other developments were happening elsewhere in Chicago’s South Side. Once Knuckles’ residency at the Warehouse had ended in the early ‘80s (due to curatorial differences in musical direction of the club between him and the owners), he went on to DJ at his own club, the Power Plant, and the Warehouse became the Music Box. A DJ named Ron Hardy (who still to this day remains one of house music’s most mysterious characters — no known interview was given before his untimely death in 1992) took the reins at the Music Box and soon found his own crowd and cult status by virtue of his radical music selection and maverick technical style; Hardy would play lots of obscure electronic music from Europe alongside a mixture of Philly disco standards, and his own unique re-edits of tracks from a reel-to-reel tape machine, looping sections from tunes to further the heady club experience of the Music Box. Frankie Knuckles reminisces about their relationship. “Ronnie and I were very close friends. Ronnie’s DJ style was a bit more track-oriented and aggressive compared to my musical/melodic style. I had more of an affinity for production, whereas Ronnie was a bit more fearful of it. But at The Music Box, Ronnie was in his own world and could do no wrong. That’s ultimately what every DJ wants. To have his own little piece of the world where he can create all things wonderful through his own music. I guess that was enough for Ronnie. And I think it would be enough for most of us DJs, but the world we live in keeps changing. Technology keeps us growing, whether we choose to or not. But if he were still alive today, I’d be dragging him kicking and screaming into the 21st century and he’d be having so much fun with the technology.”
Hardy’s style and delivery inspired a lot of the early Chicago house pioneers we know today, such as Marshall Jefferson and DJ Pierre, to start experimenting on their own tracks. Both Jefferson and Pierre (Pierre as Phuture with studio partner Spanky) released groundbreaking, futuristic house records;
djmag.com 017
Frankie Knuckles at The Warehouse
Gemini, Gene Farris & Green Velvet
Gene Farris, Mark Farina & DJ Sneak
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